Shuai Jiang, a Los Angeles Makeup Artist Recognized in Three Separate International Beauty Industry Award Years

Shuai Jiang, a professional makeup artist and founder of LIZI STUDIO in Los Angeles, has been recognized three times by the International Beauty Industry Awards: as a winner in 2019 and a semi-finalist in both 2024 and 2026. She entered the competition three times and was recognized in all three.

Recognition Across Seven Years

Jiang won the Best Culturally Inspired Makeup category in 2019 for a portrait styled in traditional Tang Dynasty dress and makeup, a piece she conceived and executed herself. "In 2019, I was honored with the International IBI Beauty Award for the best culturally inspired makeup," Jiang told CanvasRebel Magazine in 2024. She returned to the competition as a semi-finalist in 2024, and again in 2026, when her entries were "Rouge Versailles" in Updo and Upstyle Hair and "Dynasties in Bloom" in Culturally Inspired Hair and Makeup. The two 2026 entries fell in different categories, one recognizing technical hairstyling and the other culturally inspired makeup.

The IBI Awards are an international competition judged blind, meaning the panel does not see an entrant's name or background before scoring, with entries drawn from dozens of countries. Two of Jiang's three recognized entries, the 2019 win and the 2026 "Dynasties in Bloom" placement, were in culturally inspired categories, work that draws on traditional Chinese dress and makeup and requires both technical skill and cultural knowledge to execute accurately.

An Artist Whose Training Crosses Multiple Disciplines

Jiang holds a Bachelor of Arts in Graphic Design from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, a background that informs how she approaches editorial makeup. Composition, color theory, and visual structure are part of how she builds a look before she begins working on a client. "I've been drawing continuously since I was six years old, and later built my career in graphic design. That background gave me a strong artistic foundation, an eye for aesthetics, and excellent communication skills," Jiang said.

Before founding LIZI STUDIO, Jiang spent several years working in visual identity and interface design, experience she credits with shaping how she reads a client's needs and structures a concept before execution. That foundation now supports a makeup practice that covers editorial beauty, hairstyling, and creative direction, with her design and photography skills working as tools within the larger craft rather than as separate professions. The studio she runs today specializes in traditional Chinese styling alongside contemporary editorial and bridal work, a combination that distinguishes it from other studios in the Los Angeles market.

Beyond Editorial Beauty: Special Effects for Film

Jiang's makeup work extends well past editorial styling. She also specializes in special effects makeup, a technical discipline that involves prosthetics, aging effects, wound simulation, and full character builds for film and commercial productions. The two fields require different skill sets: editorial makeup is designed to be seen in photographs and on camera, while FX work often needs to hold up under close physical inspection on a live set, with materials that behave differently under studio lighting than conventional cosmetics do.

Jiang's FX portfolio includes full aging prosthetics applied to younger models, complete with skin texture, age spots, and thinning hair, as well as detailed injury and decay effects styled alongside traditional Japanese hair and costume elements. Building a convincing aging effect on a young face requires an understanding of how skin changes over decades and how to reproduce that with prosthetic pieces, paint, and texture rather than with the corrective techniques that define beauty makeup. Jiang has said she has several years of experience working on Hollywood film productions, though specific production credits have not yet been confirmed. That combination of editorial beauty work, culturally inspired styling, and technical FX capability allows her to move between fashion editorials, commercial shoots, music videos, and film sets, a range that most artists working in any one of those areas do not typically cover. "I started my own business and work with Hanfu things totally out of my own passion, but hard work, high self-discipline, and a solid foundation are all important factors," Jiang said.

Jiang continues to run LIZI STUDIO in the Los Angeles area, working as a professional makeup artist across editorial, film, and commercial projects.