Perfume, A Century of Scents by Lizzie Ostrom

Lizzie Ostrom might be better known in perfume circles as the brains behind the glorious "Odette Toilette" website, which runs inventive and exciting perfume-themed events and excursions thoughout the year.  I've written about several of them here, having visited both the Osmotheque in Paris with Odette and been to the re-run of that event when the Osmotheque visited London earlier this year. That visit to Paris was an important turning point in my life coping with being smell-disabled, but I've been going to Odette events for years, even before I realised just what a big deal fragrance was going to be in my life.  Lizzie is a lovely, and well-respected member of the UK perfume scene and seeing her name in print is a thrill.

I've known this book was on the way for ages, easily over a year, and I've had it on pre-order at Amazon since last April,  so to say I've been dying to read it would be a mild understatement.  Perfume books can easily slip into the either incomprehensibly pretentious or overly-florid (I've read some shockers over the years, believe you me) and Lizzie sidesteps these issues with the judicious application of a delightfully playful sense of humour and by allowing a real sense of love for fragrance - and by firmly acknowledging the occasional absurdity of the business itself - to rise from the pages.

The story of 100 fragrances, organised into ten each per decade of the previous century, Lizzie selects perfumes that best exemplify each era (whether good, bad or indifferent - they just need to be important, not necessarily good), and tells the story of each in just a couple of pages.  Putting each into the context of the time it was released, and discussing the impact of ingredients as well as the pop culture of the time makes this read slightly unlike any other history of fragrance that you may have read before.  By not just focusing on the classics (you're likely to find the "great smell of Brut" discussed alongside the merits of Shalimar in here) Lizzie has found new tales to tell, and it's all the more fascinating to read as a result.

Beautifully bound, and prettily illustrated A Century of Scents is that rare beast, a coffee-table book that is wonderfully absorbing.  For anyone with even the slightest interest in fragrance, this is a perfect Christmas present. At only £16.99, it's a bargain, too.

Look out next week when I'll be giving away a copy of the book to one of my readers. 





The Fine Print: Purchase


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Sali Hughes - Pretty Honest: Beauty Book Review

By Get Lippie

I love beauty books, I've been collecting them for years now, and even have some that date back to the mid 1800's.  There's a special joy in reading beauty regimes from days gone by, and if the book dates back far enough, they're a wonderful historical document, opening your eyes to just what life was like for women back in the day.  On the flip-side of that coin, there's the special joy that comes from reading a mid-1980's beauty book, and laughing at all the pictures and wondering how the hell no one noticed just how INSANE they looked. I have a lot of books from the 80s for some reason ... funny that.

Traditionally, "modern" beauty books fall into two categories: the picture heavy "How To" tome, usually presented by a makeup artist, filled with impossible to follow "simple" instructions, which are usually dated the second they're sent out from the printer, and the second is a "lifestyle" kind of tome, filled with snippets of how the author (usually a "celebrity" of some kind) lives their "beautiful" life, replete with soft-focus heavily posed pictures of said celebrity in yoga positions, arranging flowers, diet tips, and a small interview with their hairdresser or makeup artist towards the back.

Delightfully, Pretty Honest by Sali Hughes doesn't fall into either of these categories, being on the text-heavy side, and providing more of a guide for people who fall into the "What the hell are they talking about now?" category when faced with a "helpful" sales assistant in Debenhams. We've all been there. I've actually been known to say it to them, which is why I had to move to London where no one recognises me in the department stores any more.

Pretty Honest is logically laid out, with discrete chapters on every aspect of skincare and make up, for all ages, and whether you like to where a little makeup or a lot.  Sali (rightfully) avoids the trap of recommending specific products for specific uses. This can be a particular pitfall of so many books because, as we all know brands tend to discontinue things (or change the formulation) the very second people fall in love with them. Yes, I'm looking at you, Chanel India Pink lipstick.

Refreshingly candid, funny and down-to-earth, I enjoyed reading (and I do mean actually reading, as opposed to flicking through and admiring the pictures) Pretty Honest a great deal.  It reminds me, in the very best of ways, of how beauty blogs used to be before the hidden sponsorship and "lifestyle" prettiness took over a year or so ago.  I love the pretty blogs, actually, but I do genuinely prefer meaty content to beautiful pictures and Pretty Honest has that in spades.

It's actually a consumer guide on to how to use products (and avoid skincare problems), disguised as a beauty book and I, for one, am glad that it exists.  Sali's a great bunch of lads, and whilst I think she's frankly insane on the issue of foundation primers, there's a lot of great information in here.

It'll make a fantastic beauty-related gift for anyone who's ever worn lipstick.  It's £22 and available in all good bookstores now.

The Fine Print: PR Sample.

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The Art of Male Makeup by David Horne and Mark Bowles

By Luke

“The only way I'd be caught without makeup is if my radio fell in the bathtub while I was taking a bath and electrocuted me and I was in between makeup at home. I hope my husband would slap a little lipstick on me before he took me to the morgue.” - Dolly Parton. 

Make up is a funny thing isn’t it? The quote above is the way a lot of women feel about makeup, or more pertinently, how they feel about themselves without it.

I don’t know when it was exactly that women or society more likely hijacked makeup as being an almost exclusively female activity, but until fairly recently, certainly in my short lifetime *ahem* men with makeup on has always been viewed as a bit of a freakshow. This is with the exception of drag per se, that has little ambiguity about what is going on.

More often than I care to mention, when I explain to someone what I do for a living, it is quite often, and rather ignorantly, met with questions about whether I wear makeup, or even if I ‘do drag’ myself. The assumption being I suppose that if I am a dab hand at a bit of lipstick, and a brush, and I love a bit of glitter, that I must covet the most feminine of all things that is makeup, and want to decorate my face with it, ironically in a female parody sort of way.

But makeup and men do have a very long lineage. There have always been men, who still wishing to look like men, have worn makeup. I am not talking about those possibly too vain men that pop on a (very lightly) tinted moisturiser, or slick a little Touch Eclat under their eyes after a heavy night, and god forbid it should look like you are ACTUALLY wearing makeup for fear of ridicule.

Men who wear makeup, but to all the world don’t fit into this little box of drag, or camp, or androgyny, or feminine or all the other rather emasculating vocabulary you can throw at them because they are wearing something other than sweat on their faces.

Makeup, for me is a gender neutral product. Out of the pot onto a face, be it male or female, it’s the same.  In this respect, there is a subculture of men that do wear makeup because quite simply it pleases them to do so.  But, when looking at male makeup, there are few reference points.  Until now. This week, I was invited to the launch of a new book The Art of Male Makeup. Its creators are the two prolific and frankly fabulous David Horne and Mark Bowles.Both makeup artists, and both incredibly clever.

The book was born from this lack of reference to makeup from a male perspective, or worn by men that wasn’t as I said earlier draggy, or trans, or feminine. Far from detracting anything from these particular styles, the book seeks to demonstrate that male make up is an art form all on its own.

An important and rather insightful analysis took place as to what exactly *is* feminine about makeup? A very particular eye was cast over the various techniques that we are all so familiar with and examined to see what exactly feminised them.

An example of this would be eyeliner (guyliner *shudders* I loathe that term). A straight, unbroken line is feminine; a flick for example is also feminising the eye. Matte, for example, is deemed more masculine than a shimmer, or a shine. Glamour is not the goal here. Any ‘traditional’ cosmetic tricks are pulled right back so as not to overdo, and become about the makeup, and not the face.

And fundamentally, what is masculine makeup? It’s not about decoration, so much as it is enhancement. It’s less about correction, and more about character. The Art of Male Makeup presents 28 characters to us, that are all familiar male types, and shows us with these rules how makeup emphasises the masculine traits of the face and body. There is not one that isn’t intriguing, and doesn’t drag you into the story of that particular character, and some will even surprise you. It is beautifully photographed by the extremely charming Daniel Ellyot Moore. 

  

Flicking through, not one of these men has been feminised by the makeup, or the hair. And each time I go looking at a different page, I notice something new in the picture. They are all very beautiful indeed.  A true collaboration of creative talent, there were a number of artists who worked on this book including the amazing Julia Townend (on body makeup this time), and Spob O’Brien on hair duty. 

So what does it mean?

Well for me it’s a welcome relief on many levels. Not only is it a perfect reference for the way maleness is perceived by Mark and David, but it also signifies a new perspective in the world of makeup, and artistry as a whole. We are seeing a lot of the same type of thing all the time. Another smoky eye, another cut crease, another contoured face that we’re all supposed to mimic and get excited about, when actually, these are not new concepts but just lazy populist re hashes of the same thing over and over.  The Art of Male Makeup articulates a whole new world of possibilities for you to look at, and equally for me as an artist.

 A stunning book, and an incredible body of work. I leave you with some beautiful illustrations of the looks by Achraf Amiri.  If you are at all serious about makeup, you need to own this. 

 

The Art of Male Makeup is available by emailing hausofhorne@yahoo.com and is £25.

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