Beauty tips from a bona fide beauty editor

Want to look your best, always? Beauty editor Nadine Haobsh shares all of her tried-and-true tips in "Beauty Confidential: The No Preaching, No Lies, Advice-You'll-Actually-Use Guide to Looking Your Best." Here's an excerpt:

Introduction
For five years, I worked as a beauty editor in New York City, swinging my way from magazine to magazine and quickly working my way up the masthead. I was on track to becoming a beauty director—one of the younger ones in the industry, if things kept course. Then I started writing a blog called Jolie in NYC. And then all hell broke loose.

My blog was a poor-man’s version of the popular gossip sites that were sprouting like kudzu, with regurgitated celebrity news that I posted and added my own hi-larious two-cents on. I even enjoyed a brief side foray into the public service sector, cobbling together a side blog called “Nick and Jessica Breakup Watch”, which included proof of their imminent demise. (Hey, I was right in the end.) After taking a particularly lavish press trip to Arizona, however, I briefly tabled the celebrity content and wrote instead about our journey, marveling at how beauty editors were treated to such perks as private jets, designer handbags and massages. The blog was anonymous (mistake one) and included commentary on my industry and the often tenuous dynamics between editors and publicists (mistake two). I started getting coverage in blogs like Gawker, Jossip and Mediabistro, was swiftly outed by the New York Post, and had a plum offer at Seventeen magazine rescinded … the day after I left my position at Ladies’ Home Journal. (Worst … day … of … my … life.)

Except, in retrospect, it wasn’t. I learned that flexibility and hard-work are not mutually exclusive and decided on a whim to go for broke, trying to make a career out of this craaazy blogging thing. (Cue violins.) Every second I could, I posted, noting favorite products, great tips gleaned from industry experts, celebrity beauty trends and, most importantly, answering beauty questions from readers. In the flurry of Q&A’s, I realized that there’s a serious lack of honesty in today’s beauty information: we’re sick of being lectured, talked down to, advertised at, and just generally misled.

The questions are endless. When every single dermatologist in America is touting an astronomically pricey skincare line, does that mean you’re ruining your skin if you only have money for the drugstore stuff? Why do all the magazines champion that product you spent two hundred dollars on, when it did absolutely nothing for you? Why does it feel like you read the same beauty article every single month, in every single magazine? Isn’t it a strange coincidence that the product you’re reading about on page 53 is advertised on page 55? And why is it so hard to grasp that the label “combination skin” helps nobody? (Fine, you’re dry here, you’re oily there, but all of the “right” products either make you flake or break out!)

I set out to create a beauty book for you—the girl who loves makeup, hair, perfume and skincare, but wants to find what works for her without blindly following trends or swallowing corporate-placement rubbish. There are millions of beauty books on the shelves by experts, crammed with step-by-step instructions on how to painstakingly create the look that will make you appear as if you’ve just stepped from the pages of your favorite magazine. While that’s fabulous, if you have time to read a complicated manual the size of a World War Two textbook and then spend hours aping the looks inside … most of us don’t! We want fast, accurate and real, and we want it from somebody who’s been there in the beauty trenches with us. Let’s be honest: I’m not a makeup artist, I’m not a hairstylist and I’ve singed my hair, poked out my eyes and turned myself orange more times than I’d like to count! But I have been surrounded by beauty information 24/7 for several years, and armed with enough knowledge to make over an entire village of frizzy-haired, oily t-zoned, crying-out-in-need-of-highlights women, I hereby pass it all along to you.

Thanks for reading, and stay beautiful!

CHAPTER ONE
What beauty editors know that you don’t

Imagine a life where highlights and haircuts with the world’s top experts are free; where there is an endless supply of Crème de la Mer; where you leave work at 2 pm to get a massage or pedicure and your boss cheerfully tells you to have fun. (Are you still with me?) Now, imagine you get paid to live this life. Welcome to the world of a beauty editor.

Each month, magazines bring you advice on which eye shadow shades are hot, what the most flattering haircut is for your face shape, and which self-tanners work for pale skin. But have you ever wondered how beauty editors know all this? (For me, it’s because I was born knowing everything there is to know about beauty. Obviously.) In reality, it’s because beauty experts have free products and procedures hurled at them. It may not seem fair—why do they get endless supplies of Chanel lipgloss, and all you get at work is an endless supply of paperclips?—but expertise is the name of the game. Without batting an eyelash, a beauty editor can tell you definitively what the best cleanser is, how to get away with not washing your hair for four days, what on earth a peptide is, why the jasmine in perfumes is picked at night, and the difference between alpha and beta hydroxy acid. The advice you see in magazines each month is just a fraction of the actual knowledge they possess.

I’m here to share it with you.

I wasn’t always beauty-savvy. A childhood spent climbing avocado trees and shunning Barbies in favor of books does not necessarily a future beauty editor make. But in college, while pursuing a career as a writer, I found myself at a magazine as a beauty intern. The first time I walked into the magical thing known as a beauty closet, I almost fainted. Much like that episode of Sex and the City where Carrie goes to Vogue and has a heart-attack over the fabulosity of the fashion closet, I was shocked to see that the room (Yes! An entire room!) was stuffed to the brim with every product known to man. Better yet, it was ours for the sampling. After all, how are you going to be a beauty expert if you don’t try all the products?

There are thousands of beauty products in this world (Hundreds of thousands! Millions!), and your average girl can’t be expected to try them all. So, we tireless beauty editors do the work for you, dutifully slapping on face cream, testing hair straighteners and staring intently at nearly identical shades of lip gloss, trying to figure out which is better for olive complexions and which for fairer skin tones.

See? And you thought it was all fun and games. Beauty is very serious.

Actually, I’m kidding. Most people take beauty way too seriously, and it simply doesn’t need to be that way. Beauty should be fun! It should make you feel better about yourself and accentuate what you’ve been blessed with (and gracefully and discreetly hide what you’re less than pleased with). All that nonsense about “redheads can’t wear red lipstick” and “don’t match your manicure to your pedicure” and “young women shouldn’t wear foundation” and “never play up your eyes and lips at the same time” is just that—nonsense. It’s all about finding what works for you. If you’re in your teens or twenties and your skin is slightly blotchy and tinted moisturizer simply doesn’t give you enough coverage, I say wear foundation until the cows come home! The trick is simply finding the right foundation that doesn’t make you feel like you have on a mask.

It’s not rocket science, people. Sure, beauty is serious in that it’s terribly important for your self-esteem. Like it or not, we do live in an image-conscious society, and why not put your best face forward? But, after all, at the end of the day, it is only makeup. Lighten up, don’t be afraid to experiment and make mistakes, and have fun with it!

And when your friends ask you how you know all about about night-blooming jasmine and peptides, well, you can just smile and say that you were born a beauty genius.

FIRST THINGS FIRST

Beauty editors are very stern about certain things. Now, I don’t necessarily live my life according to all of the Stepford-ish maxims, but rather take them as loose guidelines. After all, there are exceptions to every rule…

The Beauty Editor Commandments
1)      Never wash your hair two days in a row

2)      Always wear SPF 30 sunscreen, come rain or shine, winter or summer

3)      Wash your face every night before bed … even when drunk … even when tired

4)      French manicures are not an option

5)      Everybody looks better with a hint of bronzer or self-tanner

6)      Avoid frowning—just like your mom said, your face will stick that way

7)      Don’t smoke—it causes wrinkles, sallow, uneven skin and yellow teeth. (Oh, yeah, and that whole cancer thing, too.)

8)      Introduce acids into your daily routine—glycolic, salicylic, retinoids, whatever. Your skin will thank you

9)      Antioxidants are your best friend. Eat them, drink them, wear them, love them

10)  Smile. When you carry yourself beautiful, you are beautiful

But, Hey, They’re Only People, Too
There are some silly things that beauty editors are unnecessarily sticklers about,

such as nail polish shades (never wear red on your nails!) and shampooing (see above!). While this is good advice, say, if you’re a banker—who’s going to take you seriously with fire-engine red claws?—one size does not fit all. My best friend has oily, limp hair, and no amount of volumizer or hair powder is going to allow her to skip a day between washes as is normally recommended. As for the “No Red Nails” maxim, well—that’s just foolish. (A life without red nail polish is no life at all.) Become as beauty informed as you can, and take everything you read (hey, even this) with a grain of salt. Everyone is unique and reacts to different products and tips in different ways. If we were all completely the same, where would the fun be in that? Variety is the spice of life, after all.

Becoming a Beauty “Expert”: Or, The Road to Beauty Enlightenment
As a beauty editor, you have the keys to the city, metaphorically speaking. Just received a story assignment on perfumes? Call Chanel, Hermès, Dior, Guerlain and Givenchy, and within three hours, you’ll have a sampling waiting in your office of the most exclusive fragrances known to man. Have a weakness for products by Bobbi Brown, Clarins, Stila or the Body Shop? Simply shoot the publicist an email explaining that you’d like to try out the new face cream, or that you’ve just run out of your favorite eyeliner. Forgot to buy mom a birthday present? Rummage through the beauty closet until you’ve unearthed a Diptyque candle in Baies, a jar of Crème de la Mer, and the entire Calvin Klein Eternity Moment ancillary line.

When I first learned that, as an assistant, I was allowed—nay! Expected!—not only to call in products but to actually try them out, I was stunned. You mean … publicists would send me beauty products … for free? It boggled the mind. Still more shocking was the revelation that all spa and salon services—we’re talking haircuts, highlights, blowouts, glazes, massages, manicures and pedicures—were on the house. Why? Well, after all, how can you be expected to write about it if you haven’t tried it?

I went nuts. I hit every salon in town. I took my already-blonde hair blonder. (Much satisfaction ensued when one colorist had to stop mid-highlight to “take a call from Nicole”. As in Kidman.) I made it red. I made it black. I cut it all off. I had extensions put in. I got bangs. Then I went back to the exact same color and hairstyle I’d started off with when I got into the industry, satisfied that I had, quite literally, done it all. With the salon options exhausted, I dipped into spa services—a chocolate pedicure here, a paraffin wax manicure there, and all of the massages, professional self-tanning, waxing and lasering my little body could stand. At one point, with my long, blonde, Paris Hilton-style extensions, fake tan, hairless body, “color-enhancing” blue contact lenses and glossy nails, I looked like a Barbie-doll come to life. I thought I was beyond glamorous. My friends thought I had gone off the deep end.

The problem was that beauty was consuming me. In the quest to become as stereotypically pretty as possible, I was completely erasing me. For every gorgeous “perfect” celebrity like Halle Berry, Elizabeth Taylor, Elle MacPherson or Charlize Theron, there have been an equal number of “imperfect” goddesses that have captivated our imaginations. Can you imagine Gisele Bundchen with a ski-jump nose? Keira Knightly with a D-cup? Beyoncé Knowles with a non-existent booty? Barbara Streisand without her famous profile? Lucy Liu with “Western” eyes? Lauren Hutton without that sexy gap? I don’t want to. Those so-called flaws have inspired generations of girls with similar features to look in the mirror and say, “You know what? I am pretty—just the way I am.”

However, while I champion easy, natural, accessible beauty, I don’t believe in being judgmental about it. It’s not about scoffing at other’s choices, saying, “Well, I would never do that” and feeling superior as a result. If you have healthy self-esteem, but simply feel that you’d look better with, say, a nose-job, or breast implants, or botox injections—to each her own. To quote a famous Sheryl Crow song, “If it makes you happy, it can’t be that bad.” Life is just too short to spend obsessing about various imperfections. I say either learn to love ’em, or change them and move on. Simple as that.

(Important point: just because I’m now all wannabe-zen about beauty doesn’t mean I’m not still a product junkie. The excitement over Chanel perfume never fades, no matter what you look like.)

“Even I don’t wake up looking like Cindy Crawford.” – Cindy Crawford

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