Is the Lady Gaga in the room with us now?

And what did we learn this week? Manifestation goes both ways.

It’s back and much like a packet of chocolate digestives it’s a lot smaller and definitely more expensive as we go from a cast of 10 last year to a mere 8 this year so they’ve had to start using Leomie Anderson to fill out the group shots

they’ve at least learned to not allow her stand up and make them all look like the most overdressed members of the Lollipop Guild.

And here’s the cast in their glam headshots

and here they are as their spiritual Animal Crossing counterparts because I’m hyper fixating again

I’d let all of you live on my island and I wouldn’t even hit you with a net.

Look Who’s Back In The Haus

For their first challenge the MUAs were running the TikTok gauntlet for a campaign for Lady Gaga’s makeup brand Haus Labs

they absolutely did not need to set them up for this level of disappointment. But to be honest, had they not said anything and just kept Sarah in soft focus like she was on the first season of Drag Race I would probably have just thought she was Lady Gaga the whole time

as for what the winner of the challenge receives – the prize was to assist at a Haus Labs launch event in Paris. It’s never mentioned whether Lady Gaga would be there, I imagine not because she was probably busy off filming Joker 2: It’s a Musical Boogaloo while this was being filmed

I am so excited for Black Swan for Fedora Wearers to come back

(I will only watch the Jenny Nicholson review)

As it was a social media based challenge, the MUAs did immediately have to start playing TikTok Top Trumps, which I think Shania ended up winning because as soon as she dropped the 100k everyone shut up about it

and she calls herself The Transition Queen which is a title I will be fighting her over

I realise I am very much the Harold II to her William the Conqueror in this Battle of Internet Clout but I’ll go down swinging.

Much like me discovering slide animations during year 8 history powerpoints, Shania went absolutely ham on the transitions to the point of making me a little seasick

and she would have easily won this challenge had it not been for the fact she’d spent 2 hours on her eyeshadow look that morning to ensure that she was serving Maximum C.U.N.T-iness [this is a compliment, mum, don’t worry about it] and not even a biblical plague was going to make her take it off, let alone the nebulous threat of maybe getting to meet Lady Gaga

this did of course mean Sarah and Val had to clutch their pearls about her daring to showcase Another Brand™ (and by Another Brand™ they just mean Beauty Bay, the unofficial-official sponsors of this show)

but she wasn’t the only one as Ella had done the same thing with her eyeshadow

it’s a gorgeous look though, but the focus of the video was meant to be the Haus Labs foundation and your eyes only really take in the eye makeup. She couldn’t really do anything about by the time Sarah asked her about it and then did the most passive aggressive villain glide out of frame

here me out… Dracula (2026) starring Lady Gaga? Directed by Greta Gerwig.

Rossi had a little bit of a similar problem to Ella except he’d actually paid attention to ~brand unity~ with the two looks he’d done for his video

but again, the skin didn’t really feel like the focus of the video so much as it did watching him paint with all the colours of the wind, But even if this wasn’t maybe what they wanted for the brand, it was still very social media friendly.

Reem was the most apprehensive going into the challenge because she’s a bridal girlie and doesn’t do much on social media beyond making everyone she works on look absolutely beautiful while facing a flattering 45 degree angle from the camera

so doing anything beyond smokey liner and a nude lip is pushing the boat out for her. But she was doing her best with the draped blush and the bright pink lip

and I think that bridal makeup professionalism really paid off for her in the end as the video didn’t end up feeling cluttered but my God was she the door-to-door saleswoman of this episode with how well she showcased the products

I really appreciated that she’d added the text – both for clarity sake and accessibility, I think that’s something A LOT of social media influencers forget about.

Joining Reem at the top of the ladder were Connor and George who I will admit for the first few episodes are going to feel like the same person wearing a fake moustache to get more free samples at the cheese counter

(they don’t look anything alike but if we’ve establish 1 thing on this blog it’s that I have mild facial blindness)

George caught Sarah’s eye with his use of blue liner and a deep reddish-brown lip

while Connor caught her eye because he’d accidentally turned his corner of the studio into a silent disco

but the judges also really liked his final look and complimented him for managing to make a black and silver lip feel wearable and job interview appropriate

I will pay £50 for Val to turn up to the next episode looking like the Miley Cyrusification of Jojo Siwa

Jojo Siwa thinking she’s invented alt scene lesbianism is my new Roman Empire.

Finley ended up with a bit of a mixed reception, they really liked his social media video and how engaging it was

but felt a bit like his makeup skills were a little behind everyone else’s – I’m going to blame nerves because I’ve imprinted on him like one of those cats that takes care of abandoned ducklings

he can do nothing wrong in my eyes.

Lastly we have Jess who probably had the weakest overall video because it felt a little bit like she’d filmed it at 3am while half asleep but her saying “Honestly. Academy Award Winning” while looking about s interested and engaged as you would while reading the ingredients of a soup can was camp as fuck

the look was very much a boring melange of red which I think was mostly disappointing because she’s so pretty and has a dream of a face for any brand to work with – those lips should be insured.

An Unofficial Haus Labs TikTok Ranking:
1. Reem’s Extra Textual Tiktok
2. Rossi’s 2 Faced Looks
3. Georgie Gaga
4. Finley can do no wrong.
5. Aspirational Jojo Siwa
6. I Won’t Take Off My Eyeshadow for Less Than £10,000
7. Ella’s Stealthy Beauty Bay Advert
8. Jess’s Cold Table Read

Despite her nerves going into the challenge Reem ended up winning the trip to Paris which she couldn’t quite compute in the moment

and finding themselves in a bit of hot water were Shania and Ella for using non-Gaga approved products.

You, Who?

As always, the first Creative Brief of the series was for the MUAs to create a makeup that represented who they are and in order to fully authenticate this as A-grade Glow Up and not just sparkling Halloween drag show someone had to do the obligatory gay pride look

Connor was at least making it a little more dynamic and impactful by applying his multicoloured linework over a monochrome black and white base

I’m not sure the rainbow quite comes through, it looks more like a map of the London Underground and he’s lucky it was the first week because the unevenness of that lip would have had Dom in a lather anywhere after week 3.

George had a similar look to Connor and I’m not just saying this because they’re the same man in different stages of twink death

George was also going for a swirling mix of various colours around the face

I do really love the artistry of this, the mix of matte and metallic was extremely effective in motion but like the judges all said, it lacks a little bit of depth. Especially the door on the forehead, he just needed to a channel a little more of his inner Wile E. Coyote

if it doesn’t look like a roadrunner could run through it, you haven’t done enough, which brings us to Reem doing the absolute bare minimum for no apparent reason

I admire her for attempting the always hard straight lines across the nose but while she was worrying about Dom thinking using tape to ensure evenness and symmetry would have been a cop out, she maybe could have pondered how they might feel about her only painting a sixth of her model’s face IN A MAKEUP COMPETITION

oh girly pop, imagine….

Making things infinitely worse for Reem was the fact Finley was just across the room making the void of Germanic panic

whichever producer decided the order of the judging would have Reem following Finley was cruel and sadistic. I hope you got a raise.
I think Finley’s ended up being my favourite look of the week, I was worried it would end up looking a little muddy but the addition of the silver adornments added a lot of much needed life to the colour palette

the only thing I don’t love is how symmetrical the placement of the silver pieces are. I think having them be a little more erratic would have spoken more to the infinite chaos of the universe.

Shania and Ella were the ones who found themselves with a time penalty. This however was not going to stop them from going big with their makeup looks. Shania went for a very ambitious Venus Flytrap. The reasoning behind it wasn’t *entirely* clear, something about resilience in the face of adversity which the dead bodies of the several flytraps I have attempted to grow would like to dispute

it’s stunningly executed though – her precision is going to be hard to beat this series.

As for Ella’s red chair beating look, she was finally answering the age old question of “What would Gary Lineker look like as a Neopet?”

I’ll name him Inuyasha_Luvr92.

It’s amazing how well Ella’s makeup came out in the end, it wasn’t perfect by any means but as long as you kept a distance of about 20 feet it was great. She got off to a rotten start with ripping her bald cap something fierce

fortunately for her the bald cap pantry has a limitless supply.

She wasn’t the only one dabbling in bald-cappery as she followed Rossi’s suit. Rossi’s being a nod to his neurodivergence due to his Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder

the use of his brain prosthetic causes a little bit of initial confusion amongst the judges, mostly because Val immediately jumped to assuming Rossi was a cannabil

don’t worry babe, he just lightly scalped David Bowie

it is a really cool look, some of it looks a little rough around the edges but it’s not in an ameture way and felt like more of a deliberate attempt to capture that retro Club Kids feel which I think he did very successfully.

Lastly we have Jess who seemed to have at some point forgotten this was a makeup competition and started producing her own David Attenborough documentary

I’m all for “Fun Facts With Jess” becoming a regular feature but it did seem at the cost of her makeup. It just felt a little unfinished

She was trying to aim for a look embodying the tattoo culture of Camden which I don’t think she quite captured. She did however ignite a deep need within me to rewatch problematic favourite of my childhood Jungle 2 Jungle

they really would just make any movie in the 90s, wouldn’t they? “A Sports comedy about The Looney Tunes seeking the help of Michael Jordan in order to win a basketball match so they can avoid a life of indentured servitude to a group of themepark owning aliens?” “Sure, here’s $80 million dollars and a bit extra for the cocaine the writers are going to need for that.”

An Unofficial Show Us Yourself Makeup Ranking:
1. Germanic Panic! (At The Edge of the Universe)
2. Shania’s Resilient Flytrap
3. Lightly Scalped David Bowie
4. Little Baby Inuyasha_Luvr92
5. The London Underground’s Pride Month Map
6. When God Closes One Poorly Rendered Door…
7. Jess presents “The Secret Life of Squashable Bugs”
8. Reem’s Sixth of an Effort

Both Ella and Shania managed to redeem themselves in the eyes of the judges and avoid the Face Off Challenge, which instead would be contested between Jess for not finishing and Reem for barely having started.

Wingers and Losers

For their Face Off Challenge, Reem and Jess were having to recreate the staple winged liner look

it’s all about symmetry and precision so I, a person who looks like a clock telling you it’s 09:20 whenever I attempt a winged liner immediately started sweating bullets for them.

However, Ithink these two could knock out weapons-grade liner with their eyes closed, the results of the challenge being incredibly close

Reem’s is a perfectly good every day liner, nobody was going to notice the *slight* difference in symmetry unless they had a comical prop magnifying glass at their disposal

FUCK.

And thus Reem was thoroughly Casablanca’d as the first contestant to be eliminated

I hope she has fun maybe, perhaps, possibly, definitely-not meeting Lady Gaga at the Haus Labs launch event.

and I’ll see you next week for…

I’m in!