Benjamin Oscar Tinao
Hair/Makeup Artist, Creative Director, Designer
Beauty is His Business
By Kiki Tan
PUBLISHED: JANUARY 2010
PHOTOS COURTESY OF BENCH TINAO
KNOWN FOR ARTISTRY. Bench Tinao believes that “we are known for our creativity and artistry. That’s probably why the foundations of this industry are mostly the designers and makeup artists who belong to our community.
Yes, GLBTQIAs have a competitive advantage entering the industry.
“We are known for our creativity and artistry. That’s probably why the foundations of this industry are mostly the designers and makeup artists who belong to our community,” says Benjamin Oscar Tinao, a.k.a. Bench, hair/makeup artist, creative director, and fashion designer.
He is talking about the fashion industry, of course, where, even at 23, he is already finding a way to make his presence known.
LOVE OF BEAUTY
For Bench, “one way of expressing myself is doing makeup and designing clothes.”
With makeup, “my focus and ultimate goal with makeup is to enhance someone’s face in a way they have never seen before. My philosophy toward makeup is to let it come out of you as opposed to me putting it on to you,” he says. “I like makeup that makes sense. I don’t like people to feel like they have a mask on, or that they look like a clown.”
Funny enough, the story of Bench’s entry into the field was, well, typical.
“When I was in college, I used to secretly borrow my sisters’ and my Mom’s makeup, and practiced putting it on my best friend and also on myself. This was a big secret back then because I’m the youngest and the only boy in the family – imagine what they’d have thought if they found out what I was doing,” he says.
It helped, too, that “my Mom also worked as a dealer of cosmetic products on the side. So when she and my sisters talked about tips on putting makeup, I secretly listened and learned from them,” Bench says. “Now I have a bigger makeup kit than my mom.”
Interestingly, most of Bench’s training was self-taught. “What I had going for me was my background in drawing. I used to tie down my model friends and practiced on them. They had no choice neither did their dolls.”
Bench admits being “lucky enough,” nonetheless, “to have friends/idols who are makeup artists and had experience working in TV, doing beauty makeup. They’d always give me tips on makeup. I think that the best training really is practice.”
Thus far, Bench has done freelance projects, from beauty editorial, testing with photographers, and fashion layouts with models.
CAPTURING BEAUTY
Bench came out to his family in 2007. “I was the typical closet queen – I never had a chance to tell my family (I’m gay) because I lived independently and far away from home, (with) my family is in Bataan and me in Laguna. They have no idea that I’ve been in relationships many times, been hurt and in love at the same time. Sometimes I go home to Bataan with my boyfriend and introduce him to my family as my best friend so that they’d let him sleep with me in my room,” he recalls. “I had no choice but to finally admit it when one of my suitors, a doctor from Batangas who got irate when I dumped him, called up my parents to tell them about my secret life. I had no choice but to tell them the truth that I’m gay and explain why this guy was doing that to me."
Not that THAT development was all bad - in a manner of speaking.
" The good thing about what happened was that it gave me the chance to admit to my family who I really am and what I feel toward the same sex,” Bench says.
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