We are excited to welcome the pioneer of the clean beauty movement and the Founder of RMS Beauty, Rose-Marie Swift, to The Style That Binds Us podcast. During her makeup artist days, Rose-Marie worked with Louis Vuitton, Victoria’s Secret, Max Mara, Calvin Klein, and Ralph Lauren as well as Miranda Kerr, Gisele Bündchen – she is very close with, Paloma Picasso, Tilda Swinton, Zoe Saldana and Adriana Lima, and top photographers such as Annie Leibovitz, Patrick Demarchelier to name a few.

We have loved RMS Beauty’s products for years, and cannot wait to hear all about Rose-Marie’s career as a celebrity makeup artist, what led her to start RMS Beauty, top skincare and makeup tips, and more.

What sets her and RMS Beauty apart (besides the fact that she is close with Gisele, who is the only one allowed to call her “Rosie”!) is her career-long dedication to clean and natural beauty products, which she put in place long before most other brands had considering do so.

Her cosmetics line focuses on using organic and non-toxic ingredients to create makeup and skincare items that are both effective and safe for the skin. RMS Beauty products are known for their minimalistic and eco-friendly packaging and are free from harmful chemicals commonly found in many conventional cosmetics.

Rose-Marie Swift’s advocacy for clean beauty and her dedication to creating high-quality natural products have made her a prominent figure in the clean beauty movement. Her brand, RMS Beauty, continues to be popular among those seeking non-toxic alternatives in the beauty industry.

Clean beauty is a term used to describe beauty products and cosmetics that are formulated with ingredients that are considered safe, non-toxic, and environmentally friendly.

---

Thank you so much, Rose-Marie for being here.

Thank you for having me. It’s gonna be fun.

We love you and we love your products. You have just had this incredible career. So will you tell us about that career and how you got into becoming a makeup artist?

I’m from Vancouver, Canada, and my family lives in North Vancouver. We had a lot of land, we had our garden, my mother brought us up to eat clean, and we were conscious of everything we put on our skin, or what we put in our mouths. For my mother, both of them were of equal importance.

Being brought up like that gets your head in a direction that can’t be swayed, we weren’t allowed sugar. Sugar for us was not a thing, where I’m a sugar addict. A lot of women are sugar addicts, so that didn’t get too bad in our house, that’s for sure.

But what happened is, when I was younger, I used to always play around with my sisters, do their makeup, cut their hair, and things like that because I was obsessed with all the old movie star magazines or books back in the day. Long story short, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my career. My sister was an aesthetician, I’m going to tell the real story here. There was an aesthetician and she knew a guy in Vancouver, Canada who owned a whole bunch of hotels.

Back in the day, the 1970s, the hotels had bars with a stage and they had dancers. They were strippers, but it wasn’t like what it is now. It was more like burlesque to be completely honest. He asked her to help the girls make their skin look nicer and to teach them how to do their makeup. My sister knew that I was good at makeup from doing it herself and my other little sister asked me to go ahead and just pretend I was a makeup artist. I said, “Sure, why not? I can do that.” One thing led to another and before I knew it, I was painting all the strippers.

I found a private label company that gave me the little colors, the small matte colors back in the day but it wasn’t matte at the time. I would buy that for eighty cents and then sell it for six dollars to the strippers. I was just raking in the bucks on that because it was all cash.

They asked me one time if I would do a cover of a Vancouver magazine of a very well-known model who was coming to town to visit her grandmother. I said, “Sure, why not?” I did it, and before I knew it, everybody was asking me to do makeup because I did the cover and it’s this famous model. There I was, I was getting jobs left, right, and center.

I had no agent, I did it all myself. I was quite adamant about what I should get paid, how long the hours were going to be, and what I had to do. I ended up going to Toronto also, I did everything there.

I went to Europe and was working in Europe for quite a long time, this was when I was very young. I was like, eighteen or nineteen. So that’s pretty young to be picking up things. I had total confidence because I didn’t know what I was doing. There was no stress and no pressure, I didn’t feel it was pressure.

I ended up in New York City, getting with a really good agency and I started getting all these jobs with really big people. I got a little nervous there because I was like, “Whoa, I’m in over my head.” I used my power of clean food and clean makeup to get through to the models. Plus I was doing Astrology for them, I was doing green juices and salads in the morning that were all organic.

I developed this big following of being an organic makeup artist and I thought, you know what? When I see this makeup on these girls. I was doing mostly for Victoria’s Secret, it was a big eye-opener because these girls are naked.

Let’s face it, they weren’t wearing much, not in the category that I worked in. I didn’t do the clothes part but I did the lingerie and the bathing suits. I just saw what the skin looks like when I put pure jojoba oil on.

Then I looked at their faces and I thought, “What the hell is happening to their faces? It’s not looking as beautiful as their skin.” That’s when I realized, “Okay, I got to start doing something that I believe in”. Hence, the brand came up.

So you were a pioneer? I know that’s a funny word to hear, but you are.

I am and I’ll tell you why. When I went around to labs, I had a starting formula, it was done by a friend of mine in Canada who worked for a paint factory. She was a chemist there, she put it together and I told her what I wanted in it because I was also a raw foodist.

So that concept of raw food meets mineral color, I had a starting formula for my products. When I took them to the labs here in America, nobody said, “Oh, we don’t work with people’s formulas” or “We don’t do starting formulas and what you’re doing is bogus” Their idea and they said, “There’s no such thing as organic. What you will do for organic is your mineral lines like Bare Minerals.”

You have to also put make-up nowadays, you have to have a concept, you have to be behind your concept, you have to know about your concept, and why, and get the right people working with you.

They were out and big at the time, everybody wanted minerals. I said, “No, I can’t do that. It looks dry on the skin, it looks like crap.” Mostly in photography, you can see the difference. I finally found a lab that would do it, I started getting my products out there and until now, I’m still getting my products out there.

That’s amazing, that’s fabulous! We want to know all of that, I was just thinking about going from place to place. We have a friend who’s a shoe designer, and she had a similar situation when she went to a lot of the luxury factories that worked with luxury shoe brands.

They said, “We can’t do that, because luxury shoes aren’t supposed to be comfortable. We’re not going to add that arch in.” She said, “They are. We need to do this.” So she finally found somebody that would do it, so that’s good for her. 

You have to also put make-up nowadays, you have to have a concept, you have to be behind your concept, you have to know about your concept, and why, and get the right people working with you. I used to always say when people were talking about employees, I said, “You don’t need employees, employees are a dime a dozen. You need disciples.”

People who are walking the mile with you, what you’re doing, wearing your makeup not saying anything. It’s really funny when people say, “I’m wearing all your stuff, and look, I go to that style, my style.” I don’t say that to them but in my head, “No”.

That is interesting. It’s so funny why they would say that.

They would say something nice to me, and I’m sure that most of it wasn’t, I can tell.

How do you mix astrology? Either with RMS or with the models when you would meet with them, you would talk about it?

For the models, I used to read all the charts. I’ve read pretty well everybody in the industry at one point or another during my time. When my brand was made, I wanted it to be the name Beauty Truth, but I couldn’t get Beauty Truth.

Calvin Klein had a perfume called “Truth” and the word beauty is not trademarkable because it’s universal. I didn’t want to say Rose-Marie Swift because, to me, this is just my opinion guys, don’t get mad at me. I just think it’s arrogant. “Oh, my brand is called Rose-Marie Swift”. RMS, I like RMS.

I like it too. I’m glad that was the name you chose. I like the Beauty Truth too.

Well, the RMS Beauty was done with numerology, too. I wanted it to add up to a particular number. When I first did my display unit, it was all astrological. I did a big Grand Trine through the middle, and that’s ease and flow.

Astrology is a Grand Trine so my products were laid on a piece of acrylic with circles in the shape of a grand trine with all the colors, and they were placed upside down so you could see the color through the bottom of this frosted glass. Everybody was drawn to my display unit and the logo was done with new color therapy, but that’s been changed now.

If only someone had told me at the beginning, that when you have a lot of colors on a pass for your label, it would cost you a lot of money. That’s where everybody just has one pass on their products, it’s expensive. So we had to change that, it was just too much money.

Right. But I think having this whole brand world. It wasn’t just they were kind of by the makeup. It was this whole presentation thing and all of this, and that’s how you get disciples.

Yep, exactly. Once they’re behind you, it’s amazing. They don’t want to leave, a lot of my employees have been there since day one.

Yeah, for sure. I’m sure you’re great to work for.

I am great to work for. However, they didn’t want me to move to Charleston. They said that’d be too much to have me in the office every day, and they were right. I belong with the models, I belong on set, I belong there just talking.

I’m not so good at telling people what to do because sometimes I think they should be thinking like me. Not everybody thinks like me, and it took a while for me to be kind. I didn’t get mad at people, but I kind of jumped at them. People nowadays seem a little more sensitive than they were in my era, you could say whatever you wanted, but not nowadays. So I pulled back a little bit and got myself together.

Are you in Charleston now?

I’m in Savannah right now, I bought a house in Savannah, and I love it here. In Charleston, it’s not my thing. I like it there, I like the company being there but I like to still have my space over here. We’re not very far away, the speed is an hour and a half going over the speed limit.

The staff loves coming here because they know they can cruise around with me in the city, we can go for lunch, go around outside, and do the work. So it’s not as boring as being in the office every day. 

Totally. Well you know, we’re from Alabama.

Oh, you are? I could hear the accent.

We live in New York now, but we’re from Alabama. I was gonna ask you, how’s the heat right now in Savannah?

It’s actually what I love the heat, I love the humidity. People listen to this, seriously. Stop running into air conditioning, humidity is so good for your skin, and detoxing your body. It sweats out all the chemicals that we get from the environment, from food, from pesticides, it sweats it all out of you, and it makes your hair curly.

Yes. Many years at the beach were proof.

Will you give us an inside look into life on set? How would you choose to look for each shoot and what was set like?

Pull it back, start lightly when you do your makeup, then add more as you need it, and make sure you get ingredients that are synergistically making love to the skin.

Well, you’d walk in the morning and everybody would be putting up the backdrops and they are being hooked up, I guess you could say. Everybody gets together, they meet, they say hello, and they go over what the concept is for the day, what the lighting is going to be or not going to be because sometimes it has to be changed, because it doesn’t turn out the same way that they thought it would, or we come up with a better idea, and that happens a lot during shoots.

You have to be kind of prepared to not think that everything is set in stone. They usually have a very nice lunch for us, and then we start working, we do hair and makeup. I like to work with the hairdresser, I’m very fast.

The concept for makeup was usually kind of decided by the client, what they kind of wanted. They usually don’t know, they put a lot of trust in me coming up with my concept of what I would like to do, and what I think would look better on that model.

Usually, they want a model and they want her to look like the opposite of what they had on the little pictures that they use as little mood boards. Oh yes, I forgot about mood boards. I haven’t been to a shoot in a while.

On the mood board, it’s like, why would you have this girl completely covered in freckles and you have snow-white skin? They said, “Can you cover it?” and I said “No”. I was one of those kinds of makeup artists.

“Her skin is beautiful, your concept and what you want for her clothes is beautiful. Why are we going to white her out? It’s never gonna look nice on the skin when you do that mostly with this kind of photography.” So I would usually speak up, sometimes people liked it, sometimes they didn’t, but whatever.

Why did they choose a model that didn’t go with their mood board?

Because the clients sometimes don’t know. In photography, if you graduate and start working with bigger names, what happens is the photographers have the most to say, and the stylists have the most to say, they sometimes can walk over the clients. When you start doing a catalog, they just don’t know, they’re not used to those kinds of faces.

When you’ve been in the business as long as I have you know – the hair, makeup, photography, and stylists, you can see that the girl is not going to work. They think you’re just going to paint a face on and she’s going to just appear exactly like that look on that magazine mood they picked out. Once you start chit-chatting with everybody, you get a little trial where they put her up in the light to have a look at it, see if it’s vibing the situation in the mood, and sometimes they have to completely change the light.

Sometimes we don’t even get started shooting till like one to two o’clock. Things have to be banged out faster, you have to stay longer. Editorials are a whole different story because you’ve got very creative energy going.

They’re not thinking of something that’s going to be compatible with the consumer, they want it to look a little out there. So those are the funniest things to do. Unfortunately, you don’t get paid a lot of money for that.

Right. You get to fill yourself.

Yeah, exactly. You show off your creativity, too. Everybody gets to show off their lighting and how beautiful the model is with the great hair and makeup, and the clothes. They walk out there and they look like a normal little girl. They walk out in sadness, like “Woah, what just happened to that one?”

That’s awesome, that’s wonderful. I keep saying awesome, but it is. Okay, what about skincare tips? I always say when people send us skincare products, I know they’ll work wonderfully for Delia because she’s 30, right? But I’m 60.

You look awesome. Wow.

Thank you, and so do you. I always think it’s much harder to try a product for me because most things don’t work so well, which is fine. We know we have what we have, but tips for people’s ideal age and then tips for people more like my age.

Well, I’m one of the older more mature women as we call, “aging woman” and I’m 68. I’m gonna start with that and we’ll reverse it from there. Only because, when it comes to older mature skin, for one thing, and I always say, less is more.

The more makeup you pile on older skin, I’m sorry, I don’t care what you say, it’s not going to look good. Less is more and you always go with something on your face, it’s strong. Some of us have beautiful long eyelashes, paint those long eyelashes, and show them off.

Or a nice brow, I do my eyebrows quite dark because I have quite high arch brows that are very nicely shaped. So I’m kind of fortunate, it just gives that very elegant and it lifts the face. Well, people have a beautiful mouth.

Like if you have a very thin lip, you don’t want to put on a big huge red lip, it’s just not going to look right. When we have a Gloss, a gloss will catch the light, and it will give the appearance of fuller lips. You always line slightly with the same color as your lips, not the same colors as the lipstick.

Please ladies do that with the same color so you can get a shape that you’re happy with, that you can’t see there’s a red line, a pink line, a purple line all around your mouth. You want to look like your lips. When the gloss or whatever you have on wears down, it wears down evenly and it doesn’t look so tacky when it’s worn out.

You’ve got this line around your lips, it’s kind of bleeding. Again, less is more. As for skincare, I remember once a model coming into a job and I said, “What do you have on your skin?” She goes, “I have five anti-aging creams on my skin.”

How old was she?

She was 20. I said, “Oh, please explain to me what the purpose of that is.” She said, “You know, I don’t age,” I said, “But do you realize the skin can only absorb so much? And you’ve got five anti-aging creams, do you realize the amount of chemicals that are in there?” Your skin doesn’t need that, nor does it need that many, and nor does it need that kind of product.

You’re going into all of these weird things that are filled up with penetration and enhancers that make you puff up your skin and everything, so it can kind of penetrate the skin. To me, you’re aging yourself over the long term, big time. We’ve been very brainwashed thinking that we need all these anti-aging things.

It’s gonna happen anyway, that’s so interesting though.

The young girls too. I think a lot of them, the moms, when they would come in, they just have a little bit of moisturizer on their skin. They looked amazing, the less they had on, the more beautiful they looked.

When it comes to actually doing the makeup, for going out in the evenings, most of these young girls can put on tons of makeup, or they can put on a little bit of makeup, they’re going to look great because they’ve got great skin. As we age, we seem to see what’s going on with your skin when you’re putting this stuff on top of it, because it sits on top. There are synthetic ingredients that sit and float on top.

Now, I’m going to bring up a story. When it changed from doing films to doing all this high definition and all this digital stuff. I remember doing the makeup on the girl for the first time, and I remember they blew it up big on the monitor.

I went over and looked at it, I started to cry and I said, “Oh my god, am I ever a shitty makeup artist?” Because what’s wrong? I didn’t cry literally, all I could think was “Oh my God, my makeup sucks!” Because you could see everything, all that stuff that I’ve been using, I could see floating around on top of the skin. I could see there was no synergistic relationship. I thought, “Oh my god, I’m freaking out.”

I had to figure out how to get half of it off so it looks real because you can see globs on the mascara, you can see powder on little hairs because it showed it with that kind of lighting that’s why everybody years ago was freaking out over. It was great for other purposes, but for actually showing the makeup? Oh my god, pores are showing. Look at the makeup in the normal light, it looked beautiful.

But as soon as that light hits the digital, you can see the pores, you can see little hairs, you can see the powder on top of the hairs, nothing was working synergistically with the skin. This is why I say, “Pull it back, start lightly when you do your makeup, then add more as you need it, and make sure you get ingredients that are synergistically making love to the skin.” Pardon the expression, but chemicals float on top of the skin, and they don’t have any relationships, they eventually peel off.

It just starts to coat and make you look like a dried-up lake bed. The industry has moved ahead for sure, but it’s still chemicals. Yes, there are good chemicals, we have some chemicals in our stuff, the completely safe ones.

But there are a lot of chemicals in cosmetics that are under scrutiny right now by this scientific community, and that is undeniable. People could say, “Oh, no, it’s all safe.” You can say that ‘til the goats come home, and I’m gonna renege on that. I’m a green girl, I’m a clean girl. Unfortunately, you’re gonna get this kind of comment out of me. 

No, it’s wonderful. It’s so important for me and I feel like more people are understanding. I think some of the clean products have gotten where they’re clean and they work. Hopefully, there are some more rules or whatever the word is for what you can call – claim.

Yeah, there’s a lot of regulations out right now done by different people or different kinds of stores. Everybody seems to have their version because you have to remember going in and saying, “Oh, you can’t have this in a product, you can’t have that in the product.” You’ve got a whole store of traditional cosmetics.

Who’s going to take the blame for somebody saying, “We don’t want these products” A lot of times they’ll skim over ones that shouldn’t be in there, but they put them in there for the clean kind of friendship with everybody.

I believe in a simple secret to anti-aging: take it easy on your digestive system by avoiding excessive sugar, cheese, and dairy. Prioritize probiotics and digestive enzymes. Also, when it comes to makeup, less is more – both on your face and on your skin.

They don’t want a lack of sales, so there has to be a little give and take because who can define what is bad? Who could define what is good? Not many people can, so that gets into a little discrepancy there. Every store has its version, allowed in their store, and what isn’t allowed. 

That is interesting. When I originally thought about anything clean, I thought about Whole Foods when it was the original Whole Foods. In that section and those soaps, the way they smelled and everything, 

They’ve gone off from their original promise.

But what’s so nice is when someone buys your brand, they know they don’t have to look so much into it. Because they trust that whatever they’re gonna purchase from you, is going to be clean and safe for them.

That’s the whole idea. For me, it’s not about the money. It’s not about making quantity, it’s about quality. I put the quality first before I put the quantity and the profits first, I always have, that’s why I didn’t get an investor in the beginning. But if it was about the money, I would have had an investor and things would have changed. But I took this slow organic route.

That’s right, and it’s the way that I wish more people would do things. They’re in such a hurry, they just skim over a lot of things. It makes so many mistakes, but also, when you use your containers you kind of feel like you’re a makeup artist.

I don’t know why, but compared to a lot of just traditional beauty brands where you’re just doing certain things for some reason. Yours I feel especially like those little tubes, it’s like you’re an artist.

That’s the whole idea behind it and it’s easy to use. Most of it is recyclable and refillable, we’re thinking of the kind of plastic we use and don’t use. We’re thinking about it all environmentally, too. We’re taking that extra walk.

Yes, thank you for doing that. The Earth thanks you for that. I love right now the primer (ReEvolve Radiance Locking Primer). I use it every day, your primer.

The primer just won in NewBeauty Magazine, it’s the best primer. Not only that, it won as best primer in the clean beauty section.

Wow, that is wonderful.

That was major for us. I freaked out over that. Because it was categorized in clean beauty in that section, and cosmetics of NewBeauty.

Yeah, and I love the way it works too.

The little twist and pull effect of it, and pump.

Yep. With that new sunscreen (SuperNatural Radiance Serum Broad Spectrum SPF 30 Sunscreen), we are obsessed.

The sunscreen is pretty amazing. I haven’t done sunscreen in all these years because I didn’t like sunscreen, period. I don’t like putting sunscreen in products. It causes problems in photography. I’m gonna be honest, I’ve come from that end of the industry.

When they change light with the models and I see a wide overcast or you spray water onto the model while you’re shooting somewhere fancy like Saint Lucia or something, you’d see the white streaks from the sunscreen, if the water was cold on them. There are just so many things that went wrong, and they are heavy-duty chemicals. I’m against those heavy-duty chemicals, a lot of them should not be used in cosmetics. It took a long time for me to come out with an SPF until we found exactly what we wanted, had the right benefits, and did what I wanted it to do. The supernatural sunscreens are pulling it off. It’s doing well. 

That’s great. We’re thrilled to have it and to use it because we’d love it. A lot of times when a product comes out like a foundation or something with a sunscreen in it, it sort of changes the color a lot of times. I feel like it messes with the original, or concealers and things like that. This isn’t even the same.

Rose-Marie, you have such beautiful skin and you are known for your skin when people are booking you as a makeup artist, that’s probably one of the main reasons they book you. What is your secret and what advice do you have for everyone to get beautiful skin?

I go back to the thing of less is more and I’m also a huge advocate for probiotics and digestive enzymes. Your skin is a mirror to your gut, so whatever’s going on your gut is going to show on your face. I will argue this till the death of me.

Probiotics you need to get them. Kill that bad bacteria out there, bad “Gut Flora” I should say. It’s bad bacteria out of your gut because there are good and bad bacteria. But there’s so much bad food, alcohol, and all this stuff in our guts that are completely devoid of our healthy flora.

It shows on the face and taking enzymes to help digest food to me is one of the best anti-aging things because we overeat, we eat too heavy things, and our digestive enzymes already replaced it for not eating really good healthy raw food and things like that, right? You get that from raw foods, things have enzymes in there without being destroyed by microwaves and ovens.

I’m a firm believer that it is your really good way of anti-aging because it helps a system not have to work so hard on digesting the food. You shouldn’t have just wolfed down sugar, cheese, dairy, and all that. Those are the two things a hundred percent for sure – probiotics, digestive enzymes, and less is more again with makeup application, less is more for what you put on your skin.

As a kid, I hated soap for some reason. I had a phobia about soap so I’d only use my face cloth and water, and that’s all I’ve done up till the age of 14. My mother let me wear eyeliner and I remember, “Oh my gosh, I don’t want to use soap on my eyes or my face.” I didn’t like how it felt, I could feel how it felt on my skin. I went to the kitchen, got the olive oil, and used that to take the makeup that I wore.

As I got older and got into real healthy eating, I realized coconut oil was my go-to. So I used to just put coconut oil as a makeup remover, as a moisturizer, pop it in my bath, and in the mouth, you swish it around in your mouth. It stayed like that till now. You won’t see me with the whole rich regimen of skincare products.

A few are from my friends and I’ll use them every once in a while, but I’m an advocate for less is more. Some people would say, “What’s with your neck?” and I go, “I’ve never put anything on my neck, that’s probably why.” I’m telling you all this chemical stuff ages your skin over the long term.

I don’t care what anybody says, it does. It looks great and you put it on you go, “Oh my gosh, my skin looks amazing.” Think about why it looks amazing and why it just looks better than what it was. That’s dealing with something that is not positive for your skin.

The health and the beauty of your skin come within, not from putting stuff on top. We put all this stuff on and we spend all this money on our bodies, our skin, and our hair, and what do we do? We process food, we eat sugar that’s bad for you, we’re drinking alcohol and nothing healthy.

How many of you are getting up in the morning and having just a piece of fruit and green juice or something? I can bet hardly any of you guys are, and you wonder why your skin’s not nice. Come on.

Right, and tell me about those. When you say digestive enzymes, is that a pill that you take? 

Well, I have my own. I did a line of prebiotics, probiotics, and digestive enzymes. Digestive Enzymes are enzymes or food-based enzymes that go in when you eat your food, you take them before, during, or after your meal. It helps to digest the food there.

So your body, your gallbladder, and your pancreas aren’t trying to produce all this stuff to fight away the crap you’ve just put in, which is too much for the body to handle. When you take a digestive enzyme, it eases organs in your body. This is why fasting is another good thing for having beautiful skin.

Just go a few days though, without eating, or even one day without eating and just have juice or something. It makes such a difference in your skin, you would freak out if you did that. Even better if you can do a juice fasting for five days. Oh my gosh, the difference in your skin and how you feel is phenomenal.

I tried intermittent fasting, 14 hours between supper and breakfast. That’s what I thought was fasting. I’m not sure if I could do it, but who knows, I might do that one day.

That is a fasting that is now being accepted a lot by people. It’s easier for them to do that than it is just not eating. I think whatever you do when you’re taking the extra work off of your organs in your body, your endocrine system, everything you’re doing something to take full advantage of how your skin’s gonna look or even your hair, your breath, everything, the bowel movements. It helps it all.

What is the brand? Can we buy it?

Oh yeah, it’s the RMS Beauty: Within Supplements. Yeah, Within and there’s one that’s a Prebiotic and Probiotic together, and the other one is a Digestive Enzyme. It’s very successful actually, for people that have bad skin or acne.

But they have to use it religiously for a while, because remember, we’ve taken many years to pollute our bodies. Don’t just take a pill and it’s gone away, that just doesn’t happen. You have to take it for a few months, and you’ll see a big difference in your skin. A big difference.

That’s great. There are so many different things. Right now, collagen or a friend has sent us these that have seaweed and algae in them.

All your minerals, that’s good also, too. Oh my gosh. Minerals, we’re devoid of minerals because they’re not remineralizing the soil for food. They’re just putting things out to make the food grow all big and fancy, but we weren’t there’s no room. We’re super deficient in Magnesium, right? That’s the biggest one and Vitamin D also.

It’s a lot. When they say, “Always check with your doctor before starting any of these things, these supplements,” I think the doctors probably don’t know because they’re not practicing. They’re training on taking care when you’re already sick.

Not only that, but they’re not even taught nutrition. I think there’s a short class maybe for one day on nutrition, but they don’t come from that background of training. Yeah, that’s a whole other ball game. It’s a big pharma football game.

That’s right. A lot of conversations we could have. I wanted to know when you think back, do you have some favorite photoshoots that you were a part of?

Oh, I’ve had so many. Let’s see. One time, I got a huge job from one of the biggest photographers, and it was a beauty store with all the big models. I was so scared, I was so nervous, and it ended up being such a beautiful story. It was for self-service years ago.

There have been a lot of jobs that have been so much fun because of where I got to travel to and the models that I was with. It’s nice when you’re working with girls, you get along with them, there’s so much fun. I’ve been to so many fabulous places. There are a few shoots that stick out more than others for sure, but there are too many to name.

That’s wonderful, I know you love working with Gisele.

I love working with Gisele, I love Gisele. She’s so easy to work with, she’s so friendly, she’s so real, she’s so thoughtful and caring.

And you met her at the beginning?

The very beginning. I was at one of her first jobs. I remember her sitting in front of me, in front of the mirror. “We’ve got some time to just hang out for a while.” So I said, “Well, I do astrology. Let’s just look at your chart.”

Nobody knew who she was, she was just some young girl from Brazil. I looked at her chart and I said, “Honey, you are going to be so rich and famous. It’s insane.” She said to me, “Oh no, I don’t speak English.”

I started laughing, I said, “Honey, you better put on a seatbelt.” Still to this day, she says to me when we’re out places she’ll go, “Rosie, imitate when you first met me, and don’t forget to add the accent in it.” Wow, she laughs every single time. 

What are some things that you have learned from all the women who’s makeup you’ve done?

Oh my gosh, I have learned so much. Mostly the older ones that had been around when people like Way Bandy from back in the day, or old makeup artists from back in the day in Hollywood. I’ve learned tons of tricks from the older actresses, and even some of the younger ones too.

Gisele was a perfect example of the blush. Never take the blush lower than the line of the nostrils, because it pulls the face down mostly on older women, you want to lift it. So take it up quite high and when you do it, you’ll see the whole facelift.

She pointed that out one day when I first started working with her, she said, “Rosie, you gave me your puppy dog look.” And I said, “What are you talking about?” She goes, “Look, look” and she took off just the bottom part and drew it on quickly for me in a higher part of her cheek. I’m like, “Oh my gosh” she goes, “Look at the difference.”

I like to do that actually if you see some of my videos, mostly my older ones, I love to talk about that. No, putting it down so low and contouring, I learned where to contour properly. A lot of us are doing contour wrong, we do that by sucking our lips in and we just follow that line.

That’s not contour, that is bone structure and lighting when it looks like that in the picture. If you’re going to do it in real life, you don’t want to do that, you want to aim for the contour. So when it goes towards the center of the face, it aims to between the nostrils in the corner of the mouth.

What that does is, it lifts the face. When you do it low like that, it makes you look gaunt, it makes you look very thin. They use that a lot for horror movies, you don’t want to do it that way. Again, yes, some people can get away with it because they’re perfect faces.

But if you’re thinking this is a normal makeup application, you don’t want to think in those directions because it doesn’t work. It works great through your Instagram, through the filters, and all that stuff. But in real life, you don’t want to do that.

Also, what I learned too, was when older women get that big rounded bag underneath their eye, people will put concealer from the corner of their nose right out to the side. Don’t do that because I learned this from an old celebrity, she said “What happens is, it just makes it the same, it’s just a different color”. So you want to take a fine little brush and just paint where that discoloration is.

Leave the rest of the skin alone and just paint in and you should have a little hint of peach in it because the peach will counteract the blue. For myself, I take a little brush and I just do that kind of, little wing of a Y. Underneath is like, “Why do I have bags but yeah, I do.” Then fill that in with the color, and then it evens out and you’ll see. You’ll go, “Oh my god that’s so much better.”

The less we have on our cheekbones, like high on the cheekbones, the less wrinkly we will look too. Because remember when we smile and we laugh, it moves. So when you have a product moving, you want to make sure that you have a very little bit on or as little as possible.

Don’t try to make it as thick as in the areas of the face where you want more coverage, because you don’t need it around the outside. I also learned not to always do foundation full-face. It looks like a store mannequin. It’s too dead, it’s paint-by-number cosmetics.

I learned from an older one, that people will always want brown mascara. When you get older, that’s the last color you should be wearing on your eyes, because what happens is it makes the inner whites of your eyes look red or a little bit more yellow.

To wear black, because black is a contrast, and it makes the white look younger because it looks whiter. Brown does make it look yellow or red. We’ll see as you get older, young people can pull it off. 

That’s good to know. I use black, but that’s good to know for people who think brown is good because it’s a little bit softer. 

They think it’s softer, but it takes away from the impact of the eyes.

Right, there’s so many things.

Oh, I could go on forever.

I know. We’d love for you to because people need help. 

Most mature women have been ignored.

Right, not anymore.

Not anymore. We’re going out there. My friend talked me into going on TikTok because I said, “Guys, nobody wants to see a woman my age on that.” She said, “You’d be good at it!” Then we just tried out a couple of things just for fun. They put it up and it’s been so successful, so now I’m being forced to go on all the time. It’s doing well.

I’m so glad. Delia has put me on there too. I put my foot down too, and it didn’t work. I’m on there now, but we might as well. Who cares, right?

Yeah, what do we get to lose? I call out my age spot every day, I say, “See my age spot here? See it here”, I don’t even care, let the girls do everything perfectly. All their paintings in and they’re creative artists. I used to paint the models.

I never got into painting, the art on my face. I’ve learned to just do my face nice and natural, so I look presentable, it’s more normal for the person who grew up with her makeup on.

I went to FIT to learn how to do image consulting 10 years ago. The woman who had started the program had one woman who came back to her and said, “People aren’t listening to me very well. I can’t figure out why.” And she said, “Well, you were a model, you’re still dressing like a model, and you’re perfect in every way. You’re working with real women.”

If someone like you has a spot, it’s like, “Oh okay, she has a spot too and she’s not trying everything in the world to cover it up. No one’s ever even noticed that she had it because she is not trying to cover it up.” Which only makes things look worse.

Keep your blush above the nostril line to lift your face, especially for older women. Going higher gives you a natural facelift effect.

Yeah, there’s a little secret too for when you have little spots, age spots, pimples, or a scar. You should take a fine little brush again, and you pop a little bit of concealer on there, pop a little bit of powder. That’s all you need to do, but you just make sure you only touch up the actual discolored part.

Don’t make a big line, because what they do is they see something bad in their skin, they cover their whole face with all that mask, and it just looks 10 times worse.

So with the color, when you’re covering it up?

A little bit lighter because you’re covering up a dark spot. Depends on what color it is.

That’s what I was gonna say. There are things like some concealers, like having all these white reflecting stuff in it.

That’s kind of harder for us to wear too because we have discoloration under the eyes. So when you’re putting these brighteners on, it’s just not always the best.

Simple like you said, stick to simplicity.

Yeah, that’s what it’s all about. Take the time to do the retouching on a few little things, just like thinking of retouching a picture. You see something discolored or you just go in there with a little bit of a color that counteracts to make it look like the same cozy skin, that’s all you need to do. You don’t put a whole plaster scene on it.

Right. We could talk to you all night, and we came up with more questions, but you are so sweet to give us the time to come on the show.

Thank you for having me, that was fun. To answer questions like this, we’re talking about the makeup application.

Right, and we also didn’t get to talk enough about the products themselves. So maybe we can do this again sometime.

I would love that.

We’ll talk all about the products, use the products, do all the things, recommend them, and everything. It’s so much fun to talk about it with the person who created it.

Exactly, and we’ll have it on video so I can show each one and why we’re doing it.

That would be awesome.

Great. I love that. Thank you so much. Both of you.

Oh gosh, thank you.

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, we’d love for you to spread the joy—share it with a friend and hit that subscribe button. Your involvement helps us grow, and we’d be thrilled to have you along for the journey.

EXCLUSIVE CONTENT AWAITS YOU!

Have you heard about our weekly newsletter? It’s your ticket to exclusive content that doesn’t make its way to other platforms. We’re talking behind-the-scenes insights, bonus stories, and much more that’s just for you.

Imagine getting a delightful newsletter drop every Tuesday, except for one special edition on the third Thursday of every month—it’s Alison’s Celebrating Life After 40 edition, a must-read!

---

Important Links

Connect with Rose-Marie Swift

• RMS Beauty Website
• RMS Beauty Twitter
• RMS Beauty TikTok
• RMS Beauty YouTube Channel
• LinkedIn
• Instagram

RMS Products

• Clean Lipsticks + Gloss
• ReEvolve Radiance Locking Primer
• SuperNatural Radiance Serum Broad Spectrum SPF 30 Sunscreen
• Digestive Enzymes
• RMS Beauty: Within Supplements
• Natural Supplements: Prebiotic and Probiotic

Brands

• Louis Vuitton
• Victoria’s Secret
• Max Mara
• Calvin Klein
• Ralph Lauren
• NewBeauty Magazine

People

• Gisele Bündchen
• Miranda Kerr
• Paloma Picasso
• Tilda Swinton
• Zoe Saldaña
• Adriana Lima
• Annie Leibovitz
• Patrick Demarchelier
• Way Bandy

Key Principles of Clean Beauty Include

1. Non-Toxic Ingredients: Clean beauty products are typically free from harmful chemicals, such as parabens, phthalates, sulfates, synthetic fragrances, and artificial dyes. They aim to use natural or organic ingredients whenever possible.
2. Transparency: Brands that adhere to clean beauty principles often prioritize transparency in their product labeling. They provide clear information about the ingredients used and their sourcing.
3. Environmentally Friendly: Clean beauty brands often emphasize sustainability and environmentally responsible practices, such as using eco-friendly packaging and supporting cruelty-free and vegan product options.
4. Ethical and Safe Practices: Clean Beauty advocates for ethical and safe manufacturing processes, including fair labor practices and avoiding animal testing.
5. Health-Conscious: Clean beauty products are created with a focus on promoting overall skin health and wellness, often incorporating nourishing and beneficial natural ingredients.

It’s important to note that the term “clean beauty” is not regulated by a standard body or authority, so interpretations of what constitutes clean beauty can vary among brands and consumers. Individuals interested in clean beauty products should carefully read ingredient labels, research brands, and determine which specific criteria are most important to them in their skincare and beauty routines.

While Clean Beauty Has Many Advantages, It’s Not Without Its Criticisms and Challenges

1. One of the most significant criticisms of clean beauty is the lack of a standardized definition or regulation. This means that different brands may have varying interpretations of what constitutes “clean.” The absence of clear standards can lead to confusion for consumers and potential greenwashing, where products are marketed as clean but may not meet stringent criteria.
2. Clean beauty products often avoid synthetic preservatives, which can lead to shorter shelf lives and an increased risk of contamination and bacterial growth. This can impact the safety and effectiveness of products over time.
3. Some natural ingredients used in clean beauty products can still cause allergies or sensitivities in certain individuals. Consumers need to be aware of potential allergens and perform patch tests when trying new products.
4. The avoidance of certain synthetic ingredients can limit the formulation options for clean beauty products. Some consumers may find that clean alternatives do not perform as effectively or may not provide the same long-lasting results as conventional products.
5. High-quality natural and organic ingredients can be more expensive to source and incorporate into products, which can drive up the cost of clean beauty items. This pricing may make clean beauty less accessible to some consumers.
6. Clean beauty products may not always be the best choice for specific skincare concerns, such as severe acne or dermatological conditions requiring medical treatments.
7. While clean beauty products often prioritize sustainable packaging and ingredient sourcing, some argue that the emphasis on using natural ingredients can lead to the overharvesting of certain plants or contribute to environmental challenges.
8. There’s a perception that “natural” automatically equals “better” in clean beauty, which may not always be true. Some synthetic ingredients can be more safe, effective, and sustainable than their natural counterparts.

For these reasons, it is important to approach clean beauty with a critical and informed perspective. Consumers should research brands, read ingredient lists, and consider their individual needs and preferences. Additionally, they should be aware that the term “clean beauty” is not universally defined, so it’s essential to understand what criteria a particular brand follows when using this label.

We are very diligent in doing our homework before recommending brands and products to you. We created “The Style Standard” for this purpose.

Alison’s Current Favorite RMS Products Include

What It Is:

Straight Up™ Volumizing Peptide Mascara, is a clean and smudge-free mascara that delivers 12 hours of full lift and volume while it nourishes lashes.

What Makes It Special:

RMS explains that a propeptide helps strengthen, revitalize, and thicken, and they have an exclusive tri-locking system that creates smudge-free, flake-free long wear. I love how my lashes look long, but not like I have on too much mascara- some others I have tried look clumpy and messy like I applied the mascara in a moving car without a mirror!

The Other Current Can’t-Live-Without Product for Alison

What It Is:

A silicone-free, clean-powered, radiance enhancing primer.

What’s the big deal about silicones?

Silicones form a protective barrier on the skin’s surface. While this can help to lock in moisture and create a smooth canvas for makeup application, it can also trap dirt, oil, and other impurities if not properly removed, potentially leading to breakouts or skin congestion. Silicone-based makeup products can feel heavier or greasier on the skin compared to other alternatives. This sensation may not be comfortable for everyone, especially those with oily or acne-prone skin. Silicones are not water-soluble, which means they may require more thorough cleansing to remove completely. Failing to do so could result in residual product buildup on the skin.

This primer is formulated with skin-firming Tightenyl™, moisture-rich vegetable squalane, hyaluronic acid, and eggplant fruit extract, this gel-textured primer visibly smooths the skin’s appearance and leaves skin looking radiant while allowing makeup to apply flawlessly. innovative, refillable package.

Alison also likes how the brand is transparent about sustainability. This product’s details are listed as “Plastic component is 50% PCR and refillable. Outer carton made of 80% post-consumer recycled paper and vegetal ink. The inner bottle is made of 50% PCR with an aluminum overshell that is 10% recycled aluminum. Outer carton made of 80% post-consumer recycled paper, forestry certified, made with windpower”. Certainly makes one feel like they are helping the planet a little just by choosing RMS!

The next products Alison hopes to try are the Living Luminizer, which was created on set to use on models for a subtle glow, which won the Elle Approved Award for The World’s Best Beauty Products, and the ReDimension Hydra Powder Blush, which won the Self magazine 2022 Beauty Award for Best Powder Blush.

Delia’s favorite product at the moment is the RMS Beauty Oil. She says she loves it because it works well as the only product she puts on her face in the morning before applying her makeup, but it can also be used as a complement to any beauty routine. It absorbs quickly and feels light, but is made from a super-concentrated blend of organic jojoba, rosehip wildcrafted buriti oils, and rare herbal extracts… sounds divine!

A big career in beauty was never part of Rose-Marie Swift’s plan; she just wanted to buy a microphone for her rock band. To pay for it, she worked in burlesque clubs in Vancouver, British Columbia, painting the faces of the dancers. She learned she had a talent for it. After filling in on a local magazine shoot, the accidental makeup artist started trotting the globe for Louis Vuitton and Victoria’s Secret ad campaigns, and Vogue and W fashion features. Along the way, a series of ailments—hair and memory loss, anxiety, and insomnia—slowed her down, so she detoxed her life of potentially harmful chemicals, eating mostly raw, organic foods, and in 2005 began mixing her natural makeup.

Models loved her formulas, and four years later she launched RMS Beauty, a clean line made from ingredients like cold-pressed, certified organic coconut oil and adaptogenic herbs (with no preservatives). “I wanted them to be almost edible,” she says of her moisturizing lip, cheek, and concealer shades; soothing oils; and luminizers that leave skin looking kissed by candlelight. Her line’s packaging is as easy on the environment as the formulas are on the skin.

Try RMS Beauty

About The Guest

Rose-Marie Swift is a highly acclaimed makeup artist, renowned for her work with prestigious models, actors, photographers, and magazines in the fashion and beauty industry. Her extensive portfolio includes features in top publications like Vogue (French, Italian, American, Japan, China), W. Harper’s Bazaar, and others. She has collaborated on advertisements for major fashion brands such as Saint Laurent, Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Louis Vuitton, Thierry Mugler, and Victoria’s Secret. Notable personalities she has worked with range from Gisele Bundchen and Zoe Saldana to Cindy Sherman. Rose-Marie has established her reputation by collaborating with leading fashion photographers like Mario Sorrenti, Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott, Annie Leibovitz, and more.