Me. Airbrushed.

Today we pile into Miss Jenny’s SUV and drive over to the fancy mall for a demonstration of the AIRbrush Makeup System by Temptu at Sephora. Miss Jenny has been planning the trip for days, making at least nine phone calls to confirm that everything is set. We’ve been told to arrive no later than 4 PM because the Temptu demos finish at 5 — but arrive to a nearly empty store and two brand reps overjoyed to have some prospective customers: Gus, wearing knee-high Doc Martens and Sam, who is dressed vaguely like an alien extra from Star Trek.

I had it all tangled up with those mall kiosks that make t-shirts with your name inside a heart or next to a palm tree, but apparently, airbrush makeup has been around since MGM sprayed hundreds of Ben-Hur extras. The new, consumer-friendly version is not cheap ($225 for the machine, plus $30-$55 for the “pods” of highlighter, blush, and foundation), but I guess when you consider all that silicone, silica, iron oxide and water you’re getting (plus the same parabens, thickeners, preservatives, dyes and fragrance that appear in any of your old-school, low-tech cosmetics), it’s a bargain?

I try to calculate how long a single pod of blush ($35) is supposed to last while to my right, Sam tells Meg why Temptu will be so brilliant for her dry skin, and on my left, Gus tells Stephanie why Temptu will be so indispensable for her oily skin.

When it’s my turn, Gus tells me that Temptu is especially well designed to combat redness and breakouts (thanks for noticing) and aims his pod gun at a spot on my chin. “You just have to be patient,” he says. “It takes awhile to cover everything perfectly and you have to practice.”

She is being very patient.

That’s probably why Temptu holds workshops for professional makeup artists to learn their equipment — all you have to do to attend is buy $150 worth of product, after which, I’d guess I would be a convert, too.

Miss Jenny, who has been humming with excitement about this trip all week, seems disconcerted as we examine the results. “I’m not sure I like wearing this much on my face,” she admits. “We look awfully matte.”

We console ourselves by pocketing as many free lotion samples as we can find, then take our newly poreless faces off to P.F. Chang’s for lettuce wraps before driving home.

[Photo Credits: Gus's fine airbrushing work and my scanning, plus this guy and this one.]

From pages 404-405 of Milady’s Standard Fundamentals for Estheticians:

There is a difference between high-quality (usually more expensive) and less expensive generic brands. The quality of the products and brushes makes a big difference in how makeup application will go [sic] for you, the artist, or for your client — smoothly or not so smoothly.

Explain to clients why they should buy quality makeup and brushes. Why are they better? Is quality going to make a difference on their skin? Will quality products glide on easier and not tug on the delicate eye tissue? Clients will be more satisfied with products that are easier to work with and will discover that quality is worth the extra money.

From page 437:

Good lighting makes a client look good, and clients who look good are more likely to purchase the products you recommend.

From page 447:

In a [makeup] lesson, clients are shown step by step how to apply makeup. These services are more time-consuming and expensive because you are sharing your knowledge. Lessons are a good opportunity to retail products so clients can reproduce the look you create at home.

Just in case anyone is confused about why we’re all here.

[Photo Credits: Makeup Lesson Chart and Bobbi Brown 2008 holiday offer via Daily Moxie]

In case you haven’t noticed, eyelashes are having a bit of a moment right now.

Brooke Shields is very concerned about them. You might not have thunk it, given Brooke’s eyebrows in the 80s, but she suffers dreadfully from hypotrichosis, the almost-a-real-medical condition of “having inadequate lashes.” Brooke thinks you might too, in which case you’ll also want to pay $120 per month for Latisse, a glaucoma drug that sounds much sexier  now that pharmaceutical company Allergan is marketing it for its lash-enhancing side effect instead.

Meanwhile, everyone from Lancome to Maybelline has taken a cue from lady razors, and ah, other lady devices, coyly introducing a plethora of vibrating mascaras. Miss Jenny has no patience with this: “We’re taking things a little too far now.”

Nevertheless, Beauty U prides itself on a cutting edge curriculum, so tonight we watch Miss Stacey demo eyelash extensions on Kirsty, one of the senior students. These are individual false eyelashes that an esthetician glues to your existing lashes to make them crazy long and fluffy. They can last up to a month, even withstanding swimming and contact lenses.

Applying eyelash extensions is finicky, pokey work: First your esthetician tapes your lower lashes to your face, so they don’t get in the way. Then you close your eyes (smart move, you), while she uses the world’s longest tweezers to pick up each individual lash and dip it in glue with one hand. With her other hand, she uses the world’s second longest tweezers to separate your top lashes and guide the first pair of lash-holding tweezers in place.

The entire procedure can take at least 90 minutes, depending how many lashes you need and how experienced your esthetician might be. Miss Stacey works deftly, grumbling about the crappy eyelash glue, but nevertheless securing a row of neat lashes in place. Then we all get a turn. Meg takes a pass because the whole thing creeps her out. When I pick up the world’s longest tweezers, all I can think about is Kirsty’s eyeball, millimeters from the tweezer points. She thinks the same thing at the same moment, and starts blinking madly.

I spend ten minutes attempting to secure one lash, while thinking about the time I had my wisdom teeth pulled and the intern dentist took ten minutes to place my IV, leaving my arm bruised and tracked up like a heroin addict. At least that was deemed medically necessary by someone other than Suddenly Susan.

I decide to hand the tweezers back to Miss Stacey.

The whole deal with eyelash extensions is that you’ll pay $150 for them if you’re a client of Beauty U (where, um, someone with a few months of schooling on me will wield the tweezers) and upwards of $300 at a real salon. The cost to you is on par with Latisse, minus the side effects like your irises or eyelids potentially turning brown, though plus the risk of someone poking you in the eye or you having an allergic reaction to the glue.

The cost to the salon is about $5 per procedure. So I guess we’re all pretty grateful to Brooke for getting out there and spreading the word on hypotrichosis.

Miss Stacey pinches one, precious, glue-dipped lash and points the world’s longest tweezers aloft, Circle of Life style. The esthetics lamp glows like the sun.

“There’s an awful lot of money in this,” she says.

[Photo credit: eBay]