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"This article was originally published as \"Confessions of a Celeb Makeup Artist\" in the August\u00A02005 issue of\u00A0Cosmopolitan.When you see a star looking gorgeous on the cover of a magazine or larger than life on a billboard, I may have had something to do with it. I'm a celebrity makeup artist and it's my job to make stars look hot, a process that can take hours and hours (and hours) because most celebrities don't show up to a photo shoot flawless. Most appear as normal as you or me\u00A0\u2014\u00A0sometimes worse. Their behavior isn't exactly always normal either. As long as I'm not naming any names, I figure I can spill a few secrets.\u00A0\n\tAdvertisement - Continue Reading Below\n\t\n\nBeauty Basics\u00A0\n\nBefore I became a makeup artist, I was working as a waitress, reading a lot of magazines, and wondering what to do with my life. I finally decided to go to makeup school in Los Angeles.\u00A0The only way to get jobs fresh out of school is to gain experience by assisting other makeup artists, doing little things like cleaning brushes and prepping a model's skin, which I did for about four months for free (Hello, rice and beans!). My first paid gig (a whopping $75) was an advertising spot for a denim company. I was terrified, but I pretended I knew what I was doing, and at the end of my grueling 10-hour day, the model thanked me for making her look so beautiful. I was hooked.\u00A0Since then, I've spent the last eight years doing makeup for models and actors on photo shoots, TV, and fashion shows. Sometimes, though, I think I should get a psychology degree. I'm the first person a star sits down with when they arrive at a photo shoot, and I'm touching their face all day. Because of that intimacy, they treat me like their good friend. They tell me about their sex lives and love problems and who they're secretly dating; it's like therapy time for them.\u00A0The Ugly Truth\u00A0You wouldn't believe how many celebrities have acne\u00A0\u2014\u00A0like severe acne. They have to wear so much makeup for the camera, their skin can't breathe and their pores get clogged. I once did a hair commercial with a young, up-and-coming actress who came to the studio with makeup already on, but I didn't realize how much until I started wiping it off. She'd layered it on like peanut butter in an attempt to cover the giant zits all over her face! It was bad. But she didn't bat an eye even though the director had to completely overhaul the lighting so her blemishes and acne scars wouldn't be visible.\u00A0Then there's facial hair. This incredibly famous model showed up for an outdoor photo shoot sporting a hairy lip (excess body hair is common on underweight people). I bleached it in the location van, but when we got outdoors, the sun just glistened off it, making it look bright yellow. The owner of the company showed up and yelled, \"She has a mustache! Get rid of it!\" I took her back to the van and shaved it off. (I had depilating cream with me, but because I didn't know the model's skin well, I didn't dare take the chance that she might have an allergic reaction.) The model was so embarrassed she started crying. I told her it wasn't bad \u2014\u00A0but the truth was, it was the gnarliest mustache I'd ever seen.\u00A0The thing is, even the most perfect-looking stars have just as many insecurities as the rest of us. They'll ask things like, \"Can you make my nose look smaller?\" or,\u00A0\"You can make my upper lip bigger, can't you?\" I can't blame them; their face is going to be plastered all over the big screen, ads, and magazines, and they know they're going to be scrutinized.\u00A0Last summer, I did makeup for a fashion show, and this stunning 18-year-old Asian model said that as soon as she made enough money, she was going to get her boobs and eyes done. I said, \"Your eyes?\" She said she wanted Caucasian-looking eyes in order to look like the other models. I said, \"But you're so beautiful because you don't look like the other models.\" But she was dead set on it.\u00A0I see a good amount of plastic surgery\u00A0\u2014\u00A0it's so obvious when their faces are inches from mine. I can see tiny scars from face-lifts and eye jobs, and of course I can tell when someone's had Botox. When most people look up as I'm doing their eye makeup, their foreheads lift and wrinkle. But with someone who's had Botox, the only things that move are their eyeballs! Their face is just frozen.\u00A0\n\tAdvertisement - Continue Reading Below\n\t\n\nThe strangest thing is when women get collagen injections in their lips to plump them up. As I'm dabbing their mouths with gloss, the collagen feels like little beads inside their lips. It's pretty gross. Chemical peels are also weird. The client's skin is so smooth and polished that the texture and pores seem to disappear. When I try to put on foundation, it practically slides off!\u00A0Makeup Peeves\u00A0A lot of the lower-tier celebs will wait until I'm finished, then go into the bathroom and change their makeup. Like I'm not going to notice! Or some stars will seriously over-pluck their eyebrows, a look that makeup artists call \"the hook.\" The eyebrow is arched really high but tweezed pencil-thin.\u00A0The biggest annoyance of all? Clients who have laser breath. Sometimes it's coffee and cigarettes, sometimes it's garlic from the night before, and I have to get close to their face \u2014\u00A0it's unavoidable\u00A0\u2014\u00A0so I've gotten good at only breathing through my mouth.\u00A0\n\nDespite the occasional peeves, though, I totally love my job. I work with cool people, and I get to travel to incredible places for photo shoots. If the client has a big budget, we get to stay in four-star hotels. The best trip I took was to Tulum, Mexico. Every night after work, the whole crew would make a bonfire on the beach. One of the models would bring her guitar, and we'd sing along, toast marshmallows, and gaze up at the stars. Not a bad life for a former waitress, right?\u00A0Click\u00A0here\u00A0to subscribe to the digital edition!\u00A0"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/style-beauty/beauty/a50511/celebrity-makeup-artist-confessions/>