Living with a mental illness, I’ve spent a lot of time in chairs. Chairs with doctors, counsellors, psychologists, psychiatrists, teachers, youth mentors. A litany of experts tasked with seeing and helping me. And in nearly three decades, rarely have I felt more seen – more understood – than in Hilary Holmes’ chair.

Hilary Holmes is not a counsellor. Not in the traditional sense, anyway. Holmes is a Melbourne makeup artist who uses her trade to connect with her clients, creating what she calls ‘a space for much bigger conversations than just makeup on your face’.

‘I really want to make sure that we’re changing the way that we’re viewing [makeup] because I’ve been at weddings before where men have come up to me and said, “I hear you paint faces for a job”,’ she shares, to laughter from the room.

‘And I’m like… No, I’m using this as a vehicle to really transform the way that women feel about themselves. This is huge.’