So am I looking at you or am I looking at the camera?
My name is Troy Jensen I'm a celebrity makeup artist and a photographer
and today we're going to transform Susan Yara
into Merle Oberon
who is an iconic beauty from the 1930s
She was an actress
and I consider her Hollywood royalty
This might look like Halloween makeup
but it's not. Today I'm with the talented Troy Jensen
and it's a special treat because he has the ability to turn a woman
into an icon with his makeup and photography skills
Merle starred in one of my favorite classic
films called Wuthering Heights and
Kate Bush wrote a song about it
It's a love story
between Merle and Sir Laurence Olivier
and it ends with sort of a ghostly twist
Today we're gonna create that same kind of ambiance with
this house and rather than shoot it in a studio
where it can be really stark and
I'm really gonna try to conjure that energy
and that spirit with Susan and
we'll see what we get you know?
The look that we're doing
If you tap that right there
and scroll that way
Keep going keep going keep going keep going keep going
That's Merle Oberon
Isn't she pretty? Doesn't she look like Susan?
That's what we're creating today
The transformation starts with hair
So yeah when I do shoots I usually do the hair
the makeup
I'll style it
I guess you could say I'm a bit of a control freak
A bit
Then we move to the makeup
The makeup back in the 1920s and 30s
It was you know it was black and white film so the technique
was a little bit different than they do today
The makeup was much thicker
They would work in black and white tones
Her makeup won't really look
that attractive
in colored lighting
she's gonna look a bit sickly
and a bit ghostly
but once I light her and once we get her in the scene
it'll all come together and there's little touches that I have to do
right before shooting like
add Vaseline on the eyelid
on the top of the cheekbone, down the center of the nose
Just sort of pop the features
but until then she's gonna look a little sickly
The thing about the makeup in the 1930s is it's really
glossy and shiny
and yes I have to wear glasses cause I'm completely blind
You look cute in glasses
Did you put something in there?
Yeah I put a little bit of the Dior oil
and just some
very pale pancake makeup
because the thing about with this makeup
we're gonna be spraying oil and stuff on it
and if I do just a liquid base
It's gonna go everywhere
You're basically gonna be pale and sickly for about a week
This just doesn't come off
You're fine with that right? Yeah that's cool
By adding the shimmer the glow kinda comes through the makeup so
it'll look more like skin
This is what we call beating the face
What's that do?
You know what it does is it imprints
my pores into your pores
You know what I mean? So it doesn't just look like base
It looks like skin
Wow
Well it's all about like highlights and contour you know
It's not about bringing life to the face it's about
actually working with very very strong lighting
because I wanted to stay really light I'm using actually
white matte eyeshadow with a little bit of translucent powder
because even translucent powder would add color to your face
I'm going to dinner like this
I dare you to go to dinner like this
I'm going to dinner like this
Adding just a touch of silver
Mm
Some shimmer
More of a to get the grayness too
to really cool down your
complexion
This is an old
palette from Stila that I
just cannot get rid of
really pop those cheekbones
contouring from the bridge of the nose to the eyes
Do I get to wear lashes?
Oh hello you and your tricky questions
Course
crease
so then we hit it with the lights
it really pops
the contour
Oh wow that really changes the look of my eyes
So she has these like thin long brows right?
Shh
So I noticed you wet a lot of your powders
I have more control when I wet the shadows
and we're doing this shape
was very
trendy in the 1930s
slightly rounding off the outer edges
they called it the smear
Look up
And it became more exaggerated
in the 40s
with like Joan Crawford and the 20s
you the little you saw how it looks like they put a little dark here dark here
and a little dark here it almost looked like little
little it was called the bee sting
and then
this lip
this shape came
and this was actually a very scandalous lip shape
this would be like wearing like pasties out in public
Ooh back then
And it was very that kind of girl wore it
Have you heard of OCC? Mhm
Obsessive Compulsive
It's basically a liquid lipstick
But they dry kind of matte
It's almost like foundation the texture of it
This is a tricky lip to do
cause it's so dark that it has to be perfect
And after I put it on you you can't do anything
You can't drink you can't eat you can't anything
And I'm using a little bit of black eyeshadow to kind of matte out the texture
and really intensify the depth of the color
Pretty flawless
Okay let's do lashes
I've never seen that done with a sharpie before
It's one of my pet peeves when you see
The line the lash you know
We're doing the last
lash I doubled them
One gave more
thickness to your lashes and then this is just about length
and because there's not a lot of liner
this is a very difficult lash to do because it's all about that first placement
and if I don't get it right I'm basically
screwed
She's so into herself right now
I'm so into myself right now. She's living
Merle lives
Hair and makeup is set and then we actually have to backtrack
When I do a shoot I usually prep about a week before
And Susan did not
make the fitting so of course the clothes that I pulled I pulled some really beautiful gowns
from For the Stars Fashion House
and they didn't fit so we have to actually go back
and try some other gowns on her
to re-fit her because she didn't show up on Thursday
and do my fitting so now we have to start all over again
Damn you
It wasn't on purpose but that does mean I get to see a place
most of his clients don't
When I'm creating a really iconic look I come to
this showroom called For the Stars
They make clothes for everyone from Katy Perry to Lady Gaga
Nicki Minaj, Beyonce wore that for her tour
They're made by a few designers from different parts of the world and
they do these really beautiful
showgirl bodysuits
to this I shot this on Courtney Bingham for Valentine's Day
We did a really sexy video
and it's a bodysuit all in pink feathers
I think we pulled some really great pieces
for the shoot today
We picked the gowns and then head over to the photo shoot at jewelry
designer Cynthia Bach's house
This is rock crystal with diamonds
I definitely want to use this piece because it almost looks like a vintage piece
It does, rock crystal was very prevalent
in the 1920s
The work looks very much like my house
All the rich antiquities and
Baroque styles
I design it I can't wait so beautiful yeah
Remember you keep your chin up to the light a little bit more
Yeah
And then just drop that finger down
Angle the top of your head towards me
Right there
So pretty
I like it when everything kind of works out
To have a vision
and then
there's makeup and products and hair and
lighting and film
and then we actually created it
You know what I mean? Yeah. We did it
I'm really happy with it I mean where's my camera I have to look at the pictures
