Dress and Makeup Colours Must Match Skin Tones

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXIX, Issue 13241, 17 January 1941, Page 7

Dress and Makeup Colours Must Match Skin Tones

"Make-up as make-up is trash. Make-up that enhances natural beauty is the most valuable thing you can buy.” These frank words came from Ann Delafield, one of the foremost young women in the beauty 1 field and director of the Success School, at a recent 'gathering of buyers and beauty editors. Certain beauty stylists have told women that anyone can wear any colour if she will only use enough of this or that shade of make-up. And women, believing souls that they are, have dashed out to buy dresses in currently popular shades and the recommended make-up. Often the results are freakish. Miss Delafield says that it’s time to start telling women the tnith or they will lose faith in all make-up. In discussing the colours you should or shouldn’t wear, she makes this practical suggestion: Try on your dresses only after taking all make-up off the face. If you cant’ wear the colour without make-up, you can't wear it at all. If the colour is right for your skin —if it doesn't dull your hair or steal the brilliancy of your eyes, then you can wear it with astonishing results, when your lips, cheeks and eyes are heightened by a make-up that enhances your natural colouring. Colours for Three Types Mrs Victor White, a well-known portrait painted, then demonstrated how the right costume shades should be selected, how make-up can bring out the natural beauty in every girl and how it can heighten her personality.

I Three models were selected, love!ly Gloria Armstrong, one of this I season’s most popular debutantes, rej presenting the perfect blonde type [of beauty. One model was a trite j brunette and the third a blonde with j hair almost the same shade as. 'Gloria’s, but whose general colouring I was more drab. j By means of large circular “co!I lars” in spring costume colours, each shade was “tried on” the girls whose faces and lips were untouched by make-up. None of the girls selected could wear a true green—it made J even, the fair skin of Miss Armstrong ] seem sickly and dull. Blue green j was better, flattering to both brim- | ette and blondes. Blue was especialj ly good for the brunette, making her j eyes seem browner and her skin i fairer. A true violet was too strong for any of the types of colouring represented by the three girls. Blue, and this may surprise you, robs blue eyes of their brilliance; makes them look grey. “Ideal Colour” Found Finally, a lovely shade of blue red. was selected as the ideal colour for the brunette; blue-green, but in a rather soft, light 'tone, was selected for the drab blonde to brighten the blue of her eyes and contrast with her mousy hair. Each girl was draped in fabric in her “ideal colour,” and make-up applied. The make-up shades chosen were a clear crimson lipstick and rouge for the brunette, rose-beige powder to give her skin warmth, grey eyshadow with a blending of brown, blue and green for a natural iridescent effect, and black mascara. For the true blonde, green eyeshadow was- used and her lashes touched with black, then green, mascara. Carmine lipstick and rouge seemed to heighten the contrast between her pale skin and golden hair. Natural powder was used. The drab blonde emerged a dramatic blonde with a fuchsia lipstick and rouge, black lashes and black eyeshadow, and a rose-beige complexion powder. Ordinarily this make-up is one that would be used for a clearskinned brunette, but any girl whose skin can stand the trying shades of purple can wear a dramatic make-up..