Makeup Expert Tells Opening Nighters to Pour Water on Troubling Oils

Start drinking distilled water now, that is if you intend to get through opening night at the Orange County Performing Arts Center without powdering your nose.

Such was the advice of noted skin care expert Aida Grey, who was invited to Bullock’s Santa Ana Thursday morning to advise 200 guests of the Center’s Crescendo chapter in a talk entitled “Prepare Yourself for Opening Night.”

In order to keep makeup fresh and intact for any long period of time, Grey insisted that it is necessary to cleanse the system as well as the skin. “I drink 20 glasses of water a day,” said Grey, who freely admits to passing her 77th birthday. The object is to wash excess minerals from the body and rid the skin of fatty acids. “Fatty acids digest the makeup,” Grey said.

Putting on an opening night face also requires absolutely clean skin. On the day of the event, she said to use, in this order: cleanser, toner, deep-pore cleanser, lubricating face mask and moisturizer. She said a mask, in fact, should be used “every single day, like brushing your teeth.”

Opening night calls for dramatic eyes, she said, with as many as four colors of eye shadow and gold highlights at the eyes. Shadow should remain soft, however. “Remember, it’s a shadow, not paint,” she said at the $20-per-person breakfast session, the proceeds of which went to the Center.

For long-lasting color, she recommended a primer under eye makeup and lipstick. She also suggested a gloss to seal in lip color and a lipstick stashed in the purse for replenishment during the night. Grey said theater patrons shouldn’t worry about going from the bright premiere lights outside into the dark theater and back into post-party brightness. Grey confided that while Zubin Mehta is leading Beethoven’s Ninth, the women’s makeup will fade naturally, making them “look softer” for the late-night gala.

Opening night hair should be shiny, natural and close to the head. “There are no more ‘big heads.’ The face is more in style today than the hair,” Grey said.

With opening night excitement building daily, Grey’s talk was hardly premature. Crescendo members have been eagerly anticipating the big night, and with good reason, according to former program chairman Joanne Sokolski. “We have worked for 10 years,” she said. “This is our party. We’ve earned it. We all want to be Cinderella.”