KEVYN AUCOIN : ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE

April 1, 2008

You may remember Kevyn Aucoin from the article on the light concealer. He wrote a handful of books about makeup and its application prior to his death. He died at the height of his fame of complications from a brain tumor, at the age of 40. At that time, having him do your makeup came with a price tag of $4500. For me, it would have been worth every cent.

Kevyn Aucoin

Surpassing makeup

We are all more than just the sum of our parts, and he was far more than a makeup artist. Kevyn Aucoin was a deeply caring human being who used makeup as a means to empower women through beauty, whether it be Barbra Streisand or you or I. His humanity and compassion could be felt in his writing, so uplifting was his presence. He looked for (and found) only the good in people.

If you read the Personal Section of his website, you will read that he held the belief that anything is possible. This helped him survive years of Southern-style homophobia and raised him to the peak of his profession. He showed us this in his artistry with faces.

His magic transcended “enhancing your features”. His eyes could wipe the slate clean of every preconception the woman in front of him had about herself. He was able to envision a complete transformation and it was perfect. He revealed in the woman a shocking beauty in the face and from within.

Whether you care about makeup or not, watch this video. Surviving a darker past than most of us can even imagine, this man speaks with humor and humanity about being true to who you are in Your Deepest Self. He was an incredible human being and his loss is a deep one. I would have loved him, just as everyone did who knew him.

This video was uploaded to YouTube by DiscoSmoke.

Infinite imagination

Say what you will about the artifice of makeup, but the power of beauty is real. The expression on the women’s faces, whether he has simply given them an eyebrow or done a full makeup, is proof. Different eyes are looking back at you in the After picture.

Look at the website. There are often makeup lessons posted with stunning before and after pictures that illustrate his enormous talent for transforming reality into possibility.

To him, women were equally beautiful with or without makeup, but he would show them how they look in their dreams. This was not just nice shading around the eyes. This was like fantasy come to life.

Riveting makeovers

His sense of color was astounding and very difficult to replicate. His makeup artistry was almost electric. To see the before picture, and then to see the same woman again through his eyes, was spellbinding. In the way that a great photographer can redefine the everyday, it was the re-invention that was awe-inspiring. This was the reminder that the only limits are those we impose on ourselves and on others.

He seldom named a product he used, saying that the secret was not in the color but in its application, and that he often made his own colors when he couldn’t find a satisfactory one. That was always frustrating and never made sense to me. Why not help women make good choices?

I had a brief opportunity to see his makeup line recently. I will write more about it at another time. I understand better why his makeup applications looked different from everyone else’s. Part was in his individual stamp, but part of it must have been the products. They are different in color and texture from anything other makeup that I know.

No limits in your own eyes

I search inside myself often to be sure that I don’t classify myself or those around me. We often do this without realizing it. These internal sorting decisions get made, and we move on with our day. People and things are categorized into our personal pigeonhole array as an attempt to impose order on incoming perceptions. The problem is that, once labeled, the file contents stay that way forever.

This filing system influences every thought we have and how we choose the directions we take in life. As I think about it, it seems vital to keep the drawers open and the folders empty.

How would things look if we stopped using this reflexive way of thinking and viewed people as Kevyn did? Would we imagine them as they could be, with their flaws lifted and their beauty exposed ?

How could the world look out your own eyes? Inside ourselves, we all carry and can learn Kevyn’s gift of clarity. I believe that these are his true gifts to us, his legacy : an education in seeing things differently, the absolute conviction that everything we need is already in us, and allowing the creation and the beauty that resides within each human being.

Posted by Christine Scaman | Filed Under Happiness, Makeup