Corvus Cosmetics – An Interview With Noel Sitnick

As someone interested in indie cosmetics, I recently jumped at the opportunity to interview Noel Sitnick about her new business, Corvus Cosmetics. About a week ago, I made a set of custom makeup mirrors as a tie-in to her new eyeshadow line, “Mouseia”. The artwork was so captivating, I had to inquire. As it turns out, she works with independent artists to create totally unique label artwork for each every one of her eyeshadow colors. How incredibly clever!

So, ladies, let’s all grab our brushes and curlers and enjoy this chat with Noel!

A cool new indie cosmetics line! I love it. What made you decide to establish your business, Corvus Cosmetics? Have you always been a makeup junkie?

I’ve always been a total makeup junkie! I’ve been kind of addicted ever since I bought my first black eyeliner at the age of 10. Luckily, my parents were very supportive of me wearing makeup and expressing myself, because it became a full blown passion when I was in high school. Even though my looks were hardly pretty (and I look back on them with total embarrassment), creating them was always the highlight of my day!

I decided to start Corvus last summer. I had just finished my semester at school, and I was working way too many hours at a frustrating restaurant job. I usually browse Reddit in my downtime, and in one of said browsing sessions, I found Indie Makeup and More, which is a subreddit dedicated to independent brands that make makeup, bath and body products, perfumes, basically anything indie! I saw all of these really cool brands and products and thought “You know what? I could do that!!”

So I spent the entire summer researching ingredients and working on my formulas, and was finally able to open that November with my first line!

Your eye shadow colors are outstanding! Can you tell us a little bit about where you find inspiration to create them?

Thank you!! So far, the lines I’ve created and the lines I have in the works have all been centered around a certain theme. I find it a lot easier for me to come up with colors and concepts when there’s a central theme, rather than creating random colors for the general collection. I draw inspiration from basically everything. TV shows, movies, plants, animals, books, you name it, I probably have an idea for it. I have a giant list of things that would make great collections in my planner, and I’m constantly adding to it.

When I’m actually creating the shadows, it really depends on the theme, but I either do the obvious choice (Like Leela’s hair color for Clobberella), or I just kind of get a feeling that this shadow should be this color (I’ve always imagined Calliope as a green!). It’s kind of difficult to explain, but it’s more a gut feeling than anything, and then I just kind of play around with the colors until it looks like a cohesive collection!

I really like the way you build your line around themes: For instance, the “The Year 3000 Collection”. What’s that line all about?

The Year 3000 collection is completely inspired by Futurama, one of my favorite TV shows! I decided that I might as well start out with something that’s easy to draw inspiration from, and that potential customers would identify with. Each of the individual colors are references to the characters. Some are rather obscure, maybe occurring in only one episode, while others are recurring jokes.

 

But I generally like to stick to more serious collections as well. For example, the Mouseia collection, which is inspired by the 9 Muses in Greek mythology, with the colors corresponding with their general symbolism.

Each of your individual colors has a unique packaging label with it’s own wicked artwork. That’s genius! Who are the artist(s) you’ve been working with?

Thank you! The Year 3000 collection artist is Hailey. She’s a wonderful artist with this gorgeous cartoony style!

The artist for the Mouseia collection is Krysteene Hoerner! She actually reached out to me over Etsy seeing if I was looking for more artists (Which I always am!!), and I was able to grab her for the muses! (Where she did a wonderful job!)

I always will try to get custom labels for things like my collections, because I feel as if it adds so much to the products themselves. It makes them unique to my brand, and it makes them so much prettier looking! And working with the artists on the collection is just as fun as creating the actual products!

Any plans of expanding beyond the eye shadow collections to other types of cosmetics?

Yes, actually! 😉 I’ve been working for months on a lipstick formula that will hopefully be released late winter/early spring! And I will hopefully have a line of tinted/untinted balms and some blushes/contours by the end of the year as well!

Can you give us any inside scoop on what you have planned for Corvus Cosmetics in 2015?

Well, to debut the lipsticks, there will be a line inspired by poisonous flowers! Things like hellebore, nightshade, wolfsbane, and opium poppies! I believe there are about 9 lipsticks in the collection right now, assuming I’m able to get all of them perfect.

There will be a BIG release in the Spring with another brand, but that is all I can say about that one 😉 There’ll also be a spring collection inspired by the major arcana!

I don’t have anything planned for the summer or early fall quite yet, since I usually only plan a couple months in advance, but in November, as a first anniversary collection, I’ll be releasing a part 2 to The Year 3000 collection! Including all those great minor characters that everyone has come to know and love!

Where is the best place to find out more about you and your cosmetics line?

The best place to contact me about anything shop-related would either be my email (corvuscosmetics@gmail.com) or by checking out my Etsy shop!

I also will post periodic updates on my Facebook page, and this will be the perfect place to see upcoming releases, announcements, and to get exclusive discount codes!