The Greatest Gift

Make-up artist and beauty influencer Mei Pang talks to Tatler about fostering positivity online despite the negativity she has encountered there, and how her ongoing journey of sobriety has opened doors for her

- Amalissa Hall

What sets your soul on fire? For Malaysian make-up artist Mei Pang, it’s the thrill of outdoing herself—whether that’s finding a new technique to create a beauty look, completing another yoga class or committing to one more day of sobriety.

“Sobriety saved my career,” Toronto-based Pang says. Her shaved head, praying mantises on each temple (plus a further plethora of matching tattoos) and razor-sharp eyeliner might lead one to assume she’s hardcore; a rebel. They’d be partly correct—she’s hardcore, but these days only about establishing her sense of self, fostering positivity online and maintaining her health to share and celebrate with others.

“I wake up at five in the morning, I do my make-up and I feel incredibly productive. And I do it with a clear head,” she says. “Professionally, I make the right decisions. I’m not swayed by anything. Whenever I show up to work, I’m doing it 100 per cent, and people can see that, and they appreciate it. That’s why I’ve had so many opportunities.”

The 26-year-old beauty influencer has an impressive combined following of more than 4 million across Instagram and TikTok. She has modelled for Rihanna’s lingerie line Savage x Fenty, and even appeared as a guest judge on Canada’s Drag Race, a spinoff of the original RuPaul’s Drag Race. But this success has not come easily; when she first started as an influencer, she was dealing with the challenges of creating a platform for herself on YouTube and an unhealthy, unsustainable lifestyle involving too much alcohol.