Blog Post 3
As I am already a makeup student studying Hair and Makeup for Fashion, I chose Hair and Makeup for Performance as my better lives theme as I wanted an insight on the different techniques and the creativity process behind creating a character. The Better Lives themes are present whilst creating a character in various ways: diversity through adaptation and evolution, sustainability through ecological balance and social responsibility through personal identity.
There are various similarities and differences when it comes to hair and makeup for fashion and for performance. Makeup for performance creates a character through prosthetics such as painted illusions, distortion, 3D and textual effects. Whereas in hair and makeup for fashion, the aim is usually to follow a trend, conceal any imperfections, beautify the face for everyday wear. Additionally, makeup can create a ‘fashion statement’ in a context such as runways or editorials. Makeup for performance can create characters with distortions; whereas, makeup for fashion beautifies a person to fit current western beauty standards. Therefore, I find makeup for performance to be much more diverse than makeup for fashion as ‘creating a character’ leads to more diversity in the creative process.
In terms of practice, they are similar as both subjects teach health and safety, linking to the theme of social responsibility. Products must be sanitised, and clean practice is required when working on models to ensure no bacteria or infections can be passed from one model to another. However, this puts pressure on the sustainability of makeup practice as disposable cotton pads, buds and wipes are commonly used when working with makeup hygienically. However, amidst the COVID19 situation going on, I have been instructed to approach the project by drawing a plan for a character I would have liked to have created using prosthetics. Therefore, waste was not created through following the hygienic practice of makeup as I did not have the access to the prosthetics makeup or a model.
I wanted to create a character based on a combination of both diversity and sustainability. As the earth is getting hotter due to global warming, my character adapted to this with skin defects that resemble sun damaged skin. If I were to do this on a model, I would have used prosthetic techniques such as distortion effects to create imbalances on the skin and painted illusion to modify the colour.
I have begun to think differently about the topic of diversity in makeup. I have always seen diversity as being inclusive, which is very important in makeup; however, I had not thought about diversity in terms of evolution and adaptation like I have been doing for creating a character for performance. This has broadened my ideas on diversity and made me think more openly about ways in which my character can be diverse. For example, one character idea a peer had made based on the idea of diversity in adaptation was a mermaid which appeared to have hair, and was critiqued for this as an underwater character would possibly not need hair if it was adapted to the water and you do not see fish with hair. I found it intriguing that context plays a role in creating a diverse character and is not just created to ‘look pretty’ like in hair and makeup for fashion.