Beauty Icons of the 1940s - Veronica Lake, Rita Hayworth, Lauren Bacall

Veronica Lake





War has invaded Europe and has mobilized America in its entirety.
The men are off to war and money is scarce. 
In Europe, due to rations, makeup becomes a product of luxury.
In America, the women have replaced the men in the workforce.
Makeup, no longer affordable, beauty is now associated with a natural healthy glow.
The look has become more subtle, the face - less pale, the eyes and eyebrows subdued, only the red lips have remained.
Women are more implicated in society; they have become more active, they take care of their bodies.  It’s the end of the FEMMES FATALES. 



Pin ups are reborn for the men to dream whilst away at war.

Rita Hayworth



Rita Hayworth



Lauren Bacall

Lauren Bacall

Veronica Lake

Here's a Veronica lake Tutorial by pixiwoo.

Hope you found it as helpful as i did.
Blog to you soon,

Sahar

Beauty Icons of the 1930s - Greta Garbo, Jean Harlow, Marlene Dietrich



Greta Garbo



In America, the 1930s were marked by the economic crisis which led to the unemployment and financial ruin of many. In Europe, by fascism and Nazism. These were hard times, so you can imagine how more and more people turned towards the Cinema to momentarily escape reality.

Alas, the very young Jean Harlow enters the picture. She creates quite a stir as the very first Hollywood star to emerge with platinum blond hair.



Jean Harlow


Her admirers are delighted and attempt to copy her look to the peril of their own hair.
Her eyebrows are shaved and redrawn in a very fine semi-circular line that drags down at the end.
The eyes are enhanced by heavy false lashes and the lips completely redrawn in the shape of a heart and coloured in a very dark red.
The picture I've enclosed is black and white so you're going to have to take my word for it. ;)  (well mine, and wikipedia's anyway)

Jean Harlow - notice the shaved and redrawn eyebrows

Another very influential icon that emerges in this decade was Marlene Dietrich - her fans go as far as waxing their foreheads and pulling out their wisdom teeth to recreate the wide forehead and hollow cheeks of this beauty.

Marlene Dietrich



Marlene Dietrich


As you can see, this German beauty also had her eyebrows shaved and very thinly redrawn in the same semi-circular line. But what made Marlene Dietrich stand out, was the almost architectural facial bone structure that was unique to her.
These women were seductive, provocative, they became known as the FEMME FATALES.

I've also included a FANTASTIC Marlene Dietrich tutorial by Pixiwoo.
This look is important to know well because as Sam says in the video: "if you're a makeup artist, it will be referenced to you time and time again."

Applying false lashes

Pixiwoo - Who What Where

That's the Pixiwoo banner and web address.

If you’ve been following my blog, then you’ve surely stumbled upon videos I’ve posted by Pixiwoo.
I’m writing a post about them to avoid repeating how great they are on ever single post I use their videos on.

I’ll start off by telling you who they are, why I love their work so much as to have - thus far, solely used their tutorials. I’ll also tell you where to get more of them.

Pixiwoo:  A Make-up Artist duo (sisters) with their own make-up tutorial channel on www.youtube.com and website of the same name.

Nicola (Nic) of pixiwoo applying Make-up @ the Becca counter in Australia

As to why I love their videos/work - here are my reasons:

They are immensely talented, I don’t need to add anything to this - their videos speak for themselves.
They’re articulate & eloquent in their explanations.
They’re very versatile – just look at the wide variety of looks they’ve created or recreated.
They’re refreshingly professional – they stick to the subject at hand and their videos don’t drag.
They use all sorts of products ranging from ILA MASQUA to pharmacy brands.
They have an extensive stash to choose from and they truly do use them all.
They give you their real unbiased opinions about each product
They’re very up-to-date with looks and new make-up lines.
They each have fifteen years of experience in the field and it shows in their work.
They always tell you the name of each product or brush that they work with.
They tell you of their experiences so you gain from it. For example: because they‘ve used foundations from all the brands out there and they come out and say: “CHANEL is the best when it comes to consistently making amazing foundations”. Then I obviously will not waste tons of money trying out different foundations and go straight for CHANEL.
(By the way, they couldn’t be more right about CHANEL foundations)

Ok, I’ll stop here because I think I just managed to convince you to follow their blog instead of mine ;)

Samantha (Sam) of Pixiwoo after her Pam Anderson youtube tutorial.

Sculpting/Contouring: Lights and shadows

I once heard: “How you contour a face can either make you or break you as a makeup artist.”

Inexperienced as I was, I didn’t quite comprehend the full meaning of this statement – that is until I witnessed my first “sculpted” face.

Hmmm… how could I explain? Imagine wearing non-name brand shapeless clothing all your life and then suddenly being dressed in DIOR.
It gives your face a sense of sophistication not duplicated by any other technique in Make-up.

In his book “Making Faces” Kevyn Aucoin has enclosed an image of a model’s torso where he’s emphasized with a dark concealer where the shadings should be applied and with a white concealer where the highlights should be applied.

Making Faces - Kevyn Aucoin

Beautifully and eloquently explained with much greater detail, I give you a video by Pixiwoo.

Beauty Icons of the 1950's

Marilyn Monroe

Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Ava Gardner - these names ring a bell?
I bet they do.
Beauty, grace, elegance, sophistication and sex appeal - they had it all.
The men are back from war and the 'pin-ups' are no longer required.
Their wives are sporting shorter hairdos and longer skirts but are just as stunning.

Dressed to the nines, complete with white gloves, fashion hats and the "doe-eyed look" that becomes the signature look of this decade, these women became our beauty icons and, let's face it - the fantasy of men for decades to come.

Ava Gardner

Elizabeth Taylor

Jayne Mansfield

Audrey Hepburn

Hmm... anyone thinking Dita Von Tease? Yea, so am I.

Dita Von Tease

As mentioned in my first post, when a client books you and says: I want a Jayne Mansfield look, you have to know who Jayne Mansfield was and know that this chick really wants to look like Pamela Anderson but is too shy to say so. ;) Just kidding, but is it just me or did you also get a Pam Anderson vibe from Jayne Mansfield? I'm just saying.
But i digress, in short: you need to know what these beauty icons looked like so you can recreate the look.

There are some great make-up tutorials on www.youtube.com, one make-up artist duo in particular that i absolutely love are named: Pixiwoo. 

Here's their Elizabeth Taylor make-up tutorial:

Blog to you soon,

Sahar

Warm colours vs. Cold colours

I’ve been procrastinating, I know.
But it’s only because I am finding this warm colour vs. cold colour thing very vague.
Almost like learning French grammar: tons of ‘rules’ but then tons of “exceptions” to the said rule. So what was the purpose of the rule? Anyway, moving on - I give you:

Cold colours vs. Warm colours: 

The Chromatic circle can be divided in half separating the cold colours from the warm colours.

As you can see, the yellow and purple play for both sides. They are neutral in that way.

I guess we could call them the bi’s of the colour spectrum ;)

(Sigh) Here’s where it gets interesting {read: where it becomes a bitch}
Even though blue is a "cold" colour it can also be considered "warm" if in its composition there is a high concentration of red or yellow.

Another example is brown - normally a warm colour, but when composed with a high concentration of blue or purple hues, it becomes a cold colour.

It gets better, wait till we get into skin tones, then you’ll really love this. 

But the general idea is this:

Warm colours are typically composed of red and yellow derivatives.

Cold colours are typically composed of blue and yellow derivatives.

The more observant of you might have picked up on the fact that our aforementioned complimentary colours (described in previous posts) are a combination of one warm colour and one cold colour. With the exception of yellow and purple of course but that's only because, as mentioned above, yellow and purple are the neutral colours of the spectrum. Generally though, yellow warms up a colour and purple cools it off.

And voila! We're done with the lesson! Unless you want me to get into the psychology of warm and cold colours. It's simple enough, psychologically red reminds us of fire thus making it a warm colour and blue of course reminds us of ice therefore making it a cold color. Get the jest? Thought so. ;)


Blog to you soon, 


Sahar