Albert Kurniawan Has Checked His Bucketlist as a Makeup artist—Now He’s Mastering the Business of Beauty

Albert Kurniawan is enamored of the beauty of the Philippines.

“My friends know how much I love the Philippines and how much I wanted to move here,” he begins. The Indonesian celebrity makeup artist, who studied interior design and fashion in Singapore, was about to move to Paris to further his studies in fashion merchandising. But despite his father’s objections, he moved to the Philippines with the help of friends.

“I just brought PHP5,000 with me. That was 2008,” he recalls. With only a small amount of money in his pocket, Kurniawan quickly realized that pursuing interior design in the Philippines would not be possible. “I cannot practice interior design. You need to take the [board] exam here and be licensed.”

Kim Santos

Opening a fashion label was not an option either. After joining Bali Fashion Week and Bangkok Fashion Week after his graduation in Singapore, he learned that launching a collection required significant capital. “And even when you have a collection, it’s not necessary to have income right away,” he continues.

With interior design and fashion temporarily out of reach, it was his friends who encouraged him to pursue something else he also loved—makeup. The idea came from doing simple makeup for his friends during graduation. His sister had attended makeup artistry school, and whenever she needed help with her face charts, Kurniawan would help her. “But I never thought that I would do it professionally,” he says.

Thus, he built his first makeup kit using the PHP5,000 he had during a shopping trip to Landmark. His first project? Doing hair and makeup for 18 girls, earning only PHP1,800 pesos or just PHP100 per person. 

Still, it did not dampen Kurniawan’s confidence to keep going. From that first gig, friends who were working at GMA Network gave him opportunities as a makeup artist, introducing him to the country’s celebrity scene.

Albert Kurniawan’s break into Philippine beauty

Kim Santos

Although his friends gave him the opportunity to begin working as a makeup artist, Kurniawan admits the transition was not exactly smooth. While he says he looked Filipino, his Indonesian accent and limited Tagalog gave it away that he is not from the Philippines.

So he studied the language diligently, and today, evident in his interview with Allure Philippines, he converses in fluent Tagalog. But language was only one of the things he had to learn. He also had to find a way to be accepted within the local makeup industry.

“At first, nobody thought I was someone they needed to pay attention to, until my first celebrity client, Heart Evangelista,” he says. That changed everything. He recalls one experience while doing makeup in the dressing room of the now-defunct GMA Sunday variety show, SOP. “I remember during that time, one makeup artist said, ‘Ah, Indonesian ka pala. Ang liit-liit nga ng industry namin dito. Bakit ka pumunta dito? Kami nga nahihirapan, nag-aaway-away sa kliyente, tapos dagdag ka pa?’” Kurniawan was stunned. “I went straight to the banyo and cried,” he says.

“It didn’t stop me. I used that to motivate myself. Instead of focusing only on the clients I was working with, I tried to find ways to be accepted in the industry. I knew that I would not last if only clients requested me while the rest of the people in the industry did not accept me.” So Kurniawan made it a personal mission to earn that acceptance.

“I don’t take it as an issue because I think it’s part of the process. Now, when I look back, those challenges are what made me a stronger person today,” he explains.

Hitting every career goal and the burnout that followed

Kim Santos

After working with early muses such as Heart Evangelista and Kim Chiu, he created a bucket list of simple goals he wanted to achieve as a makeup artist. Setting goals to motivate himself and work harder, he says, was something he learned from his Chinese father.

“I just wanted to have eight brides in a month. Second, I wished to have four celebrity clients. I wished to do one beauty commercial. And then, I wished to do cover shoots.” By 2016, he says he had checked off every item on his list. “Instead of eight brides, there was one December when I had 37 brides. Instead of four celebrities, I had a lot.” As he counts the milestones, Kurniawan still sounds surprised. “And then, cover shoots—instead of one, there was one specific year when, from January till December, I did the cover of almost every magazine. In one month alone, I had 13 covers,” he says.

With his beauty bucket list accomplished, however, Kurniawan began to feel pressure about what came next. “I realized that I had achieved more than what I thought I would achieve. So I asked myself, ‘Wait lang, what’s next for me?’” He admits the uncertainty took a toll on his mental health. “I had my first experience with anxiety and depression during that time because I really didn’t know what was next for me,” he adds.

He also became increasingly aware of how quickly the makeup industry evolves. “Every day, every month, every season, there’s always a new makeup artist. New talent will be born. I was pressured by that idea.” 

Wanting to take his mind off work, for the first time in a long while, he took a month-long vacation in Europe.

The Milan encounter that sparked the idea for Teviant

Kim Santos

But it seems destiny had another plan. 

While exploring Milan, Kurniawan wandered into a small trattoria that, in his words, was “not even touristy in the first place,” simply to enjoy a pizza. “And then all of a sudden, behind me, there was a voice. A woman said to me, ‘Hey, are you Albert?’ So I was shocked.” The woman turned out to be a familiar face, a lead artist and part of the research and development team of an international makeup brand in the Philippines whom he met a couple of times before.

As they caught up, Kurniawan mentioned that he had left his role as a lead artist for a makeup brand. His friend shared joining a factory that produced beauty products, and casually asked, “Hey, why don’t you create your own makeup brand? This is going to be the trend.” This was the time when Hollywood celebrities and makeup artists were starting to launch their own product lines. “So when I got back to the hotel, that’s when I realized, baka ito na yung sign. Baka ito na yung hinihingi ko, yung dinadasal ko from Lord, what’s next for me? Ito na talaga,” he says with a smile. 

What was supposed to be a vacation suddenly became a turning point. “When I flew back to the Philippines, that’s when I started studying the capacity of Filipinos to buy makeup and what the trends were.”

He was already gearing up to launch his own makeup brand in the Philippines: Teviant.

Inside Teviant’s Filipina-first formulas

Kim Santos

For Kurniawan, there was never any question that the Philippines should be the birthplace of Teviant. “I moved to the Philippines as an Indonesian, not knowing the language, but I grew to be somebody who loved the language, who loved the culture. And of course, I created a career here. The Philippines already gave me so much.”

“So it was not a question whether I would launch it in Indonesia or Singapore. Of course, I wanted to launch it here to give something in return to the Philippine beauty community. I want to make the Filipinos proud also. Hopefully, Teviant will continue to be recognized as a Philippine makeup brand,” he continues.

In a market where beauty brands continue to mushroom, Kurniawan says he launched Teviant in 2019 to address a gap in the local scene, a brand designed with Filipinas in mind rather than one driven solely by trends. “I understand and I believe here in the Philippines, people love to go with the trendy one. Like for lips, for example, they’re more into brown terracotta kind of color. But in Teviant, we give more variety of color: more pinks, more nudes, and bolder colors. Because Teviant women are not afraid to express how they feel deep inside.”

Kim Santos

He further describes who the “Teviant woman” is. “The Teviant women, they’re very goal-oriented and successful. But of course, they’re also very busy. They have little time for themselves. So of course, through our products also, we want them to be able to achieve or to do a good makeup with a little less time. But yet, the result is still as if a makeup artist touched their face. So that’s why in Teviant, we promise in our pigments, in our quality, and also at the same time, the user-friendly way of doing it or applying it by yourself.”

Kurniawan means business when discussing product development. “Seventy-five percent of our production is made in Italy because I believe Italy is known for manufacturing products for some of the world’s top beauty brands.” He is also very proud of the rigorous testing process for Teviant. “There’s a stability test, which takes nine to 12 weeks, depending on the formulation. Then there’s a compatibility test, which takes at least three months. We also test pigmentation, texture, blendability, formula consistency, everything. At Teviant, we test products at least one year before launch. Right now, I’m already testing products for the third quarter of 2027.”

Today, Teviant is available in department stores across the country and online through its website, which offers international shipping. The brand also has a satellite warehouse in Singapore, and Kurniawan reveals that they have plans to expand Teviant globally very soon.

Still seeing the beauty of the Philippines

Kim Santos

Nearly two decades after calling the Philippines his home, and building a successful career both as a makeup artist and a beauty brand founder,  he believes there is still so much to love about the country, even at a time when some Filipinos themselves feel disillusioned.

While many, including some of his friends, believe that success is nearly impossible to achieve in our homeland, and that life abroad offers better opportunities, Kurniawan wants his story to serve as a testament that success is still possible here.

“If you really love what you do, if you really believe in what you’re doing, no matter where you are, no matter what is happening in the country, nothing can stop you from doing an excellent job as long as you give your 100 percent, or more, to what you do.”

Art direction by Mikiyo Ricamora. Photography by Kim Santos. Styling by Jones Palteng.