What made you decide to become a make-up artist?
It was a whole bunch of different things - I sort of fell into make-up. I didn’t go ‘Oh, I want to be a make-up artist,’ it was quite a long way round actually. I used to love art and was good at it at school and I think I would have been an artist if I weren’t a horse rider. But it was basically because I used to do a bit of modelling - what with Jodes being a model and my aunt was a model, there was lots of modelling around my family. I just used to be so fascinated with the power of make-up, you know seeing my face at the beginning and then after a professional did it. The contouring, shading and changing faces, I was just absolutely fascinated by it. I did modelling first, then I was styling for a little bit didn’t really enjoy that. Even though I love clothes, just putting them together wasn’t my thing. It was more using my hands and using a face as a canvas. It was a slow process and then I just went and booked into a course and that was it really. I just fell in love with it. After that, I had a year’s worth of freelancing and then I got into working with top make-up artists like Mary Greenwell.

What made you decide to set up the Jemma Kidd make-up school?
I never thought I would start a school up, it wasn’t in my agenda, but it is something that has organically happened. While I was doing make-up I kept getting asked by women if I could take an hour out and give them a lesson on how to put their make-up on properly and I just thought ‘Wow there’s so many women out there that just don’t know how to put it on’ – I was one of them until I was taught. Make up really gives you confidence, some people are so reliant on it, yet so many women don’t wear it right. Suddenly, it was like a white light happened in front of me and I just thought ‘People need to be educated’. I’d go on shoots and say: “I’m thinking of teaching make-up” and they’d say: “That’s so uncool, why are you doing that?” Teaching’s not a very trendy thing to do, but I just felt it’s what I had to do, it was a very strong feeling. So I wrote out a curriculum of what I thought would be the right amount of time and lessons needed to learn techniques and we just sort of took it from there. It’s kind of crazy actually just thinking about it now. I haven’t been taught to teach, I just did it and it did incredibly well and took off.

Do you find that when you’re out, say sitting on a train, or at a party, you’re tempted to give out make-up advice?
All the time. I do say it, it’s part of me and what unnerves a lot of people is that I stare at their face. I’m staring at their features, their skin, the colours. I could look at someone for about five minutes and they think I’m staring at them or giving them the eye and they’re like ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ It’s pretty bad! I see women all the time and I just want to go up and smudge hard lines or tell them their foundation’s wrong or that they’ve got too much fake tan on.

Do you do your sister’s make-up?
Yeah I’ve done Jo’s make-up for years. She was actually the cause of it in a funny sort of way. You know me hanging out backstage with her and watching her having her make-up done. She’s got such a great face to make up. We’ve got the same face, but I’ve got softer features, she’s got more defined features. She’s much easier to make up than me. I only look good natural, Jodie you could do anything to and she looks great. She inspires me.

Do you enjoy developing new products for your make-up lines?
Oh yes, that’s my favourite bit. I’m a real formula junkie and I’m really into colour and everywhere I go I just pick up twigs, leaves and flowers or cloth. I cut bits off and I think ‘That’s an eyeshadow’ – that’s a formulation that I like. I’m absolutely a make-up junkie and formation junkie. It’s fascinating - you know there are so many different tones of white.