Iris X: The Grill Designer and Full-Time Carer Finding Empowerment in Beauty
*This article was originally published in Beautystack Magazine Issue 1*
“My sole purpose is my job,” says Iris X, her South London voice both spiky and familiar. “When people come and collect their teeth, the smile on their face is just amazing.”
The 22 year old bespoke jeweller and grills maker has just launched her own company, Drip Service, creating custom metal teeth and jeweled accessories from her London base. Despite being “completely self-taught”, this beauty pro is on a mission to shake up the grills scene. Her objective? To champion other women in the industry, and provide a path for the lost souls she sees reflected in her younger self.
“I’m a creative, but being a creative isn’t always the most sustainable way to live,” she says. “Finding jewellery and grill design really gave me that self-sustainability, it allowed me to start a career. I realised that I could carve out my own path in life and I didn’t feel lost anymore.”
Iris was introduced to grill design by a former partner. After turning her hand to painting, designing, fashion and jewellery making, she’d finally found the craft that would be hers; her vehicle to a creative, self-directed career.
“I started to watch what he did; I did research online; watched a lot of YouTube videos and just kept practicing to get to the position I’m in now,” she says. “It’s not a cheap thing to start, because you’ve got to get all the equipment, but I just knew that this was going to be my craft.”
With Drip Service, Iris wants to provide that olive branch to other women and girls who feel trapped in a similar position - unsure how to make their creative mark on the world and make money at the same time. Through mentorship and training, she wants to reach other young creatives unable to overcome elitist, economic or sociopolitical barriers, to profit from their own creativity and skill.
“There’s not many women in the grills industry in London,” she says. “Drip Service is a company by ladies for ladies, and my main focus will be jewellery and grills for women. I really want to pass on my skills to give other people a platform and opportunity; I was so stuck for so long and I needed something to help me. I want to be that person I was looking for myself. I want to give myself and other ladies the opportunity to make money and build a career for themselves.”
As well as running her own business, Iris is also a full-time carer for her mum, who struggles with mental ill-health.
“It’s a difficult job to look after someone,” she says. “Especially when you’re dealing with mental illnesses, life can be very unpredictable. It’s a juggle, but I’m extremely determined to get where I want to be and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Her mum is someone she credits for instilling in her a sense of individuality and perseverance. She references her fondly as “the biggest influence” on her personal style - from beauty to fashion and a nostalgia for punk culture and the Victorian gothic.
“My mum set me up to sit completely outside the lines,” she says. “How I dress now is exactly how she used to dress me when I was younger. It’s not like I went through a stage thinking I wanted to look this way or be trendy, this is my normality. A lot of people ask me what my mum thinks of my tattoos, which is so funny because my mum took me to get all my tattoos done. At the age of six or seven, I was getting my mum to dress me up as a punk with tartan skirts, and we’d make dresses out of tartan fabric we had.”
Her beauty style is just as distinctive - a nod to the punk culture she was obsessed with as a child, combined with “Amy Winehouse thick black liner”, thin brows and a bold red lip.
“I’m one of those people who doesn’t use stuff for what it’s there for, even down to makeup,” she says. “I use Rimmel eyebrow pencil for my brown liner because I think it sticks better, and for my eyebrows, I use the Calvin Klein gel liner in Violet Indigo because it’s the perfect shade.”
Beauty treatments aren’t always an option when your downtime is limited, running a business whilst caring for a parent is no easy feat, but there’s one treatment Iris makes time for.
“I will always make sure that my nails are completely finessed. I have my local nail shop, Beyond Nails in Greenwich, which I’ve been going to for years. Any time I leave them I feel like I’m cheating,” she says. “I also have a nail artist who’s a good friend of mine – Natasha Blake who owns Fuego Nails, she’s amazing and she does a lot of my nail art designs. I also have one artist in particular who has been tattooing me for years, she’s done all my big pieces. Her name is AJ and she works from a shop called Ascendence Tattoos in Hayes – she was the first tattoo artist I went to and she’ll be the last.”
In many ways, Iris X is the personification of the ways in which beauty can transform someone’s life - from shaping her personal style and helping to define her sense of self, to providing economic empowerment to a once lost London teen. Flexibility in her job, has allowed her to take care of her mother - someone who has had a profound influence on her desire to challenge the status quo, in style and industry. Now, the beauty industry is facilitating her move to inspire and educate others, to guide them along the same path of self-fulfillment that she found through grill design.
“My next move will be setting up my own studio,” she says. “Within the grills industry, there needs to be a really big game-changer soon - there needs to be a storm somewhere. I have a little feeling in my gut that that could be me, and I can’t wait.”