Trixie Mattel, the winner of “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars” season three and founder of Trixie Cosmetics, has united her beauty brand’s motto of self-love and her fondness for video games in a whimsical makeup collection, the Gay-mer.
“The beauty industry is riddled with dishonesty. And this collection could not be more authentic,” Mattel told WWD.
An arcade game enthusiast with “16,000 tickets saved up at the Dave & Buster’s” that she won for redeemable prizes, Mattel sees a linear connection between the world of games and makeup. “We were working on a super versatile product that was going to encourage people to push their boundaries with makeup and try new things. And I mean, so much of that video game experience is about freedom and about challenging yourself. It was a perfect fit for this product,” she said.
Trixie Mattel for Trixie Cosmetics’ Gay-mer collection.
Trixie Cosmetics
The Gay-mer collection, now available at trixiecosmetics.com, features a pigmented liquid eye shadow that comes in six shades, including “Finish Her!” and “Pac’Mam!,” a mixing palette and a convertible bag. The shades are inspired by the CMYK color model, allowing the wearer to create any color they desire.
“We just really want to make products that encourage you to feel a sense of whimsy. I mean, the world is so dark, and our makeup really just makes the world a brighter place. It really does,” she said.
Trixie Cosmetics’ Gay-mer collection.
Trixie Cosmetics
Trixie Cosmetics was founded in 2019. Since then, the brand has released multiple collections and collaborations that prompt nostalgia and praise femininity as well as drag culture.
“I’m not like a normal celebrity with a makeup brand. I actually have experience in cosmetics,” said Mattel, who used to work behind makeup counters at a department store before fame. “For 40 hours a week, I would watch people shop for makeup. I worked at the mall and my favorite part of my job was how most people who were shopping with me, that [buying makeup] was maybe the one thing they did all week for themselves,” she said. “We don’t just work in the beauty industry. We work in the self-esteem industry.”
Self-expression is a current theme in Mattel’s career, whether she is creating a new eye shadow palette, welcoming guests at her Trixie Motel in Palm Springs, Calif., releasing new music, hosting “The Bald and the Beautiful” podcast or collaborating with famous celebrities such as Dua Lipa on her YouTube channel.
“Drag queens represent something that is very threatening to a lot of people, which is freedom, and something very radical, which is actually loving yourself and celebrating yourself,” she said.
In a time when anti-drag laws are being promoted in states like Tennessee and Texas, the drag queen star feels motivated by the controversy around her art.
“The best part about doing drag is that people don’t like us. It means that we are protesting. If the whole world was accepting of drag queens, I probably wouldn’t care that much to do it. For me, part of the fun of it is pissing people off. We like that some conservative, somewhere, goes to bed mad. It means we’re making an impact on the world,” she said.
