{"id":218,"date":"2015-04-28T12:21:21","date_gmt":"2015-04-28T12:21:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevoux.wpthemestudios.com\/?p=218"},"modified":"2015-04-28T12:21:21","modified_gmt":"2015-04-28T12:21:21","slug":"look-back-on-carmen-electras-bombshell-evolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/article.thomascaregroup.com\/?p=218","title":{"rendered":"Look Back on Carmen Electra’s Bombshell Evolution"},"content":{"rendered":"

Carmen Electra<\/em> recently celebrated her 43rd birthday, to which we had only one reaction: “WHAT?!” If you grew up anywhere near the ’90s and 2000s, you likely remember Carmen for heating up the screen on Baywatch and Singled Out and inspiring your love of low-rise jeans, crop tops, and trucker hats.<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Tabloid in long-form, Anger details the scandals of Tinseltown\u2019s very first stars (including Rudolph Valentino, Roscoe Arbuckle, and Clara Bow) against the backdrop of a city charged by rampant debauchery and high glamour.<\/p>\n

Whereas\u00a0Hollywood Babylon<\/em>\u00a0deals mostly with the era\u2019s nightlife, the workday habits of early film stars were pretty wild too. For our purposes, it\u2019s all about the prep. Hence a little history lesson today, particularly about how one might get ready for a period\u00a0moving picture.<\/p>\n

Early movies were shot on orthochromatic film, which was not sensitive to yellow-red wavelengths<\/strong><\/em> (so colors on that end of the spectrum became almost black). Blue and purple tones, in turn, showed up pale and whitish. The unfortunate on-screen effects of this were myriad\u2014actors with ruddy skin looked dirty, and blue eyes would turn blank and spooky. The latter pitfall almost foiled the ambitions of eventual Academy Award winner Norma Shearer when she was told by\u00a0D.W. Griffith,\u00a0The Birth of a Nation<\/em>\u00a0director, that her eyes were \u201cfar too blue\u201d to have any success in cinema.<\/p>\n

In order to create an impactful (and hopefully, natural) look under such conditions in the 1910s and ’20s, most actors were tasked with applying their own makeup (A common press photo set-up was very Top Shelf-like and featured the starlet at her vanity.), and studios would distribute guides for proper use of color. Blue-toned greasepaint was applied as a foundation and contouring shade, while lips were painted yellow. In real life, actors must have looked truly bizarre when they arrived at the studio.\u00a0Early greasepaint was texturally problematic. Since it was applied with a heavy hand, the surface layer would often crack when the actor\u2019s expression changed<\/em> (not great for a medium that relied so heavily on overly dramatic, silent expression). It could also be hazardous\u2014as was in the case of Dolores Costello (Drew Barrymore\u2019s paternal grandmother), whose complexion and career were both damaged beyond repair by early film makeup. In 1914, Max Factor, a wig and cosmetic shop owner in Los Angeles, developed a solution in the form of Flexible Greasepaint. After its invention, he became the most sought-after makeup artist in Hollywood and the leading figure in cosmetic development for the industry.<\/p>\n

Factor\u2019s personalized approach to makeup artistry cemented a few specific, studio-endorsed “looks.” For Clara Bow, he drew her sharply peaked cupid\u2019s bow; Joan Crawford\u2019s signature \u201csmeared\u201d lip (extending far beyond her natural line) assuaged the actress\u2019 thin-lipped insecurities and was all thanks to Factor. Industry standards also required actors’ eyes to look deep-set and moody by shadowing them from lash line to socket, and eyebrows were drawn straight, bold, and very, very long (think Louise Brooks).<\/p>\n

When orthochromatic film gave way to panchromatic in the 1920s, shiny hair\u00a0and eyelids captured the glow of incandescent bulbs used on-set to great effect. Factor kept pace, developing specific light-refracting hair dyes to suit this technical shift\u2014even sprinkling gold dust on to Marlene Dietrich\u2019s wigs when asked. He couldn\u2019t rest on his laurels for long though\u2014Technicolor was on the horizon, and with it came a new set of cosmetic challenges.<\/p>\n

A final note: In the early \u201830s, still riding the panchromatic \u201chigh shine\u201d wave, Factor created a slick lip coat for his famous clients. The formula would go on to become commercially sold as \u201cX-Rated<\/a>,\u201d the world\u2019s very first lip gloss. Something I think we\u2019re all still kind of into.<\/p>\n

\u2014Lauren Maas<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Carmen Electra recently celebrated her 43rd birthday, to which we had only one reaction: “WHAT?!” If you grew up anywhere near the ’90s and 2000s, you likely remember Carmen for heating up the screen on Baywatch and Singled Out and inspiring your love of low-rise jeans, crop tops, and trucker hats. Tabloid in long-form, Anger…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":261,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[59],"thb-sponsors":[],"class_list":["post-218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrity","tag-models","post_format-post-format-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/article.thomascaregroup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/article.thomascaregroup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/article.thomascaregroup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/article.thomascaregroup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/article.thomascaregroup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/article.thomascaregroup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/article.thomascaregroup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/article.thomascaregroup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/article.thomascaregroup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/article.thomascaregroup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=218"},{"taxonomy":"thb-sponsors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/article.thomascaregroup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fthb-sponsors&post=218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}