“I’ve had a lifelong sense for color,” Bess says. “I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t giving my mom and my sisters my two cents on what to wear. Their trust in me gave me confidence in my opinions.”

“Of course, a little confidence can be a dangerous thing,” Bess continues. “When I was in the fourth grade, I told my teacher her lipstick was making her look ill. She must have been so embarrassed! She wiped it off right then and there.”

Still, the decision to found his own makeup line wasn’t a foregone conclusion. Bess went to high school in New York, intending to become an actor. At 17, he was “spotted” on the street, and spent the next year and a half modeling in London and around the world.

“It was an amazing, glamorous time,” Bess says, “but, acting or modeling, I was always executing someone else’s vision. And I couldn’t stop thinking about the makeup of the women around me. I wanted to share my point of view.”

So he took a leap of faith: found a chemist and created his first products, ten lipsticks and five lipglosses packaged in a black lacquer box — the Lip Wardrobe.

“The Lip Wardrobe was meant to be everything a woman needed, from nude to red, and nothing she didn’t — shades that would never go out of style.”

And, with the confidence of someone who didn’t know he could fail, Bess called Patricia Saxby, head beauty buyer for Bergdorf Goodman, and managed to secure a meeting.

“I was 20 years old, with no background in makeup,” Bess recalls. “I walked into this meeting with my box of lipsticks trembling in my hands. Pat said, ‘why should I put this in my store?’ and I said, ‘because I made it for you — for the Bergdorf customer.’”

Saxby gave Bess his first big break: a shelf in Bergdorf Goodman. It might not sound like much, but 22 years ago, a young woman named Bobbi Brown launched a cosmetics empire with just ten lipsticks in Bergdorf.

Edward Bess with BG personal shopper Betty Halbreich. Photo by Sunny Shokrae for Refinery 29.

“Every day, I came and stood next to my shelf, and I talked to anyone who would talk to me,” Bess says. “The fact that I loved it just confirmed that I was doing the right thing.”

“These women, the diehard beauty junkies, they are the heart and soul and DNA of my brand. They were the first faces (aside from my family) that I put makeup on. They bought my products, spread the word about me — I would not be where I am without them. I take my customers’ feedback very seriously, and every product I create, I create for them.”

Though Bess is too much a gentleman to name-drop, at least one of his products was created with a rather famous customer in mind.

“I was going to visit Oprah last summer, and I didn’t want to show up empty-handed. But what do you give Oprah?” Bess laughs. “It had to be something special, and I created Eau La La.”

Bess describes his first foray into fragrance as a skinscent. “Something that won’t make everyone else in the elevator hate you.” He says the perfume is, in his mind, the essence of Paris: a subtle combination of frankincense, amber, and just a whiff of gardenia “to make it feminine.” Oprah liked it so much, she wanted to name it one of her favorite things.

“I wasn’t planning on doing a fragrance for the line so soon — and I wasn’t even really thinking of producing Eau La La for the public. But when Oprah says, ‘go for it,’ you don’t say no. I’m so grateful and so excited that she got me to do a fragrance now rather than later. And of course, I couldn’t be more honored by her recommendation.”

Though Bess continues to innovate, his line remains fairly concise.

“I’m never going to be a line with 500 shades of lipstick,” he says. “I never want a woman to take home one of my products and not know what to do with it.”

But customers do get upset when a beloved product is discontinued, and Bess has had his share of kidding-but-not-kidding mafia-style threats. Still, it seems unlikely he’ll come to any real harm.

“Honestly, when a woman comes up to me with tears in her eyes… I end up giving her product out of my own personal stash. I just want to make everyone happy. I’ve also brought products back in response to customer demand,” says Bess. “Women stormed the barricades when we discontinued Demi Buff and Rose Demure lipsticks. They’re back in the line now.”

So what does the future hold for the inimitable Mr. Bess?

“Well, obviously,” he says, “I’d love my line to be sold everywhere, worldwide. But even if I’m lucky enough to see that happen, I think, when I’m 70, I’ll look back at this time, right now, as the best part of that experience. I think this is the most exciting time for me, when I can camp out at my counters, visit with my customers one on one, see the same customers over and over. This is the dream.”

Mr. Ford’s Ultra Shine glosses are $45. They come in square tubes with a brush applicator (and an unusually long wand, to allow you to reach all the way to the bottom). They’re generally creme-finish (except for Pink Guilt), but if you like a little sparkle on your lips, Mr. Ford has a solution. His Lip Lacquer Vinyl is a clear gloss with silver shimmer/sparkles. It comes in a squeeze tube with a slant-tip applicator, and is $30.

Naked (01) is nude beige pink with a few tiny gold sparkles. Rose Crush (02) is warm, terracotta, rose-toffee brownie pink. Tawny Pink (10) is a warm, natural nude rose. Pink Guilt (04) is a shimmery, sparkly rose bronze. Peach Absolut (07) is peach-pink. Sugar Pink (06) is candy pink. Sahara Pink (03) is medium mauvey-rose-pink. Love Bruise (05) is a bruisey pink-plum with tiny gold sparkles. Lost Cherry (08) is lacquered cherry red. Wet Violet (09) is deep, grape-juice red-purple with a few tiny purple sparkles.

The Tom Ford lipglosses are available at Neiman Marcus (free shipping at any price with code APRILFS) and Saks (free shipping at $200 with code SFASHIP). Unfortunately, Nordstrom.com does not carry the Tom Ford lipglosses at this time.

MAC used to have two e-commerce websites: a site for civilians, and a separate site for pros. Artists shopping the pro site got two main benefits: first, MAC has a discount program for professionals (makeup artists, aestheticians, photographers, nail techs, beauty students, MAC employees, etc.). Second, they could buy products that most of us could not.

(For what it’s worth, the “civilian” site has free shipping pretty much all the time. Pros only get free shipping when they spend $150.)

About six months ago, they merged the two sites and made a bunch of pro items (like eyeshadow pans and paint sticks and certain brushes) available to all. But there are still a few pro-only items (which you can only see if you’re logged in with a pro account). The Acrylic Paints are one of these.

Acrylic Paints are $20 each, intense, long-wearing (12 hours), flexible, buildable-to-full-coverage, blendable-over-hair, silicone-based paints for face and body. You can stand up, sit down, move, bend, dance around, and they won’t crack or crease or flake off. You can apply them with brush or airbrush. The MAC website has a video of acrylic paints being used to paint people into statues.

These shades can be used everywhere:
Hi-Def Cyan
Primary Yellow
Pure White
Pure Black

These shades are not eye-safe:
Rich Purple
Genuine Orange
Process Magenta
Basic Red

These shades are not lip-safe:
Rich Purple
Marine Ultra
Landscape Green

If you’re desperate to buy these but you don’t the credentials to do it online, you can still shop any Pro store, or call 1-800-387-6707. Click here for more information on joining MAC’s Pro program.

MAC’s Paint Sticks are a pro product: designed for makeup artists, but available to the public. They’re creamy, full-coverage sticks for face and body, $21 each.

You can totally use Paint Sticks to make yourself look like a bronze statue. But Lauren reports that these also make great eyeshadow bases (she advises that you use product sparingly to avoid creasing), lip colors (though they don’t smell like vanilla), and she especially loves using them as blush.

She says:

I mix Basic Red, Process Magenta, Genuine Orange, and White to create beautiful, custom cream blushes. I simply rub the colors on the back of my hand, blend them together with a stippling brush, then apply. I sometimes also add a drop of MAC Care Blends oil for a dewier look.

Because they are a “pro” product, Paint Sticks are only available on MACcosmetics.com or in a MAC “Pro” store.

You can find free-standing MAC stores all over the place, but there are only a handful of Pro locations in the United States: San Francisco, Los Angeles, South Coast Plaza/Costa Mesa/California, Las Vegas, Nashville, Orlando, Miami Beach, Chicago, New York, and Dallas NorthPark. Anyone can shop in a Pro store (and, to the casual observer, they look exactly like regular freestanding stores). Click here for Pro store addresses and phone numbers, or to see if there’s a Pro store in your city.

MAC does a lot of work backstage at fashion week (New York, London, Paris, Milan, Tokyo, São Paulo…). Recently, they’ve been consolidating their backstage observations into limited edition “fall forecast” palettes — one for eye and one for lip.

I find these palettes to be more broadly directional than specific to a particular year. Which, of course, makes them more versatile, more like Pantone’s “palettes of a decade.”

This year’s palettes are $40 each. The eye palette features Cream Color Shadows, which Lauren says can be used as shadows, liners, or eye bases. The lip palette features Amplified lipsticks. The Fall Forecast palettes are only available on MACcosmetics.com.

Click here to look back at Lauren’s swatches of the 2012 fall palettes.

Along with the debut of the new Mineralize Rich lipstick, MAC just launched a new Mineralize Moisture foundation. They don’t say so specifically, but I think the two formulas have some technology in common. According to MAC, Mineralize Moisture foundation is lightweight and perfect for dry skin (c’est moi).

The new, satin-finish foundation is $33, comes in 18 shades (NC 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 37, 40, 42, 44, 45, 50, and NW 20, 25, 30, 35, 43, 45, 50), and contains SPF 15, as well as shea butter and vitamin E. Both Nordstrom and MACcosmetics.com offer free shipping at any price, no code required.

Lauren did an amazing job swatching almost every shade of the new foundation, along with helpful comparisons to other MAC foundations.

Over the years, MAC has come out with mineralize eyeshadows, the famous Mineralize Skinfinish (in both “Natural”/skintone and highlighter incarnations), and mineralize foundations. The word “mineralize” doesn’t trigger an automatic reach for my wallet, but their new Mineralize Rich lipstick is surprisingly sophisticated.

To describe this formula in MAC terms, it has a Satin finish with the feel of a Lustre. Honestly, it feels better than a Lustre. The formula is extremely lightweight and hydrating. If you have perpetually chapped lips, check out this lipstick.

Mineralize Rich has medium-to-full coverage (depending on the shade and your skintone). And though the packaging is a little quirky (to match the new Mineralize Moisture Foundation, I expect), the bullet is not so soft or creamy that it deforms as you apply it. I’d go so far as to say it’s MAC’s best lipstick to-date.

I tried on Style Surge, but I’ll be heading back to the counter to check out Lady at Play and Elegant Accent.

Of course, a premium lipstick comes with a premium pricetag: Mineralize Rich lipsticks are $22 each (Estee Lauder pricing!). At least you can get them with free shipping from Nordstrom and MACcosmetics.com.

As our mothers keep telling us (and as we realize for ourselves by the age of 25), everything in fashion comes around again. So after years of turning up our noses at anything “matchy-matchy,” it’s no surprise that color-coordination is back. I think I felt the tremors during the first season of Mad Men.

MAC has explored this idea before, in last year’s lipstick/lipgloss/nails Fashion Sets (and before that in a 2010 post-holiday collection called Stylishly Yours).

For 2013, Fashion Sets carries the idea to its logical extreme, with coordinating lipstick ($15), gloss ($15), lip pencil ($15), polish ($16), and eyeshadow ($15). Lauren has graciously swatched the pencils, lipsticks, and glosses.

Embrace Me lipliner previously appeared in Tour de Fabulous and Iris Apfel (concurrently). Heroine lipstick (matte) previously appeared in Reel Sexy (and should not be confused with Heroine the Frost, from Wonder Woman).

All four lipsticks are Matte formula.

Lauren was also kind enough to take a few comparison photos:








Fashion Sets are available — with free shipping at any price — from Nordstrom and MACcosmetics.com, no code required. But given how MAC tends to sell out, you may have to turn to Macy’s or Dillards (free shipping at $50).

Let’s start by talking about the parts of the collection I didn’t swatch.

No Bronze Goddess collection is complete without the Bronze Goddess fragrance. This year’s (new and limited edition) offering is Bronze Goddess Eau Fraiche SkinScent ($60). The fragrance lovers on Fragrantica have reported its similarity to the 2010 edition, as well as the Tom Ford Azuree Soleil. The Eau Fraiche comes in a semi-transparent gold bottle, 3.4 oz (100 mL).

This year, instead of a flanker fragrance, Estee Lauder is offering the same scent in a limited edition Body Oil Spray ($50, 3.4 oz).

Summer also means the return of Bronze Goddess Liquid Bronzer ($28.50), previously swatched here.

One lovely, random detail of this year’s collection is that several products (the powder bronzers, fragrance, body oil, and liquid bronzer) come in special packaging. I love these prints. If Estee Lauder had released scarves or handbags with the collection, I would have been all over them.

The collection itself contains a limited edition five-color eyeshadow palette, Batik Sun ($48). It contains an opulent, saturated, satin orange with a gold sheen; a shimmery beaten gold; a shimmery cool brown; a shimmery (almost glittery) beige silk; and a satin teal (which is slightly drier than the other shades).

There’s a limited edition, dual-ended, waterproof liquid eyeliner: Black Sands (in black and bronze) for $29.

There’s also a limited edition nail polish, coral creme Hot Spell ($20).

For lips, you can go warm (with new, limited edition, “hot red”/pink-coral Solar Crush) or cool (with repromoted, limited edition Fuchsia Fever. The name says it all). The Pure Color lipsticks are $25 each.

Estee Lauder is also introducing a new product, Sheer Roller Gloss, a sheer gloss in a tube with a rollerball applicator. The metal ball does feel neat (and cooling) against your lips, and Squeeze has an old-school Bubbalicious watermelon bubblegum scent (I didn’t realize the two shades had different scents until I was home, browsing Estee Lauder’s website).

Succulent is nominally a sheer warm pink, and Squeeze a sheer cool pink, but the colors are so very sheer that if the one you want is out of stock, I think you could safely buy the other. The gloss feels a bit sticky on the lips, but rollerball doesn’t dispense a lot of product, so the stickiness could be the formula, or it could be not-quite-enough-gloss on my lips.

What would a summer collection be without bronzers?  Estee Lauder overhauled their bronzer offering this year, and the shades they are debuting now will be the line’s permanent offering going forward.

Let me start by saying that I loved the last incarnation of Estee Lauder’s powder bronzers (swatched here), and I hate change.

The new bronzers, despite their intensity- or skintone-identifying names, all seem pretty similar. The chief difference between them seems to be undertone. Light is peachy; Medium is rosy; Medium Deep is quite yellow; Deep is red-bronze.

More heavily swatched, and in a different order:

Because it was difficult to distinguish between the shades, I swatched them one more time, REALLY heavily (with eyeshadow applicators).

Last, but certainly not least, the collection contains a limited edition Pure Color Illuminating Powder Gelee, Heat Wave ($40). The shimmery, wet/dry, “gel-powder” formula instantly became one of Lauder’s signature items when it was introduced in fall 2011.

I adore Heat Wave; it’s my favorite gelee so far. The original gelee (which had no name), Topaz Chameleon, and Shimmering Sands were nearly metallic and very shimmery. They were so intense I found them intimidating. Heat Wave is unusually subtle, a swoon-worthy, sparkly beige highlighter.

The Bronze Goddess collection is available everywhere Estee Lauder is sold, so let’s just focus on the retailers that offer free shipping at any price: Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus (code MARCHFS), and EsteeLauder.com.