The Day I Faced Up to the Beauty Computer

About once a year, when I try to improve my appearance, I think of Gloria Steinem.

Shortly after the birth of the women’s movement, Steinem stated that any woman who spends more than 10 minutes a day on her face is in for major psychic trouble.

Steinem, of course, was fortunate to be born with features that don’t need more than 10 minutes a day. And, needless to say, she was much younger back then. As nearly everyone over 35 knows, what you have doesn’t count nearly as much as what you do with it.

This year, I thought I’d see what high-tech could do with my face. I came across a beauty make-over computer--a future staple, some say, of makeup counters everywhere. When I heard the prototype computer, now making the rounds of department stores across the country, would be at Bullock’s South Coast Plaza for a couple of weeks, I signed up for a free appointment.

Next to the furniture department was a work station with three terminals and a troupe of traveling technicians wearing suits and white ruffled dresses. They told me not to smile while they made a still videotape of my face. The image appeared in full color on the computer screen above the words, “Red 221 . . . Green 180 . . . Blue 160”--the computer’s code for my skin tone. Above the face was a palette of complementary hues from which the technician could choose. When he selected one with a wand pressed against a smooth keyboard, the product names flashed on the screen: “Bittersweet Heather,” “Restless,” “Ginger Jam.”

“Powder is making a return in Europe,” said the technician, erasing the shine on my picture’s nose with a computer command. Lines likewise disappeared. “In eye shadow, we’re getting away from purples and fuchsias and into blues and greens,” he said, punching “Apply. Eyes. 3.” Blue and green appeared on my picture’s eyelids. Similarly, pink and red blotches appeared on the cheeks and lips, then spread and faded through the image’s tiny squares with a “Blend, Soften” command.

Variations were applied on two more images. Soon the screen split into quadrants showing four of my faces: the ordinary face I was still wearing, one for blue and pink clothes, one for green and brown clothes and the last one, bright and multicolored, which the technician said was intended for nighttime.

They looked like four passport photos, three of which had been cleverly touched up to provide disguises. I thought of author William Stafford’s observation that a face is like a passport to an interior country, a passport that says, “This is me.”

The night face looked more like a travel poster to Hong Kong. But after a few revisions, the other two seemed as if they would still allow me safe passage. New passports don’t change the traveler, I reasoned. And they might enliven the trip.

I took the computer printout of the products recommended for me straight over to the adjacent counter of jars, boxes and tubes. Steinem would have cheered my resistance to the kindly clerk who observed that a person with my changing hair color (she never actually said the word “gray”) clearly required large amounts of color on her face. Nevertheless, I accepted the Light Beige Gentle makeup foundation, Very Navy Conditioning Lash Mascara, Provocative Blush/Highlighter, Misty Shadows and Mauve Creme Lipcreme as well as some of the best soap, unguents and astringents modern science has produced.

Once I got the routine down, I could apply them all in three to 10 minutes, they assured me. When it was over, I had spent only an hour total. I escaped with no psychic cost. But I hadn’t figured there would be another--higher--price to pay. The bill came to $119.78. Steinem never mentioned that.