04. ask me anything: favorite makeup looks in movies

prefectlives prompted:favorite makeup looks in movies

Ah, a topic after my own heart. Unintentionally a lot of these are drag looks. I cannot help it, I am a girl who enjoys a face full of product.

Also I actually got off my lazy butt and made some graphics/reused some graphics for this. Yay me! But the coloring is pretty wonky because we can't have everything, can we.






Bound is so important to me stylistically. Jennifer Tilly's Violet is a femme fatale dressed up like a fifties pinup girl but in a totally neo-goth nineties color scheme. It's hard to tell in stills what exactly is going on with her makeup (it looks much lovelier in motion) but it's this sort of hazy gray-purple smoky eye and brick red lip that is just GORGEOUS.





Lol this movie was stupid. HOWEVER, I really dug this makeup look. It's exceedingly simple, just a wash of deep brown eyeshadow over the lid, and it looked fantastic on her. It's also something I worked into my own repertoire, because it's super easy and quick but still has a lot of payoff in terms of look.





Iconiqueeeee. Love everything about it. The sheer unending amounts of glitter. A RED GLITTER LIP. The harsh, melancholy brows that almost give off a Dietrich or Garbo vibe. The red white and blue! The streak of unblended blush! It is makeup as glamour armor which is my favorite kind, really.





Basically everyone has incredible makeup in this film but I chose Toni for the graphic because this look in particular is so very good. In general the movie embraces the sort of pastel kaleidoscope of seventies makeup that spans everything from the '30s movie star realness you see before you to people dipped literally head to toe in mint green glitter.





The makeup in this movie is incredible. I bow down to the artists responsible. Not only did they do an impeccable job of recreating a lot of Boy George's specific makeup looks, but it's just nice to see this era of makeup on screen, because we don't see much of it. I love the eighties New Romantics look: harsh eyebrows, sunsets of color on the lid, strong lips, and blusher blended straight up to your hairline. It is very full on and very of its time, very pleasing to my eyeballs.





The powder blue eyeshadow that will live in infamy! Honestly I doubt this eyeshadow color exists post-1960s. But it had its MOMENT then, it sure did. And Anna's is the best, especially with that baby pink lipstick. So sixties, I love it.





Kiiiiind of hard to tell in this cap, but Babs spends the whole movie rocking her signature look of the decade, which was a rather elongated cut-crease, very sixties cat eye kind of thing. I love it because it was an oft-repeated look but on her face is utterly unique thanks to the shape of her features. Generally you see that sort of makeup on Cher-types because they have the gigantic eyeballs to pull it off, but Babs really worked it to her own eye shape. God and at one point in this movie she wears this incredible eyeshadow that perfectly matches her gown – I don't even know what to call the color except hydrangea blue, it was so beautiful.





I once saw someone say that the great thing about his look in this movie is that it's very masculine. And I know that is a statement that is kind of cognitive dissonance-y, but I really do agree with it. Yes, he trots around the whole movie in a corset and panties. Yes, he is wearing a very heavy full face of makeup. But it's really not a feminine look. He is not trying to look like a woman. It's heavy, it emphasizes his brows and eyes, it does nothing to soften his features. It's a veeery interesting look.





Marilyn rocked essentially the same look every time, and it's probably burned into our collective cultural retinas by now. It's one of my favorites. Generally, it was a pearlescent white eyeshadow with a heavy lashline and a glossy red lip. Lisa Eldridge over on YT does what I consider the definitive breakdown of the Marilyn look, it's so good. It's interesting how her look didn't vary much film to film, because in a lot of ways her entire career was a character. It was Norma-Jean-playing-Marilyn-playing-whoever.





Sorry for choosing a half-dead cap, Satine! It just showed off the makeup so well. Love love love this look, especially the very long Gibson girl brows and soft, smoky eyeshadow. There's almost a 1940s element to it. A very classic look, and another very simple one.