The beauty pages




I’m having a makeup moment. To look at me you’d never guess – my make-up arsenal consists of cheek-coloured blush, Carmex cherry lipbalm, barely-there lipgloss and a blot of powder but that’s not the point. It’s make-up imagery I’m talking about. When it comes to photography, it’s the fashion imagery that tends to get all the love while beauty is the neglected sister in the attic – ridiculed or ignored. One of my friends who is something high up on a UK glossy openly sneers at the beauty pages. During our regular magazine critiques this contributing editor will skim past with a dismissive hand-wave, ‘Ew, beauty pages – nobody reads those.’ Er, excuse me, I do!

In particular, I adore a product-heavy still life page – smears of eyeshadow, great shiny blobs of lipgloss and scribbles of eyeliner will stop me in my tracks on my way to the horoscope page – especially when supersized to heroic proportions. And sitting in on a beauty editor’s meeting is the best thing ever – all the products are arrayed in front of you while decisions are made on how to shoot lipsticks – ‘shall we do slices or smudges?’.

Harper’s Bazaar are currently doing the best still life beauty pages – they’re like artists’ paint palettes. Actually, the face shots aren’t bad either…

[Pics: Harper’s Bazaar]



Mon monogram




Even though it’s been overexposed in recent years (um, understatement much?), I’ve always liked the Louis Vuitton signature monogram. Last year, Louis Vuitton launched Mon Monogram, a service where you could have your own initials printed on top of the monogram. Now, you can do the process online. Of course I’m not going to get my own Mon Monogram LV but I had fun playing with the site. Pretty colours!