Making Faces

Product Information

The Kevyn Aucoin Beauty brand has remained in business since his death, and is still sold in multiple stores, including Bergdorf Goodman, Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Sephora, and Space.NK. Strom, Stephanie (February 1, 1993). "Revlon Expected to Replace No. 2 Executive". The New York Times . Retrieved March 21, 2018. The day Aucoin was born in Shreveport, Louisiana – February 14, 1962 – “was my best Valentine ever,” recalled Thelma Aucoin, who adopted him one month later. He was the first of four children the Aucoins adopted because they could not have biological children.

After the section on basics, there's a section of "looks" developed for ordinary people (male and female) alongside their own stories, which makes the book very accessible for those who might feel distant from the subject. The next section, which is entirely celebrities, is more "glamorous" but gives you the details of how to acheive those looks as well. Moore, Booth (May 8, 2002). "Kevyn Aucoin, 40; Celebrity Makeup Artist and author". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved March 21, 2018.

Customer Reviews

Cher once recalled walking into beauty store Make Up For Ever with Aucoin: “It was like Brad Pitt walked in.” I will never part with this book, even if it goes unread. I will espouse its qualities to strangers, even when inappropriate. I will insist other people read it so they can tell me what it says and how we could all learn from it.

For those like me who loved Kevyn the person, the heart now weeps as if made of watercolor. Earth has lost yet another light. I tried to recreate one of Kevyn's looks on Lisa Marie Presley, which has always been one of my favourites. It's a far cry from anything he could do before he passed away, but I felt like sharing for the sake of the review. I should also note that the instructions regarding application are far from ample, but personally I skimmed over these parts.So many beauty resources aimed at trans women seek to assimilate us into a cisheteronormative view of beauty; we are enticed with the promise that we too, if we learn how to use blush, can ascend into unremarkability. This was the first book on beauty I encountered that suggested to me that makeup can be used to express a feeling, a facet of yourself, an aspiration of who you wish to be in the moment.

Aucoin made appearances on Good Morning America and The Oprah Winfrey Show. [17] He played as himself in an episode of Sex and the City called "The Real Me" (Season 4, Episode 2), doing Carrie Bradshaw's makeup for a fashion show during New York Fashion Week. In addition, he appeared with Cher in "Gypsies, Tramps, and Weed" (Season 3, Episode 7) of Will & Grace.I work in an industry with some of the meanest people who have ever walked the face of the earth, who live and die for the surface. But the way I see it, I have a responsibility to do the most I can do, the way I know how. Since I know how to apply makeup, that's what I do and use it as a platform. Aucoin’s partner, Jeremy Antunes (whom he began dating in 1999, married in an unofficial ceremony in Hawaii in 2000 and thereafter referred to as his husband), implored Aucoin to get help. But while Aucoin tried to recover, he could not entirely stop his drug use. Antunes went to Paris for a week to be alone, and in that time, Aucoin became ill and was hospitalized at Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, New York. He died on May 7, 2002, of kidney and liver failure due to acetaminophen toxicity caused by prescription painkillers. Over the next three years, Aucoin did the makeup for 18 American Vogue covers as well as numerous covers for other fashion magazines, including Harper’s Bazaar and Cosmopolitan. In fact, between 1987 and 1989, he did nine Vogue covers in a row as well as seven Cosmopolitan covers. He was part of a movement that pushed fashion into the mainstream in the early 1990s, and it was Aucoin who changed the way high-profile models did their makeup, ultimately transforming Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss, Christy Turlington, Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista and Paulina Porizkova into supermodels and cultural icons.