RSSBook Review : Staging Your Comeback
February 26, 2009
The full title of Christopher Hopkins’ book is Staging Your Comeback : A Complete Beauty Revival For Women Over 45.
If you don’t know the book by Hopkins (a.k.a. The Makeover Guy), you have several hours of hugely enjoyable reading and thinking ahead of you. It recognizes our particular needs in a terribly honest way. He’s not too big with indulgence either, the talk is straight up, as in “ …you are not the right temperament for hair color.” Fun moments abound.
You will read some pretty raw admissions (“I am no longer interested in attention from men.”). The makeovers begin with 12 mommies and grannies, women way out at one end of the I-let-myself-go spectrum. He’s got every Before stereotype covered and achieves 12 remarkable transformations.
Check out the Befores right here. See you in about an hour.
Christopher proves that it’s not only certain men and women who can be more attractive than ever as they age. It’s all of us. Every single one. We make excuses for why we don’t care what we look like but the only result is to further and further weaken ourselves.
Nobody cares how old you think you look. We all know that’s a choice. If you don’t want it to be that way anymore, this is the guy to help take you through a transition.He has vision and imagination. There is so much that can be done before you even think about seeing a dermatologist for Botox or fillers. It doesn’t cost that much money. You use face cream anyhow, right? You do get haircuts, don’t you? We all go out in sweats and sneakers sometimes but there are a thousand small differences that matter.
What I love about this book:
1. The women are real. They’re not suspiciously gifted with wonderful skin or fabulous eyes just waiting to be revealed. You know me. I have little use for anything that’s not Real World, unless it’s meant as an entertaining diversion.
2. He’s brutally honest about what age does to bodies but still respects and enjoys the company and confusion of older women. You also know that I love aging, which I see as an opening of doors. And I love older women and their mind-blowing and completely unrecognized (especially by themselves) potential.
3. There doesn’t appear to be any Photoshopping going on, at least not too obviously. A beauty book with a pixel of Photoshop is rendered useless, IMO. Right away, the whole thing is out of reach.
4. He really really gets how to wear clothes, not just for aging but for all body types. Here’s one I never knew, but it’s obvious when he says it as all correct ideas are : The tighter your sleeves, the bigger your chest. OK, I can use that.
5. The pictures are bona fide, cringe-worthy renditions of the I’m-too-busy/old/young/comfortable/ugly/hot – to care. They are not forgiving or concealing anything. I got a few jolts because I think I saw me.
6. He’s not trying to get you to spend useless money. Quite the opposite actually. One of my favorite lines, “In the beauty industry, live and learn is taboo. Forget and buy is the name of the profit game.”
7. It’s comprehensive. The clothes, shoes, bra, buttons, hair, makeup, nail polish… all covered. He hits on every cliché and has noticed every detail.
8. The hair chapter is outstanding. If there’s anything that we all get wrong in every conceivable way, and that ages us the most, it’s hair. He covers it all, from color to cut, with a very comprehensive discussion of the very common problem of thinning hair.
9. He’s heard every comeback. He’ll tell you your fears before you tell him. Your objections get pretty weak when they’re No. 5 and 8 on the Exposing Your Excuses list.
10. His goal is to give you things you can do yourself. He just wants you to see differently, where seeing yourself is the hardest thing of all. He’s never showing himself off.
11. He’s funny. I spewed my smoothie on the line about the biscuits.
12. He can be brutally honest, ( I know I said that already) , almost sarcastic, in trying to get these women to see that they are so much more than they believe. Your best friend can say things nobody else can, not strangers or family, because you know he/she loves you and you can entrust him/her to take care of your feelings. Nothing is held back.
13. He doesnt’ see what is. He see what is possible. Possibility is what it is all about. Learning, change, it’s all in honor of what is possible. And there are very few limits.
See the man himself on YouTube.
He says his frustration with makeovers is that women don’t continue to practice what they learned, they just go back to the familiar. It may be because the transformation is too much of a leap to adjust to, too much like a fantasy. It can’t be incorporated into the woman’s life fast enough, so it just gets forgotten like a dream or a week on a Carribean island. Even I couldn’t maintain myself in the After Pics and I already use all this stuff. If you presently wear no makeup but would like to try, you’ll need a friend who knows how to do this or a makeup artist. Ask around. Book a private appointment, not a MAC counter on a Saturday afternoon.
Another reason women don’t stay with the changes is the time it takes. I don’t know about you but my tightest commodity is time. Change does take time. It takes trial and error and error and error too. So take on one thing at a time, and pretty soon, you’re in a whole new place, looking back and thinking “That WAS me but it isn’t me anymore.”
He writes a blog. I liked this post on aging. Considering the world of appearance that he lives in, he finds a good balance.
His personal experience with plastic surgery, the new addiction, and how easy to go a little too far with just a little more is here.
Enter the Sweepstakes to win a makeover with him!! for US residents only (how could they?).
We’re not trying to look 21. Or 31. We’re trying to look like fantastic 40’s , 50’s , and beyond. OK, maybe a fantastic 60 does look 50, but not 30!!
Sometimes the way you look IS what’ s holding you back. It’s not a symbol of the shallowness and superficiality of our world. This is completely internal. The whole thing is happening inside yourself. It’s your message to your subconscious that you’re slowing down, that you don’t see yourself or your future as worth the effort. If you believe the future looks just like the present, why expend the energy?
What you believe about the world makes it the way it is for you. If you can sincerely say “I like my life and I don’t want anything to be different, ever, not one single thing”, then you’re doing fine. Otherwise, change starts with you. You don’t have to see or know the endpoint. You don’t have to absorb the entire scope of possibility immediately. You are just signaling your subconscious that you’re changing your brain waves. It will get it. It works for every human being and it will work for you. It never doesn’t work.
If you look like you can take on more, this could be the first step in convincing yourself that it’s true. We’ve all seen (or been) the woman who got an amazing haircut but didn’t keep it because she couldn’t match her personality to that cut. Certain behaviors accompany, and are expected of, certain appearances. Amazing, subtle, and true.
Everyone else automatically believes what you believe about you - I mean, what your subconscious believes. You can strut all you like; if your subsconscious has doubts, that’s what others will hear. Can you know ahead of time where the break in the clouds will happen? No, that’s not part of the deal. All you’re doing is saying “I want the cloud cover to lift. I’m ready to think about a new chance.”
By the end of the book, you feel like you’ve travelled a little journey of empowerment with these women. He has given them back so much pride in themselves. In the After pics, they’re laughing and moving and playing in ways they probably never would have again.
Comments
10 Responses to “Book Review : Staging Your Comeback”
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Hi Christine,
I have read this book and was impressed. I agree with your observations on why, psychologically, some women might not be able to incorporate the enormous physical change.
The after photos are very glamorous. Maybe the subjects need more help on incorporating their new look into everyday life. After all, we can’t all go around in dresses and heels every day. I would love to see makeovers with great every day looks!
Kathy
Well, that’s the thing, Kathy. They almost look like Krystle Carrington – or I expect they feel that way. I’d feel that way. But I understand that Christopher is trying to take them from one extreme to way out at the other extreme. That, he does very well. His vision is very interesting.
Thanks Christine!
Yes…I get that comment frequently (along with why did you take their glasses off?)
Every day looks don’t really translate as a dramatic makeover in visual marketing. At least you lose some shock and awe. So it was more “extreme” and idealized versions. Not to mention…try finding attractive “every day looks” for 12 women in 12 sizes with different body types in one store, in one season, in one day.
You take what fits!!
Thanks so much for the article!!
Hi, Christopher,
Well, now I’m wondering why you took their glasses off. So you could see their eyes, I guess.
You seriously do this shopping for all 12 in 1 store in 1 day?? I couldn’t do that for me alone. Must take a lot of Starbucks to get you through that.
“Visual marketing” … that’s a very insightful and multi-layered term.
Thanks for stopping by, and for the empowerment lessons in your book.
Well…if you think logistically people are a little more sympathetic.
12 women, 12 makeovers (so: haircut, color, make up application, silhouette analysis, waxing– usually 4 to 5 hours each) then you take them shopping (I actually did 3 a day: I’d shop all morning from store open until they arrived at 1:00 where of course nothing worked and I’d run throughout the store until closing).
That would be on a Friday. I’d cut hair on Saturday. Monday would be hair,make-up and photo shoot. Then we do it the next week for about a month. Actually thrilling, but exhausting.
And the reason for no glasses: A. one more shopping trip B. find a company that will lend you frames for the weekend, C. find the “right” frames that happen to go with that outfit you picked on on Friday, but had to work Saturday, they’re closed on Sunday and the shoot is Monday… D. I’m showing make-up, not eyewear…
So there you have it.
OH…Nancy did wear her new glasses on the Today Show:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYvMXYMBB7U
And then there were all those eyebrows to bleach.
It sounds completely thrilling. You’d miss it when it was over.
Without meaning to be in any way critical because I am in awe of your work, you have a love for beige-blond hair. You explain it really well in the book, and I only see these women on TV or in a book, but do you find their hair and skin somehow seem the same color?
I agree that lighter hair is better to light the face, but lighter softer makeup is even more important to avoid an aging look, so the whole package can look monochromatic. I’m big on the 12 Season thing, you see, and many of them are given Light Summer hair and makeup, but they can’t all have that kind of skin tone. Clearly, you don’t do it on everyone and it suits the women you put it on…maybe my eye is looking for more color than would really work at that age.
Do watch the YouTube link Christopher posted – you’ll see 4 of the women he transformed, IRL. It’s great to see the happiness that their makeover has allowed them to radiate, as though they can barely contain it.
Again, everyone is different, and everyone depends on their ethnicity, ability to duplicate, maintenance desired. Bottom line: you can’t rely on your hair color alone, you need to wear make up.
I totally DIS agree that women need to go softer and lighter with make up as they age. Where I’m from women wear NO make up whatsoever…so to go softer and lighter…not really possible.
If you see my mother at age 68 (page 177) still with the dramatic make up, you can understand that in many cases that is anything but soft summer make up and hair!! Very dramatic winter.
You generally need to draw on your brows, your lips and your eyes as you age to balance the depth of your hair color.
We did equal parts spring make up …warm lips, warm blush, warm eye make up with some cool and some neutral.
We didn’t bleach anyone eyebrows. If anything we gave them more brow color. (page 205)
Tina (page 31) is wearing significantly more make up than her before photo including false eyelashes. We went with color tones as she naturally can support cooler winter or summer make up. But since she wears none…we went with softer. Also fits her personality.
Lynette (page 32) went dramatically dark brown from gray because she had the pigment (winter) to support it and the personality (and it’s a makeover)
Her make up is cool to neutral. I rarely do cool make up but keep it as close to what might happen naturally…not to fa from what a day in the sun on young skin might accomplish.
Nancy (page 41) had always been blond until she turned gray. For practicality, the lighter color allows her longer times between retouches. Went with neutral make up.
LInda (page 135) is a dramatic winter in coloring, but not a big make up gal. We went with icy and cool, false eyelashes, and “lifting” make up for the eyes.
Carol (page 154) went red. She’s more “spring” in her coloring and we pushed that with peach tones. Definately more defined eyes and brows.
Rici (page 157) was a cool, more winter coloring, and it took a LOT of make up to correct features. The lip color is too bright to me in the book, but sometimes color comes out differently in print than in real life. We left her darker hair, but added higlights to “deflatten” it.
Cheryl (page 165) likes cool tones. I didn’t think they were her best…and of course, it WAS a makeover, and since she was wearig cool blues and pinks with gray hair in her before (and was petrified of haircolor) we went warm and springy.
Lynda (page 171) with yellow toned dark skin seemed to lighten and brighten with warmer make up. thus the gold jewelry, the chili pepper necklace and the warm gauzey outfit (the only one that fit…thus…warm).
Gail (page 215) was a definite winter with olive skin. Her personal style, however, was not dramatic. We softened color, balanced ruddy pigmentation with foundation and stayed in the plum brown family with soft lips. There are many lip color choices, this is just the color that evolved on shoot day. To mee it looks a little frosty in the book, but I don’t use frost..some of the lip gloss added last minute in the photo shoots had frost in them and picked up more light in the shoot than in real life.
My mother (page 177) is a dramatic winter. We keep her hair dark, her make up dramatic and eyes heavily lined. It’s not going to change, it’s who she is, she looks better over done than underdone. Many women of darker skin ethnicities who know how to wear make up do not need to soften and lighten and fade away.
I guess the bottom line is that we had twelve models.
Five went blonde (medium beige blonde one ash, one warm, one beige)
5 went brunette of different tonalities and shades.
One went red.
One stayed white.
Yes, people can look monochromatic…which to me is a good thing. Contrast is given with hue and intensity of make up, not necessarily with “color” of hair and make up. We are, as humans, pretty monochromatic naturally. So natural make up is going to look monochromatic.
Hey!! Joann is your mother? Oh, yeah, there she is on pg. 322, named Joann. Wow, she’s stunningly beautiful. In her younger picture, you look just like her but I didn’t pick it up in the book shots. You have GOOD genetics!
I looked at every single picture again. I asked a friend with good taste, who thought the blonde looked high-class and sophisticated.
I can see now how many plates you have to keep spinning in the air to get these shots. And from a real-world maintenance point of view, beige-blond is the most realistic so roots don’t show so fast.
I like the neutrality of your makeup colors. In other books on looking younger, the pictures are pretty but the makeup is very warm. The artist states that he finds warm colors best on older faces, but if I saw those women in the mall, the very peach lips might stand out. I can’t decide if I agree with all that peachiness and bronzing for real life mature faces. It made me think of wedding photos, where warmer makeup than the woman would normally wear seems to work to look photographically healthy, but she’d look odd at the office, especially the cool skin types.
And, I haven’t said that I am HONORED that you took the time to type in these replies. For all the women who read this, learning from you in person is our privilege. Thank you.
I am honored that people care enough to read the book and have an opinion!!
Such an affirmation.