September 17, 2005

"There's a fine line between doll and cool, between sugar plum fairy and rock-and-roll Ophelia."

Makeup. From "mere mortals into glossy goddesses." From Jennifer Lopez into "ultra-groomed Grace Kelly doppelgänger." From Christina Ricci into "the reincarnation of Jean Harlow." From "innocent-looking girl" into "slightly disheveled wood nymph." From "gorgeous into pure candy."

At an early age, the brilliant makeup artist Charlotte Tilbury saw the light:
[A]s a redhead with pale eyelashes, she never felt attractive until she tried mascara when she was 13. Suddenly people she had known for years started remarking on how pretty she was. "It traumatized me to instantly become more popular just because of the mascara," Ms. Tilbury said. "But then I realized that to achieve the power of beauty, sometimes you need a little makeup, darling."

2 comments:

Simon said...

This is one of those pop cluture things from which I dissent. I generally tend to feel that how good a woman looks operates in a direct and inverse proportion to the amount of makeup used.

Of course, the opposite also holds, to a certain extent. Not everyone was born to be a rocket scientist, and not everyone was born to be beautiful. No amount of makeup can fix that, but it can certainly make it worse; see, e.g., Jennifer Lopez, the continuing popularity of whom remains a source of constant bemusement to me.

Be said...

I don't wear makeup in real life, but have had to cake stage makeup on for performances. I could never see wearing all that warpaint during my day to day life, but do understand that in certain situations it is necessary in order to enhance features.