Illuminated makeup

Congresswoman Kathy Hochul spoke about the jobs bill at a press conference this week. She wore a tan jacket, and blue eyeshadow: (http://youtu.be/cEtwnGuMbVA)

There's nothing wrong with blue eyeshadow per se, despite what some magazines may tell you. If you have hazel or light brown eyes, it can be a great choice.

But be careful, especially using the colors marked "highlight" in your little eyeshadow palette. They go on lightly and they're supposed to. If you don't have enough light while applying your makeup, you can inadvertently pile too much on your brow bone - it appears that may have happened to Rep. Hochul here. The best way to avoid this is to use a makeup mirror with lights on it.


They're not too forgiving to the little lines and blemishes on your face, but you can see exactly what you're doing.

It's a match

Rep. Mary Kaptur appeared on Washington Journal this week to discuss defense spending. She wore royal blue:

You can guess what I'm going to say, right? One too many details - the ruffled lapel, the necklace, the House pin and THEN the earrings that match the jacket. It's time to turn to Coco Chanel: before you leave the house, take one thing off.

Her lipstick is great, though. It's a rich color for day, but it works because her lips aren't super full.

Where has all the color gone?

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius recently spoke with reporters on c-span about the new health care law, parts of which take affect today. Uncharacteristically for the Secretary, both her clothes and her makeup stuck to a black and white color scheme:

Although we've discussed in the past how the Ms. Sebelius looks best in dusty pastel colors, I actually don't mind the black. She has strong features and can pull it off. But the eyeshadow is doing her no favors. By choose a relatively opaque white shade, she makes the lid look larger and heavier, and the eye itself look smaller and darker. Her usual lavender or taupe would work much better.

Three Senators, three looks

Senate Democrats held a press conference last week on the Small Business Jobs Creation Act. This clip shows in quick succession three women of the Senate with three very different looks: Mary Landrieu, Barbara Boxer and Maria Cantwell.


What was most striking to me about these three women was the difference in their makeup styles. Consider:

1. Mary Landrieu has the "no makeup" makeup look. Maybe a little too "no makeup." I would recommend a foundation with a little more coverage, especially around the nose area, where it looks like she got a little too much sun. Even a so-called 5 minute face can feel like a lot of work when you're going on little sleep and have a full day ahead, so I'm always looking for shortcuts, both for myself and for my clients. Personally, I really like Stila One Step.

2. Barbara Boxer has gone to the other extreme and is really wearing a lot of makeup here. The combination of heavy foundation and thick eyeliner has given her face an almost mask-like appearance. A lighter, glossier lip and peachier blush would also make her look more naturalistic.

3. Maria Cantwell got it just right. With subtle lavender eyeshadow and a creamy rose lip, we see past her makeup and focus once again on her words.

No matter how much makeup you're wearing, it's important to take it off at the end of the day, lest you regret it in the morning. As I said, shortcuts are key, but you've got to find the right ones. I recently tried Payot Eau Demaquillant Express, and I'm extremely impressed. [Full disclosure: I received a free sample during New York Fashion Week. But I'm going out to buy a bottle now!] Payot is a French heritage brand that is just now coming in to the US market via Beauty 360, the fancy-makeup offshoot of CVS. Although they carry a number of Payot products on their website, you'll have to go directly to the DuPont Circle store for a bottle of this one. It's quick, it's effective and it's not drying. Try it.

Fundamentals on primary day

Happy primary day! Today we'll see primary elections in New York, Massachusetts, Delaware, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Wisconsin and Maryland, featuring a number of candidates we've already featured here like Christine O'Donnell,  as well as incumbents like Barbara Mikulski and Carol Shea-Porter.

Today, let's look at one more candidate: Reshma Saujani, who is challenging Carolyn Maloney in the Democratic primary in the House 14th district.

Two features strike me:
1. She's young
2. Hello, black eyeliner (Lest you think this is just the video, check out her website - it's not)

So let's talk about what this means. First, she looks young. That might not be a bad thing. But in this case, I think she might be reading a little too young for a member of Congress, especially when you put her next to Carolyn Maloney, who is formidable. One of the biggest factors in making her look young is her long hair, well below her shoulders, which she wears loose and mostly unstyled. This is just a very young look. Even if she weren't ready to lose some of the length, a barrette or possibly even some curls might make her look older and more polished - something that looks like she did more than wake up and run a brush through it.

Second, the eyeliner. This much dark kohl on the upper and lower lids is closing in on her eyes and making them look smaller and harder to read. For voters looking for honesty and trustworthiness, having open, visible eyes is really important. I would recommend something much softer for her, perhaps a dark shadow applied with an angle brush on the upper lid only. That would outline the eye without shrinking it. 

A little shimmery eye shadow goes a long way

Nikki Haley won the Republican nomination for Governor in South Carolina this week. She appeared on CNN with John King on Wednesday:

This warm tomato red is a power color for her. She looks fantastic. This is why women in politics started wearing The Red Jacket in the first place.

It's her eyeshadow that concerns me a bit. It reflects so much light, it's distracting from her eyes. It's true that a woman with dark eyes and strong eyebrows has to be careful to stay away from eyeshadow that's too dark in a daytime look, but if you go too far in the other direction, this is the result. White and light colored shadows might not look shimmery in the pan or on the brush, but they reflect more light than medium shades simply because they are lighter. Combine that with intensely bright studio lights and you have a shimmery distraction.

Bare arms are for cocktails

Remember that time when we talked about how dressy and professional are not the same thing, and people got all riled up? Well hang on to your pearls folks because we're gonna do it again.

Rep. Michele Bachmann was on Fox Business earlier this week to discuss the oil spill. She wore a black sleeveless top:

A sleeveless top with no layer over it isn't terribly professional to begin with. It's an awful lot of skin to show during a serious discussion of a major disaster. But just as in Governor Brewer's outfit that we discussed before, it's the combination of items here that really drives the complete outfit past the borders of professional. Sleeveless and multistrand necklace and dangling earrings and smoky eye makeup and she looks a bit like she came from happy hour in Georgetown.

Who says white can't be tough?

Here is Senator Mary Landrieu at a Senate Homeland Security committee meeting last week:

I love this look. I love the bold use of white (before Memorial Day!) with more white underneath. I love the multi-strand necklace with organic texture. I even love the minimal makeup, although as usual, I wish she would put some lipstick on. In fact, if there was one tip I would give to all our women serving in Congress across the board, it's more lipstick. I'm sure most of them start out the day with lipstick, but it never makes it all the way to a committee hearing. Maybe we need to popularize a more permanent product with this group, like Benefit Cosmetics Benetint Mini Lip and Cheek Stain.

Too Many Circles for Elena Kagan

Whether or not you were expecting President Obama's announcement of Elena Kagan as his nominee for the Supreme Court, today's speeches were par for the course. Unfortunately, so was Ms. Kagan's jewelry:

This necklace and earring set is clearly a stand-by for the Solicitor General, worn frequently at her televised appearances. They're just not doing her any favors. The stark round shapes fight against the straight lines in her features and emphasize the roundness of her chin. The necklace is also a bit too long - if it hit her collar bone higher up, where the neckline of this dress falls, it would be in better harmony with the shape of her face.

She looks vibrant, healthy and even a bit more feminine than usual, in part because of the warm green color of her jacket and in part because of a warmer make up palette, both of which bring color to her face.

For now, Supreme Court hearings are not televised, but Ms. Kagan's comments in the past seem to indicate that that could change. I hope she's ready.

Michelle Rhee's signature look

You probably saw news coverage on DC Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee's recent labor contract proposal and how it might be paid for. But what you probably didn't see was a recent photo of her. I'm not sure why this is, but there are a lot of old file photos of her out there - you can see the length of her hair go up and down across newspapers, but you don't see a whole lot that's recent. So I went looking for something. Here's a speech she gave at the California Charter Schools Conference last month:

And you know what I noticed? She looks almost exactly the same as on her Time cover in November 2008:

Black suit

Dark lipstick

No jewelry

And very close variations on this look show up on all those file photos in between. It's a signature look, to be sure, but a rather severe one. She has a tough job and a polarizing persona that has nothing to do with how she looks. But if she's ever in the mood to take a more compromising stance, she's going to need to soften it up a bit. Even a switch over to a medium gray (a color that looks good on almost everyone) would be a start. The lipstick should really change in any case - a more sheer formulation in a classic red would do the trick, like Make Up For Ever in True Red 415.

Wasserman-Schultz and Shea-Porter stricken by blue eyeshadow

I had hoped that by now, in 2010, we would all be on the same page about blue eyeshadow. It has a role to play, but that role is not "matching the blue clothes I'm wearing." Unfortunately, two members of Congress were on some other page during the health care debate.

First, it was Debbie Wasserman-Schultz:

My concern about this eyeshadow is not just the color, it's also the shimmery formulation. Because Rep. Wasserman-Schultz has fuller eyelids, she would benefit from a matte shadow instead, in a neutral color. Stila has a really nice matte shadow right now.

Then blue eyeshadow showed up again, even brighter, on Carol Shea-Porter:

It's tempting to say "just say no to blue eyeshadow" but of course that isn't true. You should know by now that I'm a never say never kind of girl when it comes to fashion and beauty. But there is such a thing as too much color, and this is it. Rep. Shea-Porter might do well by trying a soft eyeliner and no shadow at all, focusing instead on some more color on the lip. Her suit is so saturated, the rest of the look needs to be simple.

Jennifer Granholm discusses job creation on CNN

Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm appeared on CNN to discuss job creation and the State of the Union address. She wore a navy blue blazer and a striped shirt:

Look carefully at the shirt. It has square buttons that are off center and diagonal piping along the edge. These are nice feminine touches, but they aren't enough too keep this outfit from looking rather masculine. Same thing with the pearl earrings - they are too small to have the desired effect. A brooch could have warmed up the blazer, or the same shirt in a different color would have looked less like menswear.

Her makeup is warm and colorful, so no one is going to mistake the governor for her brother, but I'm concerned that this look overall makes her look too young - like an intern who doesn't have a good wardrobe of "work clothes" yet.

Carly Fiorina reacts to the State of the Union

Senate candidate Carly Fiorina broadcast her reaction to the President's State of the Union address. She wore gray:

This medium gray looks good on most people, and Ms. Fiorina does well to compliment the nature shade of her hair. The best part of this video, though, is her makeup. Violet eyeshadow shades like this are usually a good choice on brown eyes, especially with cool hair colors. Soft powdered eyeliner and natural mascara also draw us to her eyes without distracting us. The rest of the face has a natural look - smooth, even foundation, minimal blush and a soft rose lipstick.

Tape up a screen shot next to your makeup mirror, ladies. This is the way to do it.