Hello, I'm Jeff Goldblum. Yup. There are my eyes.
Mostly, I'm a person who wants to honor nature.
And I say, you know, don't mask nature.
If you wanna look good on the outside,
there's got to be something good going on on the inside.
This is David Cox, my dear friend
and the best makeup artist in the entire known universe.
Look at those hands go! Like a magician with a sponge.
-To look natural... -Yeah.
...you need to have different shading in the color of your face
-to make it look alive. -Yeah, my face is like, you know...
Yeah. Lines and you have...
-Wait a minute. What is this about lines? -And shapes.
I'm no stranger to the makeup chair.
I've been transformed into a tragically romantic human fly,
a periwinkle blue alien, even a grandiose...
...all for Mother Cinema.
Gee, look at me, I'm talking,
and I can't keep my eyes off myself. Why is that?
This is a bitter pill.
I may be more vain than I ever expected.
The cosmetics market is worth over 500 billion dollars, globally.
And in the United States of America, around 66 percent of us
wear makeup nearly every single day of life.
Magic!
You might say that we're obsessed with powder and paint.
So you will please to come with me
on an exploration, maybe even an excavation,
as we peel back the layers to reveal
what's hidden beneath.
I remember in the '60s seeing Cleopatra with Elizabeth Taylor.
Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra, Siren of the Nile.
My mom, Shirley, fashioned herself as sort of a Pittsburgh Elizabeth Taylor,
who, as tan as she could possibly be, started to put on that white lipstick.
But I tell you, my own personal taste is that a beautiful face...
can be beautiful without enhancement.
I like unadorned nature. Would you take a flower?
Pardon me, flower, I'm just gonna use you as a demonstration.
And say something is wrong with this. It needs a little sprucing up.
It's not attractive to the bees or something.
I'm gonna put a little color on there or something. No.
Likewise, the color of your eyelashes, it's irreplaceable.
Well, you know, that's my two cents, for what it's worth.
Wait a minute. Wait a minute. What?
What is this? Am I descending into a discotheque?
This is what's called a SEPHORiA. It's a makeup enthusiast's paradise.
-Look at this. -Guess where we are!
SEPHORiA!
Every kind of cosmetic imaginable can be daubed on your lips,
and smelled, and sampled, and, no surprise here, purchased.
So, I guess if you're wild about cosmetics,
this is the ultimate candy store,
and, you know what I'm gonna do, I'm just gonna jump into this euphoria,
or, wait a minute, I guess I should say "SEPHORiA".
Why do people love cosmetics so, so much?
Why?
I love makeup because it's empowering, and it's transformative.
Did you hear that? Empowering and transformative.
I like that.
Makeup is... it's art.
Like, look at your fashion, it's the same thing with makeup.
Sometimes you wanna wear cool different textures, and it's all black.
Other days you wanna wear, boom, that shirt.
Today, I went for something more natural, but still glam,
and so, it still highlights my natural beauty.
I wish had some natural beauty to highlight myself.
-I'm sure you do. -Well, somewhere.
This is no time for a scavenger hunt, though, I...
Okay. So, there we got a few anecdotal answers as to why.
But did you know that the colors that we put on our face
can trigger powerful psychological responses?
And now, I've been given some material.
Yellow is often associated with happiness and joy.
But it can be an attention-grabber,
which is why taxi cabs are painted like bright, ripe bananas.
Green is pleasingly harmonious.
It makes us think of growth and fertility, and all things fruitful and abundant.
It also signals safety. It's okay to cross the street now.
There are those who think that blue evokes trust, loyalty, and wisdom.
It makes us feel tranquil and serene. I think they're just guessing there.
The many shades of red
are perhaps the most powerful colors in your makeup bag.
The color red stimulates a primal emotional response in our brains.
It's the hue of blood, flushed cheeks.
It makes us think of love, sex, and revolution.
Hey, I may have already suggested that this is not really my field.
So, I'd better get some of the basics. First, the facts.
Makeup, as a thriving industry, is a 20th-century phenomenon.
By the end of the Second World War,
the United States was the world's largest producer of cosmetics,
with a collection of female entrepreneurs,
like Helena Rubinstein and Estée Lauder, leading the charge.
And today, I'm scheduled to get a makeup lesson
with the very model of a modern makeup mogul.
Tap, tap, tap, tap Don't let me interfere
- Hello! - Tap, tap, tap, tap
-Mr. Goldblum! -Hello!
-How are you today? -Ms. Silva.
-People like makeup. -People love makeup.
They love wellness and beauty. And I think part of that is,
we have a desire to feel good about ourselves.
You know, I'm married to a beautiful girl named Emilie.
And I say to her, "You know, I love you without any makeup.
-"You look great with..." -That's the mark of true love.
Am I being male, and is that my own prejudice?
A lot of makeup was really developed to attract men,
but at the same time, some men don't like makeup.
So, what I try to do is to enhance someone's natural beauty.
And so, yes, you have it. You are exactly right.
Makeup should be and is an enhancer to your already natural beauty.
Foundation is used like a psychological product,
because it helps people feel very good about the way their skin looks.
So, it helps aesthetically on the outside,
and it helps you psychologically on the inside.
The key is to start with a really beautiful even palette,
and then take a darker color that contrasts your skin.
- You're chiseling this out. - We're chiseling out her cheekbone.
You're emphasizing that. Let's see if it really works.
-Let me see. Wait a minute. -You see that? Like, you could do
- her makeup totally. Here. - Really?
-Take some, right there. -Okay. I'm taking some.
There is no way you can mess this up. Okay?
-Really? -Just bounce.
There is no way. Just bounce.
-If you can apply makeup... Whoa! -You mean...
- David, you're out of the job! - My God!
Where is David? There's David. Look at him.
-Jeff Goldblum's doing my makeup. -Look, I did it. I did it.
So that's a little technique called contouring
that emphasize the shape of her cheekbones,
-the shape of her nose and eyes. -Yes.
Our eyes have to pop, right? You have to get your eyelashes like that.
Reducing beauty to a decimal point,
a new machine turns the face into an intricate column of figures.
So, from now on, it'll take an expert to pick out a prize winner.
Jeez, I think I may have betrayed my prejudices just a little bit
with Rea Ann. Anyway.
She says that makeup is about enhancing natural beauty.
But is there more to the world of cosmetics than appearances?
More to share...
than just a bunch of intentionally curated Instagram moments?
Well, maybe so, maybe so.
I know who this person is.
This person is Manny Gutierrez. He is a...
Is it my turn with Santa Claus?
-Hello. -Come here.
It's so nice to meet you.
Let me gaze upon you now that I'm close.
My goodness, look, look, look at that.
Manny Gutierrez has gotten pretty famous through his YouTube makeup seminars.
-Hey, guys. Welcome back to my channel. -How beautiful I am.
At this point, he's got almost five million subscribers.
He's something of a trailblazer
when it comes to lipstick, blushes, and brushes.
Very soft, very creamy, very smooth.
But he wasn't the first.
In fact, for thousands of years,
men have sported face paint for a variety of reasons.
Ancient Egyptians wore coal to protect their windows to the soul
and ward off evil spirits.
Tribes all over the globe would paint their faces before battle
to frighten the enemy and psych themselves up.
In 18th century France, courtiers relied heavily on cosmetics
to tell the world how important they were.
After the French Revolution, male preening became frowned upon,
and fell out of fashion.
And yet, fast forward to the 21st century, and today,
one of the fastest growing cosmetics markets in the world
is for the male animal.
Mirror, mirror on the wall...
...who's the fairest of them all?
It might be Manny in this case.
Instagram was my first social media platform.
And I didn't see a lot of men doing anything with makeup.
And the men that were there, all shaved their face.
So, it was very androgynous and very pretty,
-and very like female impersonation. -Yes.
You know, I wanna see my facial hair.
And I wanna be very obviously a man in makeup.
-Unshackle us. Unshackle us. -Yes. Absolutely.
Yes. I mean, I've been on shackles for a very long time.
-Congratulations. -Thank you.
How have the ideas of classic beauty changed?
-Are they changing? -I think that as time progresses,
and more people are doing these bold things,
then it's like, "Well, that's my definition of beautiful."
And I think that as time goes forward, everyone gets to define their own way.
-You know? It's reoccurring. -Yeah. I like that. I'm all for that.
I'm, like, terrified that we're gonna collapse this.
-Yeah, that would be horrible. -Can you imagine?
Well... ...I don't know, maybe I was a little hasty,
maybe makeup can be...
liberating.
You know, if our definition of beauty is broader and more inclusive,
it could open up a whole world of expressiveness and possibility.
Okay. It's time for a short history reading.
Hey, did you know that makeup
has often been used as an instrument of empowerment? Yeah.
Red lipstick was a symbol for female emancipation
at the turn of the century,
when it was worn by suffragettes on marches demanding to vote.
Cosmetics pioneer Elizabeth Arden showed her support
by handing out scarlet and ruby-colored lipsticks to women
marching on New York's Fifth Avenue.
Also, it was the drag performers in Greenwich Village,
who were among the very first ones to take a stand
at the famous Stonewall Riots of 1969.
These brave queens in cuffs
helped ignite the modern gay rights movement in the USA,
and around the world.
"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women
"merely players." That's a quote from William Shatner...
No. I think it's Shakespeare.
Makeup has long been used by thespians
to give a little extra flourish to their onstage personas.
Let's see what this troupe of players have to say.
- Welcome to our home. - Welcome.
-I'm Jeff. -Misty.
-Yes.
- Allusia. - Allusia.
-What is your name? -I'm Dani Kay.
-Miss Luna. Yes. -Miss Luna? Hello, Miss Luna.
This is a drag show, meaning you're all going to be lady-like.
Ish.
- Woman adjacent. - Woman adjacent.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
You know better than I do. I'm a humble student.
Tell me the history of drag, and how makeup fits into it.
Well, I guess, the term "drag" originated from theater.
-I did not know that. -Because women weren't allowed
- to do theater. So... - I know that. Yes.
And so, all the men played ladies' parts.
-Romeo and Juliet. -So, it's "drag queen."
-Drag. -Dressed as girl.
Wait a minute. Dressed,
-D-R, as a girl, G. -As... Girl.
You know I never knew that. See, I got to start at the beginning.
The biggest challenge, is getting rid of all the hair.
You do some plucking in this and that,
but you keep your eyebrows on, but you cover them up.
Yeah. There's layers of glue and makeup, and everything there,
-that's covering them now. -And then, the beard issue?
The technique for that that's really great is beard block and color correction.
So what you're tricking the eye is with color.
- So, I use a pink, orange-y-ish face... - I see.
...right here, and that negates any blue undertones
in my beard.
So, when it grows out,
-it'll just look neutral. -Right.
That's the beauty of makeup is that you really can create
a completely different person.
So, you can be whatever you want, without fear of being judged.
You've got this little protection of the character.
- Which allows you to be, real. - Yeah.
-You, Dani Kay. -I am a trans-woman that does drag.
-Isn't that interesting? -Yes.
Drag and makeup really kind of was the catalyst
to help me find who I really was.
It gives you confidence.
It allows you to be who you are naturally without...
being fake about it, I suppose.
It's showtime!
Yeah. I like this.
Hey, that's Miss Luna.
Amazing.
That's Misty. That's Misty.
Is this Allusia?
Yes.
And a beverage. Thank you. Thank you.
The smell of the grease paint,
the roar of the crowd.
As an actor,
you can work from the outside in or the inside out,
and finally, there's no difference. They sort of meet in an intersection.
And that's what I got out of these beautiful performances.
They were doing plenty to alter what we see on the outside.
But it was a kind of a portal,
that allowed something to emerge from the inside...
...that gives rise to real power
that may not have been available, unadorned.
And joy, unbounded joy.
Fierce wit.
It was something. It was something. I admired it.
Transformation.
Well, I feel that my mind and heart have been somewhat expanded.
Could it be that makeup, in the hands of a brilliant practitioner,
might be considered artistic?
The creator of these eye-boggling images is Mimi Choi.
Mimi is a makeup painter,
who has amassed quite the following for her surreal creations.
She makes art that uses the face as its canvas.
I do everything with makeup and face paints.
And I can't wait to work on your beautiful canvas.
How long you have been doing this?
I actually changed my career as a preschool teacher five years ago
to become a makeup artist.
I was just doing normal beauty makeup that most girls do.
-On yourself? Have you never trained? -On myself.
-Really? Even for yourself? -No.
Somebody told you how to do it or something?
No. It was just through kind of self-exploration.
I wonder what flight of imagination Ms. Choi will plant on my humble pan.
How do you get inspired to do what you do?
I get inspiration from everywhere. I love going to museums.
I love getting inspiration
from music, from emotions.
And have you heard of sleep paralysis before?
-Wait a minute. Wait a minute. -Yeah.
-What is sleep paralysis? -Sleep paralysis is when
-your mind is awake... -I've heard of it.
...and you're trapped inside of your sleeping body,
and you're struggling to wake up.
And you can't move your toes, you can't move your head,
or open your eyes, and you struggle.
And during that time, I hallucinate things that I see in a room.
Like sometimes, I would see hundreds of spiders crawling all over my room.
I've seen people
split up into ten and then coming back into one.
-Long slender man without any features. -That sounds like me.
Or people with no faces.
Sleep paralysis is a blessing in disguise.
I feel like it gives me inspiration to create art
that nobody has seen before because it's inside my head.
- It's fantastic. - I utilize the face as a canvas
so I can transform it into anything I want.
That's one of the best parts about doing this kind of art is
doing what makes you truly happy, and when I look at your face,
I already knew I wanted to do this.
You're a genius. Look at that.
Cosmetics...
some skin-friendly paints anybody can purchase.
It's not just about, you know, being conventionally alluring
or pretty or prettifying yourself up.
And by the way, I say, what's wrong with that?
Enhancement with the aspiration of self-actualization
can be a force for good.
Like so many tools, cosmetics can be used to mask yourself,
or do something that allows you to explore
all the facets of your own passion and creativity.
And that exploration can be profoundly beautiful
and movingly creative.
Of course, I forgot talking to you all this time,
I still look like this.
Here, let me smear a little...
makeup on you now.
Be still. Be still. Here.
You look fine.