One Bag Is a Full Palette for This Makeup Artist
Who: For 18 years, Jo Strettell, now with the local Cloutier Agency, has worked as a makeup artist in London, Paris and New York. You’ve seen her work on the covers of Vogue, Elle and GQ. She’s worked on the runways; for music videos with clients from Patti Smythe to Patti Smith; for commercials for Suave shampoo and AT&T; on celebrities from Dustin Hoffman to Liv Tyler. Last week, she prepped Sharon Stone for the December cover of Esquire and Penelope Cruz, who’s in the new Pedro Almodovar movie “All About My Mother,” for publicity shots.
Her bag: A four-tiered, pressed cardboard makeup kit with metal trim.
Bottom Tier: Hydrating foundation in 15 shades, plus yellow, green and white to mix her own; 10 shades of concealer; 15 shades of body makeup. Translucent powder in different shades. Sponges: “I buy sponges, in big cubes of triangles. I buy them in hundreds.” A Shiseido velour puff only available in Japan. “You can wash and wash and wash it.”
Tier Two: “All my pencils, eyebrow pencils, lip pencils, coal pencils, every single different color of all different pencils, from all different brands.” Stila lip polishes. Maybelline Great Lash Mascara. “It’s cheap, and it doesn’t dry out as fast as the others.” Brow shapers. Clear brow gel to set eyebrows.
Tier Three: A selection of individual black eyelashes in short, medium and long. “I do a full set or do one or two on the end or sporadically throughout the lash.” Glue for eyelashes. Eye drops. Jet Liner by Sorme, a private label liquid eyeliner. Revlon Eye Lash Curler, “which every girl needs.” Tweezers. Straws for when clients want a drink. Small scissors to clip nose hairs. Needle combs to separate clumpy lashes. Cake eyeliners. Tiger Balm to calm clients. Breath Assure. Dental floss. Rescue Remedy, a flower-based oil to soothe the nerves of clients.
Tier Four: Cream blushes. Five rows of 15 lipstick colors, cataloged as matte, frost, cream, sheer. Six Stila Convertible Colors for cheeks and lips.
Also carries: A Tumi flight bag that is packed with 13 CD cases. Each case holds eye shadows that have been pushed out of their containers. “I put all the browns together, the reds together, the greens together. I just pull out the green one or the red one. . . . I have hundreds of colors, but I’ve got them all on plain view. . . . It goes on and on.” A hand mirror. One clear cosmetic bag for 30 everyday brushes--”They’re all Trish McEvoy”; one for her nail kit; a big one for creams and moisturizers; and one for glitter--”A condensed version of the mad stuff, the party stuff.”
Plastic-mania: Strettell takes all the makeup, lipstick included, out of the cases and stores them in clear plastic bottles so she can see what’s inside. Plus, plastic is lightweight and doesn’t break. “It’s too dangerous to travel with all that glass.”
Coast-to-coast: Strettell travels quite a bit for shoots, so the Tumi bag and makeup kit are the perfect size to bring aboard a plane.
At home: She has chests of drawers marked by category: lips, eyes, glitter, eyelashes, etc. Never know when you’ll need that green nail polish.
