Beauty Advice from Lucy

[gidgetgrape]

Lucille Ball, the beloved star of "I Love Lucy," appeared on "Girl Talk" recently as a solo guest to discuss her home, her children, her career, and some of the problems of being one of the busiest women in the world.

"I can darn, mend, cook, plant and clean a house pretty good, but I can't sew," she began in a breezy, friendly voice.

She was wearing a beige flannel suit with white collar and white blouse. Her red hair was swept high. Her skin, close up and under strong lights, was as satiny as a child's.

"I use steam on my face, I love it. I soak a Turkish towel in hot water and hold it to my skin. I add soap if my face needs washing. I can feel the pores opening as that heat penetrates. I don't bother to close the pores - I let them do that themselves."

Lucille never leaves cream on for more than five minutes. Offstage she uses no base, just a flick of powder. Lipstick goes on with a brush to shape the outline of that famous mouth. She uses two shades of lipstick - darker underneath and extending beyond the natural lipline, lighter on top for gloss and highlight. She pencils in her eyebrows hair by hair to achieve the desired effect.

Lucille is in love with brushes. She goes to art stores and buys them in all sizes, shapes, and contours and then experiments before the mirror to see which brush gives the best results on eyebrows, eyelashes, lips, stroking down powder, [and] blending eyeshadow.

On that glowing hair she uses real, old-fashioned henna.

"People laugh when I say I use henna, the youngsters don't even know what it is. If you're that young I'll tell you - it was the original hair color for redheads, and I think it's made from the leaves of a plant. Now I don't use it for color. I get color in two stages, first with a lightener combined with color, then with a toner. I use the henna at the end to give my hair a life and a gleam I can't get any other way. Do you know where I'm going now? I'm exhausted, but I've got six more hours ahead of me, so it's back to my hotel to steam my face."

Lucille Ball leaves the impression she thinks the world would be a better place if more people drenched their face in steam more often. She might very well be right.

Taken from Don't Blame The Mirror: A Book of Beauty by Virginia Graham. Published in 1967.