Isabella Vosmikova/Peacock
“Makeup techniques varied from prosthetics to ‘out-of the-kit’ aging products, such as Bluebird FX stipple,” explains Williams, who was also the makeup department head on Hulu’s Pam & Tommy. “Skin Illustrator palettes were our most used product with the prosthetics.” To emulate Angelyne’s porcelain complexion, Biscoe used foundation from French cosmetics brand Le Maquillage, Chantecaille Future Skin, Make Up For Ever Ultra HD Self-Setting Concealer, and Clé De Peau Translucent Setting Powder, which Biscoe describes as “the best.”
Anastasia Beverly Hills’s now-discontinued Alyssa Edwards eye shadow palette was used for her technicolor eye makeup, while Paula Dorf’s Baby Eyes pencil was applied in Rossum’s waterline to make her eyes look bigger. Kate Tokyo felt eyeliner pen was “drawn up, down or wobbly, depending on the decade,” says Biscoe, who adds that “it stays on and never runs. The felt tip allows you to draw a very precise line.” The brows were created by Anastasia Beverly Hills Brow Powder Duos and some bleach. “Emmy bleached her brows all the way to the lightest blond to match her skin tone and make them invisible. That way we could shape them or color them with powder to either red, blonde or black, depending on the time period, without having to tweeze them,” adds Biscoe.
While there isn’t much information out there about what specific products the real-life Angelyne uses (though she does sell her own brand of pink lipstick for $60), Biscoe found a photo of her applying a certain lip liner that she was able to use for the show. “It’s a Stein lip liner called Lake, which I still have,” she says, describing it as “an old classic lip liner that’s really hard to get, I don’t know if that company is in business anymore.” Aside from the Stein liner, Kevyn Aucoin The Flesh Tone Lip Pencil in Bloodroses, which always goes on “smooth and creamy,” was also used — without blending — to draw Angelyne’s starkly defined, heart-shaped mouth. Other lip products included L’Oréal Paris Infallible Pro Last Lip Color in Infallible Red for ’70s-era Angelyne, while the brand’s Mesmerizing Merlot shade alongside Maybelline New York Super Stay 24 Super Impact Lip Color in Eternal Cherry worked for the scenes that took place in the ’80s and ’90s. The modern version of Angelyne fittingly wore Maybelline New York Superstay in Pink Goes On. “The long-lasting lip colors were so useful because they gave us one less thing to have to touch up when there was so much prosthetic work going on,” says Biscoe.
Creating Angelyne’s Ample Assets
“There’s not a look where she doesn’t have some type of prosthetic on, whether it’s a nose or a combination of nose and breasts and cheeks. There was always something that she’s got going on,” explains Van Dyke, who described working on Angelyne as “a makeup artist bucket list kind of job.” He goes on to say that Rossum was “fully covered” in prosthetics and that the “palms of her hands” were the only visible parts of her that were real. “She had a neckpiece that rises from underneath her jawline that encompasses her entire neck, clavicle, and breasts, then comes all the way down to under the breast line and kind of terminates into the armpit area. She has a chin [prosthetic], cheeks, an upper lip prosthetic, nose and nose bridge prosthetics, forehead, stipple on her lids, prosthetic ear lobes, arms, and hands.” Biscoe says that the crew would try to hold a fan for Rossum on hot days, but it was pointless because the air wasn’t hitting any of her real skin.