Face Forward
February 7th, 2010
- Features A-list celebrities undergoing incredible transformations
- Teaches you how to create a runway-ready look
- Step-by-step instructions accompany each photo
- Takes the mystery out of makeup
- Allows you to learn from one of the most sought after makeup artists
Product Description
The ultimate beauty bookboth gorgeous and practical. Face Forward showcases Kevyn Aucoins incredible transformations of famous and ordinary people alike, and reveals through its step-by-step instructions how makeup can give anyone a variety of different faces. Making Faces has sold 350,000 copies in hardcover and 200,000 copies in paperback to date. Face Forward has already sold more than 250,000 hardcover copies. Kevyn Aucoin is indisputably the best-known makeup artist in North America today.Cher, Calista Flockhart, Jodie Foster, Jewel, Gwyneth Paltrow, Michelle Pfeiffer, Julia Roberts, Diana Ross, Martha Stewart, Christy Turlington, and Vanessa Williams are among the celebrities featured in Face Forward.Amazon.com Review
“Makeup should be fun, not fascist,” celebrity makeup artist Kevyn Aucoin avers in Face Forward, his third book. One of the most adored stylists among fashionistas, entertainment divas, and high-society jet setters, Southern-born Aucoin arrived on the New York fashion scene in the early ’80s, a period he ridicules for its ’50s-era conservatism and McCarthyist us-against-them values. His career since has been motivated by the feel-good ideals of acceptance, diversity, and self-love, and the vain world of beauty has eagerly participated in his vision. While one may puzzle on how it is he finds fulfillment in an industry known for its superficiality and elitism, Aucoin’s words are nonetheless infectious and the touches of his brushes inspired.
Conceived as an exploration of the past, present, and future of beauty, Face Forward is an ingenious showcase of the transformative, creative possibilities of makeup, with portraits of everyone from Julia Roberts to Sharon Stone, Martha Stewart to his mother, Thelma. His crafted visages range from minimal-application makeovers of friends to elaborate re-creations of such Hollywood icons as Audrey Hepburn (Calista Flockhart), James Dean (Gwyneth Paltrow), and Veronica Lake (shockingly, Martha Stewart) and such pop-culture personalities as Cher (socialite Alexandra von Furstenberg) and Siouxsie Sioux (Winona Ryder). The final pages present his ideas for looks to come, such as “Explorer,” Mary J. Blige covered in eggplant body makeup with a rainbow of metallic eye shadows over her eyes and thickly glossed red lips; “Floralia,” a freckled Lucy Liu resembling a sprite from A Midsummer’s Night Dream; and “Venusian de Milo,” Sharon Stone as an orange-haired, one-breast-baring sci-fi femme fatale. Throughout, Aucoin augments an already colorful book with step-by-step instruction, chatty commentary on each look and model, and riffs on such topics as friendship, politics (he repeatedly applauds the Clinton Administration for embracing diversity in the ’90s), and the environment.
“Appreciating (even highlighting) individuality is one of the great things about makeup,” asserts Aucoin, and Face Forward is a dazzling testament to that belief. For those who see the fun of makeup and are eager to experiment with the virtually unlimited possibilities of it, this book is a boon. –Rebecca Wright
February 7th, 2010 at 2:09 pm
(Please bear with me: I have ADHD and organizing a commentary is tough!)
Kevyn Aucoin heaps praise and brandishes amazement over the ability of some actresses (but never any actors) to endure hours of being photographed or interviewed. He cannot go two sentences without criticizing conservatives or making some outrageous generalization about what Americans think. He actually spends more time talking about how everyone is so hateful and ignorant than he does about make-up.
He comments that he ran out of the movie theater trying to watch “Boys Don’t Cry.” I know he’s dead now, but this is a guy who is missing a few screws. He can’t even make up his mind about whether he’s going to be bothered by other people’s opinion of him. Frankly, I’m sure no one thinks much about him at all.
In case you were wondering, he also weighs in on fur, meat, transsexuals, gun control, Clinton, the environment, the 1960s, the (nonexistent) oppression of women, slave labor, child workers, animal testing, recycling, Bette Davis being the greatest actress the world has ever known (!), and on and on and on.
He seems to have written this book as a response to criticism of his earlier book (which apparently lacked details about how to apply make-up to achieve certain effects). He is a BAD WRITER. For example: He says one should apply “foundation (to match),” but he never once says to what.
Rating: 4 / 5
February 7th, 2010 at 4:54 pm
Kevin Aucoin was one of the greatest talents. Get this book and have fun with it…
Rating: 5 / 5
February 7th, 2010 at 6:27 pm
Definitely, Kevyn has been one of the best make up artists. This is a great book, which will give many many ideas to create and “re invent” yourselves and others.
Rating: 5 / 5
February 7th, 2010 at 7:00 pm
I’ve been a long time admirer of Kevyn Aucoin, having bought his book Making Faces. I immediately purchased this one, and let me tell you, it’s worth EVERY PENNY! Don’t tell me that Winona Ryder is Liz Taylor. That Gwyneth Paltrow is Faye Dunaway. That MARTHA STEWART can look glamorous as Veronica Lake. That Calista Flockhart bears such a striking resemblence to Audrey Hepburn. That Tina Turner isn’t just as I would picture Cleopatra. And don’t tell me that Hilary Swank is Raquel Welch in One Million Years BC! This book is a work of pure makeup genius, and I don’t know anyone other than Kevyn who could pull that off.
Rating: 5 / 5
February 7th, 2010 at 8:04 pm
This was such a dissapointing book full of flashy photos and Kevyn’s sometimes silly anecdotes. Yes, there are instructions for creating all of the looks – but is this realistic? Really come now, are any of us going to try to make ourselves over into Joan of Arc, Cleopatra, James Dean, Clark Gable??????? This is just another vehicle for the author to showcase his magic on the human face (he is an extremely talented artist in his field) however, he is not giving us anything new since his last book and frankly, some of the contents of this book are rather bizaar. If you like to look at beautiful photos of models and celebs buy a magazine, study the makeup and try it out. It’s alot cheaper than this book.
Rating: 1 / 5