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subscribe to beauty counter blog via RSSEXCLUSIVE: “Between Girly And Rebel,” Backstage at Chanel’s Cruise Show
May 15, 2012 11:53 am
Staging the Chanel Cruise show at Versailles meant that hairstylist Sam McKnight and the house’s creative director of makeup Peter Philips’ beauty look was slightly predetermined: Think powdered, embellished wigs, rosy cheeks, painted lips—the kind of coifs and makeup befitting the storied French palace. But seeing as how Karl Lagerfeld’s go-to glam squad was viewing the iconic location through the designer’s singular mind, there were some unexpected twists and turns along the way.
“It’s pink makeup,” Philips admitted of the coordinating shades of Chanel Ombre Essentielle Soft Touch Eyeshadow in Rose Favorite, its Joues Contraste Powder Blush in Rose Pétale, and its Rouge Coco Shine Lipstick in Evasion, which he swiped onto lids, cheeks, and mouths respectively. “[But] it’s between girly and rebel,” he continued, lining the inner rims of eyes with Chanel’s taupe-y beige Le Crayon Khôl eyeliner in Clair, slightly enhancing brows and deliberately avoiding a heavy base so skin didn’t look too “historical.”
A few additional elements kept things in the here and now. While McKnight busied himself affixing Dutch boy bobs in different chalky pastel shades to long, bow-tied ponytails, Philips placed black velvet Chanel logo “beauty spots” onto models’ faces, high on the cheekbones and under the eye on either the left or right side of the face. “Last minute I added a subtle highlight with Mouche de Beauté,” Philips explained of a customized highlighter that provided the final touch—and will be included with the bold pink eye shadow in a forthcoming line called Collection Versailles de Chanel, bien sûr.
tags: Chanel, Hair, Karl Lagerfeld, Makeup, Peter Philips
Backstage At McQueen, The Future Is Bright—And It Includes French Manicures
March 7, 2012 1:35 pm
Guido Palau’s hair color statement of late has leaned overwhelmingly towards the dark arts; after taking Kasia Struss rich chestnut brown last season, he broke out a deep espresso hue last month at Calvin Klein, notably dyeing the flaxen-haired Patricia van der Vliet a shade of near black. But the man who brought icy blond back in a major way for Spring 2010 still has a little bit of a platinum streak left in him. “I was thinking of Village of the Damned,” Palau said backstage at Alexander McQueen, where he referenced the 1960’s sci-fi horror flick as well as Hitchcock’s Vertigo when discussing the white-gold bobs he gave all 34 models.
“Sarah [Burton] lets me play around with the whole area,” Palau said of everything above the neck, which he set to “depersonalizing” this season so as not to conflict with Burton’s personality-filled collection. “It’s very manga-feeling,” the coiffing star continued of the uniform wigs he razor-cut and then heavily spritzed with Redken Forceful 23 Super Strength Finishing Spray to mold strands away from the hairline. To further the futuristic effect he was after, the Redken creative consultant affixed a reflective visor that he designed in collaboration with Burton to each style, explaining that he had been looking through Japanese cartoons—”all the Speed Racers”—and wanted to re-create that “helmet” shape with the hair. “I tried couture hair because ideally you want the hair to be done,” he said, but ultimately the weird and wonderful won out over the demure and dainty. “The head has to be dynamic [here],” he affirmed.
With much of the face under cover, Peter Philips’ job was pretty easy. “It’s just foundation,” he said bluntly, brushing on a full-coverage application of Chanel Mat Lumière Fluid Makeup or its Pro Lumière Professional Finish Makeup, leaving both the brows and lips visible rather than blocking them out. “You don’t see the face, but you feel the face,” he continued, mentioning that the goal was to make the girls look statuesque so nothing could distract from the clothes. “There’s not a gimmick; it’s purity,” he explained—a mantra that guided manicurist Marian Newman as well. To make tips look “über-done,” Newman layered a soft white lacquer on top of a beige sheer, the second French manicure sighting of the season—and a telltale sign that after the great nail art boom of 2011, the politics of polish have come full circle.
tags: Alexander McQueen, Chanel, Guido Palau, Hair, Makeup, Peter Philips, Redken
Backstage At Valentino, You Can Never Have Too Much Of A Good Thing
March 6, 2012 10:05 pm
By all accounts, Valentino’s Spring collection was wildly successful; take a look at any red carpet from the last year for proof. And not only is young Hollywood clamoring to wear Pier Paolo Piccioli and Maria Grazia Chiuri’s beautiful dresses, they are duplicating the season’s corresponding runway hair and makeup, too. “It’s nice, isn’t it?” Guido Palau said of the phenomenon that saw his braid coronet from last October get its turn in the bright lights of the paparazzi flashbulbs. “It’s wearable hair,” he explained of the style’s appeal and the general direction he’s been taking things here.
Palau has another winner on his hands for Fall. “They’ve developed a sort of staple for their girl,” the Redken creative consultant explained of the design duo, throwing out adjectives like “beautiful,” “natural,” and “romantic” to describe their aesthetic. Citing the seventies as inspiration, Palau prepped hair with Redken Full Frame 07 Protective Volumizing Mousse to give it a little guts before he applied heat and crafted a precise middle part. Then, coating his hands with Redken Outshine 01 Anti-Frizz Polishing Milk, he created interlocking twists from the ears around the side of the head, pinning as he went, before joining both sides in a V-shape at the nape of the neck.
Pat McGrath revisited her successful handiwork from last season as well, concentrating her “pastel face-contouring” experiment to the eyes this time around. “It’s modern, iconic beauty,” she said, weaving a halo of “lots of grays, mauves, and a little bit of lilac” across lids, dragging it softly underneath the lower lash line for a subtle wash of color. “It’s a modern Penelope Tree or Anjelica Huston,” she suggested of the effect, building up top and bottom lashes sixties-style with CoverGirl LashBlast 24-Hour Mascara in black, and filling in brows a bit so they looked well-groomed. A touch of highlighter on the Cupid’s bow of lips added to the ethereal,”serene” quality she was after. Look out for the combination on the wire in the next few months, as any number of the folksy frocks from this collection are all but guaranteed to hit the 2012 premiere circuit.
tags: CoverGirl, Guido Palau, Hair, Makeup, Pat McGrath, Redken, Valentino
Backstage At Chanel, “Browdazzling” Goes Big
March 6, 2012 3:04 pm
Peter Philips is a makeup artist who likes to think outside the box—which is presumably how he scored his coveted role as Chanel’s creative director of makeup four years ago. The Belgian-born face painter became something of a household name after debuting a few off-kilter, on-trend shades of nail lacquer for the French house, but his body of work also includes its fair share of inventive application techniques, including the reoccurrence of 3-D, textural makeup. Philips incorporated this unique skill into handwoven eyelashes for Karl Lagerfeld’s Fall 2009 show; six seasons later, it’s all about the brow.
“The theme [of the show] is minerals—there are minerals coming out of the set!—so Karl made a sketch and he wanted minerals on the eye,” Philips explained, presenting a series of stone-encrusted rectangular mesh panels that he glued over models’ natural arches using a prosthetic adhesive. “We had to find a way to make it contemporary so it wasn’t like a cabaret thing,” he explained of the accessories, which led him to Lesage, the Paris-based embroidery atelier that helped turn Lagerfeld’s illustration into a reality. Creating a full-coverage base with Chanel Mat Lumière Fluid Foundation, Philips shaded lids and cheekbones with Notorious, a new eye shadow/blush hybrid from his forthcoming Les Essentiels de Chanel Fall collection, before pressing on the “brows” that came in variations of gray, green, pink, and purple. Why the elaborate embellished detail? “It’s a show, it’s a catwalk,” Philips responded, explaining that there should be room for some drama. “It also gives a uniformity,” he added, “an almost military effect, which makes it easier when you have so many girls because you have one line to do: shading and contouring and the eyebrows.” Philips’ soldiers also received two coats of his new Le Vernis de Chanel nail polish in Frenzy, a pale lilac-tinged greige, which will hit shelves in September along with Vertigo, the range’s darker hue.
“I want an army of Chanel girls,” Sam McKnight proclaimed of the uniformity he was also seeking with the hair, which manifest itself into a series of sleek ponytails. Citing a wealth of collars, McKnight wanted the hair to be up, but found that a chignon was “too madam.” Adding a severity to the style with a coat of shine-enhancing gel, he paraded around the backstage tent that had been erected at the Grand Palais to ensure that his team was gathering strands straight back into the elastic, rather than in an up or down direction. “I hate to use the word equestrian, but it’s got the strictness of a rider,” McKnight said of the precise execution, before doing himself one better and calling the aerodynamic look “the ponytail version of the Nike Swoosh.” He’d better get a copyright on that, stat.
tags: Chanel, Hair, Karl Lagerfeld, Makeup, Peter Philips, Sam McKnight
Stella’s Blue Period, Still Going Strong For Fall
March 5, 2012 5:32 pm
“Designers design for who they are or who they want to be,” Eugene Souleiman proposed backstage at Stella McCartney this morning, and McCartney—the woman, the designer, the mother, the daughter of Paul and Linda—is just plain cool. “She’s cool, so I think the girls in her show should be cool,” according to the Wella global creative director, who used a good helping of the brand’s Ocean Spritz Beach Texture Spray to create a matte-finish chignon for Fall. “It’s very neat and clean in the back—a ladylike bun that’s really groomed,” he said of the updo, using adjectives we’ve heard many times at this show in seasons past. “But the front is more raw and a little younger,” he continued, mussing baby hairs to create a halo of light wisps at the root.
Pat McGrath added an injection of youth to the makeup as well, reprising the cobalt blue cat-eye McCartney asked for at her pre-fall show back in January, in tinted eyelash form. “It’s all about the subtle details,” McGrath said of the chunky blue gel—a specific hue that had its origins in the collection—which she coated onto a base of CoverGirl 24-Hour LashBlast Mascara in Black along both the upper and lower lash lines. Keeping skin natural with targeted applications of powder and highlighter, which team McGrath affectionately calls “shiny stick,” the face painter groomed brows and kept lips neutral and well moisturized. “Stella said to me, ‘I just love a girl with color on her lashes,’ ” McGrath said of the bold accent’s inception. Now we do, too.
tags: CoverGirl, Eugene Souleiman, Hair, Makeup, Pat McGrath, Stella McCartney, Wella Professionals
Long Live “The New Goth,” Backstage At Givenchy
March 5, 2012 11:39 am
“There’s a darkness to it,” Luigi Murenu said of the beauty look backstage at Givenchy, stating the obvious about the drastically middle-parted hair that was a story of extreme contrasts. “It’s either long or short, blond or black,” Murenu continued, tucking the lengths into high collars, containing them with long satin scarves or cutting them off entirely, trimming a few girls, and dyeing them lighter or darker accordingly—as he did with Saskia de Brauw, the season’s latest severe brunette. ”I like that it changes all the time,” the Dutch model said of her shaggy boy cut that was light brown with blond highlights just a matter of hours before the show (and a dark blond for the Spring issue of Love magazine) before getting a mocha glaze to match fellow catwalkers like Stella Tennant and Jamie Bochert.
Pat McGrath continued to promote her take on the season’s “dark glamour,” crafting yet another unexpectedly deep lip, this time in a gray-brown shade that was echoed on models’ lids. “It’s all about this beautiful dark brown eye,” she said, heavily rimming the upper and lower lash lines with a dusty brown pencil and then softening it with a similar color of cream shadow. “It should feel like skin,” she explained of the wash of pigment that was meticulously blended through the crease and up to the brow bone, adding a few strokes of brown mascara and a topcoat of clear gloss before models hit the runway. The lip, a custom mix created specifically for Riccardo Tisci, was kept deliberately matte to “bring a real strength to the face.” “It’s the new goth,” Murenu surmised of the collective dark, romantic numbers that he and McGrath have been putting up all over Paris. “It’s modern and it’s chic”—and it sure beats the old goth.
tags: Givenchy, Hair, Luigi Murenu, Makeup, Pat McGrath
Backstage At Kenzo, The Walk of Shame Never Looked So Good
March 5, 2012 11:21 am
Despite the cold rain that set over Paris last night, there was something uplifting about being backstage at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie for the Kenzo show; it probably had something to do with the multicolored schoolrooms-turned-hair and makeup stations and the bird’s-eye view our fifth-floor perch allotted for watching 50 models rehearse a show that included a runway with four levels of escalators. ”This is fashion,” makeup artist Yadim said, commending Carol Lim and Humberto Leon’s sense of showmanship.
As was evident in the collection, the Kenzo girl has grown up since last season—and she’s also scored herself a new man. ”Humberto told me that he wanted the girls to look like they had found a rich boyfriend and now they’re spending all of his money,” Yadim explained of the progression of lip colors he slicked onto a dewy base of MAC Face and Body Foundation. Pouts ranged from MAC Lipstick in Sin, a dark burgundy, to Dare You, a purple-y red; Brave Red; Russian Red; So Chaud, a burnt orange; and Girl About Town, a muted fuchsia that was mixed with Dare You. Contouring lids and cheekbones with a taupe blush and adding highlights to the face with MAC Cream Colour Base in Pearl, Yadim painted on an additional detail in the form of a “couture wing” that he drew onto the top lashline with MAC Fluidline in Blacktrack and then “chopped off” at the end for a squared, rather than pointed, flick. As models prepared to step onto the down escalator, the face painter smeared a fingerful of gloss onto eyelids and pressed a hand-print of a particularly “wet” lotion onto exposed limbs to catch the glimmer of the venue’s fluorescent lights.
Hairstylist Anthony Turner applied a similar effect to a bounty of messy knots by patting TIGI Catwalk Session Series Wet Look Gel onto the tops of models’ heads just as they hit the runway. “It’s hair the day after, the night before,” Turner said of the updos that were meant to appear as though they had seen better days. ”It was once very well done,” he elaborated of the style, “but while she was walking back to her apartment on the Lower East Side in the morning, she got stuck in the rain,” he continued, making sure to emphasize that Upper East Side boyfriend not withstanding, the Kenzo girl is downtown through and through.
tags: Anthony Turner, Hair, Kenzo, MAC Cosmetics, Makeup, TIGI, Yadim
“Grunge Mixed With Chic,” Backstage At Jean Paul Gaultier
March 4, 2012 11:17 am
The number of hair color sightings on the runway has finally abated this season, meaning that the few instances of artful streaks and contrasting mid-lengths we’ve spied backstage are that much more remarkable in their occurrence. Guido Palau proved that he could do ombré with a twist at Prada in Milan, and he put his stamp on purposeful roots at Jean Paul Gaultier.
“We’re doing a bit of freestyling,” the super-stylist joked of the “graffiti stripe” he was spray-painting onto either side of a middle part that had been built into long extensions. Blowing hair dry with Redken Satinwear 02 Ultimate Blow-Dry Lotion, coating it with its Iron Silk 07 Ultra-Straightening Spray before flat-ironing and then adding a bit of Shine Flash 02 Glistening Mist to the ends, Palau applied a heavy-handed spritz of Redken Forceful 23 Super-Strength Finishing Spray to create a base for his silver, black, pink, orange, and blue color panels. “This is quite androgynous because it’s so long, so you get a little Joe Dallesandro,” Palau explained, referencing the Warhol superstar along with seventies California hippie chicks who never cut their hair. “There’s always a sense of humor at this show.”
Stephane Marais picked up on the Warholian, seventies reference as well. “Jean Paul said to me, ‘Remember that time at Studio 54—the girls were so fucked up and they looked amazing?” Marais asked, setting the stage for “the grunge mixed with chic” makeup look he was after. This necessitated a “fucked up, beautiful” eye that he created by lining the inner rims with a black kohl pencil and then using a liquid liner to press on erratic strokes along the top lid and underneath the lower lash line, which he ultimately jostled with his finger. Then he applied a heavy grease paint to the roots of the lashes and asked models to blink, after which he used a thin painter’s brush to hand-destroy the line even more. “I’m fixing it,” he laughed.
It was a departure from the play on the “madame” archetype that we’ve seen here over the past few seasons, when classic glamour elements like red lips, perfected brows, beehives, and forties sets have been given punk details, like gray extensions, fake tattoos, and nail rings. It’s still the same vibe, though, Marais assured us. “It’s just a different madame.”
tags: Guido Palau, Hair, Jean Paul Gaultier, Makeup, Redken, Stephane Marais
Backstage At Haider Ackermann: “What Hair Would Look Like If Jackson Pollock Was A Hairdresser”
March 3, 2012 6:05 pm
Every season, there are a few shows that jar us out of any complacency that may have set in after three straight weeks of work and traveling, and make us open your weary eyes wide in awe, even at 7:30 in the morning. On a Saturday. Today we had such an awakening. “It’s all about this kind of apparition feeling—not ghosts but irrealism,” makeup artist Stéphane Marais said backstage at Haider Ackermann, where he created otherworldly pale, transparent skin using a particularly off-kilter method: “I’m doing a clay mask and breaking it off with a brush,” he explained.
And so, models took coffee and wandered back and forth from the dressing room wearing full, powdery face masks that Marais literally mixed with water on-site and painted on, allowing them to harden before he swept them off, rather than removing them with a damp washcloth. “All of the silhouettes [of the clothes] are strong, but I love the mix of strong with fragile,” he said, elaborating on the rationale behind the paled-out complexions that he ran by Ackermann on a casual meeting of minds. “We’re neighbors,” Marais said of the designer. “I went over to his house and we realized that every girl was going to have one outfit.” To play up that individuality, Marais also added a custom-colored lip that ranged from coral to red to fuchsia to violet to plum, using MAC Lip Pencils in Vino, Spice, and Night Moth topped with its Lipstick in Rebel, a deep berry, or Vegas Volt, a bright orange-red. Eyes were sculpted through the socket with MAC Eyebrows in Lingering while lids were shaded with a blend of its Mixing Mediums Shine and Cream Color Base in Bronze for a glossy, gilded effect that juxtaposed the texture of the matte lip and velvety skin. Marais’ unique face-painting effort had a dual purpose too. “When [the girls] leave and wash off the mask, their skin will be baby soft!”
Eugene Souleiman’s “roughest, rawest, ugliest” hair that was purposely made to look “unhealthy” was presumably less of a treat to deal with postshow. “[The hair] is meant to seem like it’s evolved—maybe it’s been bleached, then it was dyed black, and then we added a little bronze,” he explained. Prepping strands with Wella Professionals Ocean Spritz Beach Texture Hairspray, Souleiman gathered the lengths into a ponytail brushing a halo of baby hair forward, before he sprayed a black aerosol hair color all over the roots and across the ponytail itself in a “nonchalant way.” Then, after securing a messy, “raw” knot that he literally just smashed onto the head and pinned down haphazardly, Souleiman brushed the baby hairs backward, sprayed the ends with a silver hair color, and then painted them in stripes of creamy metallic bronze makeup. “It’s what the hair would look like if Jackson Pollock was a hairdresser,” he surmised of the style. “It’s not about thinking about it, it’s about gestures, and the grand gesture here is: I don’t care.”
tags: Eugene Souleiman, Haider Ackermann, Hair, MAC Cosmetics, Makeup, Wella Professionals
“Illustrated” Eyes And Easy Hair, Backstage At Lanvin
March 3, 2012 11:29 am
“It feels amazing,” Pat McGrath said when she was asked how she felt to be part of team Lanvin on the eve of Alber Elbaz’ tenth anniversary with the brand, thus summing up the general emotion of everyone who was backstage for the momentous occasion. To properly complement the designer’s collection of rich colors and feminine silhouettes without overpowering it, McGrath added a single graphic detail to the face in the form of a thick, black winged eye. “It’s all about illustration,” she explained, “like a pen-and-ink sketch,” which inspired her to draw on a meticulously pointed flick that extended up through the crease of models’ eyes and out toward the temple. Using a small angled brush dipped in a black cream eye shadow, McGrath drew another “smudged” stroke very close to the lower lash line to further define the eye against a clean, natural base that boasted highlights down the bridge of the nose and on the cupid’s bow of the lips. “It’s almost like an insignia,” she said of the stark liner, a stamped-on badge of honor for every girl that can say she walked this runway.
Guido Palau took a similarly subdued approach when conceiving the show’s hair look, opting for simplicity over elaborate structure. Shampooing all 43 girls with either Redken’s All-Soft Gentle Cleansing Shampoo or its Extreme Shampoo and taking the weight out of the back of the head by braiding an under section and pinning it to the scalp, Palau coated lengths with Redken Extreme Anti-Snap Protective Treatment to help ensure smooth strands as he employed a light blow-dry—”just to clean the hairline up.” As a finishing touch, he tucked the front pieces behind models’ ears for a slight bend. “The ease of it is the beauty,” he surmised.
tags: Alber Elbaz, Guido Palau, Hair, Lanvin, Makeup, Pat McGrath, Redken
