- A 6-year-old makeup artist has received viral attention for creating beauty looks on her mom.
- Shabnam Khodayari told Insider that Kassia "Kassie" Mattis had her video reshared by James Charles.
- "You can do anything with makeup. You can get as creative as you want," Mattis said of her craft.
Children wearing makeup can be a contentious topic, but for Shabnam Khodayari, allowing 6-year-old Kassia "Kassie" Mattis to do makeup was a decision to let her daughter be herself.
Khodayari, a 38-year-old London-based bridal makeup artist and mother of two, told Insider that in March 2020, she first posted a TikTok video of Mattis playing dress-up in false eyelashes to her account, @makeupbyshab. It now has over 2.7 million followers as of Thursday and the video received over 3.4 million views, but partly for the wrong reasons, Khodayari said.
"Half the people were like, 'Why has she even got makeup on? She's a baby, she's only three years old. Why is she dressed like this?' Then the other lot would be like, 'Oh my God, this is so cute,'" Khodayari said of the mother-daughter selfie video.
"I didn't really post much makeup stuff of Kassie because it kind of scared me. I didn't want my daughter to be in a public eye in a negative way," Khodayari said, adding that she avoided posting videos of her daughter for almost a year after her first video.
She said that then-four-year-old Mattis' interest in makeup privately grew and she began keenly watching YouTube tutorials by James Charles, NikkiTutorials, and Mitchell MUA. She practiced the techniques she learned from her favorite artists on her mom's face, her dolls, and even her 11-year-old brother, DeVonté.
Mattis said her love of makeup is because it's such a versatile skill that can be especially dramatic during seasonal holidays like Halloween and Christmas. "You can do anything with makeup. You can get as creative as you want," she said.
In the early months of 2021, Khodayari said Mattis asked her mom to upload videos of her doing a makeup routine to TikTok, and later, on March 2, 2021, a video of her proving to a follower that she did a pink beauty look on herself and a blue one on her mom was viewed over 11.4 million times.
Since then, the tiny makeup artist has developed a loyal fanbase and the mother-daughter duo has learned to drown out their online critics.
Khodayari said it was "still stressful to read things like, 'You're such a bad mom for exposing her to this.'"
"But at the same time, there are so many positive people seeing what she's doing and that she actually loves it. It's not forced on her," she added.
She said that just because a 30-second video shows her child applying makeup, it doesn't mean that she doesn't have a normal childhood when the camera is off.
Mattis is now getting recognition from beauty brands and her favorite makeup artists
Khodayari said that Mattis was exposed to makeup early in life because her own clients would be over at their house. Mattis said her creative idol is James Charles, who she said reposted one of her videos recreating his look in July 2021.
The young artist also told Insider her favorite brand is Fenty Beauty, which the pair collaborated with for a Mother's Day beauty tutorial in May. She said that her favorite creation was her gold goddess look posted on March 3o, 2021, which received over 4.9 million likes and heavily featured Fenty Beauty's Killawatt freestyle highlighter in the shade Trophy Wife.
Mattis is also on Huda Beauty's radar – Khodayari said the Iraqi-American beauty mogul, Huda Kattan, reposts their content and messages her about Mattis.
Nikkie Tutorials, one of Mattis' favorite artists, also liked her TikTok videos, which Khodayari said was a career highlight: "For Kassie to watch Nikkie for three or four years of doing makeup and then for Nikkie to be watching her video, that just blew her away. She kept saying to me, 'Oh my God, she knows me. She can see me right now mom, right?'"
As a parent, Khodayari said it was important to guide Mattis toward a healthy relationship with makeup that isn't about covering up, as well as teaching her how to apply it and when it's appropriate to wear.
Khodayari added that having an early start to makeup means that Mattis will become an expert sooner, and help set up the career her daughter is planning. Mattis also wants to have her own beauty and skincare empire one day, according to her mom.
"Any parent is proud of their child regardless of what they do but for her to have achieved so much at such a young age, I'm beyond proud of her," Khodayari said. "For me, my whole aim has always been to make sure that my son and my daughter have a great future, especially in this day and age where everything keeps getting harder. I'm so excited for her future more than anything."