Celebrity makeup artist Jacen Bowman collaborates with Black Radiance
Celebrity makeup artist and entrepreneur Jacen Bowman founded the brand Shades of Jacen. Credit: TNS / Jacen Bowman
When Jacen Bowman was in high school in Philadelphia, he wanted to be a journalist, like his dad. Back then, he had no idea that one day he’d be applying lashes and bronzer to stars like Lupita Nyong’o and Phylicia Rashad.
And Bowman — now 35 and founder of a company called Shades of Jacen — certainly didn’t think he would be collaborating with popular drugstore brand Black Radiance.
This is a big deal: Well before the days of MAC, when Fashion Fair was the only department store brand with colors that complemented black women’s complexions, Black Radiance was the go-to drugstore lipstick. In the late ’90s, Black Radiance lost relevance as other brands, like MAC and Bobbi Brown, amped up their beauty options for women of color. But now, as we rethink how we spend our money, Black Radiance, along with other drugstore faves like Wet-N-Wild and CoverGirl, are making a comeback.
This spring, Bowman, who lives part of the week in New York, put his touch on all of Black Radiance’s in-store ad campaigns used in Target, Walmart and Walgreens. He stars in Black Radiance’s YouTube tutorials and he helped come up with the season’s color palette. (According to Bowman, the lipstick look for spring is glossy. And for the face, all that Kardashian-contouring is on its way out.)
Other celebs who have been on the receiving side of Bowman’s makeup brush include singer Elle Varner and reality star Porsha Williams. Bowman was also one of the artists at the 2016 Democratic National Convention, where he made up “Scandal” actor Tony Goldwyn and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. (He was inches away from Hillary Clinton, but no dice.)
It all nearly didn’t happen. Back in his college days, Bowman foundered. He had dreamed of becoming a journalist, but now his heart wasn’t in it. He dropped out of Delaware State University and worked in retail. In 2007, Bowman made a bad left turn started shoplifting. He spent six months in jail.
“That’s when I said, ‘OK, Jacen, you are so smart you have to change the people you hang around,’ ” Bowman said.
After he was released, Bowman went to beauty school near Philadelphia and landed a job as a part-time assistant makeup artist at a MAC store. After a few months, he went full-time and was on his way to a management career when MAC discovered his background and demoted him back to part-time artist.
“I decided right then I wasn’t going to let anyone tell me, ‘No,’ again,” Bowman said.
Shades of Jacen was born.
Business grew largely through word of mouth — that’s how Black Radiance marketing executive Lana Gregg learned about his skills. His work went over so well in an initial promotion — thanks in large part to his 46,700 Instagram followers — that he was pegged for the 2018 collaboration.
