Small in stature but colossal in ambition, Ariana Grande does not let her passions sleep.
Her latest project, a makeup line called r.e.m.
beauty, is just awakening.
Her voice could be a wonder of the natural world, if it wasnt clearly evidence of the sublime.
And this was before the first lyrics were sung!
When it ended, Patti LaBelle gave her a standing ovation.
Commercially speaking, her discography is a Harry Winstons inside a diamond mine.
Now, Grande springs her question: If you were a soup, what soup would you be?
Then she answers it: Im a tie.
Im either miso or butternut squash soup.
This is the business of being Ariana Grande: Making connections wherever you go.
Maybe I can just pop a littleblushon or a little mascara to feel more… Ready to make friends.
Lorraine West and Sarah Hendler earrings.
All makeup by r.e.m.
Shes working with an acting coach who trains leading ladiesand seems to be doing their job extremely well.
She recently performed a live concert in the digital realm of the online game Fortnite.
Shes also creating makeup products.
And me being like, I dont know', sweating, Grande recalls.
It was so hard to keep a secret for this long.
The project had been conceived two years prior.
Grande met with Forma Brands, a beauty incubator born from the extremely successful cosmetics brand, Morphe.
The brands official name,r.e.m.
The name is also a track on her albumSweetener.
In the manner of a streetwear brand, r.e.m.
beauty itself will manifest in a series of drops.
Theyre our main storytellers and sources of communication, she continues.
I feel like you might emote more with your eyes than you might articulate sometimes.
That was the reference!
I feel like this is as tingly, if not tinglier than Lip Venom.
I was like, Oh, my gosh, is this a little too intense?
Grandes dream was to manufacture her dreams the formulas she fell asleep thinking about.
I think that…I wear my peers makeup as well, just like I listen to their music.
Im not going to say, Oh, theres too many female artists.
Because you might never have enough makeup, just like you might never have enough music.
It comes down to having a point of view, Grande says.
I always am very picky when it comes to that, she says.
The lip glosses are more like dewy lip stains, because Grande wanted something that would be long-wearing.
Despite their existence, which suggests they are already perfect for her, she is ravenous for feedback.
Do you like the tingle of the gloss?
A few days later, Im awakened in the morning when my apartment buzzer goes nuts.
I shuffle downstairs in my robe to find another warm package, this one containing a single lip gloss.
Who dropped it off?
The doe-foot applicator slopes so perfectly to the contour of my lips, its like coming home.
This time a tingling sensation begins instantly.
My lips involuntarily pucker.
When she was growing up, Grande wanted her hair out of her face.
When she moved from Boca to New York, loose, umber curls rained onto her shoulders.
This is the right thing.
And they sold us on everything and we bought it and we just threw it on and went onstage.
But it was her mother who taught her how to wear it.
Joan Grande is not Joan Grande without a fierce, charcoal-black eyeliner situation, her daughter says.
(Joan has self-identified as goth before goth was goth.)
Ive always sort of gravitated towards the 50s and 60s and 70s for glamour references, Grande says.
Ive always pictured myself in a different time period.
Ive always wanted to wear that makeup, wear that hair, wear those outfits, be those performers.
The ponytailis an aesthetic event she constantly reimagines and refracts, like Kusama and the polka dot.
(On the song Tattooed Heart, she asks her varsity lover to wrap her in his jacket.)
The pony remains unchanged, but in the context of latex, it feels like progress.
Grandes transformation forSweeteneris her most dramatic to date.
She appears upside down on the cover, in her own Bizarro World.
The discreet elements of her ponytail are all pushed to their logical opposites.
Her hair is ice blonde, factory-straight, and tied at the nape of her neck.
Her promises to potential partners mature as she does, culminating inPositions, her most recent album.
She was so excited.
she shouts, recalling the experience, and startling her dog Toulouse nearby.
Does anyone want to just warn me?
Because I had a heart attack.
You know, like, I was a young girl watchingGossip Girlreligiously growing up.
And then Im sitting here…
But it always makes Grande emotional, though not for long.
I sort of smile, she says, not smiling, and keep going.
