When Tattoo Culture Inspires a Makeup Palette

Tattoo artists and makeup artists have always shared the same creative territory. Both work directly on skin. Both rely on precision, color theory, and trust. Both attract people who use art as identity rather than decoration.

For Maggie Jones, founder of Blend Bunny Cosmetics, that connection has always been personal. It’s also what led her to bring tattoo culture directly into the brand’s creative process. A licensed esthetician and working makeup artist, Jones built Blend Bunny around real technique and artistic utility rather than surface-level aesthetics.

That perspective led her to collaborate with Chanel Diabla, a tattoo artist known for emotionally driven work and a distinctive visual language that has resonated far beyond the tattoo world. Together, they created a collaborative eyeshadow palette that treats tattoo artistry as the foundation, shaping everything from the visuals to the color story.

What sets the release apart is not simply that a tattoo artist designed a makeup palette, but where it comes from. Blend Bunny is a female-founded brand built outside the traditional beauty system, one that began as a working artist’s solution and grew through technique, credibility, and creative integrity. That reputation has carried the brand beyond indie circles and into broader cultural visibility, with features in Harper’s Bazaar, placement at major retailers like Nordstrom, and use by celebrity makeup artists on high-profile shoots for artists including Kehlani, Doja Cat, and Björk. The throughline is consistent: artists choosing the product because it performs, not because it’s trending.

Built by One Artist, for Other Artists

Blend Bunny was never designed to chase trends. It was built to support how artists actually work.

“In my time as a content creator and working makeup artist, I used a very specific technique and realized the layout and color selection in the palettes I was using lacked what I needed,” Jones says. “Creating my own palette was never about starting a brand. It was about solving a problem I kept running into.”

Her first release, the Blends palette, was structured around workflow and usability. It was embraced quickly by artists and remains one of the brand’s best sellers years later.

“When I launched my first product, I told myself that even if this was the only thing I ever created, it would still matter,” she says. “Everything that’s happened since then has been a gift.”

A Tattoo Artist’s Vision, Fully Realized

For Chanel Diabla, the collaboration wasn’t a pivot away from tattooing. It was an extension of it.

“Tattoos and makeup come from the same place for me,” she says. “It’s about emotion, placement, and how something lives on the body. Translating my art into a palette felt natural, not like a jump.”

Known for her emotionally driven work and viral heart-face tattoo motif, Chanel approached the palette the same way she approaches skin. Every element was intentional. Nothing existed purely for decoration.

“Maggie gave me real creative control,” she says. “That trust allowed me to design something that actually reflects my work instead of just decorating a product.”

Rather than translating tattoo culture for a beauty audience, the collaboration allowed it to remain precise, tactile, and artist-led.

Collaboration as Creative Expansion

This isn’t the first tattoo-inspired blend to come out of the brand. Blend Bunny has established a pattern of artist-led collaborations rooted in trust and creative ownership.

The brand previously explored darker, more conceptual territory through a collaboration with Mei Pang, whose Rotten collection pushed mood, storytelling, and visual tension into the brand’s catalog. Rather than treating collaborations as limited-edition marketing moments, Jones has consistently framed them as creative exchanges, giving artists real ownership over the final product.

The Chanel Diabla collaboration builds directly on that foundation, extending the same philosophy into tattoo culture.

A Female Entrepreneur Who Didn’t Wait for Permission

Blend Bunny’s growth has been steady rather than explosive, guided by experience, instinct, and consistency.

From a single palette designed to support a working artist’s technique to a nationally recognized brand collaborating with tattoo artists and stocked by both prestige and professional beauty retailers, the expansion came without shortcuts.

The Blend Bunny x Chanel Diabla release reflects that journey. A tattoo-first project led by a respected tattoo artist, supported by a female entrepreneur who understood when to step back and let another artist lead.

In a moment when creativity often feels overshadowed by noise, it’s a reminder that art still matters. And that whether it’s inked into skin or blended onto lids, self-expression remains one of the most powerful ways to claim space.