PUBLISHED ONAugust 14, 2020 10:51 AM
Why I Do What I Do is an original AsiaOne series where we showcase people with uncommon professions and what it takes to get there.
Meeting our favourite celebrity might be a one in a million chance for most of us, but for Ayu Paramitha, she gets to brush their hair and fix their makeup every day – well their wax figures at least.
The 23-year-old Indonesian has been working at Madame Tussauds Singapore as a wax maintenance artist for one and a half years.
So what exactly does a wax maintenance artist do?
Contrary to what people might think, the job involves painting the skin tone or makeup on the wax figure, as well as fixing the hair and clothes.
And this is no easy feat, as everything has to be done as accurately as possible. On top of actually painting on wax itself, making the wax figures look as close as possible to their real-life counterpart is a challenge that Ayu faces.
According to her, even fixing Jay Chou's hairstyle took her around three to four hours to complete. Thankfully though, there is a cheat sheet of sorts – a maintenance file that contains all the information Ayu needs to work on a celebrity.
There are perks to the job too, such as "meeting" her idol (not Jay) on a daily basis.
"When I see him, he looks a 100 per cent life-like. It's like I'm literally seeing him in person. He's one of my favourite [celebrities] and I will definitely maintain him well," gushes Ayu.
Watch the video to find out who her favourite star is, what Ayu does and how you can even be a wax maintenance artist just like her.
editor@asiaone.com