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Hashtags for makeup artists: tags that get you booked

October 7, 2026

What are the best hashtags for a makeup artist? The ones a person who could actually book you is browsing: your city joined to makeup artist or MUA, the service in the words clients use for it (bridal makeup, soft glam, prom makeup), the look shown in the photo, and one tag of your own. Giant tags like #makeup and #mua are full of brands, beauty creators and artists from every country, and the people scrolling them mostly want product ideas, not a booking. Instagram now allows five tags on a post, so every one of them has to point at a future client or a useful contact. This guide shows how to build a pool of makeup artist hashtags, which five to use on each kind of post, and how to check each month which tags bring enquiries.

Why makeup artist hashtags work differently

A makeup artist sells a service in person, usually for one day that matters a lot to the client. That shapes what a good tag looks like:

• Location decides the booking. A bride in Manchester will not fly in an artist from Lisbon for a trial. #manchestermua with a few new posts a day is browsed by people who can hire you. #makeupartist is browsed by other makeup artists.
• Clients search the occasion first. They think “wedding”, “prom”, “photoshoot”, and only then the look. Occasion tags reach people with a date in the diary.
• Your feed is your portfolio. A bride comparing three artists is scrolling your grid as a CV. The right tag is how she arrives there.
• Two audiences watch your work. Clients book you. Photographers, stylists, salons and other artists send you work. They browse different tags, so a good pool serves both on purpose.

If you want the general method first (broad, mid and niche tags, with a worked example), best hashtags for Instagram covers it. This article applies it to makeup.

The five kinds of makeup artist hashtags

Every artist, from a freelancer with a train case to a bridal team of six, needs the same five kinds of tag. What changes from post to post is the mix.

Local tags tell people you can reach them. Service and occasion tags reach clients who already have an event. Look tags catch the person saving inspiration before they choose an artist. Community tags put you in front of photographers and other artists, which brings collaborations and overflow bookings more than direct clients. Your own tag gathers your work in one place, and brides can use it when they post their wedding photos.

Five tags is the hard limit. As of October 2026, Instagram’s help centre says: “You can use up to 5 tags on a post. If you include more than 5 tags on a single photo/video, your comment won’t post.” So keep a pool of 20 to 30 checked tags and pick five for each post. The thirty-tag block many artists still paste under every face chart no longer works at all. How many hashtags on Instagram explains the limit in full.

How to build your hashtag pool

You need the Instagram app, your service list and a notes file. Plan on about an hour the first time.

1. Write down who you want to book you. One sentence. “Brides within an hour of Leeds who want a natural look that lasts all day.” “Fashion photographers in Berlin who need an editorial artist on short notice.”
2. List every place name your clients use. City, region, the nearby towns you travel to, and wedding venues or areas known for weddings. Join each to artist words: mua, makeupartist, bridalmakeup, makeup.
3. Open each candidate tag in the app. Read the recent posts. Are they makeup work from your area? Or is the tag mostly a brand, a shop, or a city with the same name on another continent? Drop the ones that mean something else.
4. Check how busy each tag is. A tag with two posts this year has nobody watching it. A tag with new posts every minute buries yours within the hour. Keep the ones with steady recent activity you could stand out in.
5. Turn enquiries into look tags. Read your booking messages and trial notes. The phrases clients repeat (“soft glam”, “glowy skin”, “something that photographs well”) are your look tags.
6. Find your specialism’s community. Bridal, editorial, special effects, theatrical and mature skin each have tags where specialists gather. One of these on a strong piece reaches people who refer work outside their own skill.
7. Look at what busy artists near you tag. Treat their tags as candidates. Open and check each one yourself before it joins your pool.
8. Create your own tag and put it on every post, your business card and your booking confirmation, so clients use it when they share their photos.
9. Save the pool in groups, one group per kind of tag, so picking five per post is a quick choice across groups.

If you are not sure how to search a tag or read its page, how to search hashtags on Instagram covers the phone and the web.

Five tags for each kind of makeup post

A bridal trial, an editorial shoot and a lesson announcement are found by different people. One fixed block of tags under every post wastes most of them.

A worked example for a bridal look near Leeds: #leedsbridalmakeup, #yorkshirewedding, #softglam, #bridalmakeup, #makeupbyamira. Two local, one occasion, one look, one of your own. Every tag in it is browsed by someone who might book that look from somebody nearby, or who is planning a wedding in that area.

Rotate within each group. With eight look tags in the pool and one per post, you are not repeating the same five every week, and each tag gets a fair trial on several posts before you judge it.

Check the photo matches the tag. Somebody tapping #nomakeupmakeup and landing on full cut-crease glam will not stop on your grid again.

Freelancers, bridal teams and artists who teach

The method stays the same; the weighting shifts.

• A freelancer covering a region keeps more local tags than anyone else, one per town or area they travel to, and rotates them so each area sees regular work.
• A bridal team posts under a team tag and each artist’s own tag. A bride may book the team but ask for a particular artist, and the personal tag lets her find that artist’s work.
• An artist who teaches runs a separate small group of lesson tags (city plus “makeup class”, “makeup lesson”, “makeup course”) and keeps them off bridal posts, since a student and a bride are not looking for the same thing.
• An editorial or SFX artist leans on community tags and tags of the photographers and studios they work with, since most work comes through other professionals.

Common mistakes with makeup artist hashtags

• Spending the five on giant tags. #makeup, #beauty and #mua are crowded with brands and creators, and the people scrolling them are rarely booking anyone.
• Tagging the products instead of the work. Brand tags reach the brand’s fans, who want the product, not you. One is fine on a post that is truly about a product. A bridal post is not.
• Copying another artist’s block. It fits their city and their clients. Use it as a list of candidates and check each tag.
• Occasion tags out of season. Prom tags in November reach nobody planning a prom. Rotate occasion tags with the calendar.
• Never checking again. Tags go quiet, a look goes out of fashion, and a local tag can be taken over by a shop or a spam account.
• Unreadable joined words. Capitalise each word in long tags (#LeedsBridalMakeup) so they read clearly for people and screen readers.

How to tell which tags bring enquiries

Instagram shows this on a professional (business or creator) account. Open a post, tap View insights, and look at how people found it. Then once a month:

1. List your last 15 to 20 posts and the tag groups each one used.
2. Note which posts reached people who do not follow you, and which earned saves, profile visits, messages or bookings.
3. Keep the groups that keep turning up on the posts that did well. Replace tags that never do.
4. Reopen your local tags and check they are still active and still about makeup.

Judge a tag by the enquiries it brings. One bride from your own county is worth more than a thousand likes from strangers who will never book. A small local tag that brings two trial requests a month is doing its job.

When the manual way is enough

For a solo artist in one city, the routine above is all you need. It is free, it takes an hour to set up and a short check each month, and nobody knows your clients’ words better than you do.

It stops being enough when:

• you cover several cities or regions, each with its own local tags;
• you run a team, or manage Instagram for a salon or beauty business;
• you want to compare dozens of candidate tags at once instead of opening each page;
• you want to see which local accounts keep posting under your area’s wedding and makeup tags, to find photographers, planners or creators to work with (see how to find influencers on Instagram);
• you want the research written down so you can repeat it next season.

A faster way to plan the research

The slow part is deciding what to look at: which tags, how far back, and what to compare. Hashtag Ninja takes that as a sentence. You write something like “hashtags a bridal makeup artist in Leeds should use to reach brides planning a natural look”, and the free planner returns a research plan: the tags to look at, how many posts per tag, over what window, and the assumptions it made. You can correct an assumption, such as the wrong area, before relying on it. Planning needs no account, and the makeup page also lists 27 hand-picked makeup tags to choose your five from.

Running the plan, meaning collecting the posts and returning a written report and a CSV, is open to anyone signed in, on the 500 free rows an account gets every 30 days. The pricing page says what more rows will cost and what state buying them is in. The report answers the questions the monthly check above asks by hand: how many posts a day each tag carries, the typical and top engagement, which accounts post most under each tag, which tags appear together, and when posts go up.

A short checklist

• One sentence for the client you want to book you.
• A pool of 20 to 30 checked tags in five groups: local, service, look, community, your own.
• Five per post, chosen for that post.
• A different mix for bridal, editorial, everyday glam, lessons and offers.
• Every tag opened and read before you use it.
• A monthly look at insights, keeping the tags that bring enquiries.

Start with your city and your clients’ own words. That alone puts you ahead of every artist pasting the same thirty giant tags under every look.

Plan your makeup hashtags →