Face Forward [Tapa blanda]

Outside of the introductory chapters, the book is divided into five main parts: 1) "Behind Beauty," where Kevyn describes how he treats the face to bring out a wide range of attributes; 2) "Face to Face," which consists of in-depth photography and illustrations of the steps involved with creating beautiful looks; 3) "Dimensions," where Kevyn explores the "classic personifications of beauty" by making up actresses and models to look like stars of the past; and 4) & 5) forward-looking concepts of makeup techniques and the future of beauty, also using the faces of actresses (and even his mom).

I think it's great that someone as talented as Kevyn can be so generous in explaining his craft, but even if you're not into that, "Face Forward" holds up fantastically on its merits as an art/photography book: the resemblance of the current stars to the past ones is incredible (e.g., Winona Ryder as Elizabeth Taylor).

This book may be a little advanced for makeup artists who are just starting out, but hey, makeup is art, and art is about ideas, so it's definitely worth checking out. For anyone who is just plain interested in fashion and style, "Face Forward" will be intriguing, even if only for the skill exhibited in transforming one famous face into another. It's a masterpiece.

The book follows the same format as Making Faces without many improvements. The book begins with general articles about brows, lips, eyes, color, etc. However, these articles are truly general and only give written directions to achieve the looks in the photos. If you have the facial structures of the models, then these sections will be very useful to you! For the rest of us, I found the preliminary sections to be fun but not helpful.

The next section entitled "Face to Face" is useful with many before and after photos. The techniques are written and illustrated by photos of the make-over subject throughout the process. The looks are very natural and complimentary to the different ethnicities featured. I wish there were more makeovers in this section!

The final section entitled "Dimensions" features 48 different looks that are fun but not realistic for everyday use. In fact, most of the techniques demonstrated would only be useful for Halloween or a costume party. This section features many stars from Madonna to Tina Turner but offers little substantive content for everyday use.

Being a make-up-a-holic, I found Making Faces the better buy of the two. If you have to choose, choose Aucoin's first book for practical use. For fun, this book definitely takes the cake.