Just One Coat Covers All

“It’s a completely natural look, but it’s flawless.”

--Rodney Pinion, makeup artist

Andre Chreky--a salon of exposed brick walls and cappuccinos--now offers airbrushing at the makeup counter.

Yup, that tool from the ‘80s has emerged at salons of 2002. And this is not makeup for pub crawls. Think big days: weddings, fancy parties, visits to the White House (more on that later). Each application of makeup is somewhere between $100 and $125. But, you figure, since it lasts about 12 hours, that boils down to about $10 an hour.

“It’s a completely natural look, but it’s flawless,” says Chreky makeup artist Rodney Pinion.

The process is basically pointillism, in which tiny dots of color combine to create a finished effect. To achieve this light finish, a specialized machine sprays microscopic drops of makeup for fast and even coverage of foundation, blush, eye shadow, and even brow tint. The makeup lies on the surface of the skin and allows pores to breathe instead of clogging them like traditional makeup, and it dries instantly upon contact, according to the salon.

“I’ve airbrushed everything but my dog,” Pinion says. “And it’s only because I couldn’t catch him.” Growing up, the ambidextrous Pinion loved airbrushing model cars and loved makeup. So, learning how to fuse the two seemed only natural. After taking some airbrushing classes, he recently introduced it to the salon, though it’s been used in the entertainment industry for years.

The day before I visited Pinion, he airbrushed jazz singer Vanessa Rubin for her performance at the White House. Rubin sang at the state dinner for Poland’s President Aleksander Kwasniewski, and the next day a few newspapers ran a photograph of Rubin with her head nestled on President George W. Bush’s lapel.

“And how perfect was that?” said Rubin, laughing, two weeks after her performance. “I got no makeup on the president or his white shirt.”

It was Rubin’s first experience with airbrushing. When Pinion broke out his Dinair machine and tubes of makeup, she was skeptical, the singer recalled during a telephone interview. It looked like “what the dentist uses,” she said.

The soulful singer is used to sweating off her makeup in steamy clubs and “looking like a raccoon by the end of the night.” But for the White House she wanted to look natural but glammy, and she wanted “smoky eyes” to match her “gun-metal” evening gown.

Though she wasn’t in a steamy club, Rubin found herself sweating just from meeting bigwigs such as Secretary of State Colin Powell, Henry Kissinger and the president. Even after walking the few sweltering blocks back to her hotel, the makeup was still in place, she said.

I was “brushed” on a hazy/hot/humid Washington afternoon. The process took less than 30 minutes and felt like a light mist that tickled as it touched my skin. I looked “made up” but was impressed by how flawless the application was. Pinion even rubbed a tissue across my face and barely a trace wiped off. And my eyebrows looked the best I’ve ever seen them.

After working a full day in the office, I spent another five hours covering a party, but the makeup was still perfect after I crawled home. (Pinion puts a light layer of color on the lips and the rest is lipstick that does need to be reapplied. Also, he uses mascara.)

I didn’t get home until after 11 p.m., more than eight hours since my makeup application, and upon inspection, determined that I still looked good.

Airbrushed makeup withstands perspiration, humidity, tears--and maybe even the marriage.

Airbrushing can also be used to quickly highlight hair and cover tan lines (it washes out in the shower.) Pinion has even covered a few unsightly tattoos for brides.

MAC and Revlon need not break out in a cold sweat quite yet. Most machines cost upward of $700 and only a trained hand--like Pinion’s--can smoothly spray makeup an inch from an eyeball without disaster. But it certainly is addicting.

“It’s an entertainer’s dream. Better than control top,” Rubin said. “You can be beautiful 24/7 on that stuff, girl.”