Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics Interview

Check out my exclusive interview with David Klasfeld from Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics! David will be at The Makeup Show LA this weekend – I can’t wait to meet him!

Q.  How did you get started in makeup and what inspired you to start a cosmetics company?

A. While I was enrolled in film school at Purchase College, I initially took a job in retail cosmetics as a means to fund my film projects. I had applied to a number of shops at a local mall, one of them being The Body Shop, whose products I had been obsessed with for years. During the interview, I was asked if I did makeup. Having been on the Makeup Crew of my high school’s theatre productions, I said yes, and was appointed the head makeup artist for the shop. With a little on-the-job training, and the help (and faces) of very patient friends, I became a quick study. Soon after I was head-hunted by MAC Cosmetics, who had recently opened up their first makeup counter in the New York Area outside of Manhattan. Nearly six years later, I left MAC to pursue my own freelance career having worked on runways shows for designers as diverse as Bill Blass to Heatherette and Patricia Field.

At that point, my career turned toward music videos and commercials working with clients from Eminem and Bon Jovi to Target and Best Buy, many of whom had already begun to shoot in HD, as early as 2002. Word on the street was that airbrush makeup was the best tool to contend with this emerging technology. While I was relatively satisfied with what few options were available at the time, my on-the-job training once again showed me that the products on the market were in definite need of improvement. I developed OCC Skin, our water-based airbrush foundation, specifically to contend with the needs of on camera talent which were relatively straightforward: impeccable coverage with minimal product build-up, and a controlled texture that is neither too dewy nor too matte, like good healthy skin. OCC Skin was that solution.

Q. Your products are cruelty-free AND vegan. Why did you choose to only sell cruelty-free products?

A. As a near life-long vegetarian and now vegan, cruelty-free cosmetics has always been a cause that was close to my heart, and a prerequisite for any products I purchased, personally. This was incidentally the road that led me to pioneers in the movement like The Body Shop and MAC. Further into my career however, I had noticed a spike in companies claiming to be cruelty-free.  It didn’t take a lot of research to note that the reason many made this claim unfortunately was because they were either not testing their products at all, or were having their products made for them by other manufacturers. At the same time, I was also struck by the paradox that was companies who claimed to be cruelty free in their testing procedures, but sold animal hair brushes, as well as products that included animal-derived ingredients, from seemingly benign ones like beeswax to controversial ones like Marine (aka Shark) Collagen. At that point, it became clear to me that the whole term “Cruelty-Free” was in need of a serious revision, and commiting to a 100% vegan cosmetics line was our way of doing that.

Q. What inspired you to create the airbrush system? And, how does it work?

A. This was again an instance of trial and error. The original airbrush systems were extremely difficult to use, not to mention gigantic and prohibitive to the sort of travel the average freelance professional encounters as par for the course in our industry. We continue to endeavor to create smaller, more portable systems that are more user friendly, which in turn is also appealing to someone who may want to airbrush their own makeup for nights out and other special occassions. The mechanism itself is simple: liquid makeup is atomized and sprayed onto the skin, creating a refined dot pattern that mimics the way the skin is read on camera: in pixels. This looks superior to the tiny trace lines sponges and brushes leave behind, which while imperceptable to the naked eye, can appear quite obvious on camera – especially if the wearer is shown in close-up on someone’s 42″ LCD HD television at home – an experience shared by newscasters, brides and celebrities on the red carpet alike. The airbrush works best for ‘face makeup’ in the truest sense of the term: foundation, blush, highlight and contour, and is actually very easy to learn. It really boils down to not much more than point-and-spray: vary the distance to increase or decrease coverage, always keep the airbrush moving and build coverage in slow, progressive layers, versus lingering too long in one area which creates excessive product build up. With a little training anyone can master this skill.

Q. If you are willing to name-drop for a minute – can you name some celebs who wear OCC?

A. OCC is lucky to have a fan base that includes celebrities from Alicia Silverstone, Pamela Anderson and Haley Williams to Lady Gaga, Fergie and Wendy Williams. We’ve got a really diverse base, we’ve been very lucky  in that way, everyone from former Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson to Khloe Kardashian!