Fire & Ice

But it is possible to say, in our own voice, both things. In the pages of a recent Weekly, a style maven remarked that the most inspired and inspiring tableau she had seen recently was a youngish black woman getting her nails done at a swap-meet salon on Slauson Avenue. The woman was a courier, dressed in UPS duds and sensible shoes -- and “she had this makeup, I know she meant it to look natural, but it looked like Divine’s. And she had this gigantic hairdo, and was getting these long nails printed gold with rhinestones on them . . . It was so cool.” She took work and glamour equally seriously -- I Belong and I Am. Her appearance posed absolutely no contradictions in her mind. She was, of course, entirely out of touch with the Lancome-luxe trend of makeup as mute button, as an agent of irony, as a subverter rather than a supporter of beauty: The pages of W and other magazines have lately been featuring models with greasy faces, eyes done up in what looks like aerosoled graffiti, lips so undone and underdressed you can see the cracks. This is in keeping, I suppose, with the anti-fashion mood of fashion that has gripped the ‘00s as we have moved steadily away from excess and proper glamour since the ’80s. Black women have paid little attention to all this grappling with the existential and political meaning of beauty and sexiness -- we‘ve been victimized by exactly that, and don’t care to repeat the experience. We‘re still fighting for popular regard as those elusive, highly evolved beings called “ladies,” and so prefer to look pretty rather than post-punk; for us, beauty still is the revolution. We don’t go in for the psychological teasing that makeup colors have become -- Coy, Naughty Feather, Trailer Trash, etc. -- remaining content to call a red lipstick red. Black lines like Barbara Walden and Fashion Fair might throw in an adjective like Hot or Sizzling or Cherry, but rest assured that if you‘re looking for coral, you’ll find something in that name. We want to clarify, not complicate, beauty; soften, not sharpen, its edges.

But this is an era of sharp edges. In public repose, without any makeup at all, scuttling from one shoe rack to the next, black women are statements, political declamations. Makeup can‘t help in this regard (neither, for that matter, can shoes). It does get confusing at times. In this age of diversity campaigns and fashionably minimized expressions of wealth, Allure magazine recommends that the more hip and adventurous American woman look to the black makeup lines for real options. Makeup artiste Kevyn Aucoin says the typically saturated colors favored by black brands can be diluted with gloss or water and used very effectively on any skin tone! Though of course this is but a pleasant diversion from the staple pinks and beiges, something cheap to try if you ever make it to Penney’s, or the Baldwin Hills Robinsons, or the makeup aisle of a demographically accommodating Sav-On. Me, I‘m still looking for something expensive to try.