11.30.2017
Episode 36: Linda Mason, Makeup Artist
Summary
Meet Linda Mason. Do you remember a time when models did their own make-up at fashion shows and there were no promotional tie-ins backstage? Linda Mason does, and she seized the opportunity to showcase the power of beauty on the runway. Listen and learn.
Transcript
| Announcer | Welcome to Where Brains Meet Beauty, hosted by Jodi Katz, founder and creative director of Base Beauty Creative Agency. |
| Jodi Katz | I am so beyond honored today to be joined by Linda Mason. She is a makeup artist with a very long, esteemed career. She has owned a beauty brand. She has owned a beauty store, and she's also a fine artist. Linda, welcome to Where Brains Meet Beauty. |
| Linda Mason | Well, thank you, Jodi for inviting me. It's exciting. It's a lot of fun, I think, is going to be. |
| Jodi Katz | Well you know, what's so cool, Linda, about the first time I met you was through a client, and I just love the idea that our industry is just one of those businesses where people want to share their friends, right? |
| Linda Mason | Yes, that's true. It was the CEW. |
| Jodi Katz | Yes, that's right. |
| Linda Mason | That was great, yeah. No, it's a very good sort of organization for that, especially, to meet people it's really great. |
| Jodi Katz | Yeah, it's been an incredible resource for me in the past ten years as I've been building my business, but we're here to talk about you. For people who are not familiar with you, can you give us a little sense of the scope of your career, maybe throw some names out of the models, the photographers you've worked with through the years because it is a very long, incredible list. |
| Linda Mason | All right. I think one of the highlights of my career was actually working with the designers in Paris, designers like Jean Paul Gaultier and Thierry Mugler, that was sort of when I started in the late 70s. I started the mid 70s, and then of course, you know, some fabulous photographers, Helmut Newton, Steven Meisel, I mean I've worked for Rei Kawakubo as well, as a designer. It just, it was fantastic, even before. I worked for a while as a model, back five years before I ... I started out training with Lancome in Paris for makeup, and I worked for them for a little while. Then, I worked for them in sales and as a makeup artist. When I went back to Paris, I started working as a model to survive because I didn't want to travel and I was just offered positions traveling, and I wanted to make a home. I kept, actually, my hand in with the makeup through giving classes, and that is how I actually got into being, to becoming sort of a makeup artist for fashion and beauty. I'm getting off track here. |
| Jodi Katz | Well let's start at the beginning. You grew up in England, right? |
| Linda Mason | I did, yes. |
| Jodi Katz | What do you think, as a child, was inspiring to you that lead you to become a makeup artist, interested? |
| Linda Mason | Well, definitely my mother. My mother always, I mean I think a lot of makeup artists say this, watching their mother put on the makeup was fantastic, and my mother would not go out without makeup. We were a family of redheads, so it did make an incredible difference to our features. Watching her transformation was great, and the same thing, she inspired me for the fashion too because she was, she always had the best fashion magazines, Vogue and all these things, and she would see the collections when they came out in Paris, and two weeks later she'd have made herself Dior dress. It isn't just a question of makeup. It's a question of being somebody, doing makeup inspired by fashion. The first makeup I did for Angelo Tolatsi, for the House of Jean Patou in Paris was incredible for me because I noticed the difference. At the time, the makeup artists weren't really doing the makeup for the shows, or many shows. It was just the models putting their own makeup on, and that was about 75. |
| Jodi Katz | Right, so if I can just press pause on that idea a second, because that's going to be very revolutionary to anybody whose part of the beauty fashion industry right now. The fact that back in 1975 models were just told, "Do your own makeup." |
| Linda Mason | They were given products by a company, from a company and they would use those products. I saw, there was an incredible revolution in the fashion world. Things were changing and the designers were really having a sort of renaissance and doing new things, and the makeup wasn't following. I then started to insist, with Patou, sort of in doing the models' makeup, and through that insistence I had the models introduce me to other designers, you know Thierry Mugler, Marc Berthier, all the innovators of that time period. Then I started to do all of these different collections, lots of different collections. |
| Jodi Katz | Linda, this is so fascinating. It's actually something that I underlined in your book, so for anyone who's listening, who wants to find this book, it's called, Makeup, The Art of Beauty, by Linda Mason. It's from 2003. On page 15, it says, "Makeup artists were just expected to drop off the makeup and let the models do their own thing." |
| Linda Mason | Yes. |
| Jodi Katz | It's really so fascinating to me because I did not know that. I just always assumed that the beauty look, the hair and the makeup were always in staff with the apparel, and the accessories as they were shown. I just always assumed that it was the way that it is now. What you're saying to me is that you were at the sort of influxtion point in the industry where beauty was a missing story. |
| Linda Mason | Yes, it was lagging behind. It was definitely lagging behind, and it needed a push to go forward. |
| Jodi Katz | What do you think prevented the designer, or the designer's teams from realizing that there's a huge opportunity there? |
| Linda Mason | Well, they took it. Then it started. It started, they took it and there were other really, you know, really good makeup artists, I mean Claude Montana had a different makeup artist, who was very good. It started to be more and more makeup artists were actually taking the time to develop a look for the designers, for the collections. |
| Jodi Katz | Do you remember having peers in the industry of being a makeup artist, who were also trying to have those conversations with designers at the time? |
| Linda Mason | I didn't. I was so focused on my own career. I was like, "I want to do this," and building it in a direction that I wanted to go. I loved fashion, and that's why I contacted the designers. There's a little story about the designer, Issey Miyake, the Japanese designer. I happen to have done collections for a cosmetic line. I did some collections in Milan, fashion shows, and I really loved doing them. There, I saw Issey Miyake's show. I loved his clothes and when I got back to Paris, I just picked up the phone one day and I called, and I happened to get his PR person on the phone. I said, her name was Victoria, and she said, "Oh no, Issey doesn't use makeup." I said, "What do you mean he doesn't use makeup?" I said, "He needs it." She happened to be British. Just at that time, Issey, who must have had a special phone line, called her on the phone, and she said, "Issey, I have a makeup artist for you." |
| Jodi Katz | Oh my goodness. It was just like the right ... |
| Linda Mason | It was just like that. |
| Jodi Katz | Oh man. |
| Linda Mason | It was, exactly, and I really believe very much in that. I think you have to make an effort with anything you do, and put yourself out there. You might have nine misses, but the tenth time around you can hopefully have a hit. |
| Jodi Katz | Was this very early in your career? |
| Linda Mason | It was. It was pretty early. I mean that wasn't, say I started actually working as a makeup artist for the fashion and beauty industry on photo shoots, probably in 75, and that was probably a couple of years into that, 77 something like that. |
| Jodi Katz | Right, but you did notice that you had the opportunity to be incredibly ambitious at that time, and say, "I'm going to do something new for beauty," with regards to the fashion industry. Did you realize it was kind of this big moment? |
| Linda Mason | I just felt, it wasn't I didn't consciously say to myself, I'm going to do something new, it's going to be ... It's just that this is fabulous. This is something I love doing, and this is how I want to do it. I had, and I think ignorance is bliss, I wasn't really, although I'd modeled, I was sort of outside of the industry. All my friends were outside of the industry. Modeling, I didn't do photo modeling. I did work for designers, but more the ready to wear designers, where they would make the clothes on me, and that was, it was all ... I did work for Lonva. I happened to work for [inaudible 00:09:19] too, but it was more the side. It wasn't the, it wasn't sort of the press side, in magazines and this type of thing. It was the side of the industry where you actually see the creators creating, which is also fantastic because a lot of these ready to wear companies, they had also really great designers working on these like small shirt collections. I love shirts. It's funny how things go back. I've gone back to wearing a lot of shirts now, but at the time, there was, I'm trying to remember the name of the company, they used to make all their shirts on me, and shirt dresses and things like that. It was a different industry I was going into. When I started to do photo shoots, I was a little ignorant about who was who, and who was which photographer. As I was living in Paris, it was different. England, I'd grown up with the British magazines, so I did know who the English photographers were that worked on Vogue and things like that, but France, it was totally new. I didn't know who to Tusconi was or Peter Lindbergh. It was a learning process. It was a wonderful learning process. |
| Jodi Katz | Do you think that your work on backstage of fashion shows opened up a career that was much bigger for you than you ever imagined? |
| Linda Mason | Definitely. I, because I felt, well this is something else I think I opened up too, was because I felt it was so interesting backstage, and the makeup that was done, there wasn't really anything in the press about what we were doing as far as makeup was concerned, and how we did it, and I started to work with a photographer, and ask him, "Let's get things out to Italian Vogue," and things like this to let them know and have them come back stage. There were backstage photographers who didn't really do things for beauty. In any case, this was a funny story because I had this absolutely gorgeous assistant, who was a really beautiful French girl, Rutie, and so next thing I know, she has a double page spread in Italian Vogue magazine. I was so mad. She was better than me, what could you expect? She had the double, because they had come backstage, and they had photographed us and so here, they did do a story about it, but where was I? I wasn't even in it. |
| Jodi Katz | Well you know, I really am astounded here because it's such a big business, right? Beauty and fashion now, it's very intertwined. |
| Linda Mason | Yes. |
| Jodi Katz | It's an enormous business, so for the publicists and the editors listening to this episode right now, they're going to be really surprised to think that Linda was there at the moment when beauty became part of the fashion story, and that Linda was there at the moment when editorial became somebody who covered the beauty story in fashion, right? You're really talking about these two moments. |
| Linda Mason | Yes. |
| Jodi Katz | We just assume it now. It's such a big business. You have brands, being the sponsors of makeup artists, and shows, and churning out coverage. There's tons of editors and writers, and bloggers and whatnot out there, backstage now, covering this content. |
| Linda Mason | Yes. |
| Jodi Katz | You were there to make that moment happen. |
| Linda Mason | Yes. |
| Jodi Katz | It's really fascinating. |
| Linda Mason | Yeah. I guess I lived it. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. |
| Linda Mason | Yeah. |
| Jodi Katz | Take us a little bit further into your career. You had great success making big relationships with fantastic designers that are world renown. Where do you go from there? What do you do next? |
| Linda Mason | Well I moved to New York. I had, I love Paris. I still love Paris very much. It's just, I was sort of in search of a new challenge. I came to New York, and I was thinking about changing careers, and then I met up with ... I guess the person, really great photographers who I'd worked with in Paris such as Deborah Turbeville, and I started to work with Deborah again for American Vogue and magazines like that. It was rather good because when you have enjoyed yourself so much, and you've had so much fun with your work, and you've also had success with that, it hasn't just been sort of not noticed. It was successful. I came to New York feeling strong. I also had saved a little bit of money, which I ended up spending straight away, but I was not obliged to just take anything, to work. I really thought about what I wanted to do, and obviously I worked with Deborah and really fabulous photographers for great magazines, and then for advertising campaigns, I would ask for top dollars. |
| Jodi Katz | Great. |
| Linda Mason | More than I get now. It sort of, people would say to me, "You're lucky. You've always had interesting jobs." I made that choice. I could have done things that might have made me bored with what my work, but I must admit that even, until today, even if I don't do as much makeup, but if I do happen to do makeup, I still love it as much as when I first did it. I am not bored with it and I have never been bored with it, and always, if I have a woman in front of me, you know there is a happiness and a joy there that I really, really, really enjoy and love. I think it's not just to do with the makeup, it's to do with a personal contact, and being able to sort of help something, whether it's a photo shoot, be able to bring something creative to that shoot, to be able to do something special for that shoot, or to be able to help a woman see a different side to herself. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. You just mentioned in passing, your past statement, how you would come in, ask for top dollar, and you would get it, and well you don't get that now, right? |
| Linda Mason | Not to makeup. |
| Jodi Katz | Right, not for makeup. Is there, as you evolve in your career, as you grow as an artist, and I know you're doing many other types of art, not just on faces now. What is that internal process like when you know that you were sought after, and this is probably something that actors go through, and models go through, and photographers as well. |
| Linda Mason | Yes, I see it, yes. |
| Jodi Katz | You're sought after for whatever, a twenty year span, intensely, and then things change, and your priorities change, and what you're working on changes and your desires change, but also what changes is that phone ringing off the hook. |
| Linda Mason | Yes. |
| Jodi Katz | What is that process like to go through? |
| Linda Mason | Well, it happened gradually, obviously, but also as my life changed, I had my daughter, my priorities changed, so I had a different life what else, and then I can't say I suffered from it. I didn't want, I knew that I like to be busy. I love the fashion shows because we'd have 30, 40 girls to do. We might do five, six, seven shows a day, and I had different teams of people, so I like to do a lot. With advertising and everything, where you can get the top dollars, there's a lot of sitting around. That, as much as I enjoyed the actual makeup work, and I maybe enjoyed the company of the people I was working with, the actual time of waiting around was not good for me. I didn't really enjoy that. In fact, 2:00 in the afternoon I'd start putting makeup on everybody and everything I could see, so I felt like I wanted to move on. I wanted to, and so I start, that was it. I had already started my company. When you start a company, and I think you can ask anybody who's a makeup artist, you have different priorities. It was a learning process for me, and I was enjoying that learning process. When it started, when my makeup work started to diminish, I didn't really notice it because I was so involved with all of these other things I was doing. I'd started to paint. I'd started to do, you know, I was keeping busy with other things. They weren't maybe as financially profitable, but I was enjoying myself, and like I said, I had my daughter, so that was, and then I decided to open the shop, which is something I never thought I would do. |
| Jodi Katz | Right, so before we move into talking about the product and the store, I do have a question for you. Would you want to return to that phrenetic excitement of backstage fashion? |
| Linda Mason | I wanted phrenetic excitement but I have different projects that I want to work on that might bring that, so it's not as a makeup artist per se, it's more like sort of a producer of something. Yeah, that's more the direction I'd like to do it in. |
| Jodi Katz | Right, so you're still interested in that energy, and you're still interested in fashion and bringing things to fashion, but not necessarily as a makeup artist backstage. |
| Linda Mason | Exactly, exactly would be, yeah. |
| Jodi Katz | Well, I can't wait to hear about what that's going to be. I'm sure it will happen soon. |
| Linda Mason | Hopefully. |
| Jodi Katz | Let's switch gears and talk about the brand, the product. We didn't call brands, brands then, right? |
| Linda Mason | Yes. |
| Jodi Katz | We called them product. You took your ... |
| Linda Mason | It's true. It's true, we didn't call them brand. |
| Jodi Katz | No, it was a product. |
| Linda Mason | Yes. |
| Jodi Katz | It was foundation, it was eyeliner, shadow, it was product. |
| Linda Mason | Yes, not it's brands. |
| Jodi Katz | Not it's brands. |
| Linda Mason | I have four brands. |
| Jodi Katz | You were an Indie brand, before we called them indie brands, right? |
| Linda Mason | Yes. |
| Jodi Katz | You were many things before we had a name for it, quite frankly, which is why it's been so incredible to speak with you. |
| Linda Mason | Thank you. |
| Jodi Katz | You were on the frontier of all these things. Tell us about the products. What was your goal with it? Why did you invest your time in developing products? |
| Linda Mason | Probably for the wrong reasons initially. |
| Jodi Katz | What were the wrong reasons? |
| Linda Mason | To be quite honest, I had somebody new who was doing a brand and they weren't in the cosmetic, they weren't in cosmetics, and I said, "You know, why are they doing it? I could do it so much easier, so much more easily," which was a stupid reason, but actually ... |
| Jodi Katz | There was like a competitive spirit? |
| Linda Mason | Yes, it was a competitive spirit, but also, like I said, I was sort of searching for something. I was searching for something more taxing, more not taxing that's not the right word, more you know, that I'd have to, I'd be able to put more energy into, and grow with, and learn with. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. |
| Linda Mason | I certainly found it. What was great for me is I actually did it right from the beginning, I created the packaging as well as the product, and so that was a big learning process for me, and working with the packaging manufacturer. I even had to go and get, for one of the packages, get the dyes to do the paint because they didn't do those colors. The other manufacturer, I said, "Well could be put day glow dyes into these, could we mix them in as well," and we did, and we got a different result with them. All of that was just, it was fabulous. It was a little bit like when I had been working with the designers. I loved working with the manufacturers. You know the same thing for doing my brushes, to be actually at the factor, and to see them cutting the hair like a hair stylist. Who sees, my gosh, the shears, you know all of that was new and exciting, and interesting for me. I think, as far as I'm concerned, what I lack the most, what was my biggest setback, because the development side, the packaging side, everything to do with the artistic side was a joy, and interesting and inspiration. I think it was the financial side that I found, it wasn't so much that I was frightened or not interested in numbers, because I was, and I was interested in learning. It was the way people were in the industry, and that may have changed, but they weren't as straightforward as the people in the manufacturing side. |
| Jodi Katz | Did you have business partners? |
| Linda Mason | I didn't, you know, and that's also was a bit of a handicap too. I do it on my own. |
| Jodi Katz | You self-funded this effort. |
| Linda Mason | I did. I had some really great friends who helped, so I did, and I do have, I still have the company and I still have those partners. |
| Jodi Katz | We call those, is that a friends and family round of investors. |
| Linda Mason | Yeah, and they still have the money in there. Some aren't around anymore unfortunately. I wanted them to see how I make it work, so that's, I think their support, their moral support was more, almost more important than the financial support because I said, "I'm going to keep going." It was the discussions with the larger groups, financial groups that I found more disappointing. |
| Jodi Katz | You mean in terms of talking to retailers? |
| Linda Mason | No, retailers, at the time was great and I had a wonderful young woman work who was the buyer of Henri Bendels at the time. She loved the product, and the first product we put in there, and it sold out. We put it in again, sold out, and we put it in, and then I decided, I tried, because of being in discussions with these larger financial partners, I expanded too rapidly. They didn't come through with the funding. |
| Jodi Katz | Oh, so you, what you're referring to when you were turned off by the financial end, it was about how to grow the business and get capital to grow the business? That's what was frustrating? |
| Linda Mason | Well, it was the discussions I had with those financial people that sort of soured me because I realized, because I was, I felt like I was supposed to be faithful. You know, you're supposed to be faithful and just be in discussions with one person, and then you realize that, oh that's not how they are looking at it. They're looking at it a different way, and they're looking at it, "Okay, we're not going to do this until we have this," you know. They weren't really prepared to take a risk. |
| Jodi Katz | Right, but you were actually acting on some of their advice, assuming that they were going to take you on. |
| Linda Mason | Yes, assuming that exactly, which I realized you don't ever assume. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. |
| Linda Mason | This was a big lesson. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. What's so fascinating about talking to you about this, because this is in the 80s, is that right, early 90s? |
| Linda Mason | Yes. That was the 80s, late 80s, yes. |
| Jodi Katz | What you were going through on your own in a world where independent beauty didn't really exist very much, right, it was very small, is something that is very different right now. There's so many independent beauty rounds. There's, you could pick up the phone and call another founder and say, "I'm really struggling with this. How did you deal with it?" You were really an island at the time. |
| Linda Mason | I was. I think it was because I'd always sort of, I'd gone off from England to Paris on my own. I had gone from Paris to Beirut on my own. I'd gone back to Paris on my own. I'd always, I had this habit of doing everything, I guess, I mean not really on my own. I had wonderful friends. I had great friends, and I even had a friend in Paris who I have an enormous amount of respect for, who was a great friend who when I was at the height of my career as a makeup artist, had wanted to buy a company for me to run, and I said, "Oh that's exciting," it's like very good. I have another friend who said, "Yes, and I want to be part of it," and "We'll buy this company and you can run it," and I had a dream. I had a dream that night and I dreamt that I was on a boat, on the ocean or a river, I don't know where it was, and my friends were ... I lost my friends, and I realized I wasn't ready. |
| Jodi Katz | What did that mean to you, the dream? |
| Linda Mason | It meant that it wasn't the right time. It meant that I still had so much more to do, and I did. It would have been a, you know, I came to New York, I did all of that. It meant to me that it wasn't the right time, so that was it. I go a lot on my dreams. |
| Jodi Katz | What feels emotional? |
| Linda Mason | I'm very old fashioned with that. |
| Jodi Katz | What feels emotional as you recount that story? |
| Linda Mason | Sort of acting upon that. I mean I don't have, and I still have those friends, very close friends, but I think I was very humbled by the confidence they had in me. I'd like to find somebody who had that type of confidence again. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. I can imagine, I'm sensing your emotions right now, and it's really incredible and powerful, I think what you're feeling right now, and I can feel it too. The sense of somebody having so much faith in you and just knowing you for you, and not knowing you for spreadsheets and not knowing you for this and that. |
| Linda Mason | Exactly. |
| Jodi Katz | Just knowing you for you, and having that faith, that's love. |
| Linda Mason | Yeah, no it was great. It was really nice. It was good. Like I said, I still have those friends, which I'm very grateful for. |
| Jodi Katz | Right, and what realm what you want someone to have that trust and faith in you now? |
| Linda Mason | I think in my business ideas, not just the business ideas. I have some other ideas, a project that I think is incredibly special that nobody has done yet, and I'm just starting to get out there with it. Obviously, I hopefully will find people because this cannot be done on my own, and I have one friend already, who I think would be incredible to work on this with me, but I just want, I just need other people. I know I'm going to need other people who say, "It's a great idea. I believe in it. I can help you with this. Let's do it." |
| Jodi Katz | Right, so this is a whole new frontier for you. |
| Linda Mason | Yes, it is, and it's definitely something that, you know, I can handle, but I know I can't do it on my own, so I need partners or partners to do it. |
| Jodi Katz | Right and maybe it even feels a little limiting. You've done so much on your own. |
| Linda Mason | No, not all. |
| Jodi Katz | No, you feel empowered? |
| Linda Mason | No, when I closed the shop, I said, I closed the shop. I'm not going to say I did it on my own because it's not true, because I had fantastic interns and assistants and people, clients. I had a lot, so it's never really on your own. I think that when I closed the shop I said to myself, "This is not how I want to work anymore." I want to begin, when I begin the project, I want to have other people that understand the direction we're going in, and we're all on the same thing and we believe in it. I don't want people saying, "Oh yes. All right, let's try this. Let's do this." I'm sick of that. No. I've survived until now and how have I done that, and let's go further with the ideas I have. How much, I was just sort of sick of proving myself or having to prove myself. |
| Jodi Katz | Right, it's so frustrating. |
| Linda Mason | Like I did in the very beginning and I guess that's a fault I have. I understand that people are used to, I think a lot of people are a lot of times I've been in discussions and have been worried about me not having, people I worked with, not having partners. I think these days nobody would do a venture without having two or three people involved, and that can be a handicap too. |
| Jodi Katz | Sure. |
| Linda Mason | Yeah, but that's the way it's done now. That is actually the only way that I want to move forward with these other projects, is to get other people involved, and to be able to move forward with it with the vision, with the vision I have. |
| Jodi Katz | Can you give us any clue what this is? |
| Linda Mason | Well, you can figure it out. Come on, it's good to have a little bit of a puzzle. One of them is still my, one of them, this two project, and the one is still my company. I still really believe very strongly that what I have is different to what's out there, and I think with these projects, with these project I think I'm approaching it very differently too, not just from the point of view of wanting to have the right partners. Before, I moved too far forward, but also I'm going to do from the bottom up, what normally you do from the top down. In other words, from the bottom up, I'm going to begin with ... You know I hate the word, giving back. I've always been sort of ecologically conscious. That's why I sort of did paper packaging and try to do things around New York and in New York, and all that. These projects would take things further. I'd want to do them in countries and in a place where I feel they can be incredibly beneficial to that particular place, and also, you know, it's ... The place is also right for this day and age, because everything can be done over the Internet now, and everything's done more or less on the global, in a global fashion, so what I'd like to do is from the very beginning of these things, like one of the ... You'll almost build it on this process of giving back. This is, you know, so that's how ... I mean I sort of, I'm not very good at explaining all of that. I'm not very good at words. I could probably write it down. |
| Jodi Katz | I guess we have to wait and see a little bit. |
| Linda Mason | Yeah. |
| Jodi Katz | Before we run out of time, I want to talk about this theme of ageless beauty, so you have a book. You have three books you've published. One of them is called, Ageless Beauty. |
| Linda Mason | Yes. |
| Jodi Katz | I think this is an incredibly relevant topic as we have a population that's aging and living longer, and everyone's very aesthetically focused, no matter what their age. What's your point of view on beauty? |
| Linda Mason | Well, I think, I've always enjoyed it. I've always enjoyed making up. I've always enjoyed, and I very often have found that women are fearful of makeup, and they'd like to be able to experiment a little more, so I'd like to take the fear out of that and let women know that they can have fun and enjoy makeup, whatever age they're at. They don't have to look painted. It's like a painting, a touch of color can just brighten it up. It doesn't have to be, you know, blush, eyeshadows, lip stick. It can be just a little green on your eyes or a little orange on your lips. I'm talking about my makeup. |
| Jodi Katz | When we first met, you said something to me that I wrote down and I haven't forgotten, and I never really thought of makeup this way, but it really cemented something in my head. You said that makeup is a great equalizer. |
| Linda Mason | Oh definitely, as far as beauty goes. I think a woman who makes an effort with herself, and presents herself to the world with an uplifting type of look is as beautiful as somebody who is what you would, you may say, a natural beauty who rolls out of bed and just doesn't make an effort. I hate people who look down on makeup and say, "Oh yeah but you know, I like to be natural," and this type of thing. It's so boring. Let me tell you, if you look, it's ... I could go on and on about it. Especially if you're out at night, I mean look, you know, it's a question of, it's personality. It's an inner beauty and it's taking time to sort of enjoy things. It's like decorating your room. Would you go, would you leave your room and your home undecorated? Would you? |
| Jodi Katz | I'd paint the wall all gray. |
| Linda Mason | You'd paint the wall all gray. Did you hang any paintings or artwork? |
| Jodi Katz | Yes, of course. |
| Linda Mason | Okay, so you decorated some other way. I definitely wouldn't paint my walls gray, that's all I can say, but I've got a lot of things in my place, which I wouldn't mind spreading out a bit, but you do put some earrings on the walls. |
| Jodi Katz | Right, so do you think that this idea of the equalizer goes back to you watching your mom? You said as a redhead, like you really needed to work hard to make those features pop. |
| Linda Mason | Yes, I mean I thought my mother was beautiful without makeup too, and you are, and hopefully you can enjoy being without makeup. It doesn't mean that you have to be somebody who cannot live without makeup to enjoy makeup. You can still enjoy makeup, and it doesn't mean, you know there aren't days that, there are days where I go without makeup, and there are days that I might go out without makeup, although I don't think I would do it in New York. Although where I live, and so maybe you'll find me like 7:00 in the morning, running around, but not later than that. Yeah, it is. I noticed that especially in France. I guess I noticed that when I lived in France more than anything else, when I used to go out a lot to the night clubs, and you'd see that it wasn't necessarily the most beautiful women that had the most success and enjoyed themselves the most. It was the ones who'd really made a little effort with the way they looked. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. Well, Linda, this has been so incredible. I just love talking with you. We could talk for hours. I've very excited to see where your new ventures go. I'll certainly be following that. |
| Linda Mason | All right. |
| Jodi Katz | For our listeners, you can listen to our podcast and write reviews in iTunes. Look for it at Where Brains Meet Beauty and find us on Instagram at Base Beauty Creative Agency. |
| Announcer | Thanks for listening to Where Brains Meet Beauty with Jodi Katz. Tune in again for more authentic conversations with beauty leaders. |
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