“Because I’m from Atlanta, I’ve always been in the music world. I think it’s the most accessible-to-music place that you can be in. Like, if you go to Lenox Mall as a kid, you see famous people and it’s normal. At the Underground, I remember very vividly meeting Jermaine Dupri when I was six years old. My mom worked in music, too. She was a celebrity hairstylist for music videos when I was younger, back when videos used to cost a million dollars and weren’t shot on an iPhone. I still remember going to Lil’ Bow Wow video sets and lots of Dave Matthews concerts because she was their touring hairstylist for 14 years.
At Love Renaissance, I’m the EVP GM, which is a lot of letters to say that I’m the only girl and I have to keep the guy’s shit together. I make sure that the record company is running and that everyone is doing their job. Outside of that, I oversee the marketing team—for artists like Summer Walker, 6lack, and Odeal—which isn’t standard for that role but marketing is where I come from.
We brought on Tanner Adell to the label last year. She was of course meeting with other labels before she signed with us, but we really wanted her. While we were courting her I remembered that Sylvia Rhone—somebody we look up to in the industry—would buy billboards for artists she wanted to sign in their hometown to really show that she cared. So I worked with Justice Baiden, the head of A&R, to buy billboards for Tanner ahead of her Stagecoach performance, which was only the day after our second meeting with her. We wrote, ‘Tanner Adell is next in country, from your biggest fans.’ The billboard is a cute story, right? But showing up and personally being there was crucial. We’ve always been a little crazy as a company, but there’s so much competition to get artists. It’s almost like dating. You have to make big gestures for what you really want.
Outside of work, I run a book club called Amber’s Book Club. I think—especially in the industry I’m in—that people don’t talk enough about books. Everyone talks about their jewelry, their clothes, their makeup. I thought about starting a podcast, but honestly, maybe everybody should have their mics taken away. [Laughs] Then, my boyfriend and I bought a house with a shed in our backyard. When I saw it, I immediately thought about turning it into a mini library and that spawned the book club. The motto is ‘Reading is a flex.’ We launched with Rich Paul’s Lucky Me, and since then, we’ve also included books like Law Roach’s How To Build A Fashion Icon, Bozoma Saint John’s The Urgent Life, and Jemele Hill’s Uphill.
SKINCARE
I watch a lot of makeup videos and I’ve noticed that the girlies have really intense skincare routines, but I just can’t—so sorry. Besides, Cerave does the trick, so I start off by washing my face with their hydrating cleanser. I started using Fresh’s rose toner not too long ago. It’s an extra dose of hydration, but more than anything, it makes me feel good. I’ll use Cerave’s vitamin C serum if I’m trying to get rid of hyperpigmentation—it’s actually helped a lot—but if not, I go straight into my Cerave moisturizing lotion, which acts as my primer. And because I’m obsessed with shining from head to toe, I mix Nivea body lotion with Vaseline cocoa radiant oil—or sometimes baby oil—to make a thick, moisturizing, and glittery mixture.
MAKEUP
‘Going out’ for me usually means a concert, a mixer, or a listening party—anything work adjacent. Generally I like to do my own makeup, but if someone else is doing it, I always make sure to pay extra attention so I can copy what they did later on. Gentle Storm, who sometimes does my makeup, fucking sprays MAC’s Prep + Prime Fix+ on everything. When she first did it I kept asking her, ‘Girl, what is going on? Why do you keep wetting my face? Why are you spraying this on your beauty sponge?’ But now I can’t stop. I spritz my Dose of Colors beauty sponge and it carries my look through the night, but I’ve also found that my products blend together better this way.
Danessa Myricks has some incredible products for melanated skin. She has this amazing Universal Yummy Skin blurring powder balm that I use as a primer. I have really deep—but perfect—smile lines, and I learned this weird trick from TikTok where you puff out your cheeks and fill the lines in with the balm. If I don’t have it with me, I do the same thing but just with my translucent One/Size blurring powder and go over it with my foundation.
I want my cheeks to look really sunken in, so I contour with Fenty Beauty’s Match Stix in Ebony. Then I go in with my foundation, which changes seasonally; right now, I’m in my Danessa Myricks Yummy Skin foundation phase—I use 23W. And then I use One/Size’s Turn Up The Base concealer around my eyes. I start off with my darker shade in Dark 4 and then finish off with Deep 1 on my under eyes and nose. Oh, and another trick I’ve learned is that you have to let your concealer dry—the girls need to know!
At this point, I use my Fenty Match Stix in Caviar to chisel out what I already created underneath. Then it’s time for liquid blush. I love e.l.f.’s Halo Glow blush in You Go Cocoa. To set everything, I do a thin layer of the One/Size translucent and mix it in with MAC’s Mineralize Skinfinish powder in Dark Deep so it’s not too bright. Those little black triangle powder puffs? They’re life-changing. Where were they three years ago? I use them to really press the mixture in, especially under my eyes.
I stopped being crazy about my eyebrows a year and a half ago. I already have pretty thick brows anyway, so I just quickly draw the line of whatever shape I want with Benefit’s Precisely My Brow pencil in Warm Black Brown and brush that shit in before combing them up with the NYX laminating brow gel. I let it dry a little bit, rub it through, and it makes my brows look like they’ve been relaxed.
Then it’s time for my eyes. If I spend an hour on my eyes, I won’t have time for my base—what really matters. People who do their eyes first? Serial killers. [Laughs] If I’m just doing my regular eye look, I’ll take a little fluffy brush with my MAC Powder Kiss shadow in Give A Glam and go in. I also have a 24/7 eyeshadow from Urban Decay that’s jet black—it’s called Blackout—and I love using it to create a really sexy, smoky eye. I’ll take a very sharp eye brush to line my lower eye and it lasts all night. I could even do that on the top of my lids, but I do prefer One/Size’s waterproof liquid liner there.
At this point, I dust the mixture from earlier with MAC’s Dark Deep again so I’m not looking white or gray. Then I spray the hell out of my face again. I let that moisture take over before going in with my One/Size setting spray, which I dry down with a fan—I learned that from David Velasquez. Then I go in with my Fever powder blush from MAC [Ed. note: discontinued] and Deep bronzer palette from One/Size. They’re the only two products that I put over my setting spray to make sure that everything really stays. And then for my lashes I use KISS Falscara lash extensions. They’re these little clusters you put under your real lashes—takes me five seconds.
My lip never changes. I use Dimensional Dark Brown—a very, very dark brown lip liner—from Make Up For Ever. It’s amazing. Before I found that one, I would even go as far as using a dark brown eye pencil as liner because it doesn’t budge. I like to overline my lips just a bit, and depending on how I feel, I color in the middle with the lightest shade of pink lipstick that I can find—sometimes I even use concealer. I finish off with my amazing e.l.f. Glow Reviver lip oils. I love the Crystal Clear, Honey Talks, and Coral Fixation shades. They’re $2 and amazing. I throw that on, let everything mix together, and with that, I’m done.
HAIR
My hair is always last, and honestly, since my mom’s a hairdresser, it’s the least of my concerns when I’m going out. You might just get whatever look I woke up with, but if I do spend five minutes on it, I break out my Wavytalk 5-in-1 curling iron. I found it on TikTok Shop, and you can do anything with it without any real skill. It’s a godsend. I also bought an UnBrush on TikTop Shop, and there’s truly no other brush like it—and only $5! It can brush through any type of hair like magic. And I like to have little baby hairs going on—but not too much, I’m an adult. [Laughs] I lay them down with the Bask & Lather edge control and then I throw on a little bit of Biosilk to make them look fresh.
NAILS
Another thing that I’m never doing is go back to the nail shop. I haven’t been since the pandemic. I can’t be sitting in a nail shop for two hours trying to have a private conversation about an artist’s next project in LA—I don’t know whose company I’m keeping. During the pandemic, I taught myself how to do Gel-X and that was a process. I would literally be on a Zoom call drilling my nails. But I’m over that, too. Instead, I’ve been using the KISS ImPress no glue press-ons. They’re essentially stickers, and they last three weeks. You can literally put them on in your car if you need to—you shouldn’t, but it’s that easy.
FRAGRANCE
I’m never ever, ever, ever going to stop wearing Maison Francis Kurkdjian’s Baccarat Rouge 540. I don’t care what anybody thinks about it. I don’t care how old it is as a ‘trend.’ No perfume smells as good on me. If I walk in somewhere and someone doesn’t say, ‘Oh, you smell good,’ or ‘Someone in here smells good,’ we have a problem. I went through security at the airport a bit ago and the TSA lady walked away from the scanner to ask what I was wearing. That’s all I want. The trick is to mix it with something else—and Baccarat works with almost anything—to confuse people. [Laughs] I bought Loewe’s Amanece la Bella Cibeles at Selfridges recently, and until now, I haven’t told anyone. It’s gorgeous. Six Baccarat mists, two Loewe mists, and we’re set to go.”
—As told to Daise Bedolla
Photographed by Brittany Bravo in Los Angeles on October 2, 2024
This article was originally published on intothegloss.com.