Celebrities No Make Up Trend

You probably noticed since a few months ago that more and more celebrities are going out make up free on purpose. Or are “accidentally” papped with “nothing" on their faces. US television show The Talk had the whole show presented by unmade up presenters. And now W magazine, the holy grail of fashion cool has done a non-scripted, non-made up fashion story with some very famous people. What up, you may wonder? Have they all of a sudden become all devoid of vanity? Yeah, right.

I call it photoshop damage control PR spin. Not thought of a catchy name yet, feel free to drop me a line if you come up with something better.

We have all seen some images of celebs retouched to infinity so they no longer resemble themselves. Call it the ultimate makeover or whatnot. And rightly so, the general public started to complain, especially if that said celebrity is flogging some “looking younger” cream where the “younger” effects are achieved by some skilled individual on their Apple Mac. And their Adobe CS.

Photoshop in modern digital photography is pretty much a necessity. Film used to lose some detail but the digital technology picks up every little bit that the naked eye could not even see. So, it needs to be done, so it would not be detracting the attention from whatever is being shown. Imagine a lovely beauty shot advertising mascara and there’s a zit on model’s face and some fine hairs above the top lip (not calling it a moustache).  Once you “spot” those bits it’s like you can’t stop seeing them. Game over. Mascara what? So you get my point.

But vanity retouching is not just cleaning up the bits like the skin, hair, etc. It’s body reshaping, eye bags removing, double chin-ectomy, bingo-wings de-flapper and the usual “how to lose twenty years in half an hour”.

So some big shot clever PRs, who are paid big bucks to “look after their clients” and assure they keep getting those lucrative endorsements, thought of a great way of doing that. Stars going out with no make up. Genius. The stars still look “good enough” but real. But definitely not perfect to alienate the public.

Except they are really not walking around with zero make up. Just less of it. The Daily Mail machine is working hard to bombard us with those images and make it a “story”. So when you see a celebrity with no make up walking down the street shot, remember they most likely have concealer, a bit of foundation, a bit of blush and some mascara. And lipstick. 

So when the celebs get that beauty campaign and get so retouched/botoxed/filler-ed up they can always credit a good make up artist for looking like that. For sure. 

Post Holiday Blues

I kept meaning to write something for a while but it just wasn’t happening.

I wanted to do a make up feature for Christmas, but I didn’t feel like there was much going on to inspire me… dark lips, matte skin, nothing new, etc. New eyelash lines popping all the time, call it the Essex effect or whatever you want, but nothing interesting.

And then my laptop decided to have a hissy fit again which resulted in me crying at Apple store at the rude and unsympathetic “genius” (they should really stop calling them that, genius means the IQ higher than 140 and I’m positive he wasn’t that smart). Anyway it all ended well due to my sheer determination and persistence, my laptop got fixed without too much expense.  But I was without it for a month.  So I couldn’t write. I mean, I could, but wasn’t feeling it.

So, what now? It’s January, PRs are busy again sending press releases about spring looks and that fake holiday planted in February to make February marginally interesting. And some people lonely. The Valentine’s.

Refuse to add to that, so count me out.

There is one thing I can recommend during this time of year. Pampering. The perfect time. Long baths, oils, skin nutrition, call it whatever you like, it makes sense. Think about it. You’ve probably had somewhat excessive Christmas holidays, even if you don’t celebrate it, short cold days and long nights mean a lot of food and alcohol being consumed. It’s the law. In January we regret it all and want to be “good” so we promise ourselves diet and exercise. And we fail miserably.

One way to go about feeling better about yourself is a little bit of rough loofa love. Exfoliate. Your skin is suffering from temperature changes, central heating, cold and wind. Be kind to it. Exfoliate the body after a good long soak. Massage rich creams and lotions that smell nice. My favourite scented body cream is Narciso Rodriguez, it automatically makes me feel better. Start preparing your body for spring and summer by regular body brushing, get that circulation going.

Apply nourishing face masks. Shed the last year’s skin and let the new year’s skin come shining through. Massage your face. Learn how to do a simple Shiatsu face massage technique, it really makes a lot of difference in skin tone. Generally adopt a "pamper" day as one day of the week. Not talking about a whole day here, but zone out for an hour or so.

That’s plenty to do in January for now. The future will be orange.

The Daddy Of All Anti-ageing Ingredients - Vitamin A

 

Retinol or another name for vitamin A is a tough one to explain and I’ve been putting off writing about it for ages, but I knew I had to do it as it plays such a major part in our bodies.

The oxidised form of retinol is called retinoic acid (reinoids)– it’s made from vitamin A either in our bodies or in a laboratory. It’s especially present in formation of an embryo as it helps cells grow and develop.

When created in a lab it’s used to treat some forms of cancer and less importantly in the general scheme of things, is used to treat acne.

What’s acne treatment got to do with ageing, you may ask? Well, it was discovered that while treating acne, the wrinkles and sun spots on the skin also improved. It was thought that the way it worked was by making the skin peel and renew, but the way it works is a bit more complicated.

So how does it actually work?

It's a bit of a mystery but in a nutshell retinoic acid increases the thickness of epidermis and stimulates new collagen production. It also shrinks sebaceous glands and unclogs pores. It's like a skin cell builder. Imagine if retinoids can help build an embryo what they can do for our skin? It actually works for majority of people as countless scientific studies have proven.

You see, retinoic acid is actually classified as a prescription medicine and you can only get it from your doctor in form of gel (for treating acne – isotretinoin  Retin A) or emollient cream (for sun damage – Renova).

It can irritate the skin big time, the skin can peel, dry out and it can become very sensitive to UVA rays. If you’re prone to spots, using Renova cream can enlarge your pores and make you break out. It's not because of the retinoids, but the emollient base might be too rich for oilier skins.

You may actually ask why I’m writing about something that you can’t go out and buy freely in a shop? I’ll tell you why.

Almost every single cosmetic company has a cream with some sort of vitamin A that promises this or that. A lot of those creams did nothing for us.

Retinoic acid has to be present in certain concentration for it to work – prescription creams are sold either in 0.05% or 0.025% for more sensitive skins, so the bog standard vitamin A cream you buy in shops also has to contain a percentage of an active ingredient for it to make any difference. And most of the time it doesn’t. 

As a rule, retinols are about half as effective as retinoids (retinoic acid), so if you get a cream with low concentration of retinol you are wasting your money. 

Also, it's a tough job for skin to convert your normal vitamin A into its effective form - retinoic acid, it doesn't just happen like that. The effective cream with retinol has to also contain some other helpful ingredients - for example, peptides have been shown to be quite effective.

Things to bear in mind before you buy any vitamin A cream:

The most common ingredients to look out in the creams are retinaldehyde, retinlyl acetate and retinyl palmitate. Make sure that on the list of ingredients the retinol is not listed as one of the last ingredients – or just before the preservatives. Somewhere in the middle of a list would be the best place for it.

Both retinols and retinoids can irritate the skin and make it sensitive to sunlight so make sure you wear an adequate SPF of at least 30.

Your skin might not like it all. If you start getting redness and peeling too much use the cream every alternate day. If the symptoms don't go away with time you need to stop using it.

Retinol is sensitive to sunlight so use the cream at night only. Retinoic acid (prescription stuff) is never sold in jars, but in tubes as it's also sensitive to exposure to air.

Remember that even prescription stuff takes six months of continuous use to show any significant results, so if a cosmetic company claims that you'll see visible results in just three weeks, they are full of it. Yes your skin might "appear" smoother and firmer, but that won't be due to its effective retinols, but more due to moisturisers that temporarily plump out the skin.

Retinols are NOT expensive. If you buy a cream containing retinols and pay loads of money for it, you are either paying for the name or the packaging. The prescription retinoids are not expensive either! 

I like vitamin A. If used wisely with an adequate sun protection it can make a lot of difference to our skin. By all means go and see a dermatologist and get some advice, especially if your suffer from sun damage (pigmentation with premature wrinkles). 
If you're just trying to stop the clock, retinols are probably enough. 

Fashion Shows Archives - Backstage Part 2

Here are some more backstage photos from long time ago! Hope you enjoy!
 

The Power of Photoshop

 

There's not a day when I don't hear about photoshop abuse so I thought I’d add my two pence.

So here it is:

Photos are retouched. All published photos are retouched.  Oh and in case you thought paparazzi photos are not retouched – think again. Retouching has been going on for like, ever! Films (moving picture) are retouched too.

Now we established this, let me explain why.

Long time ago, must be over ten years ago (and it feels like a century technology-wise) we used to shoot film and not digital. There was something magical about film. You’d shoot polariods first to check the light, then once the photographer was happy with his light composition, we’d shoot film. There was no instant gratification of today, the film was processed in a lab, we’d get it the next day or so and then we’d sit at the light box and pick the best images.

When shooting beauty campaigns we’d of course, pick the models with perfect skin, I’d spend hours in make up using all tricks of the trade (that may or may not be including the product that was advertised), the model’s face would be lit well. When shot in film, some detail would be lost, so inevitably some imperfections would be lost, but there would still be things that needed to be “erased”. Some photographers used a fine set of brushes and paint and they would finely paint the imperfections away. This was done like this for decades.

With computers came Adobe Photoshop. Photos and film were scanned and then retouched. Photoshop allowed for more manipulation in post-production. Suddenly the lighting/make up/models on shoot didn’t have to be so perfect or precise as the tweaking could be done later. I'm not just talking about removing a spot or straightening model's teeth, there's flyaway hair, virtual ironing of the creases in the clothes to mixing up the parts of the model's body made up from different shots. 

I'm as guilty as anyone in the business, I admit. I sat there with retouchers asking them to change things as well. It's never about retouching make up (hell to the no), instead I'd ask them to straighten the model's nose, make it smaller or narrower, erase the spots, get rid of a hairy top lip (oh yeah it happens), to make the model's eyes the same size (even Christy Turlington had one eye bigger than the other), fix anything that would take the attention away from make up (in a beauty shoot, of course).

Then came digital photography. The instant pictures. Taking photos seemed easy that photographers were popping up like mushrooms after rain. It seems like as long as you could find your way round photoshop you could be a photographer.

I’m getting to the point, bear with me…  

Digital photos do not discriminate and they pick up ALL the detail.  Good and bad. The first time I did a beauty shoot on digital camera I freaked out as the detail not visible by the naked eye was captured and magnified 20 times and staring at me on the screen.

Being able to see instantly what you were getting was great in a way that it saved on time in the studio as studio time is expensive and it’s cheaper to pay someone to retouch photos than to book another day of shooting. These days retoucher can be on the other side of the world earning peanuts compared what you’d have to pay someone here in UK.

Of course, the less time and money is spent on the day of the shoot, more time is spent in post-production.

Photoshop gave us the freedom to experiment with light and special effects, but at the same time, people got carried away and realised they could make the models skinnier, taller, younger and Kate Moss could look 25 forever.

So what’s the alternative, to abandon photoshop completely? Nope, not going to happen. People are just too vain to let it happen. Plus all “imperfections” the would attract wrong kind of attention from what is meant to be advertised. For example, there is a reason fashion models are skinny with no boobs – boobs and curves make girls look sexy, sexy girls sell sex and not clothes.

What I’m saying is that you should take for granted that photos are retouched and that supposed perfection shown in the photos doesn’t exist. As long as people and especially impressionable young girls, are aware of that then there should be no confusion or idealisation of unattainable physical perfection.

Fashion Shows Archives - Backstage Part 1

While looking for some old photos I came across this folder with pictures from shows. As this was before digital I took some snaps on my iphone and I thought I'd share them here.... And that also reminded me of a couple of occasions where I thought I took loads of photos backstage and discovered that the film wasn't loaded properly..... no chance of that happening now, eh! These days our hard drives go, but I digress... Anyway, hope you enjoy some great fashion models such as Gisele Bundchen, Yasmin Le Bon, Bridget Hall, Amy Wasson, Liberty Ross, etc...

Cleanse, Tone, Moisturise

These days we don’t have enough time for anything so there is no surprise that we try to simplify our beauty routine. Cosmetics companies see that and we constantly have new products that will shave off minutes of our morning and evening maintenance drill. But does it really save us time and, more importantly, money?

Let’s look at the evidence. Long time ago all we had to do cleanse, tone and moisturise, plus an occasional visit to a beautician to pick our blackheads and squeeze our millia.  I’m not even going into the pre-holiday waxing and preening.

When did it all got so complicated. Sure, we use wash off cleansers, moisturisers with built in SPF, shellaq manicures that last longer…. But we use more stuff. I’m as guilty as any of us.

On one side I use a wash off gel cleanser, which in theory, should be enough, but it isn’t. To take make up off properly I still need a nice milky or oily cleanser, eye make up remover and a toner. By the way, toner doesn’t really tone anything, it’s just there to remove the last bit of dirt that cleanser missed.  So I counted four products so far. Plus your cotton wool, muslin cloths etc. You get the picture.

As we try to cut on the time we spend on the cleansing that we don’t do properly in the first place, our skin gets congested so we have to exfoliate, use things like clarisonic, purifying masks, moisturising masks, anti ageing peels etc.

Going to a beauty salon to try new “breakthrough” lifting, poking, prodding, dermarolling treatments all in the hope we would save time at home. Again, you get the picture.

Perhaps it’s time we went back full circle to the old fashioned routine. I know there’s nothing cutting edge about it, but I’m a true believer in proper cleansing. The cleansing will massage and stimulate your skin and you’ll end up with a clearer skin. It will also gently exfoliate the dead skin cells. If you don’t believe me try putting on make up five times in a day and taking it off. Your face will be painfully sore.  So morning and evening would be enough.

If your skin is on a dry side I also believe you will benefit from moisturising waters that most Japanese cosmetics companies do and also Melvita, but deep cleansing masks, lifting masks, scrubs etc will be the thing of the past.

I’ve done this routine before and I need to start doing this again, who is with me?