It’s our last day in Beijing. This morning, Michelle is doing a photo shoot for Cosmopolitan magazine at Beijing’s most famous photo studio. It’s a few blocks away, so we walk. There’s a little surprise waiting for Michelle: a makeup artist! What a treat. She won’t have to do her own makeup, plus she gets to see a top Chinese artist at work.
He spends most of the time on her eyes, carefully applying eyeliner and adding flirty false lashes. It turns out he’s also the hairstylist. He breaks out the large barrel curling iron and the Elnett hairspray and gives Michelle a Farrah Fawcett look. The shoot takes place next door at the Cosy Café, a small, sun-filled restaurant. The photographer barely says a word, but the editors tell her to look innocent for the first photo and to summon her inner Angelina Jolie for the next. “It’s Cosmo! Says Jerome, the Lancome China PR director. “Sexy!”
The beauty editor interviews Michelle over a lunch of beef soup with noodles and watermelon juice. The questions: Michelle’s favorite Lancome makeup (Le Crayon Khol eyeliner in white, the Color Design Matte lipsticks, Teint Miracle, Le Base Pro and Le Crayon Poudre eyebrow pencil), the questions she’s asked most frequently (how to cover pimples and dark circles) and makeup advice for Chinese women.
We jump in the minivan for our ride to the next shoot. This time it’s Marie Claire in a gritty studio on the outskirts of town. The Marie Claire editors are groovy and cool and have great hair and laid-back style. They’re in the middle of eating lunch from McDonald’s: Chicken McNuggets, Filet-O-Fish, Spicy Chicken Filet Burger, fries and corn salad.
There’s a little confusion over the direction of the shoot. They want “animal,” but no one’s quite able to explain what that means. Cat eyes? Leopard print eyeshadow? Halloween? Michelle does an exaggerated cat eye using the new Cool Lavande eyeshadow palette and the silver and purple Ombre Magnetique shadows from the spring Ultra Lavanade collection. The hairdressers tease Michelle’s abundant hair until it’s about as big as she is. The clothes and accessories for the shoot arrive—in a small backpack! But it’s like Mary Poppins’ backpack. The editor has somehow crammed a dozen H&M dresses and lots of sparkly necklaces, bracelets and headbands in there and pulls out one after the other to our amazement.
The shoot goes smoothly, the only downside being the temperature of the studio. (Look closely at the pictures above. You can see the editors are wearing their jackets and look how close the heater is to Michelle!) The beauty editor smiles as the photos pop up on the monitor. “Michelle has a good camera face,” she says to me.
It’s back to the hotel to change for dinner, but it takes a while to navigate Beijing’s rush hour traffic. Dinner is at a traditional Chinese restaurant near the Forbidden City. We drive through some beautiful Beijing neighborhoods, illuminated by strings of lights. It looks like a set from a 1950s movie. Our new friends from Lancome China join us for dinner and we have a fun night talking and trying new things, like pork neck and Chinese wine sweetened with dried sugar plums. It’s a very nice way to end our visit to Beijing.
Next up: Hong Kong!
Photos: Marie Claire beauty editor and Jerome, a dress option for the Cosmo shoot, time for makeup, the crew at the studio, the Cosmo shoot, the hairstylist's suitcase, on set with Marie Claire, the wardrobe options, MC's beauty director, Michelle's big hair and blow dryer as wind machine!
