The variable visage

Looks at ways in which persons can change their facial appearance to reflect their moods, while offering the views of Kenneth Gergen, psychologist and Robert Jay, psychiatrist. Reference to the book 'Making Faces,' by Kevyn Aucoin, a makeup artist; Use of cosmetics to change facial appearances; Details on the Cosmopolitan Virtual Makeover compact disc.

By Annie Murphy Paul, published on July 01, 1998

STYLE

Even as psychologists are exploring the multiplicity of modern selves, a new generation of makeovers is showing that the mirror has many faces.

Experts on interior reality like psychologist Kenneth Gergen and psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton have been saying for years that we have not one self, but many, each suited to a specific occasion. Now, that idea has come out where we can see it: the makeover.

Take a look at makeup artist Kevyn Aucoin's book, Making Faces (Little, Brown, and Company, 1997). "Kevyn believes that makeup gives everyone the power to transform themselves and try out new personas," reads the back cover. The actress Gena Rowlands, who one would think has no need to look like anyone but herself, writes in the introduction about a makeover Aucoin did on a movie set: "When he was through with me, the crew didn't recognize me. I was that glamorous!"

Other movie stars are also rendered unrecognizable, at least as themselves: Lisa Marie Presley is made to look like Marilyn Monroe, Isabella Rossellini like Barbara Streisand, and the ever-flexible Demi Moore like both Clara Bow and Ingrid Bergman. This malleability extends even to Aucoin himself, who gushes, "You see, now I can be Japanese one evening and Spanish the next, with just a little makeup application."

Though Aucoin is still constrained by what his pencils and powders can do, no such limits exist for the new computer-generated makeovers. One of the most popular programs is the Cosmopolitan Virtual Makeover on CD-ROM. It allows users to manipulate a digitized photo of themselves, changing hair color, lipstick shade, and eyebrow shape instantaneously. More elaborate still is a program called Wig Out, which adds virtual accessories and body piercing to the mix.

The appeal of these products appears to lie in their promise of total transformation. Virtual Makeover (put out by that champion of selfimprovement, Cosmopolitan magazine) offers 150 different hairstyles, in 20 different colors. "A whole new you is just a click away," its package exclaims. "One click and you're a blond, a redhead, or a brunette. Feeling adventurous? Then change your hairstyle or reshape your lips and brows. Even change the color of your eyes!" At a recent computer show at which Wig Out was on display, Rastafarian dreadlocks for women and gender-bending drag for men were favored choices.

All of this looks like bad news for department stores, which have been steadily losing cosmetics customers to salons and discount stores. Part of their downfall, perhaps, lies in the modesty of their promises: their makeovers never offered metamorphosis, only a little lift or the season's new shade. Though it's hardly here yet, it's possible to imagine a day when the department-store makeover is no longer available, discontinued like a dated shade of lipstick. As it goes, we ought to acknowledge what's passing away with it: a time when selves were singular, when one face was enough.