By: Zoe Foster

Paperback

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Sometimes a lady just needs to know how to do the definitive smoky eye, or how to choose the perfect shade of lipstick or eye shadow. And there's no reason she shouldn't know which foundation or moisturiser is best for her, either.

All the answers are here, in this top-to-toe beauty extravaganza. Former Cosmopolitan and Harper's BAZAAR beauty director Zoë Foster suggests makeup colours and brands for every occasion, skin care routines and products for every age, and step-by-step instructions for winged eyeliner, sensational red lips, foolproof tanning, simple updos, sexy-second-day hair, and much, much more . . .

About The Author

Zoë Foster enjoys writing author biographies because she gets to write things like, 'Zoë Foster is Australia's most critically acclaimed and best-selling author,' and, 'In 2010, Foster was controversially awarded the Pulitzer for the second time' despite the fact that all of these things are untrue.

Things that are true include her role as the editor-at-large of beauty website primped.com.au, columnist for The Sunday Telegraph, and the dating columnist for Cosmopolitan magazine. She was previously the beauty director at Harper's BAZAAR, and prior to that beauty director at Cosmopolitan magazine.

Zoë has published two novels, Air Kisses and Playing The Field, as well as dating and relationship book called Textbook Romance, (written in conjunction with Hamish Blake). A collection of her best beauty tips and tricks, Amazing Face, goes on sale June 2011, while sadly a collection of her worst beauty tips was pulped before it reached the shelves.

Introduction

I learned how to apply makeup from a girl in the toilets.

She was an exquisite, popular, sophisticated* (*It's all relative) year nine girl (I was a year eight weed and the girls in the year above were deities for reasons I can only put down to 'having pashed boys already'), and it was bewitching watching her do her face in the school toilets.

Sadly, my facsimile did not eventuate in the flawless masterpiece I'd hoped, although with several layers of Mum's salmon Helena Rubenstein powder, blush loaded onto cheekbones that didn't yet exist and more eyeliner than is legal at 13, I was able to generously offer several solid hours of amusement for my family.

But what the heck was a girl to do? My options were my older sister, who was at that time stomping noisily through her punk stage and terribly unhelpful in the beauty department, my mum, who wore only powder and lipstick, or my friends, who to my irritation were hypnotised by Lip Smackers and unwilling to progress. The Girl in the Toilet was my best chance.

Surprisingly, learning how to do makeup – that most crucial form of visual enhancement and self-expression – from a Girl in the Toilets (who invariably learned it from someone equally unqualified) is not as valuable as one might think. As condom-covered veils at Hens' Nights kindly demonstrate, tradition does not always mean it's right.

But I persisted, experimenting with beauty in all its forms through the tragic comedy of high school with the application technique of a drunken bat. Eye shadow? Whatever shade's on sale at the chemist! Hair colour? Whatever Emma and Lee are doing! Skin care? Whatever Mum buys me! Screw technique, doll; just get it on there! Oh, and whatever you do, PLUCK YOUR EYEBROWS. Pluck them a lot. Have no idea why or how, just do it because everyone else is. See? See how pretty they look all thin and wonky and uneven like that? Great job!

This spectacular incompetence continued until I was 23, when I became beauty editor at Cosmopolitan. It's terrifying that I was given such a role – I distinctly remember my only eye shadow palette at that time being a frosty pastel CoverGirl one I wore with evangelical passion, skipping merrily from lilac to mint to aqua according to mood and outfit, and you can bet your blush brush I wore it to the job interview.

Two days in and I was interviewing the gentleman responsible for doing JENNIFER ANISTON's hair, and so my on-job learning commenced. And it never stops.

People occasionally assume beauty editors are makeup artists or beauticians turned writers, but we are not. Those guys are incredibly knowledgeable in one area, whereas we know lots of little things about many areas. We are writers whose job it is to inhale all available information on beauty, from every available source, and elegantly spit it out in an accessible fashion for our readers.

And inhale I do. Every time I chat to an artist, whether they're an international King of the Biz like BRUC GRAYSON or FRÉDÉRIC FEKKAI, a National Megastar like RAE MORRIS or JAYNE WILD, or a terrifically talented makeup or hair genius on a shoot, I am learning fantastic new tricks that alter the way I do my hair or face. Ditto with the dermatologists and scientists behind those skin care prodz you buy. These people know their shit. They are the finest in their field; beauty is their passion and their profession.

For me to translate all of their priceless insider information to readers, I need to understand it first. ('Explain it to me like I'm five.') Which means I learn a whole lot of stuff along the way, both from these experts, and from subsequent experimenting. (Seven years' worth which have cumulated in this book.) (The stuff I can remember anyway.) (I was drunk for a lot of it.) (Kidding!) (Kind of.)

Pros aside, my fellow beauty editors are tremendously inspiring. You cannot imagine such a glorious constellation of stylish, mischievous, talented dames! They are extremely proficient with any makeup/hairbrush or product in their orbit and magnificent at sassing a trend before it even knows it's a trend. This is no accident: as a beauty editor, you might attend 10 product launches a week, and are expected to look polished and glamorous at each. And so you'd expect as much from the women forecasting for, educating and gently dictating to a nation on perfect skin, hair and makeup. Obviously, this lends itself to some exceptional creativity: a shimmering peacock green liner and a frisky new fringe there, outrageous melon lips and duck-egg blue toenails over there . . . it is a circus of invention and playfulness and I hurl myself into it with zest and jubilance.

And now I beg the same of you.

To be inspired and excited by the fun and frivolity of beauty. To learn (or re-learn) the basics and master some new trickery. To take what works for you and chuck what doesn't. To challenge what you've always done or thought. To experiment and play. To thieve these tips and announce them as your own, rather like I did in putting this book together. Although let it be known I would never suggest I created these tips: they either came to me via dreams (false) or were taught to me by the best in the biz over the years (true).

For the love of lettuce, cut the cackle, Fosters!

Okay, okay, now it's time for you, sweet reader, to run squealing into a book that will make you feel competent, be confident and look magnificent, and a world that isn't intimidating or confusing, but in fact frightfully enjoyable, easy and exciting. It is! It really is. And this book was created lovingly to demonstrate as much.

Enjoy it, you gorgeous rascals.

ISBN: 9780670075256
ISBN-10: 0670075256
Audience: General
Format: Paperback
Language: English
Number Of Pages: 272
Published: 27th June 2011
Dimensions (cm): 20.800 x 16.9  x 2.000
Weight (kg): 20.3