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Manchester Evening News
Manchester Evening News
National
Paige Oldfield

TikTok make up artist spends 27 HOURS covering herself in gems to recreate Doja Cat's iconic look

Whether doing your makeup takes five minutes or five hours, we’ve all got a set routine that we follow every time.

But would you ever consider staying up all night and going without sleep for 27 hours to get one makeup look finished?

That’s exactly what Accrington TikTok star Holly Murray did when she took on the challenge of recreating Doja Cat’s head-turning look from Paris Fashion Week.

READ MORE: 'I tried the Greater Manchester burger place that Tiktok has been going crazy for'

The US rapper and singer made jaws drop when she turned up at the Schiaparelli Paris Fashion Week show in a full red look on January 23.

The pop star was adorned from head to toe in 30,000 red Swarovski crystals covering her head, face, neck, shoulders and arms.

According to makeup artist Pat McGrath, who helped work on the makeup, it took “four hours and 58 minutes” to cover her in the crystals.

Doja Cat turned heads at Paris Fashion Week (Jacopo Raule/Getty Images)

But it took Lancs mum Holly much longer to recreate the impressive look – overall taking a whopping 27 hours to cover herself in 13,000 gems.

Mum-of-two Holly, who has 8.3 million followers on TikTok, started placing gems on her face at around 11am on January 26. She didn’t finish until 2.30pm the next day – going without sleep the whole time.

“I’ve only just recovered,” the 31-year-old told the Manchester Evening News. “I knew it would take some time because I’ve done a crystal rainbow face for Pride and that took around 12 hours.

“But it got to about 6.30am and my kids were getting up for school. My husband spent all night on the settee because my camera lights are too bright to sleep upstairs.

“He took the kids to school and I thought, ‘I’m about ready to cry, I’m so tired!’ I must have got a second wind of adrenaline because I finished at 2.30pm on Friday afternoon.

“It’s a mundane task doing the same thing over and over. All you’re doing is picking up a gem and sticking it onto your body. At one point, I couldn’t even see.”

Holly has amassed an incredible amount of TikTok followers in a short amount of time (Holly Murray)

Self-taught makeup artist and face painter Holly Murray is known for her incredible videos where she transforms herself into celebrities and horror film characters.

Holly can spend days planning out looks before filming for her page. One recent video, which raked in more than 76 million views, saw her transform into Pennywise, the evil shape-shifting clown from Stephen King’s IT.

“If it’s a big look, like the Pennywise one, the head prosthetic took three days to make,” she continued.

“With TikTok, it’s very much about delivery and finding the right sounds and seeing what will work. I don’t think I’ve ever just sat down to do a spontaneous look!”

Holly set up her TikTok account during lockdown but only began taking her page seriously last July – meaning she has amassed 8.3m followers in less than a year.

After gaining almost 300,000 followers in one month, she was assigned to a management team, meaning she was able to quit her job as a children’s entertainer and become a content creator full time.

On her TikTok success, Holly said: “It’s just insane. It’s not even been a year and I have 8.3m followers – I'm stoked out of my mind.”

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