The Josephine Baker Makeover

This is part of an ongoing series wherein we attempt to turn readers into their celebrity doppelgängers.

Living in Los Angeles means that when you put out a call for women “looking to get a celebrity makeover,” sometimes models and actresses show up. I was about 15 minutes into working on Vivien’s — who you’ll meet in a second — transformation before I asked, “So, how did you hear about this project?” She said her sister forwarded the info to her, but that she herself doesn’t read this here website. And then I guess she just trusted me — a complete stranger — and came to my house. Ladies! There’s a whole channel called Investigation Discovery about this! No, I mean, you can come over, I won’t murder you.

Anyway, so Vivien emailed me:

Hi Jane! Just read the Audrey Hepburn article. I wish I had half the eyebrows Lila has. So anyway my face isn’t that round but in my secret heart of hearts I would love to look like Josephine Baker.

Jackpot! Josephine Baker is, how do you say… makeover gold?

The hardest thing about doing a celebrity makeover is finding the distinctive thing that celebrity does with their makeup or hair, and then transferring that thing onto another person. If you wanted to be made over into, for example, Meryl Streep, I’d say “Nope!” She doesn’t DO anything to herself — besides wear glasses sometimes and be blonde, which, boring. Josephine, on the other hand, was always heavily decorated, so that makes the job a lot easier. That, and looking a lot like Josephine Baker to begin with. Here’s the before photo Vivien attached to her email:

Geeee-orgeous. But wait. What is all that on top of her head? Josephine didn’t have that. I asked Vivien to show me another photo of her hair. She sent me this.

*SCREAMS!* Her hair is literally down to her butt. I asked her if she wouldn’t mind cutting it all off before she came over. Just kidding, but I was intimidated. Was Vivien?

Vivien: I was a little nervous, but I always feel relaxed when people play with my hair. That was the best part, having my hair styled into something different.

After some brainstorming, I just gave up and wrestled it into a bun. Then, we threw some finger waves in the front to mimic the front of Josephine’s 1920’s era pixie/bob cut. After that, the hardest parts were getting enough eyeliner on — Josephine wore ALL OF IT — and reshaping her brows. The pencil wasn’t really looking bold enough, so I decided just to put gel eyeliner on with a brush and that did the trick.

Also, Josephine styled her upper lip to look thinner, so we did the same by first covering Vivien’s with concealer, and then drawing her lip inside her natural lip line.

Vivien: I was quite impressed when I looked in the mirror — that sounds so cocky! — but it was just a completely different look. My normal makeup routine is Burt’s Bees chapstick, but if I had steady hands I would go out looking like Josephine every day. Okay maybe sans the eyelashes, they are really heavy. Also, I kind of wish I had practiced crossing my eyes and smiling more before we started shooting. I don’t think that will ever come to me naturally, crossing my eyes.

She’s right, those shots didn’t really work out. But this one did!

Thanks to Lauren Watson, Vivien’s sister, for help with some of these photos.

If you live in or around Los Angeles and might want for Jane to make you look as much as possible like the celebrity you think in your secret heart of hearts that you maybe could possibly look like with a lot of makeup and the right camera angles, let her know.