Fans of the teen drama Euphoria—which HBO recently announced would be returning for a third season—have been riveted by the show’s nuanced, shimmery exploration of the dramas of adolescence. They’ve been equally hypnotized by the characters’ style, especially their boundary-pushing makeup. The show’s teens sport decals on their cheeks and eyes that capture the light of the disco ball, glowing neon eyeliner, and face gems that glisten like tears.
“The makeup tells the story of [the characters’] sweetness and innocence,” explains the show’s head makeup artist, Donni Davy, whose work has earned her a pair of Emmy awards and sparked a global beauty phenomenon. (The hashtag #euphoriamakeup has 2.4 billion views on TikTok.) After the show debuted in 2019, Davy was inundated with collab requests from beauty companies. Instead, she partnered with A24, the studio behind Euphoria, to create the Half Magic makeup line, which launched in May 2022. “Half Magic is not a ‘cool girl’ brand,” insists Davy. “It’s a fun, safe place to start your self-discovery, while at the same time being that brand that lets you easily do this insane look that lasts all night.”
The line is full of breakthroughs. Davy created highly pigmented matte and glitter eye paints that are formulated to avoid melding into a muddy mess, a lip liner that creates an ombré effect, self-adhesive face gems that can sustain wild nights that bleed into morning, and a bladelike applicator for the brand’s popular Magic Flik eyeliner pen. In less than a year, Half Magic has won 15 beauty awards, and new product drops consistently sell out.
A24 is renowned for its playful merch, but Half Magic represents the studio’s first foray into a stand-alone spin-off product company, complete with funding from Euphoria creator Sam Levinson, among others. A24 sees the brand as a test case for launching other businesses based on its intellectual property. For Davy, partnering with the indie-minded studio has allowed her to build her beauty line slowly, with complete control over quality, process, and brand identity. That’s paying off, says Davy: “People are understanding that Euphoria is where our DNA comes from, but we are our own thing.”
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