Flawless Logic.(makeup artist tips)

Flawless Logic

aura Mercier did Madonna's makeup for eight years, which is the cosmetics equivalent of being seeded number one at Wimbledon for eight consecutive seasons. It is to Laura Mercier that Sarah Jessica Parker and Julia Roberts turn when they need their makeup done for a special occasion. Her products are sold in high-end department stores around the country, and her personal appearances are mobbed by women who listen to her instruction as if she were the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and they were each George Harrison. What makes Mercier such a draw is that -- Madonna's extravagant video-ready looks aside -- she specializes in the art of concealment through cosmetics, rather than the art of adornment. Her techniques and her products are intended to cover dark shadows, visible capillaries, and other spots and marks that invariably appear on every face. Every Laura Mercier counter is stocked with creams and powders in as wide a variety of flesh tones as the panty hose display in a department store. Mercier also specializes in the art of concealing the art of concealment. If you use her products correctly, not only will no one know you have dark circles under your eyes; no one will know you have covered up the dark circles under your eyes, either. A hundred years ago, before the popularity of mass-market cosmetics, there wasn't much choice for the average woman to adopt anything other than the natural look, since makeup was strictly for actresses and other notoriously depraved sorts. If you didn't want to have your morals questioned, the occasional daring touch of scented cornstarch to blot an oily nose would have been your only choice. But everything changed in the '20s and '30s when cosmetics moguls such as Helena Rubenstein and Elizabeth Arden gave the made-up look widespread popularity. The cat's-eye liner of the '50s, the false eyelashes of the '60s, the heavily shadowed smoky eyes of the '70s, the power-red lipsticks of the '80s -- all are examples of how calculated artificiality has characterized most makeup fashions.

t's only in the past decade or so that the most fashionable faces have been those that seem as if they have practically nothing on them -- even though the look has been achieved with the help of a bathroom shelf full of products. It is harder to achieve the no-makeup look than the painted perfection of the 1980s -- just as it is harder to achieve a flat stomach through muscle tone than with a girdle. The fact that contemporary bodies and faces are supposed to look both uncontrived and flawless -- something that only those who are both young and lucky can manage without assistance -- is one of the ironies of the modern age, and one not lost on Laura Mercier. "It's easy to trap women into not wanting to age," Mercier told me when I visited her Manhattan apartment. "Customers say, 'Make me sexy.' But they are cold as fish, they don't feel any sensuality, they are not in love, and nobody loves them. How are they going to look sexy?" Mercier's personal belief that looking sexy begins with an interior glow does not prevent her from making a living counseling women on how to contrive, if not the flush of first love, at least the semblance of health and wakefulness. "Our technique is called the 'flawless face,'" Mercier explains, her heavy French accent unadulterated by the influence of American English even after 18 years in New York City. "The idea is ...