@boldeyebeauty said my content made them feel more proud to be a makeup artist.
🙏🙏❤️That stayed with me.
We’re quick to respect work that saves lives,
but slower to respect work that shapes how people feel about themselves, and how they’re seen by the world.
Makeup does that.
And it matters more than people like to admit.
Here are some of the aspects of makeup artistry that I find most fascinating and validating.
Always appreciative of your thoughts.🙏🙏❤️
#beautycommunity #beautyhistory #makeupresearch
At the end of this reel is a graph I made showing thick to thin to bleached to no brows and creative variations in between, to see at a glance, how diverse brows have been since the 1950s.
I wanted to gauge which decade(s) had been the most experimental and how it compared with was happening culturally to explore if it was related. Not a scientific study, but based on my lived experience of 1960s to now and working in fashion since 1980. Let me know if the findings surprise you.
Always interested and appreciative of your thoughts 🙏🙏🙏🙏
Honestly, the comment section is my favourite part of this page! ❤️❤️❤️❤️🗣️
#beautyhistory #browtrends #thinbrows #00smakeup #browsonfleek
Part 2 for my fellow brow fanatics-
80s and 90s brows were much more uniform than in the 70s, although there were contradictions. As always the underground scene was very experimental and arriving in London in 1982, I had a fantastic time with a lot of creative freedom as a Makeup artist traversing between mainstream and alternative editorials and artists.
The photo I used on the cover of the reel was for Zandra Rhodes, photographed in around 1984 by the wonderful photographer Robyn Beeche, Hair by Trevor Sorbie, model Carmen. I used to do so much tiny detail makeup, no retouching back then.
Thank you as always for sharing any thoughts, 🙏🙏I love to hear them. ❤️
#beautyhistory #browtrends #thinbrows #80smakeup #90smakeup
What happens when a pro makeup artist of 14 years takes on critical theory in a Fine Art degree??✍️📑
Well, one outcome was a research paper I wrote about 35 years ago on 1950s women’s eyebrows while at Goldsmiths (the UK’s conceptual art epicentre).
I argued that those heavy, graphic brows, so synonymous with 50s fashion, were like a clarion call toward the second wave of feminism. The tutors thought I was a little crazy… as usual.😂
I could never decipher the notes my tutor wrote on the paper, but I think they liked it…🤷🏻♀️
Anyway, since I wrote it three decades ago, I thought it could use an update to cover up to the present day. So, this will be a three-part series exploring how I believe eyebrows can symbolise shifts in attitudes to femininity in relation to culture and society.
Always interested and so appreciative to hear your thoughts 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏❤️
#makeuphistory #makeupevolution #beautyresearch #browtrends
From doing makeup for David Bowie and Tina Turner, to getting shunned in the 90’s, to creating some of the most recognisable works of body painting, to founding the viral business Face Lace, to now researching the science of facial perception and its application to makeup and beauty... our next artist Phyllis Cohen is sharing 40 years of advice, experiences and insights!
In this Masterclass, you will learn about:
▪️Navigating the industry as a creative artist
▪️Balancing your portfolio
▪️Finding creativity and inspiration
▪️Phyllis’ unique creative process
▪️Founding a beauty business and facing its challenges
▪️Perceptual science of makeup and its application in real-life
▪️Nuances of working with celebrities
▪️Advice for artists that do not conform to ‘the current trend’
▪️And so much more!
PLUS an incredible tutorial in which Phyllis brings theories into practice and explores masculine vs feminine facial features through makeup.
This one is for everyone who has ever felt they don’t fit in, for creative dreamers and for those who want to understand the science behind their artistry.
While researching something else I read about male beauty contests in Ancient Greece and did a deep dive.
What used to celebrate culture specific expressions of “beauty” have become globally standardized for profit. But viewing numbers have been declining, and in 2018 Miss America scrapped the swimwear section, Miss Universe continues to include it. Are these contests still relevant?
Thank God for events that turn the tables so creatively like the @alternative.miss.world 🌟🌟which I’ve had the great privilege to have seen and had the honor of doing Andrew’s @andrewlogansculptor 🙌🙌❤️❤️makeup for the host/hostess for 8 of the 9 contests since 1985- what a joy!!
Always interested to hear your thoughts🙏🙏😅
#beautystandards #beautyhistory #creativebeauty #beautycontestvg
How do you respond to todays enormous choice of makeup styles?
Do you think it’s an improvement of where we were 100 years ago, is it overwhelming or liberating?
Do you stay in one lane or move around?
Always interested in your thoughts 🙏🙏🙏Cover photo by @matthewshave Makeup by me
#makeuphistory #beautyresearch #makeupevolution #makeupbusiness
Introducing your next Masterclass teacher: PHYLLIS COHEN!
It is impossible to sum up Phyllis’ 40-year career in a few short lines:
Creative fashion makeup artist who was often told that she was ‘too much’, but ended up working with David Bowie, Tina Turner, Annie Lennox and Janet Jackson. Published in Vogue, Citizen K, Dazed and Confused, Elle, Marie Claire, Vanity Fair and many, many other magazines @phylliscohen_archives
Inventor of Face Lace, the famous stick-on makeup that went viral across the industry and was seen on Lady Gaga and TV smash hit Euphoria @face_lace
Researcher of facial perception applied to makeup- an ongoing exploration of how perceptual science explains makeup tricks on her trending Instagram page @perceptual.makeup
For those who never fit in, who love creative makeup, who want to understand our biological instincts when it comes to reading faces, or who want to learn from one of the most unique voices in the industry... this one is for you!
Phyllis: “It was a great pleasure to be asked to contribute to the Behind Beauty library, and have the opportunity to demonstrate and explain very specific perceptual science theories while applying makeup.”
Coming 10.04.26
#makeupmasterclass #facelace
I wanted to do a photo shoot celebrating the long history of Red ochre for “makeup” from its theorized first use, 100s of thousands of years ago, as the Female Cosmetic Coalition from my post of Feb 27th, to the way we use it for iconic details like glossy red lips.
I didn’t have time to talk about Specularite on that post, a sparkly black mineral that was also found in Stone Age settlement remains. But that was my inspiration for the eyes.
The Squiggle linking the expressive to the precise use, was inspired by one of my favorite 70s illustrators Pater Sato 🙌🙌🙌🙌
Photo the fantastic @matthewshave
Model the absolutely stunning @cynthiaabdulahi 🙌🙌🙌🙌
Shot at @batterseaparkstudios ❤️❤️
#realskin #makeuphistory #makeupevolution #beautyresearch
It seems once we starting down the path of using makeup for self-expression, others wanted to regulate it. This is quite well documented in Ancient Greek and Roman writing and then spread across Europe with Christianity and associations of morality. The presentation of the Face and Hairstyles could either represent purity and humility (Medieval and Victorian eras) or privilege and decadence 18th c French and English aristocracy. Have we gone beyond this now? or is it still present, albeit much more democratically, in the “clean girl” vs “creative makeup” continuum?
Always interested and appreciative of your thoughts.🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏❤️
#makeuphistory #beautyresearch #makeupevolution #beautystandards
These are thoughts for anyone who wrestles with the pressure of chasing perfection. Even though we may feel compelled to pursue it, we need to remember it’s an illusion, one that’s impossible to achieve 100%.
If we imagine that a Female Cosmetic coalition did happen hundreds of thousands of years ago, where women had the original idea to paint themselves with red ochre to signify solidarity (please see last reel) do we need a new one now? Let’s brainstorm what that might be?
#beautytruths #realbeauty #timelessbeauty #beautyateveryage
I have been so intrigued by this speculative theory of the Female Cosmetic Coalition developed by Evolutionary Anthropologists Chris Knight, Camilla Power, and world expert on Red Ochre archaeologist Ian Watts.
I love the brilliant ingenuity it suggests to use Makeup to express their needs and solidarity, and that experts believe it was perhaps the first symbolic idea made into an artform leading to Art as we know it
I hope you will enjoy this series of the Evolution of Makeup, always interested in your thoughts.
To learn more about the Female Cosmetic Coalition try here /watch?v=2e5YrawHcXw start at around 46:00 or look at the Wikipedia page /wiki/Female_cosmetic_coalitions
#makeuphistory #beautyresearch #redmakeup #makeupevolution
