STYLE / SPRING BEAUTY : BEST FACES FORWARD : Close Shaves

Early on, they were drawn to their profession by a love of art, a fascination with the process of transformation, even the aroma of a beauty salon. Now six Los Angeles makeup artists polish the faces of those oh-so-gorgeous ones who pose for magazines, appear in commercials and decorate the movie screen. Making an actor or model more beautiful is usually easy. But what happens when they’re challenged with their own less-than-perfect features?

As a child, David Cox accompanied his mother to her beauty salon. “I just loved the smell,” he recalls. Later in life, because he liked the idea of working with people and with his hands, the blond South African surfer chose to pursue hairdressing rather than architecture, a career decision that his friends found a bit weird. “But I really liked it; I had a feel for it,” he says.

Just back from a photo shoot in Cabo San Lucas, where he shattered his finger in a motorcycle accident, Cox, 37, looks in the mirror and decides that he needs a haircut. “I don’t like to fuss with my hair,” he says, “and as soon as the top starts growing into a ball, it’s time to cut it.” With a heavy-duty Wahl shaver, he begins whacking--his description--at the top, then tips his head and uses his fingers to feel his way with the clippers at the back. Any stray hairs are snipped with tiny KIKUI scissors. To finish, he runs a comb through his eyebrows and trims them, then rubs a dime-sized knob of Bumble and bumble Styling Creme into his hair.

Cox frequently works outdoors and finds that hats interfere with his work, so he coats his face and neck daily with Kiehl’s Water-Based Suncreen Lotion SPF 16. “I surf and I have lines and I’m not going to try and disguise them,” he says, “but if I’d known about sunscreen as a kid, I would have used it.” To go easy on his sensitive skin--and because his behind-the-scenes job will allow it--he shaves only once a week, using Kiehl’s Squadron Shave Cream: “I let my beard grow out and when it starts pricking my girlfriend’s face too much, I know it’s time.”