Lady Gaga On Makeup & Ageing: “It Helps Me Deal With My Insecurities”

Lady Gaga says if we can put a man on the moon, then we should be able to make a concealer that can do it all. She makes a great point. With all this technology at our fingertips, why is it still so difficult to find a concealer that can blur, brighten, improve the texture of our under-eye area, and well, conceal?

Leave it to the 13 Grammy award winner-turned-beauty entrepreneur to make it her mission to crack this eternal concealer conundrum — and solve it! Yes, Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta believes she has made a moon landing-like achievement with Haus Labs’ new Triclone ™ Skin Tech Hydrating + Depuffing Concealer, £27.

“We knew that the concealer had to be special because it had to be the little sister of our foundation, but it had to take your foundation look to the next level and make it even better — not do anything that was going to make you look cakey or overdone,” Gaga told me over Zoom last week. “How could we expand the experience of complexion at Haus Labs in a way that stays true to our philosophy of taking care of your skin while you’re wearing makeup?” 

Their answer? A longwear concealer that promises to blur and depuff while also improving your skin over time, thanks to a bevy of skincare ingredients like niacinamide, hyaluronic acid, and fermented arnica. Similar to Haus Labs’ best-selling foundation, the triclone concealer had to be as accessible as possible — it’s available in 31 different shades across six shade families (from deep to fair) and four undertones. 

It should be noted that I am a huge fan of Haus Labs’ Triclone Skin Tech foundation, so I had the highest hopes for this concealer. And while I’m not normally a concealer girlie, I will definitely be incorporating it into my makeup arsenal. It’s a true concealer in that it can cover any blemishes, hyperpigmentation, or redness, but in the most comfortable, seamless way. It doesn’t leave your skin feeling suffocated and instead of looking heavy, creates a lovely skin-like finish. I would definitely wear this alone without foundation for day-to-day, but will lean on this heavily when I’m in need of a good cover-up for an angry pimple.

To hear more about Gaga’s secrets for how she wears her new concealer, what her non-negotiables were when creating it, what her daily beauty routine usually looks like, and how she uses makeup to embrace getting older, read ahead. 

This concealer has to, at baseline, do all of the things that you want a great concealer to do. It has to brighten — it brightens with niacinamide. It has to conceal — it conceals with a beautiful creamy, second skin-like texture and it doesn’t add any texture to the face when you’re covering anything. We also wanted it to blur, so you can cover those fine lines and wrinkles with our concealer, I love that about it, it’s amazing. Then we wanted to take it to the next level, so we said, ‘We have to put inside of it all the 21 ingredients that are in the foundation so that you’re treating your skin and treating the redness on your face. But how can we take it one step further?’ We wanted to combat any puffiness under your eyes. We packed it with a biotech-caffeine that was derived with Ayurvedic medicine and in two weeks, underneath the eyes, you’ll visibly see that you’ve depuffed the eyes. We’ve done a ton of studies to show this. It’s amazing. It was a total game-changer in my opinion.

This is what we really wanted to give our customers. Something that was truly exciting. I always say that this concealer is doing an inside job. While you’re wearing it and out looking beautiful, it’s busy at work depuffing under the eyes, decreasing inflammation in the skin. I think there’s no reason that your makeup shouldn’t be leaving your face with long-lasting beauty effects. I like the way that this concealer is an extension of my skincare routine, but it doesn’t perform like a makeup that isn’t high performance. It has more of an artistry effect. If you like makeup for your skin, you’re gonna really love this concealer, because it doesn't sacrifice in performance. 

The concealer goes everywhere. I see what it’s like after moisturiser when the moisturiser still has got that wet finish on the face. I see what it’s like on dry skin, I see what it’s like all day, I see what it’s like in the sun —  very important, it can’t oxidise — I see what it’s like going day to night. I see what it’s like after two applications, which is great — it’s medium buildable with one application, it’s full coverage with two, no caking, I don't want caking, I don’t want any creases in the eye, I want it to lay flat. I try it on stage. I make sure that it does well with powder, that it looks good baked. This concealer can either be worn on its own entirely or with foundation or with powder as well. Those are the three different ways to wear it. I don’t personally do a lot of powder under the eyes, I wear it more on its own. 

I wash my face in the morning and I’ll do a ton of toners, I’ll do serums, I’ll do all sorts of things on my skin and then I’ll end with moisturiser and sunscreen — I use a moisturiser that’s also a sunscreen. And then after, I’ll take the concealer and I’ll either put it on the areas I want to conceal and then I’ll use my fingers and tap it in. Sometimes I’ll also use my concealer brush, which is fantastic, it lays everything down so beautifully. But I just kind of do it all over where all the parts of the pigmentation are not even and it just gives a very, very natural finish, but with that medium to buildable to full coverage. I just love it. And then I’ll put some lip oil and I’m done. So that’s step one of my beauty routine every single day. If I want to amp the look up later, I’ll just go back with foundation and concealer and I’ll keep going. 

I think everyone has those feelings [of wishing they looked younger] as we get older. We try to be strong and I believe in self-love, but self-love is complicated. We all have our ups and downs. There’s all sorts of negative voices that we all battle in our heads. What I love about great makeup so much is that it can be a way for me to deal with any insecurities that I’m having and it also helps me to express myself. I say this truthfully — one of the promotional images that I took, I remember when we first looked at it, I said, ‘Gosh, I look really young in this photo,’ but we hadn’t done anything to the photo and it really was that the concealer fills in those fine lines and wrinkles and it has that blurring effect and it takes years off the face.

I think makeup is powerful because if you feel concerned about getting older, like I am, you have makeup to be there for you to build your confidence. That’s wonderful. But I’m 37 and I feel more confident than I have in my whole career. It’s just because I love more things about myself than I did when I was younger. When I was younger, I loved fashion and I loved beauty, but I cared less about how my whole life came together and now it’s the person inside me that I know is truly the really valuable part of me and everything else is just an extension of that. [Makeup] is the cherry on a sundae.