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| Ellis Faas Creamy Eyes |
The seven new shades (shown above) are Navy Blue, Bordeaux Red, Purple, Lilac, Mint Green, Light Blue and Yellow Ochre.
It’s official. I have reviewed the articles published on More Than a Pretty Face this year and selected The Cosmetics Story of 2009.
Ellis Faas is THE cosmetics story of 2009. Hers is the most exciting and original cosmetics story this year. Her Human Colours concept is based on colors based in the human body, a concept that evolved from her experience in doing special effects makeup (simulating wounds, bruises, and blood) for PSAs. Somehow it doesn’t fit to call the sleek space age pens that she uses for her products as unique, distinctive, standout, etc., as these words have become so overused that they have lost meaning. Her packaging is truly one of a kind.
Since I published my interview with Ellis Faas back in August, she’s launched Ellis Skin (foundation, blusher, concealer, and powder) and Ellis Eyes (eye shadow, mascara, and eyeliner), all packaged in the same sleek space age pens used for Ellis Lips.
Now Ellis Faas has launched Ellis Holder to hold her products. It’s a cylinder that can hold up to eight of her products. The skin veil pen fits in the center slot, while other products can be put in the six surrounding slots. Compact powder may be placed in the lid.
Ellis Holder – image from www.ellisfaas.com
Here is Ellis Faas demonstrating how to use Ellis Holder:
Video from www.ellisfaas.com
Not sure about the music with the overdub, though. It sounds like background for soft-core porn! Madonna’s Justify My Love comes to mind.
And here is a video of her showing how not to use Ellis Holder:
Video from Ellis Faas’s YouTube channel
The Dutch love strong coffee! I traveled across Canada with several folks from The Netherlands, and we were dumbstruck as they added teaspoon after teaspoon of instant coffee and teaspoon after teaspoon of sugar to approximate what they drank back home. It was more like slurry than coffee.
Today I went to the office. I want to save my vacation for Christmas.
Because there were so few people in the office, I decided to dress down. I’m wearing the same brass studded jeans as I did on Tuesday, and topped it off with a cotton jersey knit pullover of substantial weight. The pullover is overdyed (olive over orange) and features a patchwork front. My husband says that it looks “peasantish,” although he picked it out.
My makeup today is similar to what is was on Tuesday. Today, however, all my eye shadows come from NYX. I used Nude from the Nude-Taupe-Dark Brown eye shadow trio and Taupe from the same palette for contouring. This is one of the few palettes that I’ve used to the bottom of the pan!
I used a fluffy eye shadow brush with a domed head for applying shadow to the crease. A makeup artist at the Trish McEvoy counter at Nordstrom told me to sweep the brush back and forth across the crease, like a windshield wiper. I find that application with this brush is not as precise as I would like it: the contour eye shadow extended beyond the outer corner of my eye.
For the outer corner, I used NYX single eyeshadow in golden bronze: alas, I found it pulverized. Time to get a sifter jar to salvage the eyeshadow! I used Sue Devitt Beauty Eye Intensifier Pencil in Pointe-Noire for the eyeliner.
I used the same foundation and cheek color as I did on Tuesday. Today, I’m wearing Ellis Faas liquid lip color in her signature Ellis Red, but only as a light stain. The saturated blood-red color shown above is NSFW (not safe for work)!
You may shop NYX, Sue Devitt Beauty, and Ellis Faas through their web sites. Be advised that Ellis Faas ships from The Netherlands. Sue Devitt Beauty may also be found at Ulta.com.
The fine print: Representatives for Sue Devitt Beauty provided me the Eye Intensifier Pencil. I paid for all other items out of my pocket.
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| Ellis Faas – image from http://www.ellisfaas.com |
I wanted to interview Faas as I believe that Ellis Faas is on the cusp of something new and different in cosmetics. She bases her line on colors that exist in every human body, a concept that she realized when she did special effects makeup (simulating wounds, bruises, and blood). She’s launched her cosmetics line with lip colors that suit all skin tones. Her signature shade is Ellis Red, a true blood-red: after all, we all bleed the same color. The line has distinctive packaging, created in collaboration with industrial designer Arnout Visser.
From concept to finished product: the bullet-shaped pens for Ellis Lips
All images from www.ellisfaas.com
1. Your biography states that you wanted to pursue a career as a photographer, but that you were too shy to approach others to model for you. You were your own model. How did you develop the courage to get others to model for you?
Besides myself, I also used friends and family to pose for me more and more, but I have only started working with professional models, since we started our own brand – I shoot all our visuals. I guess that I dare doing that, because over the past years I have been on so many numerous sets of the world’s best photographers. Combined with the knowledge I already had, that has taught me lot. Yet, I still keep things terribly small: just the model, someone to hold the lights, and me for makeup and photography.
2. Which type of makeup do you like doing best? Fantasy, special effects, or “real life”?
My origins are in special effects, so that is still a passion and I also use it a lot in the beauty and fashion shoots I work on. But to be honest, I enjoy doing any kind of makeup if I have fun with the team (especially model and hairstylist) and the story is nice – even if it means just making a gorgeously beautiful model even more beautiful.
3. Of all the items in your online portfolio, the one that most readers will recognize is the ad campaign for Lancôme’s Trésor. This is one of the most approachable (that is, real life) looks in your portfolio. How did you create this look?
Well, if your canvas is the face of someone like in this case Kate Winslet, it is primarily a matter of choosing the tones of foundation and the colours that suit the face and theme of the concept. This ad was supposed to be quite dreamy, so I kept it all rather subdued.
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| Kate Winslet for Lancôme’s Trésor. Photography: Peter Lindberg. Makeup: Ellis Faas |
4. What was the biggest challenge you faced when you started your cosmetics line? Other entrepreneurs have told me that their biggest challenges were financing and finding suppliers.
Finding suppliers was not so difficult because over the years I have met quite a few helpful people. Financing was difficult indeed, but since we started to do everything with a team of just three (now four), the amount we needed was still small enough to get a wonderful, private investor on board. But the biggest challenge by far is the production process and what happens to deadlines if only one of the productional steps has a delay. Phew!
Continued in Part 2.
5. You launched your line earlier this year. What has been the response to Ellis Faas cosmetics in Europe?
So far, so good! More and more countries and retailers are “in the pocket”, as we call it. We’ve just entered Switzerland and after the Summer we’ll launch in Australia, the UK, Poland and more countries. Especially the press has proven to be wonderfully supportive, apparently because they like the concept and colours, and journalists tell me that it really gives them something to write about so that is good. And shops tell us that it brings them new customers, instead of cannibalizing other brands.
6. Tell me about your Ambassadors program. How do you select and qualify your Ambassadors?
We started the Ambassadors programme because of two things: I can’t be everywhere at the same time, so the ambassadors can do presentations and so on if I have to be somewhere else. Plus the more professionals spread the word about the brand, the better. But just like the company itself (I started it with one of my best friends and my youngest brother), we so far have chosen the ambassadors “within the family”, meaning I have known and worked with them for years and years, as colleagues and as assistants. I think that if someone knows me personally it helps them to communicate the brand best.
7. When do you plan to launch Ellis Eyes, Skin, Lights, Pencils, and Prime? Can you provide us a preview of these forthcoming products?
Ellis Eyes and Skin will be released late September (14 eyeshadows, 2 mascaras, 2 eyeliners, 4 blushers, 8 foundations, 8 concealers, 3 powders), Lights (meaning 5 highlights) before Christmas, and the rest some time next year.
8. While readers in the U.S. can purchase your products through your website, do you have plans to find retailers in the U.S.?
Absolutely. We are now finalizing talks with a wonderful retailer in New York, who is planning to launch us in November – although I cannot yet disclose who it is (so people can keep themselves posted via our newsletter, Facebook or Twitter). If all that works out, I hope that more shops in the US will follow. So far, the American customers who have bought online are coming back to buy more, so that’s very positive!
9. Is there anything else that you would like to share with our readers that I haven’t covered in my questions?
Well, I hope your readers will take the time to visit our site to read more about the Human Colours concept, because it is not as scary as it may seem at first glance. I merely believe that daily makeup should be used to highlight someone’s most beautiful features and to mask their less attractive ones. So what better way to achieve this than with colours that by nature are already present in a person’s face. So if you look at the colours, you will see that they are all broken, non-primary colours, and because of that they look good on anyone, from a pale, 16-year-old white girl to a 80-year-old black grandma, and anyone in between!
This article first appeared on blogcritics.org.
Cold Cream 'n' Roses 