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“I’ve never let the early 2000s go! I think everyone knows that about me,” Iggy Azalea tells Billboard of the Y2K-inspired craze in fashion lately. “I’ve got Clueless-inspired music videos and everything. It’s my time to shine.”
The rapper is so nostalgic for Bratz dolls, glitter and everything early 2000s, that she channeled that obsession in a new BH Cosmetics collaboration, fittingly titled Totally Plastic. As expected, the collection is a Y2K dream, filled to the brim with vivid eyeshadows, sparkly glosses, fluffy brushes and more.
BH Cosmetics is known for its affordability without sacrificing quality (every item in the collection is under $30), something that was important to Iggy. “They have so many bright, vivid, crazy colors and when I tested out the makeup, the pigment and everything was really creamy and great,” she explains. “For me, that stuck out because I rarely see eyeshadow that has actual quality for the price point they’re at. When I’m thinking of making things that I make, I want them to be accessible to everyone. I grew up not having very much money myself and always wanting those things cool girls had that I wanted to be – or even saving enough money to buy a CD of somebody that I really love to listen to.”
Speaking of “cool girls,” when designing the three eyeshadow palettes, Iggy dreamed up three specific types of early 2000s it-girls and what their makeup collection would look like. “To me, the purple girl is the fiercer, b—hier, mean girl, if that makes sense,” she says. “The blue shadow palette, I thought of the phrase ‘I’m psychic’ and a lot of the shades are named in theme with that. She probably wore a boho skirt and had a crochet rug. That palette has the butterfly in it. Kind of more earthy, hippie. Pink was more the bubblegum-y, popular girl. I was thinking of myself because pink is my go-to eyeshadow color. I thought that this is the palette that I want in my purse.”
The attention to color is a noticeable aspect to the collection, and something that remains constant throughout the rapper’s career as shown through moody, vibrantly colored music videos or photo shoots. “I really understand color well,” she shares. “There’s always a heavy focus [in my music] on color theory and incorporating those emotions. It’s important to me to tell a story through color.”
“For me, focusing on eyeshadows or lip glosses, things like that – especially when BH has such a solid foundation with formula, I just went crazy with developing colors that I liked and lent themselves to the story I was creating,” she continues. “I was thinking about, ‘Who are these girls that are kind of like Bratz dolls, early 2000s type girls. Who is the person? What’s their universe?’ BH was totally open from the beginning to me having creative control. That’s something that if I don’t have creative control with a brand, I’m not going to put my name to it because I’m very specific with how I want things to be or executing my vision.”
While the collection is bursting with pinks, blues, purples and glitters, Iggy made sure to include neutrals in every palette so that even beginners can have fun playing with makeup. “I can do looks with my basic skill set, and my makeup artist can also use it and go crazy,” she says.
“Whenever I’m in a makeup store, I’m drawn to the bright, fun colors but I feel intimidated and then don’t purchase it,” she adds. “I’m like, ‘How often am I going to use a bright green neon palette?’ Do I really want to spend $25 on it? Then I’ll gravitate to the nudes and be like, ‘Well, this isn’t as fun but I’ll get more use out of it.’ For me, this whole thing was bringing those two concepts together.”
When asked if she has always been a huge makeup lover, Iggy reminisced on her childhood days in rural Australia. “I have so many embarrassing pictures of myself in makeup that I’ve done that I thought was really editorial,” she says through giggles. “In the early 2000s, I was obsessed with reality model competitions. I would watch all those shows and had a fantasy that I would send my pictures into a modeling agency and they would say, ‘You’re going to be the next top model!’ Of course, I’m only 11 or 12 years old and I would do my makeup in ways I thought was really high fashion and print them out and send them in to modeling agency, which is now traumatizing thinking of some intern opening an envelope with all these pictures of an 11-year-old thinking she’s a model.”
“I was very offended that I never got a call,” she concludes. Despite her failed modeling career, life worked out well for Iggy Azalea, who dropped her final album project, End of an Era, on August 13.
Shop the full Totally Plastic BH Cosmetics collaboration on the brand’s website here, or in stores at Ulta Beauty.
