It’s a sheer joy to listen to makeup artist extraordinaire Charlie Green wax rhapsotic about cosmetics, and not just because she has one of the most beguiling British accents this side of Catherine Zeta-Jones.
Boasting such celebrity clients as Hilary Swank, Jewel, Celine Dion, LeAnn Rimes, and Salma Hayek, Charlie’s not just added her touch to some of Hollywood’s most famous faces, she’s also made certain that the sexiest women on the planet look their very best: Since 2002 she’s been Victoria’s Secret Beauty’s premier makeup artist and spokesperson, beautifying the faces–and the bodies–of Supermodels Gisele Bündchen, Heidi Klum, and Tyra Banks at numerous photo shoots, public appearances and on the runway for those skin-friendly Victoria’s Secret Fashion Shows where, yes, people are looking at more than just the lingerie.
With Hollywood’s red carpet season in full swing, Hollywood.com caught up with Charlie to find out just how the stars stay so gorgeous during their red carpet travels.
Hollywood.com: With all of your celebrity clients, you’ve become quite the expert on keeping the perfect look all the way through an awards night.
Charlie Green: “I come out to L.A. usually when the Oscars are on–I’ve been out there for the last three years, making up lots of people for all those events. The red carpet is something that needs quite a lot of thought because once you do somebody’s makeup, it takes a long time coming down that red carpet, whether its the MTV Awards, the Golden Globes or the Oscars. I mean, once they get out of the limo it takes a good couple of hours to get down the red carpet, with photographs and interviews the whole way. You have to make sure whatever you do makeup wise is stunning, and suitable to their personality and dress and their look for the day, and also that it’s long-lasting, because I’m not behind them touching up their lipstick and powder every five minutes–They’re on their own out there. So we have to think of doing something gorgeous that wears well.”
What’s the biggest red carpet-related makeup concern among your celebrity clients?
Probably lipstick. When you’re doing that much talking and that many interviews and giving sound bytes here and there and kissing and drinking champagne and being nervous, biting your lips, wondering if you’re going to get the award…Lipstick is one of the most volatile things with makeup, so that’s why in the gifts we gave to the nominees we included the new lipstick called Make It Last. It’s a product we created for Victoria’s Secret Beauty and we tested it on all our supermodels–Heidi Klum and Gisele Bündchen and Tyra Banks–and if they don’t stroll down those carpets enough I don’t know who does. It comes in two colors–you’ve got a color you paint on with a little applicator wand, and then you can wear it two ways: with a satin finish or you could apply a separate top coat of a gloss. The lipstick, with or without the gloss, basically lasts for many, many hours. You actually have to use makeup remover to remove it. You can eat Krispy Kremes and cafe lattes and smoke cigarettes and it ain’t gonna budge!
What other major tip do you have for anyone trying to look red carpet glamorous?
Keeping the skin looking fresh without looking too made up–Looking dewy. These days, there’s a lot of attention on the fashion and these girls look like models when they go down the red carpet in their beautiful dresses from the top designers, and the dresses are very skimpy, skinny straps or strapless and backless. Their arms are all showing; it’s Hollywood, it’s a lot of skin–so we make sure that the skin everywhere is looking gorgeous. That’s a trick we take from the Victoria’s Secret runway, where there’s obviously even a lot more skin showing. We make sure the whole body’s looking perfect by using a lotion with a golden shimmer sparkle, and that way your skin just looks slightly more tan, slightly more radiant. It’s a very angelic, very feminine look. Attention to detail–makeup doesn’t just stop at the chin. You’ve got to remember the arms, the back, the chest, all that stuff. You don’t want a photograph to come out and you’ve got a Kabuki face and a brown body. You want to enlist some professional help and look scintillating from head to toe. It doesn’t mean lots of makeup–it just means a little more thought.
And we hear you have some insight into the makeup tricks of the Million Dollar Baby herself, Hilary Swank?
Hilary is one of my clients, actually–I wasn’t responsible for her at the Golden Globes, but she’s somebody that when she’s in New York I work with on a regular basis. She’s absolutely adorable. Hilary has the most beautiful skin, and beautiful full lips. What we do is we tend to accentuate the eyes. She has very strong features anyway, so it’s not like Hilary needs a lot of makeup. We keep it quite simple and mainly focus on the eyes. She doesn’t need foundation, just a touch of concealer under the eyes, a fresh creamy blush to liven up the skin. Usually we just do a gloss on the lips, because she’s got lovely lips, and then a smoky, golden bronze around the eyes, which makes the color of her eyes pop more, and mascara.
