Kim Chi Talks Her Makeup Brand KimChi Chic Beauty, Favorite Products, Ultimate Makeup Hacks & Her Experience in the Beauty World (Exclusive)

Can you could talk a little bit about your beauty journey and what drew you to drag and then led to KimChi Chic?

Kim Chi: Of course. So I’m an accidental drag queen. I started doing drag for fun on Halloween, and then that one night I went out, I ended up getting booked for a show the first night I went out. So then it just kind of escalated from that point on. A couple months after doing drag, I went to a circuit party and the promoter of the circuit party asked me to be a host. And then next thing you know, I was hosting every single party. And then I became the party queen in Chicago.

So then I transitioned to drag full-time and then two years after doing drag, I made it on Drag Race and then the rest is history.

How would you say you developed your own specific beauty aesthetic? Was that a process for you to find your signature look?

KC: When I first started doing my makeup, I would always replicate the makeup that I see on the runway, especially work with Pat McGrath, especially a lot of the stuff that Pat McGrath did for Dior, for Galliano.

And then eventually, because I have in real life tiny eyes, I was like, “I’ve got to find a way to make my eyes look bigger in drag.” Then the white underliner came, and that’s how the whole anime aesthetic came about. Because Trixie Mattel was on television first, for some reason a lot of fans assumed I copied Trixie when it comes to my makeup. But actually I was doing the white underliner thing before I ever met Trixie, and I think we both bonded over our love of white liner.