Andrea Q. Robinson - Toss the Gloss: Beauty Tips, Tricks & Truths for Women 50+

Toss the Gloss

Copyright 2014 Andrea Q. Robinson

Illustrations Chesley McLaren

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review.

Page 4 photo credits: top right Alex Chatelain, Vogue France, Ocotber 1969; bottom right Eric Bowman, Vogue Australia, November 1993; bottom left Jennifer Livingston, Women's Wear Daily, 2002; Ultima II advertisement photo Irving Penn, 1988.

ISBN 978-1-58005-491-1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Robinson, Andrea Q.,

Toss the gloss : beauty tips, tricks, and truths for women 50+.

pages cm

1. Women--Health and hygiene. 2. Middle-aged women--Health and hygiene. 3. Beauty, Personal. I. Title. II. Title: Beauty tips, tricks, and truths for women 50+.

RA778.R5288 2014

646.7'2--dc23

2013040180

Published by

Seal Press

A Member of the Perseus Books Group

1700 Fourth Street

Berkeley, California

sealpress.com

Cover design by Erin Seaward-Hiatt

Interior design by meganjonesdesign.com

Distributed by Publishers Group West

With love for my mother, the dreamer; my daughter, the naturalist; and my son, the realist. Dazzling inspirations, all of them.

CONTENTS

HOW MUCH TIME DO YOU HAVE, DEAR READER, BECAUSE I HAVE GOT A LOT TO SAY. WHY LISTEN? BECAUSE IVE SPENT DECADES RUNNING BEAUTY COMPANIES:

Ultima II, Ralph Lauren, Tom Ford, and Prescriptives, to name just a few. And Im here to blow the whistle on the beauty industry and give you the real scoop on the businessthe good, the bad, and the ugly.

Ive tried it all. Ive seen it all. I know too much.

Think of me as your personal cosmetics guinea pig. In the name of beauty (and many, many jobs in the beauty industry), Ive tried everything out there: lotions, makeup, injections, spas, lasers, you name it. Once I even tried crushed beetle skin on my face, just to test the truth of the Indian legend that extols its youth-preserving magical properties. (As it turned out, it didnt work, but I think youll agree, that was real commitment!)

After years in the beauty trenches, Ive acquired the ultimate beauty industry insiders perspective, and Im ready to spill it alleven if it means inciting a powder-puff fatwa.

How do I know all these whispered truths? Lets just say it started where all good secrets do: at Vogue magazine. Back in the days before The Devil Wore Prada, I was the Beauty Editor Who Wore Revlon... and CoverGirl and Lancme and Maybelline and all the rest. It was my job to try everything, from lipsticks to liposuction, and then report on it. Yes, I tried it all in the name of beauty, and no, you cant see my before and after shots. But thanks to my editor, Grace Mirabella, who reclaimed Vogue from a fantasy fashion magazine and made it a bible for real working women who had families and day jobs, I was able to extend her modern point of view on to Vogues beauty pages and address the needs of real women and their beauty issues.

From my perch at the magazine, I was immersed in the very best the cosmetics industry had to offer, and I spent years testing, comparing, and judging. Then, an unconventional beauty industry executive offered me a job outside Vogues chic gray walls, and I became president of Ultima II. My job was to reinvent the brand on every levelfrom product, to packaging, to its image in department stores and in advertising.

How does a girl from an all-women Catholic college, where I practiced pouring tea and holding polite conversation, learn to do battle in the corporate world? Ill tell you how.

The only problem? The male executives in my office. If you think theyre a pain in the butt in the boardroom, imagine a group of chauvinistic guys in suits telling youthe only female president in the corporationthat the makeup youve invented wont appeal to women just like you. This was my first business venture (or should I say, adventure), where men, whose only cosmetic was deodorant, were telling me what I wanted in my makeup bag! Well, lets just say they didnt know who they were dealing with. A clash of wit and wills ensued: My instincts took hold and I was determined to deliver to them the nonsugar-coated truthwhat we women really want, not what they think we really want. And I did.

How does a girl from an all-women Catholic college, where I practiced pouring tea and holding polite conversation, learn to do battle in the corporate world? Ill tell you how. A friend entered me in Glamour magazines 10 Best Dressed College Girls contest. I won and thats where my adventure into the glamorous jungle began. After graduation, I joined a pool of young college graduates at Cond Nast (the corporation that owns Vogue, Glamour, and Vanity Fair, among many other magazines), assisting editors with whatever they needed. We answered telephones, picked up coffee, ferried clothes to the garment district, scheduled appointments, booked lunch dates at glamorous restaurants, escorted models to the photographers studio for fashion and beauty shoots, and even typed their childrens homeworkwhatever they needed.

From there, I landed a permanent job working for Mademoiselle, where I witnessed the most remarkable explosion of creativity marching through our office each day in the form of artists like Andy Warhol, photographers such as David Bailey, writers like Joyce Carol Oates and Truman Capote, not to mention celebrities, fashion designers, rock starsThe Beatles, Janis Joplin, Grace Slick, Cher (with Sonny), to name a fewand all the top models including Twiggy. Once, I even saw Timothy Leary smoke pot with a very cool editor at the desk next to mine. Edie Locke was the editor-in-chief during that time and turned Mademoiselle into the it magazine of its time. Nonnie Moore, the legendary editor at Mademoiselle magazine and the quintessential modern woman, was my boss and a fabulous mentor who, during the ten years I was there before moving to