Makeup with Attitude, “The Runaways”

By Laura Medina

For you want to watch the tutorials, hit Cherie Curie's look, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bx5v_mbRPg&feature=related for the glam look or hit Joan Jett's rocker eyes on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0L1rXYFpifY&feature=related to get that classic, messy, smudgy look. Both are by Makeup Forever.

Left, Kristen Stewart as Joan Jett. Right, Dakota Fanning as Cherie Currie.

When the official Joan Jett/Cherie Currie biopic, "The Runaways," released a month ago, it ushered in an unexpected rush of Gen Y-ers experimenting with colors they haven't seen in their lifetime.

For them and the Baby Boom Generation who did the first time around, this aggressive makeup stands for freedom of expression, liberation, and feminist assertiveness. This unabashed makeup is for strong individuals.

During the mid-Seventies or when times are dreary, people just want to have fun with their Glam/Disco makeup.

The color revivial arrived just in time.

"The Runaways'" head makeup artist, Robin Mathews, showcases the color and techniques that are bringing the rush back in makeup.

For folks dulled by the "natural makeup" of the past twenty to fifteen years, now it's time to jumpstart your powders, cremes, and glosses.

Since Makeup Forever supplied the film, you can easily pluck the items from them but any of the latest and boldest makeup, especially the finely-milled ones, packed with pigment, for high-definition tv will do.

Step One: Sweeping Brown Eye Shadow on Upper Lid, left and right.

The colors and shadows of Joan Jett are pretty classic and timeless. Tons of standard black and medium tone browns that a plenty of women already have in their makeup stash. To get that edgy but tough bad girl look, it’s all about technique than buying a whole new makeup. If you swish and swipe enough, you can give your existing, basic flesh-tone, staid eye makeup a new flair.

In fact, this blurry swirl of basic black and brown are the same eye makeup that Ms. Jett still wears to this day. Follow these steps and you’ll never go wrong with a classic.

Step 1: Brown Eye Shadow. No hard edges. Blend and fade out to infinity.

Line Lower Lid with tons of Black Eyeliner.

Step2: Black Aqua Eye Pencil. Generous heaping under the entire lower eye rim then do the same to the upper rim.

Step3: Take a small, flat-edged eye shadow brush and smudge around upper rim then stroke and smudge the lower eye rim. Don’t have to be neat. Remember, the messier it is, the more “Rock n’ Roll” it is. If you swipe too much of your eyeliner. Reline with the black aqua eye pencil.

Too much is never enough for impact and durability, sweating under the klieg lights. For the Rock n’ Roll Glam-Punk ‘70’s, it’s all about excess. Glam makeup was about all theatrical makeup to make you stand out to the nosebleed seats as much as it is rebellion and sexual assertiveness and expression.

Take a bigger, fluffier brush or makeup sponge then brush off the fallen excess shadow to make your peepers pop.




Step4: *Take the same brown eye shadow you did for your upper eye lid and trace it over your already blacken lower eye rim. This ombre effect pulls the eye for more attention and attraction. You see two different but similar colors helping the eye pop.

Step5: Eye Lash Curling. Lifts all the upper lashes. Prepping for the mascara.

Step6: Stroke the mascara on top of the upper lashes. Then, scissoring up, under the upper lashes. Coating the upper lashes over and under.

Cherie Currie Makeup:

Ok, you may, not have to, buy new eyeshadows and liners. But, that’s where the fun part comes in. Breaking from the tried and true but tired basic beige, brown, and black, as “The Runaway’s” David Bowie/Ziggy Stardust-influenced lead singer, Cherie (Dakota Fanning) has to stand out. In comes the glitter and flash-and color! If you already have a navy blue or a deep sea ocean blue and some shimmering powder/cream beige/brown eyeshadow or multiple, it’s time to break them out.

Robin calls this a “blue-and-gold smoky eye,” a classic technique with new colors.
As “The Runaways’” front woman, Cherie has to be the glamourous disco mirror/Ziggy to Joan’s tough but true rocker turned punker.

Cherie was all about “sparkly and glittery.”

Again, it’s all about placement and technique. Let’s Robin Mathews show you how.
With basic deep blue and glimmering beige or bronze, you don’t have to be blonde like Dakota or Cherie, anyone can wear this glam slam combo.

Step1: Stroke a sparkling, starry copper/ bronze/beige powder/cream from the inner eye corner then stopping midway in the middle of the upper eye lid, blending into an Isosceles triangle.

Step2: The same black aqua eye liner then stroke it back and forth, left and right, rimming the lower eye lid as closely as possible from inner corner to outer corner, without infecting your eyeball.

Step3: With the same aqua liner, smudge the outer lower rim for a more fluid, blended look.

Step4: With really deep blue/navy eye shadow, tap the excess, then fill in the mid-to-outer corner of the upper eye lid, filling in the missing Isosceles triangle for depth. Light in the inside. Dark on the outside for highlight and depth. With eye shadow this deep and rich, trace a little bit onto the upper rim and stroke slightly into the crease for depth.

Step5: Free of shadow, take the same flat, wide eye shadow brush and blend, blend on the upper lid. Then with the same deep blue shadow, take a smaller, tighter eyeliner brush, dip it in the shadow and trace over the existing aqua liner to make it smokey.

Step6: Curl the lashes.

Step7: Stroke the black mascara down, on top of the top lash. Up and out to elongate the eye.
Actually, the eyeliner approach is easier than it sounds. For that authentic ‘70’s rimmed eye, Ms. Mathews gave a little history lesson, back then no one lined their inner eye rim back then. This is a recent development. In those days, people just trace the edge of their eyelids, never going inside, with a thick swatch of dark or bold colors. If the risk of eye infection makes you nervous, ahem like this scribe, just do what they did in the past, just line the outside of the lids without coloring the inner eyelid.

While watching “The Runaways,” you’ll notice how bold and strong and define the blush was in the mid-Seventies. It was all about contouring but the all-natural flesh-toned beige, brown, and bronze had surrendered to the flamboyant hot flash colors of raging red, fevered pinks, and outlandish orange. They weren’t ashame of color.

If you want a bold streak of color without the old school heavy grease and oil, today’s high definition technology makes blush lighter and healthier yet bolder thanks to LCD and HD TV.
In fact, one tiny squirt of Makeup Forever’s HD Crème Blush is so pigment intense yet whipped light like a mousse, a little goes a long, long way. If there’s enough left over, you can dab and tap all over your lips for a bold but matte, matching lips.

Ok, as the official makeup of “The Runaways” movie, this is the same blush Robin used on Kristen and Dakota.

How to get that bold, streak of blush.

Back then, women (sometimes, some men) hollowed or accentuate their cheekbones by heavily stroking a thick, wide swarth of blush directly underneath the bone. First, it started with skin-friendly warm browns, peaches and apricots to highlight the popular-back-then tanned look. Along the way, thanks to British Glam Rock and Disco, it morphed into really bold reds, powerful purples, feverish fuchsia, and hot pinks.

According to Robin, when “The Runaways” were girls (they ranged from 15 to 17 for god’s sake), they trained themselves by placing a piece of paper to their skin and put their blush on against the paper to make the harsh line; this is how they brought out the cheekbone and accentuated it. For that confident blush, do not blend.

With the break-through multiple crèmes and gels, dot, dot, and dot on the cheekbone edge then blend together laterally and stroke down for that bold, diagonal streak look.

For Joan Jett, she just do the eyes sans the blush and lips whereas Cherie Currie went all out.

With Jett’s easier look, you can do the deep but natural beige and brown for the sunken cheek and no-lipstick appearance.

With Cherie’s, it fun for clubbing and socializing at the soirees.

Since it’s all about smudging, with Summer’s sweat, it’s easier done than said.
This makeup isn’t for the no-makeup, naturalistic wimps. This was and is the makeup for riot grrls, rocker chicks who kick ass, bone-crushing roller babes, and folks who want to be theatrical. This is assertive color for assertive people. Shrinking violets need not apply, literally.

It's the best makeup for Summer, the sweatier the better.