Makeovers

Brilliant, brilliant Caitlin Moran has written a piece for today's London Times on the transformative power of the make-over which made me hoot with laughter. I also rather agreed with her.

Getting to the point where I believed in make-overs has taken me at last ten years. I once pissed off a make-up artist on a shoot by commenting tactlessly that I was past the age of believing that make-up could make me look wondrously transformed. Bad mistake because she then made all my models look like crap. But what I really meant was that I didn't believe all that magazine guff that tries to convince me that if I just had access to the right tools and the right product I would be thinking daily, wow I could shag myself I look so hot.

In my experience, given access to a big box of make-up tricks generally you just look like a less scary version of your day to day self. And, once I'd had several make up jobs from pro makeup artists for various portraits and events, I gave up thinking that I would emerge from the studio dazzling everyone with my new-found beauty.

Then I was given the works at the Christian Dior artist suite at the Cannes Film Festival for a premiere I was attending one year and suddenly I understood why everyone made such a fuss about make-overs. Granted, my transformation was aided by huge fake eyelashes, a crop sprayer of hair lacquer and an inch of slap, but God I looked well, almost, gorgeous.

(I would have looked even better if I hadn't had a huge spot on my chin, which, looked particularly fetching blown up on the huge television screens tracking our inching high heeled progress up the endless red carpeted stairs at the Palais des Festivals that evening.)

But at least I now know that, given at least three hours, a bunch of fake hair & eyelashes, and the world's best make-up artists & stylists, I too can look pretty damn good.