Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Cynthia, I decided I liked looking like a clown after all. <rimshot> But
seriously, folks . . .

In all seriousness, after experimenting with a few different lipstick
shades (I was heavy into the "neutral" look in the late 80s--it was very
hot at the time and was probably just lovely on other women, but it made
me resemble a corpse), I decided that vivid red lipstick went well with my
coloring (very pale skin and very dark hair). It created a nice contrast.
And it seems to match my personality, or rather, I feel as though it does.
So red lipstick and black mascara and not much other makeup--that's *my*
signature look, as Linda alludes to above.
  

    
Two things about "signature looks." One of them will date you terribly
and the other, which will change every so slightly with technology and
technique, will make you look au courant without being trendy.

The signature look: Have you ever seen a woman with Farrah wings and
three layers of beige, brown and white eyemakeup like the 70s? She
probably decided that that's when she looked her best and has stayed
that way. I call it being "permaplaqued in time." You could see it with
women who grew up in the 50s with their blue eyeshadow and their
teased-up beehives. Or the woman who clung to her Dorothy hamill wedge?
(Even Hamill doesn't wear her hair like that any more).

Point is: These women have tried to stop time. Their signature look
never evolved.

To develop and "look" for yourself, doesn't mean that it will remain
static. I decided a long time ago that my eyes were the best feature on
my face, so my hairdresser and I invented hair styles that would
emphasize my eyes. My eye makeup does that, too. I happen to like my
eyes lined all the way around, whether it is in style or not, so you
will always see me with a lot of mascara on and probabyl dark gray or
brown-black all the way around my eyes, sometimes heavier than others;
sometimes smudgy in the corner, whatever. Depending upon a couple of
things: techniques I learn from the makeup artists who work on me or
what I've seen in magazines and wanted to try.

I also love red lipstick and if you talk to a makeup artist, it seems
that if your eyes are ephasized, your lips aren't. Well, I feel naked
in beige lipstick and naked without my thick eyelashes, so what's a
girl to do: My signature look then is dark lips AND dark eyes and I
don't care what the current fashion is. It's MY style.

I got there with a lot of experimentation and education of my eye. For
education's sake (aquainting myself with new products, new colors and
new techniques for my job), I have painted up occasionally in front of
my m irror and worn the look around the house. Things that are absolute
no-nos for me are: gray liner which I don't think works on a brunette;
pink lipstick which makes me look like Barbie (or rather, I FEEL like
Barbie); orange red lipstick which is clownish on me while clear reds
and dark reds aren't (again, my own emotional feelings here); heavy
foundation which finds its ways into the developing cracks and crevaces
on my face; the no-makeup look which makes me look deceased.

Other people's eyes and emotions are different. One woman at work wore
a lot of makeup to look like she had none on. Imagine that? Well,
there is a huge market out there for women who want to look "finished
but not done," ie. like they are well-groomed and polished, but not
madeup looking. For them, the neutral palatte is terrific -- blushers
in brownish/pink tones; a quick swirl of brown mascara and no liner on
the eyes; lipsticks that are more like tinted glosses or even just
using a lip-toned lip liner on the lips with clear gloss. Anything that
will add a little punch to the face without making it look like
Puncinella. It's a really pretty clean look, outdoorsy, very Ralph
Laurenish. The message is: good grooming is equated with a clean,
healthy look. For the woman who likes traditional sports clothes, great
jeans, a white man-tailored shirt, a beautifully-cut jacket and
highly-polished boots (a look made very popular by Michael Kors this
seasn), then a neutral face is appropriate (although I love to see a
neutral face with a great red lip).

Think about the signature looks of movie stars:

Cher -- Goth girl. colorful wigs. heavily-made up eyes (last year, she
was wearing red shadow). a neutral or brownish lip. She knows what
looks good on her and she goes for it: emphasizing her huge,
heavy-lidded, deep-set eyes.

Nicole Kidman: Red lips. Always. her coloring is so delicious and her
hair is so "there," she needs to point up her makeup else she woud be
lost in all that red-gold hair. So, she does black mascara and
ephasizes her brows which are very pale and she wears deep red or
burgundy lipstick. 

Elizabeth Taylor: It didn't matter that it wasn't the 50s or 60s any
more, Taylor always knew that the money was in her eyes and she made
them up heavily to emphasize the deep lavender/blue color and her
thick, double lashes. You'll notice that now that she's almost 70,
she's calmed it down quite a bit.

Katharine Hepburn: Mrs. Natural. She let her freckles show through;
piled her hair up on top of her head and didn't give a damn what she
looked like. SHE was Kate Hepburn. Her look never changed. Nor did we
ever expect it to. It would have been gilding the lily. Her beauty had
an odd Down East integrity of a pioneering spirit that was not
dependent on cosmetics or artifice.

Jean Harlow: Her eyebrows were flea circus tightropes; her skin was
alabaster (or so it seemed in high-contrast black and white
Panchromatic film) and her hair was like spun sugar. The look developed
for her by the studio was comic vamp. The Hays office decreed that too
much skin showed in movies and that costumers had to cover their stars
up. So: they put them in revealing satin dresses with no underwear
(that was more provocative in the long run than nude decollatage) and
cut the close down to the crack in the rear in back. 
It was the Depression times and films were great escapiest fare for
people who had to cash in their pop bottles to get the nickle it cost
to go to the movies. But the studios gave people fantasy: perfection.
Goddesses who were not marble but looked like marble. Hence: the
airbrushed perfection of Harlow's face, hair and body. At least, on
screen. In the 30s, it was Harlow, Mae West (which was pretty  much
parody anyhow considering that she was int her late 30s when she began
acting in films), Dietrich and Carol Lombard. All of them were
polished, living goddesses. 
  

    
Oops, didn't want to confuse anyone about the gray eyeliner thing. I'm
talking the difference between charcoal gray which is softer than
black and a black substitute which I do use; and a lighter gray with
lavender tones which I don't.
  

    

Speaking of signature looks, let's not forget Tammy Faye!

In the book, Cynthia offers several questionnaires, designed to determine
wher you are a Makeup Phobe, a Diva in Training, Trapped in a Cosmetic
Time Warp, a Makeup Addict or a Makeup Diva.  These are fun, while at the
same time, revealing, and worth the price of the book.

In the Color section of the chapter on Makeup is a Color Attitude survery
that can help you decide what colors are right for you, something that's
difficult to do on paper, but I think the books succeeds.

One of the things that I thought was interesting was your statement about
Beauty Makeovers and whether or not they work, Cynthia.  I love makeovers,
and I think they are big fun, either on myself or watching someone else be
made over.  You said that there were even some follow-ups to makeovers,
where the makeover subjects were studied over a period of time to see if
they adopted any of the suggestions made for them, and if so, if they
continued to wear the new style.

Do makeovers work?  If they don't, why not?
  

    
Psychologically, the words "make over" implies that there is something
wrong with you to begin with. I would prefer: "make with's" because if
you want to change your look, you have to work with the person who is
attemtping to modernize your look and tell them:
1) What you life is about
2) How adept you are with brushes -- both makeup and hair
3) How much time and money you have to spend
4) How you feel about yourself.

It's important for a makeup artist whose chair you're sitting in to
have a clue as to the real you. 

Your perception when you look in the mirror is not their's. They may
put the new fall "look" on you and think you're fab and you're
thinking: They're trying to sell me product because they're on
commission or they just don't have a clue or they're looking at me
through a lens I can't relate to.

Most people who turn themselves over lock stock and barrel to stylists
and makeup and hair people are very insecure and I think, too
trusting. I once was at a makeover for Tammy Faye, speaking of which,
and the woman wanted to take off her eyelashes. I mean, take off her
eyelashes????? They ARE Tammy Faye. Who, incidentally, pitched a bitch.
She is made over all the time and none of it sticks. She likes the way
she looks. She told Coreen Cordova, the makeup artist who helped me
with some of the book: "I always wanted to look like a kewpie doll."
Period. End of story.
  

    

There is A LOT more in the book about makeup, but I'd like to move on to
the section on Hair for now.

You describe the hair you were born with versus your best friend's hair
and how very different they both were.  You then go on to say that the
only time you had the thick, luxuriant hair you longed for was in the
mid-60's when hair pieces were in vogue.  

I just wanted to say that applies to me, too!  In about 1966 I started
wearing a fall with a rat underneath it give it some height, and an
elastic fabric headband to cover the line of demarcation.  I bought it at,
of all places, White Front, a Zody's/Akron/Gemco precurser, kind of like
Target is today, and it was a perfect match.  Later, in 1972, I wore a wig
that made me look exactly like Maria Schneider in Last Tango in Paris.

I loved it, and wish that hair pieces would make a come-back.  Before we
get into hair and what to do about it - would you like to speculate on why
hairpieces went away and whether we can expect to see them back again?
  

    
Linda: Hair pieces ARE back.

All you have to do is walk into any mall (even the S.F. Center where
Nordy's is downtown, and thre are these kiosks with mini-falls and
pieces attached to alligator combs that just clip onto the back of your
head. Before I got my hair cut, I had about three or four of them in
varying lengths. I love them, are you kidding?

When I moved to San Francisco, I got rid of a lot of things and one of
them was a wig box full of fake hair. Of course, it was my former
color, my natural-before-gray-turned-me-into-a-sort-of-blonde, shade of
brunette. But I had wiglets, falls, pieces, braids, you name it. And I
threw the all away!

Now, I've got bags of wigs and fake hair tucked into my product
closet, just in case I ever let my hair grow out enough to attach them
to something.
  

    

I am so tempted...
  

    
E-mail from Carol:

I often get an all over red tone to my facial skin and it bothers me. 
Light makeup seems to cover it pretty well but there are times I do not
want to wear face makeup and would like some alternatives.

Any suggestions,

Carol
  

    
hey cyn, 

what's the deal with concealer? i have good skin and see no reason to
cover it up with foundation, but i have dark circles under my eyes and
they seem especially prominent in photographs. What can a poor girl do?
  

    

I think that Cynthia is traveling on a book promotion thing, so we may
have to wait until tomorrow for our answers!
  

    
E-mail from Megan Dietz:

makeup has always been a big point of contention in my family because every 
female on my mom's side sells mary kay ... my grandma even had a pink 
cadillac for a while! so as soon as i was old enough, they were kidnapping 
me for makeover classes and dousing me in brown eyeshadow and mauve 
lipstick. ew!

i have dark brown hair, pale freckly skin and big brown eyes, so in addition 
to the trauma of having 20 pounds of goo slathered on my face against my 
will and appearing to be 30 when i was only 15, i also looked dead ... 
heinous ... no matter how great all my mary kay aunties said i looked. so i 
stayed away from makeup, but i was always slightly miffed about it. like 
there was this superfun thing that all the girls got to do that i didnt 
because mary kay ruined it for me. i actually felt androgynous, not like a 
girl at all, though i always wanted to be.

it wasnt until i was about 21, out of college and working retail with a very 
wonderful, very girly girl named michelle, that i found my girly self. she 
was the first person to encourage me to wear what i wanted ... and what i 
wanted was orange eyeshadow and periwinkle lipstick and white eyeliner (with 
psychedelic housecoats and big platform shoes). and somehow, the weird stuff 
i picked always seemed to look great. i guess i had good instincts all those 
years ... but since mary kay didnt produce those colors (and i was 
officially verboten to buy any other brand) i just backed off.

for years now i have been addicted to the bizarre urban decay and hard candy 
colors ... glitter and irridescence ... peacock colors. and of course, the 
much discussed classic red lipstick look. my mary kay relatives have given 
up on me. they just take one look my ultraviolet blue-white eyeliner and 
cluck their tongues. and it's awesome. makes me feel like supergirl ... to 
be able to duck into the ladies room as a mild-mannered software developer 
and come out as a total hottie.

my questions are these ...
--what is the next frontier for a girl who likes to push the makeup 
envelope?
--why is it that bright colors like turquoise look great as eyeliner but 
crappy as eyeshadow?
--i want thin, archy eyebrows like rachel weisz in "the mummy" ... but i am 
afraid. how does one prepare to do this to oneself? is there a technique for 
sketching out the shape you want or should i grab a picture and see a 
professional?

thanks by the way. this is a fun discussion.
  

    
Oooh, I love those Hard Candy and Urban Decay colors too, though my boring
job and life limits my use to special occasions and toenails.  Eagerly
awaiting Cyn's response.
  

    

Me, too.  I know she said she had to go to New York and was leaving Sunday
and back on Tuesday, so I'm hoping she'll be here sometime today.

Mega, I am so impressed with the signature look you've developed for
yourself.  I love those colors!
  

    

tftp jessica
  

    
Hello all, I am back from New York where I was a panelist on at a
smiel mini-conference with Meredith Vieiera, Dr Jeffrey Golub-Evans a
cosmetic dentist and a "smile psychologist" from Berkeley named Dacher
Keltner (whose cousin is the fabulous rock drummer, Jim Keltner).
Lovely time. They put me up at the Giraffe on Park at 26th which was
gorgeous. 

Anyhow: Megan, you've got me smiling from ear to ear. I love it that
your reaction to Mary Kay was to rock out like a total Glitter Girl.
Keep up the good work. 

Turquoise is a terrific eyeliner. MAC put out a color last year that I
used to use on my upper lid only close to the lash line called
Electric Eel which is sooooooo gorgeous and looked fabulous wtih a wash
of pinky coral shadow above it and very black mascara. Turquoise
eyeshadow is very retro 50s and can be very hard looking. It's a color
so cool, it's cold and really doesn't highlight too many skin colors,
but used as a teensy little accent over green or blue eyes and it makes
eye color pop. 

For the Makeup Diva who likes to push the envelope, things are looing
up, sort of: Chanel has very very dark nail polishes like Cobra and an
out and out black which they're showing with an overlay of silver
sparkle. Lancome also has a bottle of golden sparkle to put on the
nails in a diagonal pattern over deep burgundy or dark brown polish.

Also from Chanel frm fall: their Red No. 1 lipstick with metallic gold
eyeshadow. It is a very intense look. Eyelashes are also back.
Sebastian Trucco's fall collection looked like Super Drag  Queen:
metallic red or blue or gold fake lashes with mascaras to match and
very very light lipstick. 

I also love Lancome's Juicy Tubes for eyes which you can put over ay
dark shadow and it slicks it down. It's a very 30s kind of look, very
Dieterich.

As for paring your brows down: as someone who wrote "The Eyebrow" for
an eyebrow plucker, don't. The maintenance is fierce and not everybody
can carry off that look. It's so, so . . . permanent while you have it
and sometimes, those little hair do not grow back so it's really
permanent. In the 30s, those idealized looking woman, and they did
resemble marble statues, had an entire phalanx of studio makeup men to
mantain their brows (although Lana Turner's never grew back. She wore
fakes the rest of her life -- little known factoid here. . .)

If you do want to pare your brows down, by all means, do not do it
yourself at first but here's how just in case you don't want to go to a
pro:

take an eyebrow brush and brush your brows in a upward motion. if you
need to trim them, use a teensy eyebrow comb and a pair of vry sharp,
straight-edged mini-scissors and cut only the eyebrows that stick way
up in your comb.

find your arch. The easiest way to do that is put your head down so
that your chin is touching your chest; arch your eyebrows
exaggeratignly and with your fingers, feel your brow and at the point
where your finger starts sloping downward toward the outside margins of
your brow (the side closest to your ear), that's the apex of the brow,
your arch. It should be slightly left of the center of the iris of
your eye. 

to determine the shape you want: you can sketch in a shape with either
a small mitered-edge eyebrow brush and dark brown powder and you can
use a white eyeliner pencil or even a concealing pen and block out the
extraneous hairs. When you get a shape you like, then you pick up your
tweezers and tweeze out the hairs colored by the light pencil or
concealer. It hurts. No question, but you can cool or numb the area
with an ice cub and afterward with witch hazel.

Me? I prefer to have my brows done professionaly -- waxed. Which
doesn't hurt all that much, is cleaner and doesn't have to be done more
than every 6 weeks.

Besides, I like the shape my person gets my brows (she's let them grow
in a bit at my request) and I don't even worry about plucking out
stray hairs. I just trust them to her.
  

    
Jessica:

Since both companies have sold to mainstream cosmetic giants (Urba
Decay to LVMH and Hard Candy to either LVMH or Lauder,can't remember).
they have added a m ore "polite" color range. But I love Gash which is
a really violent red and Oilslick and the original metallic blue frm
Urban Decay which I still wear on my toes.

Very subversive stuff and if you can rock out on the weekends, colors
to be seen in public,.

Hard Candy makes an incredible glitter eyeliner pencil that I totally
recommend. Talk about subversive. Winking without winking. Flirting by
just closing your eyes. 
  

    
To Carol:

You an cut some of the redness in yoru ski and protect it at the same
time without using full makeup and concealer by usign one of the new
mattifying tinted moisturizers that have a little more yellow in them.
Divinora from Guerlain; YSL has one; so does Remede from Bliss spa. You
an get them on very very sheerly.

As for concealers; if you're using one under your eyes with no other
makeup, try the Touche Eclat (Radiant Touch) pen from YSL. It's a
miracle product. Instant face lift. Comesin a few different colors but
the original looks very very light but blends beautifully. I'd gt a
demnstration from the counter  person about all the magic things it can
do. Love that product. If you're in S.F., go see Alexis Simonsen at
Saks and have her show it to you. She's the makeup artist at YSL. 
  

    
Ooh, Gash is one of my favorite lipstick colors.

Cynthia, I seem to recall reading in "The Eyebrow" that there's a way to
find your arch with a lip pencil, similar to the way you find the starting
and ending points of the brow. Frankly, I find the method you describe
here and in "The Beauty Workbook" a bit confusing; how can you tell with
your fingers where the arch should be?
  

    

Welcome back Cynthia!  How was the panel discussion?  Can you tell us
about it?  Anything interesting we're dying to find out about?

So, let's see, where was I...oh yes, you had just delivered the good news
that hair pieces were back, causing me to run to my checkbook and start
calculating.

I was glancing through the book and, in the hair section, came upon the
parts where you describe hair power tools and non-power tools.  Power
tools include Blow Dryers, Hot Rollers, Steam Rollers, and Curling
Irons.  No suprises there.  But in the Non-Power Tools you describe
everything from bobby pins, to various types of brushes, ditto combs and
rollers, all kinds of clips and elastics.  Amazingly inclusive.  And then
I thought, I wonder how many of your readers have never encountered a
bobby pin or a hairpin.  Any idea?

Also, let's look at the Hair-Raising Claims:
- Expensive hair products are better than cheaper ones
- Over-the-counter hair products encourage hair growth
- Every type of hair needs conditioning
- Hair has to squeak to be really clean
- I must brush my hair 100 strokes every night
- Drugstore hair color is not as good as salon color

Will you debunk as appropriate, please?
  

    
Let's do these one at a time:

I a in agreement with Paula Begoun who is a terrific source and
teacher, by the way,that products do not have to be expensive to be
trrific.
Usually, the products you see in a drug store vs. the ones your
hairdresser is seling (and making a 40 percent commission on, by the
way) have had the same careful lab r and d behind them Many of the
products re even owned by the same companies. The difference: a
designer name, maybe a few more stablilizers in the drug store brand, a
fancier bottle and the imprimateur of your hairdresser. (Mine, the
faous Ron, uses drug store color on some of his clients when he can't
find a color he wants out of his professional stuff; he says that done
right, ie. if you follow package directions, no difference).  But, a
shampoo is a shampoo is a shampoo; the same with conditioners. They all
have ths same ingredients in them and any fancy stuff like Vitamin E
or whatever, is so slight, it is just a comeon which adds cost to what
is just detergent, degreaser and conditioner.

So, if you find a fairly good product (and I'm not talking really
detergeant shampoos like Prell that strip color and strip natural oils
if you use them too much) in a drug store, use it.

I do't think that any OTC product encourages hair growth. Those are
prescription drugs like Minoxidil which have helped men who have male
pattern baldness. There are alopecias that affect women with either
permanent or teporary hair loss (sometiems, ALL hair -- in fact, Mike
Nichols has the kind of permanent baldness where he wears a full-head
wig and fake eyebrows) where prescription products will help with hair
regrowth. But the only thing most of us can do as we age and we find
that some kinds of drugs we have to take will thin our hair, is to get
it cut short, tint it, wear hair pieces or wigs.

As for brushing your hair 100 strokes a night. Twenty five with a
gentle-bristle brush will do. For women with long silky hair, vigorous
brushing will only damage the cuticle which is the protective sheath of
keratin scales (under a microscope, it looks like shingles on a roof)
and cause split ends and breakage. On curly and kinky hair, where the
hair is inherently weak every time it makes a curve, it will cause
breakage; and for people with really oily scalp (and it is the scalp,
not the hair that pumps out oil -- hair, by the time it reaches to
surface of the skin is quite dead), it will stimulate oil glands to
pump out even more.

The best hair care is to be gentle with your hair. Wash it every 2-3
days; use a conditioner to rinse your hair out every other day if
you're used to washing your hair every day; use a towel to squeeze the
moisture out of it; do not rub vigorously. use protective stylers that
will coat the hair to keep the dryer heat from drying it out and futher
damaging it. Hair is basically a fiber -- a collection of dead protein
which "grows" about six inches a year.

Hair does not have to squeak to be clean. Because water is so
different from city to city. Depending upon the type of water in your
city, clean hair, rinsed clear of product may or may NOT squeak. That's
one of those old wives' tales.

As for using a conditioner. To get your comb through your hair, you
should use some type if rinse, either a spray-in or a traditional
conditioner. A little dab'll do ya. There is a lot of oil in those
conditioners to make it slick and to make your hair easier to comb.
rinse it out really well or wait until you're ready to style and spray
in something like Paul Mitchell texturizing spray or something from the
Graham Webb or Charles Worthington lines. Or even use our family
favorite here: Frederic Fekkai's Apple Vinegar rinse. It will not
deposit a lot of unuseful grease in the hair and it will make it appear
very shiny when you dry it. Or: go directly to the source. If you're a
brunette, regular apple cider vinegar is an excellent shine-producing,
detangler; lemon juice works for blondes. But it will change your
color if you go out in the sun with it.
  

    
My favorite hair products are: Garren's, the hair dresser from
Bendel's; Lazartigue (which can get very very expensive) and some old G
raham Webb stuff and Vidal Sassoon's black label line. I love the
shampoo and the conditioner. It works really well in San Franisco
water. 
  

    

I have to wash my hair every day or my scalp feels all crawly. Plus I use
a fair amount of "product." But the Bumble & bumble blue shampoo is good
for getting the gunk residue out, and probably somewhat less drying /
stripping than plain old Neutrogena (although I love that too, on
occasions when I need it). Also, I work out five days a week and my hair
gets all sweaty. Am I really damaging it by washing it every day?

My favorite two hair products, which I would have trouble living without,
are Sebastian Potion #7 and John Frieda Secret Weapon. The latter is a
drugstore product and the former can be bought in many drugstores. How is
a shopper to know which drugstore brand names really are internationally
well known hairdresser names (Frieda, Sassoon), and which are just
artifacts of drugstore hair product advertising?
  

    

Also, what is tea tree oil and is it really good for so many different
skin and hair purposes?
  

    
Tea Tree oil seems to be a good anti-bacerial and anti-abrasive. I use
it on burns and cuts. But I think for a while there it was the flavor
of the month. And not all that effective in hair products. Just a fad.

There are realy good OTC products for specific problems like the
frizzies, etc and John Frida's produts are some of the bset on the
market. It's not all hype. They really work. Friz-Ease or however you
spell it, is a terrific product; a lot of bang for the buck.

When your hair frizzes, it probaby means that the cutcile has been
disturbed, broken or damaged in some way And, if your hair is very
curly or like African American hair, tends to kink and frizz, then
every time it bends, it has an inherent weakness in it and probability
that it will break. Don't ask me why; that's just part of the gnetic
code of curly hair. The healthiest hair is the one in which the cuticle
is undisturbed so when you see those gorgeous Asian women with their
chest-length, shiny, straight hair that is so thick and luxurious
looking, THAT is hair with an undisturbed cuticle.

To find what works for you: It's mostly trial and error. YOur hair
dresser is into selling the product that is sold at his/her salon
because they get a commission. However: if they're any good and they
know you don't want to spend an arm and a leg on product, they should
be able to recommend a drug store product that helps. Or get Paula
Begoun's book about hair products . . . or buy the small sizes of
things and try them for a week and see waht they do to your hair. 

Don't believe all the hype. And don't buy a product because they
advertise that there is some kind of AHA or vitamin or rare tree toad
in it or something. Read the label and you'll see that that ingredient
is waaaaaay down on the list which means it's just window dressing and
not effective at all.