‘Idol’ singers can put best face forward
As the civilized world (starting with me) reads significance into the “American Idol” contestants’ every hand gesture and raised eyebrow, there is one member of the “Idol” family who lives as close to the contestants as it is possible to get without actually inhabiting their skin.
Walking the floor of the Idoldome at every show is the contestants’ (and the judges’) most important ally, the keeper of their faces -- the “American Idol” makeup artist, Mezhgan Hussainy, with whom I spoke after Wednesday night’s show.
For Talmudic scholars searching for keys to the mysteries of “Idol,” a find of Dead Seas Scrolls-level significance is the beauty secrets blog Hussainy keeps on www.americanidol.com, on which she reveals weekly the back story behind every splash of glitter and bronzing lotion.
There you can find out that in Week 1, Blake Lewis’ “lashes are curled to open up his eyes and his brows were brushed” or that in Week 3 rocker Gina Glocksen accepted a splash of color that was dubbed “the Posh Spice look.”
On the floor of each results night, the striking former model, who radiates glamour as much as anyone on screen, functions as the show’s fashion paramedic, rushing to the death couch when tearful contestants’ waterworks endanger their foundations.
“Nobody on the staff likes Wednesdays,” she said of the feeling backstage on results day.
In the makeup chair, where Hussainy becomes the “Idol” contestants’ final confessor before the broadcast, the atmosphere gets extremely tense, she said.
“All the contestants -- I’ve heard it for the past so many years -- they always say, ‘It’s me. I know I’m going. It’s me, it’s me.’ And I say, ‘Stop it, guys. You’ve come so far.’ They’ll ask me, ‘Am I going home tonight?’ And I say, ‘Even if you do, you’ve come so far. You’ve done the best you could. You’ve taken it as far as you can and now it’s whatever the universe wants. You have to believe that and not beat yourself up.’ ”
Hussainy’s “Idol” journey comes after a roundabout route to the top of her profession.
Emigrating at age 8 from Afghanistan to Los Angeles, Hussainy grew up in the shadow of Hollywood dreaming of a career in entertainment.
While pursuing an acting and modeling career, she attended dental school to keep her worried parents at bay, knowing that she “couldn’t imagine cleaning teeth for the rest of my life.”
Eventually Hussainy found her calling via a part-time job at the Robinsons-May makeup counter, which led to her first TV job, which led to the call from a new talent competition called “American Idol.”
“Unfortunately, I passed it up Season 1. I was doing ‘Family Feud,’ ” she said. “I watched and was just kicking myself, but I got lucky. They called me again for Season 2.”
Asked how she takes these diamonds in the rough who have never tasted the joys of professional makeovers and creates appealing public frontispieces for them, Hussainy explained, “I just get to them and their personality. I don’t want to change their look too much. I want them to be them, and I want them to be happy with it; it’s a give and take. I’ll suggest certain things and tell them how to groom themselves and clean up and how to work with their eyebrows. Their comfort level is the most important thing to me. If I want to put red lips on somebody and they’re thinking more natural, then I’ll go with natural.”
‘Let’s go for it’
One happy consequence of “Idol’s” rise is the arrival of a new breed of male contestants ready to do what it takes to win, including submit without complaint to Hussainy’s brush.
“The guys in prior seasons have always said, ‘Do I really need makeup?’ Automatically they think they are going to look like a girl. Last season and this season they were very savvy about makeup and said, ‘OK, let’s go for it,’ and I didn’t have to have that talk.”
Like most mega-achievers drawn to the “American Idol,” Hussainy isn’t content to spend her days charging around only one planet-devouring show.
In addition to keeping her blog and working on other shows, she is working with a chemist to develop a makeup line (Me) and maintaining a website (www.mezhgan.com) with a veritable gallery of the past “Idol” contestants who have been in her chair.
They come to her as unknowns, but by the time Hussainy’s work is done, dozens have left as stars.
“I work with so many other celebrities, but the contestants always remember me. I was the first makeup artist they ever worked with. When they come back, they’re so excited and they remember how hard it was. They can’t believe they went through all that process. But they remember -- and I will always remember every single one of them.”