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Perceptual Makeup

@perceptual.makeup

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Researching Perceptual Science, and Evolutionary Psychology, to analyse the fascination of “Beauty”

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My starting point and last part of this series Inspired by Dolly and how she deliberately styled herself using extremes of femininity to the point of caricature to help achieve her tremendous success. For me this exploration leaves open more questions than answers, and there is a question at the end…. As always I’m appreciative and love to read your thoughts 🙏🙏🙏 by @perceptual.makeup

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3 days ago

Josephine Baker is one of my great Sheroes🙌🙌🙌, so I really hope I’ve done her justice here. One of the sources for my thoughts was a brilliant essay, Restaging Respectability, written by Dr Samantha Ege, author, musician and music historian. You can find it online.
Again, I am overwhelmed with admiration for how Josephine Baker navigated her life. Was she “perfect”? No. But she took more chances than perhaps anyone I’ve ever read about, and didn’t seem afraid to use and absolutely own potentially degrading characterizations to her great advantage, leaving us with so many fascinating cultural legacies.
Always interested in your thoughts and appreciative of them.🙏🙏🙏❤️
#JosephineBaker #womenshistory #performancehistory #historicalfashion #SelfFashioning by @perceptual.makeup

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10 days ago

I know I’m really behind on this, but Dolly❤️ has made me appreciate the GENIUS of being so confident in who you are that you can take culturally loaded visual tropes, exaggerate them to almost caricature levels — and turn them into a superpower.🙌🙌
It uses the same cognitive mechanisms I talked about in my previous posts on facial hierarchy: first impressions grab our attention, then we look to the eyes to understand what we’re seeing. Over seconds, minutes and even years, we build an increasingly rich understanding of the person behind the image.
When visual tools approach caricature of a cultural “type”, they become highly memorable.
And this is very different from being a chameleon. It’s about developing a strong, consistent persona, then expertly challenging the expectations that come with it.
It takes guts, because you have to embrace both the good and the bad interpretations that come with being so visually defined.
But when you pull it off… The Stereotype becomes yours! I take my hat off to the women who can do this. 🙌🙌🙌🙌
#womenshistory #fashionhistory #oldhollywood #culturalhistory #maewest by @perceptual.makeup

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17 days ago

This reel took an interesting turn for me. I thought it was going to be ALL about how intensities of makeup on features will change how much attention we give them, but it veered to how one particular makeup feature can sometimes hijack individuality, and I was kind of resistant to that because it’s a feature of makeup I love...

So I’m all ears to see what you make of this....

As always, I love and appreciate your thoughts, so thank you in advance for sharing them 🙏🙏🙏🙏❤️

The closeup cover photos were done by the wonderful @benjaminkaufmann_photography 🙌 for German Elle in around 2004 makeup by me.

#beautytheory #beautyscience #makeupdetails by @perceptual.makeup

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a month ago

I think we can all guess which feature we look at first, but can that be averted by very strong makeup?
I don’t think it can, look at the really strong makeups that I have shown in the reel by so many amazing Makeup artists, and try to clock where your eyes went first.

Always interested and appreciative to read your thoughts

Cover photo by @matthewshave
Model @hodyyimhair
@norimitsugoto
Makeup by me

#makeuptheory #beautyscience #beautynotes by @perceptual.makeup

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a month ago

I’ve thought alot about the post by @rumbutan.here talking about wearing a star patch. Please look on June 24 reposts to see the whole video- I have used snippets here.

He talks so poignantly about how restricted and policed representations of masculinity have become.

So I’m interspersing his speech with a visual conversation across eras and cultures, to show how much more open the representations of masculinity have previously been. Is the narrowing an example of how polarised we have become generally?

Author Margaret Atwood in 1993, famously wrote- “
You are a woman with a man inside watching a woman. You are your own voyeur.”

So, what do today’s Men have inside them?

#malebeauty #masculinity #malemakeup by @perceptual.makeup

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a month ago

Whenever I see makeup as play, it temporarily breaks down the confines of normative fashion and beauty.

Sadly, the forum for this type of unbounded expression of marks on the face is limited, but I imagine it creates a similar thrill to the very first experiments with pigments millennia ago.

I veer towards perfectionism so this type of abandon is hard for me. But it reminds me that it is vital and important. How do you negotiate this?

Thanks as always for sharing your thoughts🙏🙏❤️

Apologies for the errors on the subtitles here are the correct credits for the "Paint me a Face" team
Photographer: @petestard
Creative director: Aurélie Joly @buronoto
Makeup: @tizianaraimondo @homeagency
Hair: @marion.anee
#makeupstories #beautystandards #funmakeup by @perceptual.makeup

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2 months ago

I was really struck by the refined choices @harold_james 🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌 makes in his artistry, and was so honored when he gave me permission to analyze this beautifully designed makeup. I’m very grateful. 🙏🙏🙏 It goes without saying that Angelina is an extraordinarily beautiful woman, and I can only imagine how inspirational it must be to work in her presence.
If you are not familiar with the work of @harold_james, I encourage you to study it, to appreciate his expertise in those small details of perfection.👏👏👏

The pictures I am using are from the same angle, but show different lighting and saturation, so apologies if it seems to cause some discrepancies.

Always interested in your feedback🙏🙏❤️

#makeupthheory #beautynotes #makeupdetails by @perceptual.makeup

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2 months ago

I love abstract makeup designs, so this is a favourite topic of mine, I hope you will find it as interesting as I did to research it.

The cover image was done with my wonderful friend and collaborator through the 80s photographer Robyn Beeche,🙌🙌❤️ one of the few female fashion photographers working in the 1970s - 1980s in London. I was so lucky to have met her!!
Robyn and I experimented a lot with very high contrast makeup - very white skin with highly saturated minimalist shapes and edges redrawn with painted black to merge into black velvet backdrops. The images were cross processed to push the colour contrasts even more.
Many of these graphic experiments were featured on Art and Design Magazine Covers

Do you also find it fascinating how our brains can take the smallest cues and translate that to eyes and faces?
Please let me know, I always appreciate and love to read your thoughts🙏🙏🙏❤️

#abstractmakeup #avantgardemakeup #beautytheory #makeupscience by @perceptual.makeup

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2 months ago

There are so many things about makeup and beauty I’m trying to find answers for.

In this reel I’m exploring where we get our references from, and how they affect how we see and judge. I believe if we analyse how our ideas of “beauty” have been constructed. We can decide what is positive or negative about them and adjust.

Always interested and appreciative to hear your thoughts.🙏🙏🙏🙏❤️

Cover photo is by Bryan Adams for Black and White Magazine around 1998, makeup by me, model the beautiful and talented Chella Ferrow

#BeautyHistory #BeautyStandards #beautyscience #beautyresearch by @perceptual.makeup

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3 months ago

@martinaderosa_mua 🙌🙌🙌 and photographer @lauradester🙌🙌🙌 are two creative powerhouses💪
So I was really thrilled that they allowed me to analyze their gorgeous images and makeups.
I don’t know if it was their intention to make images that had a Tamara De Lempicka vibe but after looking at them for hours doing the slides that is what struck me.
And there is a very particular reason why these images are so compelling - in exactly the same way De Lempicka’s paintings are. They make the most of two visual systems our brains use- the first that reads shapes through patterns of light and dark, and the second that reads edges and details.

Always interested to hear your thoughts- I love our discussions, thank you as always for them 🙏🙏🙏🙏❤️

#makeuptheory #BeautyNotes #makeupscience #makeupdetails by @perceptual.makeup

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3 months ago

Is there anyone who isn’t completely mesmerized by shimmering surfaces?

Physics was my worst subject in school so researching this stuff took time to get my head around...........I’m still processing the fact that different thicknesses of titanium dioxide over mica measured in microns! (thousandths of a millimeter) determine the colour that is reflected in pearlescent pigments

I then discovered that duochromes and multichromes take the same principle even further. By engineering several microscopic layers instead of one, they can reflect different colours as you move.

And what @theunseenbeauty is doing is BEYOND!! 🤯🤯

I like to imagine…🤔If they had taught this stuff when I was doing high school Physics, maybe I wouldn’t have got a D! 🤷🏻‍♀️ always interested to hear your thoughts 🙏🙏🙏🙏 #shinymakeup #sparklymakeup #duochrome #makeuphistory by @perceptual.makeup

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3 months ago