There’s something slightly unsettling, even repulsive about foundation, and if you’ve seen The Andy Warhol Diaries on Netflix, you know what I mean. A makeup artist glops Warhol’s face with what could be gesso, blanking out his skin, his eyebrows, even his lips until he resembles a Madame Tussauds wax figure with a Cheshire-cat smile. That may well have been his intention, and if so, bravo! Job well done!
Today’s Warholian foundation can be found among those in pursuit of Instagram Face. The look is a painstaking layer cake of makeup, cosmetic injections, and Facetune. Thanks to the beauty extremists, foundation sales are robust. Each new product has increasing levels of opacity and potency, upping the ante with claims of full coverage for 24 or even 30 hours. Insomniacs, doughnut-makers, and ravers apparently insist on flawless skin as night turns to day turns to night again—not that we’ll notice. It’s a lot. And for some of us, it’s much too much. This may explain the counter-trend of foundation alternatives, including tinted moisturizers that are as substantial as vapor.
