Jack & Hill: A Beauty Blog - make-up, cosmetics, perfume, and the substance of style

The Scarlett (Johansson)

This is the bleached blonde bob that Mrs. Ryan Reynolds is sporting in the new Mango campaign. I find it exceedingly sexy. If I could bear to have my hair touch my forehead or cheeks, I would be getting this cut today.

No, it's not far off the deceptively simple-looking cut that Sally Hershberger designed for Meg Ryan a few years ago - but then I loved that, too. But this is total JBF hair and I love it. I suspect that it would work well for women of all ages, but would work best on blondes and redheads.

What do you think?

Anne Hathaway at the Met Ball

How such creative people with so much money (and freebies) at their disposal manage to make such a potentially interesting, fun event so boring is beyond me. Maybe it's all the drugs?

One highlight for  me amongst the Met Ball monotony was Anne Hathaway's look. Anne is the kind of girl whom I used to find extraordinarily beautiful, like a young Nigella Lawson. Recently, I've found that she either looks very pretty or downright awkward. (As someone who tends to look very goofy indeed in candid shots, I know how annoying this can be.)

But it was great to see her working the '60s retro look - and resembling Nigella more than ever - at the Met Ball. I loved the hair, and the makeup was perfect, even if the dress was just so-so. Lancôme did Anne's makeup - here's the rundown from their PR department:

Celebrity makeup artist Leslie Lopez gave Hathaway her ultra-glamorous, ultra-dramatic look, with smokey eyes as the focal point. Leslie swept Lancôme Color Design Eyeshadow in Statuesque over the entire eyelid, dabbed Color Design Eyeshadow in Daylight on the brow bone and finished with several coats of Lancôme L'Extreme Mascara in Black. Anne’s sheer, neutral colored lipstick--Lancôme L’Absolu Rouge Lipstick in Couture Suede—was the perfect finishing touch.

Aside: Anne Hathaway was college roommates with one of my friends, who reported that there is absolutely no juicy gossip or anything weird about the actress. How tragic!

Live from the Sundance Film Festival

Topanga!
Originally uploaded by dynamist.

I'm helping to produce 24 Hours @ Sundance with Ashton Kutcher's Katalyst Media here in Park City, Utah. There are lots of celebrities to be spotted, and the ones who have made the biggest impression on me are:

1) Ashley Judd, who is luminously beautiful. The woman just glows. Very lovely and well spoken, too.

2) Danielle Fishel, aka Topanga from Boy Meets World (pictured), who doesn't seem to have aged much since she was 15. Her eyelashes are spectacular - she told me she uses Cover Girl Lash Exact Mascara.

3) Ben Affleck, who really isn't anything to write home about looks-wise. He's tired as hell from having his newborn baby girl at home, but honestly, I saw two hundred hotter guys this morning in Park City.

4) Mark Harmon (pictured here with me) has only gotten better with age, like most men.

Beauties: Eleanor Roosevelt

I did two things this weekend: voted by mail, and attended an AAUW event in honor of Eleanor Roosevelt's 124th birthday, which was October 11th. I had three partisan races on my ballot, and voted for a Democrat, a Libertarian and a Republican. I have never voted Republican in a national race, but I tend to like fiscally conservative candidates at the local level, where they are in charge of budgets, not constitutions. Michelle Obama got my vote for first lady.

Speaking of first ladies, Eleanor Roosevelt is one of the most magnificent humans to have lived on our planet. In 1933, she began holding female-only press conferences, in the knowledge that this would force all the major newspapers to hire women to cover the White House. In 1939, she broke with the DAR over their refusal to let Marian Anderson sing at Constitution Hall. In my book, she was the greatest visionary social leader since the revolution. Here are a few quotes to give a sense of just how sharp she really was:

Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.

A woman is like a tea bag- you never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water.

Do what you feel in your heart to be right - for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people.

Justice cannot be for one side alone, but must be for both.

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

“I once had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalogue: no good in a bed, but fine up against a wall.”

Braids, Bitches, God & Existentialism

When I stumbled on Holly Hunter in Saving Grace a while back I was instantly hooked, despite the show's religious theme. But this is no Touched By An AngeI. This show is tortured, obsessed with evil and redemption, existentialism vs. God, much the way French writers of the early 20th century like Jean Genet were. The redemption on offer is downright bitter, and the character's pronounced anti-heroism lies in her refusal to accept it. As television, Saving Grace is about as hard-bitten and dark as The Shield, and Hunter's Detective Grace Hanadarko is just as tough as Michael Chicklis' Detective Vic Mackey. She is tough, but she's also in her own way nice--and I love the image of a tough woman who isn't by default also a gratuitous bitch. The character seems to be in her thirties, though Hunter is in fact fifty. That's right, this woman is fifty. Fifty? Fifty.

At forty-five, I thought I was too old to wear braids, but what the heck. To seal the deal, a post on the Free People blog gave me some ideas for braiding hair that happens, like mine, to be shoulder lenghth and cut in a shag. The post links to some how-to video that is quite helpful if like me you haven't braided hair in, say, forty years. The charm of these styles is that you can't really mess it up, as the messier your braids the better they look. Check out my attempt after the jump....

Lena Headey's Hair on Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

I have been enchanted with the character of Sarah Connor ever since seeing the Terminator when it first came out. She is the model of the reluctant warrior, a woman pressed into service who rises to the occasion without ever losing her soul. There was something iconic and satisfying about watching the small, ordinary, cute Linda Hamilton do battle with Arnold the Terminator. A sci-fi David and Goliath made all the more satisfying for the inclusion of the feminine vs. masculine dynamic. And something equally glorious happened when Sarah returned in Terminator II as the fully-fledged warrior with laser-like purpose. So I'm thrilled that one of my favorite characters is back in an iteration of the franchise that justly focuses on her as the central character in the myth.

Sarah is a character of Shakespearean depth, and the chance to see different actresses play her is exciting, akin to getting to see Lawrence Olivier or Nicol Williamson create their own Hamlets. The stunning Lena Headey has created a new Sarah in Fox's Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, one who views moral and physical battles as being equivalent, all facets of a quest for a greater good, and never lapses into a sense of the righteous even as she makes difficult life or death choices on a daily basis. Her character is infused with doubt, of her methods if not her purpose, and that is what makes her vulnerable and compelling.

Headey has the strong, lean physique of a distance runner, which seems more realistic in an action hero than the gym rat musculature we usually see. Her strength isn't brawny or showy. She has instead an explosive stillness about her. Her style reminds me a bit of the martial arts, but where martial artist action heroes always have an aura of masterful arrogance about them, Headey's Sarah has a sadness instead. In one beautifully choreographed move, she took out a gun-weilding guard by diving and rolling, knocking him down like a bowling pin, playing smart not hard. There's no show or glory in her balletic explosions of physical acumen, which makes them all the more breathtaking.

As compelling as I find the story and the character, I couldn't help this week being distracted by how fantastic Headey's hair is in the series. It's actually quite difficult to shape this kind of cut to have the right weight at the top and a wispiness at the bottom that doesn't appear straggly. This is a perfectly executed cut, and it suits her face so well it is hard to imagine her now with any other hair. I also love that this is a real haircut--not like some TV hair that is preposterously overstyled (it's no wonder Jennifer Anniston hated the Friends haircut, with the amount of styling needed to make that hair poof and flip for--what--half an hour?). I'll bet Headey looks just like this on her day off.

Emmy style: Christina Hendricks

Then there's Christina Hendricks. Some women stop traffic; she has stopped the decline and fall of Western Civilization. Forget the friggin Emmys, can we just give her the Nobel Peace Prize instead?

I know this is the second time I've featured Hendricks recently, but some things just bear repeating. She hits all the style notes with her Grecian hair and Grecian goddess gown (the way the ruched gown seems just caught on the curve of her shoulder, as if it could fall away with a shrug, is perfect). But more than that, look at her posture, the curve of her neck, the purse of her lips, the way she tilts her head and focuses her gaze. I hear comparisons to Marilyn because of the vavoom figure, but I think she's got quite a bit of Ava Gardner going on, with that graceful comportment. So much of beauty is carriage, and I hadn't realized how much I missed the movie star bearing of yore until I saw this.

Emmy Style: Katherine Keener

Katherine Keener has always been a favorite actress, but I've never thought of her as a style icon until now. This is the kind of perfect presentation even a diva seldom achieves but a handful of times in a lifetime: the toussled mermaid hair, the pale skin, the perfectly cut and draped tux rendered gown-like by the absence of shirt or jewelry to take away from the dramatic lines. The satin-finish pinky beige lipstick is exactly right. This is a daring look, because it's all about what isn't there, with no pop or fizz to distract, and she pulls it off impeccably. I can't believe I'm saying this, but Keener makes Marlena Dietrich look fussy in a tux!

It sounds like I was wise to skip the telecast and check out the fashions online. I was also quite taken with Mary Louise Parker's vivid blue gown, paired with that white skin and dark, rich hair, and thank goodness she went for red lips instead of pink, and Tina Fey looked ravishing. I didn't love Holly Hunter's lilac dress (she's too tough a customer for pastels), but everything else about her is electric--that is what I want to look like when I turn 50, including the toughness. Yes, Keener is 49 and Hunter 50. I'd say we're heading into a golden age of female beauty, on that evidence alone.

Shear Genius: Ahem, why does Jaclyn Smith look like a microwave oven?

Last week, I tried to explain my hatred of hair highlighting to Jackie--who I didn't know had highlights, that's how well hers were done--and ended up at: "When they're bad, they look suspiciously like woodgrained formica." 

Which is--voila!--exactly the problem with Jaclyn Smith, host of Shear Genius--her head looks like the side of my first microwave oven. 

Woodgrained formica is, of course, the worst kind of fakeness, the kind that is unredeemable even in retro contexts. Like champagne beige auto paint, the seafoam green leisure suit, and the man perm.

Paris Hilton's Can Can

My four-word review of this surprisingly not totally disgusting scent: Poor woman's Hard Candy.

I got a free sample of Hard Candy from Sephora last year and fell hard for it. That surprised me, since I don't usually go for sweeter scents, but it's got just enough cashmere musk to avoid being cloying.

Now Smell This notes a similarity between Can Can and Britney Spears Fantasy, on which I have already blogged favorably. If this trend of halfway decent celebrity fragrances continues, there's no telling whose scent I'll end up wearing. Where's Heidi Montag when you need her?