Paying homage to the most iconic moments in beauty and the women who created them. 

It goes without saying, surely, that Edward Scissorhands is the greatest love story ever told. Just look at the facts: you’ve got desire, corruption, tragedy, innocence, (black) comedy, violence and a 19 year old Winona Ryder – as the beautiful and wild Kim. 

And it’s a part that took Winona out of herself. We’d never seen her like that, and nor since. As a pale, bookish sort of beauty, she’s at ease playing the slightly eerie debutante in Heathers, Beetlejuice and Mermaids. But here, Winona is draped in plasticated strawberry-blonde teenage charm, though for all its sugariness and artificiality, it did nothing to diminish that particular breed of melancholy she does so well. Like Johnny Depp as Edward, she can’t help but emit a deep malaise that’s gently woven through the entire film. 

I watched it at the cinema aged seven, with my Dad and sister, dumbfounded by Winona’s face. Next to the ghostly pallor of Edward, she glowed as if there was a fire inside her, burning. She is three parts Christmas tree angel and two parts rotating snow globe fairy. She looks like a perfectly frosted birthday cake. The puckered, rose-petal pink lips dashed with coral, the childish, expectant ash-blonde brows, those plump, milkshake cheeks and her huge, adoring eyes. They sang out in tune with Danny Elfman’s haunting, unforgettable score. 

Winona’s make-up came straight from the palette of American suburbia. Avon pastels, Laundromat sheens and the irresistible lure of a 70s aesthetic viewed through the lens of what was to become the 90s. She is as close to a cinematic angel as anyone has or could ever be.

But faking angelic, troubled innocence (lost) isn’t easy. It starts with a toned-down, but carefully edited brow, slightly widened with the gentle flicker of a brown pencil in two shades lighter than that which you’d normally use. It’s true what they say: the heavier the brow, the older you look, so youthful innocence requires restraint. The other necessary element is the exact tonal balance of the lip and cheek colour. It’s not pink. And it’s not coral. It’s somewhere in between - like one of those 80s padded ski suit or the rind of a ripe dragon fruit. Anything else is too vivid, too nail salon, too aware of itself. 

 

 

1.Cinique Superfine Liner for Brows in Soft Blonde, £13 at Selfridges
2. Japonesque Pro Brow/Lash Comb Brush, £9.50 at Beauty Bay
3. Mac Pressed Pigment in Day Gleam, £16.50 at House of Fraser
4. Dior Blush Cheek Creme in Capri, £24, available from July
5. YSL Rouge Pur Couture Lipstick in Rose Dahlia, £25 at Selfridges 

Photography: Hugo Yangüela