Beauty Peeves

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Everybody Hates Tichina Arnold's Makeup Artist

Okay so we don't really hate her (Kokeeta Douglas is her name - most makeup artists don't get much love cuz sadly that's how they play in Hollywood), but you know how girls can get catty and say they hate someone because they're secretly jealous inside. "Ugh, I hate Jessica Alba." "Damn, Beyonce just don't have an off day! Gawd, I hate her." This is not to be confused with genuine and sincere hatred, of course. But we'll save that for another entry.

Everybody Hates Chris, another ingenious creation spawned from the mind of Comic Genius himself, Chris Rock, has Tichina Arnold in an amazing performance as the strict but always loving matriarch Rochelle. Okay so as per usual, I'm about 5 years behind in TV shows. I'm weirdly suspicious of all things new - for some odd reason, it takes me a while to generate genuine interest in something. Either that or I'm too busy being stressed out about something else that I completely miss stuff. But no joke, this show makes me laugh OUT loud - Tyler James Williams is a natural! His facial expressions are inimitable and completely convincing. Love the soundtrack and score - classic 80s tunes. The costuming department also knocked it out of the park! Vintage track suits and old school stripes and plaids - really sets a period vibe.

Aside from Arnold's overall hilariousness, I must give props to Kokeeta Douglas! Some nice eye shadow work here - the blending is always gorgeous and barely detectable towards her browline - always a good sign. And she got a fierce haircut to match too!



Speaking of eye shadow, I get a freebie one at Sephora soon for my birthday! Wheee! The VIB Reward point system is BRILLIANT - now you don't have to wait around until Estee Lauder or Clinique has a free gift promotion at Nordstroms because at Sephora, you'll ALWAYS be earning points no matter what you buy!

"Hi, I'm Jamie and I'm a beauty-aholic." "Hi, Jamie." Yes, my fellow beauty fiends, it's borderline embarrassing, I know. The sweet employees at my local Sephora now recognize me when I walk in. But what's even more embarrassing is that I've stopped FEELING embarrassed about it.



Happy hump day!

Americanisms

As I continue along my quest to search for worthy causes to donate my beauty proceeds to and partner with, I came across this eye-opening documentary: The Beauty Academy of Kabul.

Now, before you cinefiles start Netflixing this, be forewarned: There are some uncomfortable scenes of Western insensitivity in this film. I found myself squirming in my seat, rolling my eyes, and yelling at the screen in horror and disbelief - and I thought only Korean dramas could elicit that kind of response from me. Huh. Go figure.

I mean, some of these clueless women volunteers come traipsing into a war-ravaged country with little to no prior knowledge of what these women have been through, let alone the entire country. At the time of the filming of this documentary (released in 2004), after having been invaded by the Soviet Union in the late 70s to early 80s (Kiterunner is an amazing film and book that is set during this invasion), Afghanistan was infamously under fire from U.S. and British forces following the 9/11 attacks, and in between coups, at the mercy of the resurgent Taliban regime. To cut the history lesson short, all of Afghanistan had been to hell and back. Some of the women interviewed for the film recount horrific stories of women's hands and feet being cut off in public, and watching others being doused in gasoline and set on fire on the streets.

On top of that, it is a culture, like many in Southeast Asia and the Middle East today, which firmly believes in the inferiority and oppression of women. Arranged marriages are hardly questioned as they are almost irrevocably accepted. Certain aspects of Muslim culture teach women not to display much of their hair and face in public so what utterly floored me was the fact that the beauty industry thrived and still thrives in the midst of required disguise. During the Taliban regime, women would set up salons in their homes, and maintain clients by word of mouth. Talk about being an entrepreneur. Puts me to shame really.

After getting their hair and makeup done, the women would joke gamely about covering up their new perms or done up faces before seeing their husbands later in the evening. Some women would even cover their faces completely, their burkas literally becoming makeshift ghost costumes you would see on Halloween made out of old sheets, but minus the cutout holes for eyes. There's chilling footage of this in the film - faceless ghosts floating around dusty streets, or kneeling on the floor, holding children. Imagine looking up at your mother and not seeing her.

I mean, why even get your makeup or hair done if no one will see it, not even your husband? It is a commonly, though not always acknowledged, truth that women need it for themselves. I mean, I can't even quite articulate the kind of camaraderie and solidarity I felt with these women as I saw one mother cover up her freshly permed hair before stepping outside onto the street, skirting watchful soldiers holding rifles; she made sure her niqab (Arabic word for sheet that Middle Eastern women use to cover their faces) swiftly covered up the broad smile she wore after seeing her new perm in the mirror. Or the surge of empathy I felt watching a rogue Afghan beauty student in an fluffy Elvis pompadour, a skinny rockabilly necktie, button down blouse and Katherine Hepburn slacks snip her mannequin's hair. I thought, Why bother to express your uniqueness when the risk of calling attention to yourself is quite literally hazardous to your well-being?

Such is the unbelievable nature of the human spirit. I guess the will to live, even at our worst, always trumps the will to shrink back, wither and die. Even in the midst of collective healing and rehabilitating from unspeakable crimes against their humanity, the throngs of women outside the door on opening day spoke volumes about their very desire to live. And not just to survive, but to thrive.

It's important for us ladies to be able to express ourselves. A friend once told me that all women are artists, and that each morning we decide how to create and portray that art to the world. Our bodies and faces are canvasses upon which we paint colors, adorn jewels. We hold our heads up high, groom ourselves and present our best face to the world in the midst of heartache and unimaginable circumstances. The resilience of the Afghan women is a testament to this need for women to draw strength from each other in order to move forward and be walking masterpieces for the world to see. The beauty salon will always - and everywhere - be a unique and safe space in which such restorative affirmation takes place.

Okay but lemme get my rant in here before I leave. Check out this dialogue between an Afghan translator and an American beauty instructor:

Local Translator: Well, we can't keep the women too late because they will get in trouble with their husbands. They are afraid that their husbands will get upset with them -

Insensitive Obnoxious Volunteer (interrupts the translator because she keenly picks up on something important that must be addressed - good thing she traveled all the way from the States to intervene here because otherwise they wouldn't have caught this): Okay so...wait a minute, what is this fear I'm hearing about? I mean, is there something going on at home? Do these women suffer from...verbal abuse, or some kind of abuse or something? I mean, what is that?

Local Translator:...

Luckily, some of the plucky Afghan women stood up to this particularly obnoxious volunteer and boldly pointed out that American women have freedoms Afghan women do not. Cheers to her for schooling the 'teacher' - one of the bravest moments in the film.

Aside from these Americanisms, I highly recommend this film for any aspiring makeup artist or hairstylist, anyone remotely interested in the beauty industry as a whole (most women), and anyone who is interested in what it means to be human (everyone).

Dry Undereye Bliss

Is it just me, or is the oxymoronic title becoming the cheap shot of online writers everywhere? Bait a creative contradiction, sink your line into the fathomless blogosphere and wait for it...gotcha! Hey, as long as what follows lives up to its hype, it ain't broke yet.

I mean, really, whose definition of bliss is a dry, wrinkly undereye? It's right up there with crows feet, botched Botox jobs and an Oompa-Loompa spray tan - all desperately blinking neon signs that you're actually decades older than the twenty-something Miss Thang next to you at Starbucks ordering a 500-cal frap while flaunting poreless skin and firm ass cheeks.

For all you younguns out there itching to get legal so you can toss your fake IDs, being an adult ain't all that glamorous just so you know. Okay so we so-called "grown-ups" (a relative term if there ever was one) can rent a car and get you kiddies into Dave and Busters (a veritable boozified Chuck E. Cheese minus the creepy mouse in a suit) but tack on adult acne, and trying to hold down a job in this economy and you'll wind up in Depression-ville faster than Justin Beiber can post a new video on Youtube.

And as for the latter, I guess we're still waiting on Obama to hook it up, yo's. Yes, we can...not seem to turn this economy around.

But before I take another swig of my Pinot Grigio, allow me to transition from general lamentation to specific rant. The culprit in question? The aforementioned Unexplainably-Dry-Undereye. We all know the tell-tale signs: your concealer starts flaking like nobody's business, and no amount of eye cream or serum seems to quench the desperately dessicated and already delicate skin. And if you're like me and have what I think optometrists term "chronic dry eye", your eyes themselves are always dry (yet another reason to remain a firm card-holding member of the "Deathly-Afraid-of-Lasik" society). Translation: For us contact lens wearers, this means that - on top of said undereye dryness - any kind of tearduct malfunction can feel like shards of glass are resting calmly atop your parched pupils. ALL. THE. TIME. Add a touch of this season's unrelenting pollen-infested springtime breeze and you got yourself a weepy, someone-get-these-needles-out-of-my-corneas pain every time you step outside.

If there seems to be no rhyme or reason to this unheralded onslaught of dryness, the best interrogation would probably start with, "Have you recently started using new products around your eye that it may be reacting to?" (My personal answer to this: Steer clear of the Target brand eye makeup remover. I think the formula packs in a disproportionate amount of alcohol - my undereyes didn't see immediate results after I stopped using it but methinks it was still an unwitting accomplice to the crime.) But then again, all evil is, at bottom, unexplainable so even answering this question still might not bring you to the end of your quest to right your skin imbalance.

After much toil (and desperately trolling the aisles at Sephora for a magical cure that wouldn't cost me half my life savings), I came across the Bliss Triple Oxygen Eye Mask. Okay, so it will cost you a pretty penny (54 bones! Wahhh - that's 18 'Used-Like New' CDs on Amazon) but check out the pros, my penny-pinching beauty addicts: You get 4 packs in the box, so if this is a chronic problem for you, it's a worthy investment. No joke, my dryness disappeared the morning after. The moisture-drenched mini-towelette was a tad too long for my Asian-sized undereye area (though perfect for Amanda Seyfried - is anyone else scared when this girl looks directly at the camera?) so I would recommend, for us smaller-eyed gals, cutting one eye mask in half and using the two pieces for a single application.

And now for the plugs. Out of deep-seated loyalty to beauty products that, in any and every other circumstance have pulled through for me, I present some of my all time faves.

For undereye concealers, it's always been a toss up between Cle de Peau's stick concealer and YSL's Touche Eclat. (Brownie points for the first person to respond with the correct pronunciation of these Frenchified names, I've been butchering them for YEARS.) For acne scars and undereye circles, a matte, completely-camouflaging coverage is the way to go. But be warned: Clay-deeh-Poe is definitely NOT a recession-friendly brand (I would tell you how much but...my beauty-junkie-shame just kicked in) so be prepared to ask about layaway plans if you've decided to invest. Toosh Eeh-clah, while costing a smidge less than its competition, is still NOT cheap, at least by my standards. But here's what you get - liquid coverage that's brilliantly brightening, magically moisturizing, and effortlessly easy to apply - cheers to the inventor of the click-pen applicator.

A classic, more reasonably priced one for general concealing needs is Amazing Cosmetic's aptly named Amazing Concealer - an ingenious range of colors, perfect thick-but-still-liquidy (read: non-cakey as long as you blend) consistency in a small but lasts-forever tube. And for major pimplage cover-up emergencies, Laura Mercier's Secret Camouflage comes with two pasty cakes of an orange-based (more pigment for more coverage) and yellow-based (blend on top of the orange to match your skin color) concealers. The major con for this one is the need for a good concealer brush - slows down us ladies who need to streamline our already hectic morning routine.

For more on concealer application tips, check out this article by yours truly on how to apply it.

What concealers or eye treatments do you swear by?

Subtleties

It's a tricky thing going into the 'beauty' business. Initially I was hesitant to call myself a makeup artist because of the ways my work might both directly and indirectly further notions of 'beauty' which are not only untrue, but damaging and ultimately disempowering for women. If makeup artists were the ones who were partly responsible for proliferating the ubiquitous smoky-eyed, airbrushed and photoshopped-to-perfection images that inundate women all over the world and make them feel 'Less Than' every second of every day, then I wanted nothing to do with that label.

Don't get me wrong - I love me a good smoky eye. What self-professed (and still-in-the-closet) makeup junkie doesn't? Yeah I see y'all ladies frontin' like you go 'au naturale' pretending like you went to Target for a birthday card when you're really slinking around the Covergirl mascaras. Hey, no judgment here. No woman but the utterly superhuman can walk past Sephora without glancing with the slightest bit of longing and curiosity at their monstrously magnetic ads. I swear, they sprinkle crack in the eyeshadows there. Makeup will always be, through and through, just plain FUN to play with.

I'm concerned with the larger implications of my life work - what larger machine am I being plugged into as a makeup artist in today's world? Ultimately, what kinds of standards am I condoning or would I need to accept and advocate in order to become a 'successful' makeup artist?

My quest has always been to find a way to be a conscious artist, someone who understands how the art of makeup can enhance the inherent beauty of every woman, while being aware of the ways my role as a makeup artist might contribute to the massive media-induced movement towards self-hatred, impossible standards, and ultimately, an untrue notion of what it means to be beautiful. It's a thin line, but a necessary and crucial one nevertheless.

After watching this amazing initiative by the folks at Dove to rehabilitate modern conventional notions of beauty, and being inspired by maverick artists like K'naan, a talented Somali rapper who refuses to write lyrics which promote violence - a childhood spent in a war-torn country rife with child soldiers has gotta be externalized somewhere - I am reminded that I'm definitely not alone, and that there are others out there who I can align myself with in this industry.

But on to lighter fare! Here's a lovely bride who went for a subtler look for her big day.

April, May

Aside from being an adorable French indie designer label, the pretty turn of phrase also announces the advent of wedding season central! But outdoor brides beware: springtime ceremonies are also synonymous with stinging, bleary-eyed misery - pollen-infested breezes might exacerbate those tears of joy into a downpour of irritated, not-as-sweet-as-you-thought-they-would-turn-out photos of what has now come to be known as the "ugly cry face." Thank God for Photoshop (and game bridesmaids who aren't opposed to bra-stuffing - those breast-smushed tissues are KEY).

Luckily, a good makeup job can cushion the blow just as well. Check out a lovely soon-to-be May bride during a makeup trial in April!