Caroline Heggdal’s Make-Up Style is Floral Eye Candy

By Nancy Molina

Considering that people have always worn flowers in their hair, make-up artist Caroline Heggdal realized that people should maybe apply natural beauty to their faces. Call it Floral Eye Candy.

Like a painter, she takes pastel pigments of eye shadows and blends them with real flowers for an extraordinary effect.

It is not a surprise that her favorite flower is a “Forget-Me-Not” – a flower that is delicate, fragile yet memorable.

“The Forget Me Not, it’s so small and usually overlooked as a weed growing in most of the gardens and parks in Norway,” she observes. “.I think I fell more in love with the flower because I could kind of “see myself” with the flower, the one that got forgotten by others – as sad as it sounds.”

But isn’t that what make-up does? Helps us feel better by enhancing the positive.  That has always been her incentive – since each individual wants to grow and feel better.

Although people are now staying home, lounging in sweat pants and sneaks, make-up doesn’t seem like a high priority. But it does give a pick-me-up when needed. “Make-up is supposed to be something fun and not a necessity,” she says. “If you want to wear make-up, wear it for yourself because you want to, not because you feel like you have to, just because of someone on Instagram does.”

Her career trajectory started in photography school. There she learned about portrait photography and how to put make-up on a client. But it didn’t seem like it would be a career.  She later quit a ho-hum job and moved to the south of Norway where she dipped into the familiar trap of not knowing what to do and feeling desperate about it. But fate intervened.

“The job market was highly unstable and not a lot of jobs available due to the oil crisis,” she says. “I fell into the huge YouTube world of makeup tutorials and the rest is history.” Indeed, not feeling guilty about staying home, she became self-taught – which is a lesson many can learn from. Immerse yourself in something that interests you and it can lead to something you love. 

 “Here I am today,” she says with a laugh. “Obsessed with “playing with makeup” as I tell my boyfriend because that is what it is; playing – it’s not a chore.”  Although a photographer, she plays with her make-up style on Instagram and sparked a devoted following. 

And her make-up is well, unforgettable.

Speaking of forget-me-nots, last year around her beloved grandfather’s birthday, she saw a bunch of “Forget-me-nots” springing up in her driveway. “I knew that he was watching over me,” she reveals. “He told me that the ones we love who pass will always be around. You might not see them, their spirit might be gone, but they’ll be with you in the flowers, the rain, the sun, the wind.”

Inspired, she started using flowers mixed with make-up creating a signature that not only took off but is likely to endure.

Her philosophy on life?

1) Don’t overthink everything.

2) A bouquet of fresh flowers will always lift your mood.

3) When feeling blue, clean your room, apartment or house, you might not want to, but the reward, in the end, is one of the best feelings and will instantly lift your mood – and make you feel relaxed.

4) Don’t sleep in your makeup

5) Have a good skincare routine.

6) Use floral perfumes. You don’t have to put effort into it – one spray and you’re good to go.  Her favorites – “Pink Molecule 090.09” by Zarkoperfume because it has such a distinguished smell of Black Elder. 

And realize that any time you have a flower – whether on your bedside, your hair, your dress or even your eye make-up – it will bring a burst of positivity into your life.