Rachel Goodwin Makeup

I just finished reading one of the best guilty pleasure books I’ve read in a long time. Pamela De Barres deliciously candid I’m With the Band, Confessions of a Groupie. All I can say is, what on Earth took me so long?

Teenage diary entries overflowing with fantasies of being Paul McCartney’s bride, lusty nights spent backstage with musical icons Jim Morrison, Jimmy Page and Mick Jagger, it’s like reading an open love letter to the 1960s.

Miss Pamela wanted to rock all right and the The Sunset Strip was her stomping ground. She takes you with her on every exhilarating, occasionally humiliating adventure with total humility. From forming the worlds first all groupie girl band “The GTO’s” with musical mastermind Frank Zappa to lovelorn walks of shame through Laurel Canyon, to swooning onstage with Led Zeppelin as they play to 80,000 people.

Every page of her passionate personal journey brings to life, loud music, crazy parties, kooky characters, and an LA only the people who were there to experience it will ever know.

Her look walked the razor sharp edge of innocence and debauchery with instinctual ease.

What really resonated with me is Pamela’s endlessly resilient spirit and profound lust for life—okay mostly lust for musicians. But really…

Miss Pamela from Reseda, California you are my current “Fave Rave.” Thank you for stumbling through your perfectly imperfect life looking for love and finding absolution through music and the men who play it, but mostly for thinking it was wise to write it all down. May you forever be a muse.

I had to share my latest product obsession! Make Up For Ever HD cream blush is AMAZING, it blends into the skin leaving the softest looking whisper of color and no texture I’ve used lasts as long or looks as natural. You need the teensiest little dot of color, it’s very concentrated so a little goes a long way. I seriously can’t remember what I did before I discovered it! Thank you MUFE for nailing it yet again!

The other day I’d hit a bit of a rough patch when my wonderful friend Marco Souza—the most amazing makeup assistant in the world—stopped by holding a gloriously cheerful bouquet of flowers and this book.

I’m so grateful to Marco and John Galliano for unwittingly lifting me out of my funk, that Umami burger didn’t hurt either Oh what a miraculously effective wonder of unsolicited distraction!.

Thank you Roxanne Lowitt for capturing these brilliant stolen moments. For the delicious unguarded glimpses into a world where modern muses teeter on platform shoes, drift in clouds of ethereal fabrics while wearing foot long gold eyelashes and candy floss hair.

I’ll draw comfort from knowing this book can be a respite from those all too “real life” moments. To remind me that there is a place all be it fleeting, where fact and fiction can coexist and where the past collides with the future into one carefully constructed enchanted vision of beauty.

A fun filled carnival ride for your eyes, overflowing with fantastical characters concocted by the mind of a true fashion genius and his insanely talented cohorts. Backstage Dior is pure joy and a reminder to all of us to dream, dream, dream and if we’re lucky to never wake up.

For those of you that don’t know, I am a huge perfume enthusiast, a scent-o-phile if you will. I’m as intrigued by the creation and history of fragrance as I am by the end result. Maybe it was the element of fantasy around perfume that initially lured me in. Or maybe it was that perfume making kit I was given when I was 7? Now that’s a brave parent, Thanks Dad! Or maybe it was this ad with Jerry Hall? Who knows.

Fragrance advertising is some of the most evocative in the world and some of my favorite ads of all time have to be for Yves Saint Laurent’s iconic spice bomb Opium.

When Opium first came out in 1977 it caused a major stir. It may have been that it took its name from a powerful narcotic. The bottle itself was modeled after the ancient snuff bottles once carried by Japanese Samurai. Controversial enough for ya?

And the smell? Talk about sensory overload! Well, let’s just say this perfume is no wallflower. If it were a color it would be vermillion. An exotic concoction of heady florals, rich spices and woods meant to evoke the mystery of the Orient. Yves himself recommended it be worn as an “evening perfume” furthering it’s reputation as a powerful agent of seduction, meant to have men everywhere chasing the dragon if you will.

Yves himself found endless insiration in the far east and spent most of the ’70s on a quest for exotic pleasures and his fragrance Opium had women flocking to stores in hopes of capturing the allure of the forbidden, if even for just one night. Voila! A classic was born.

Opium—in my opinion—is a fragrance masterpiece, a polarizing scent not meant for the faint of heart, but who said everything had to be for everyone? It makes me happy to no end to see that the keepers of Opium flame, continue to invite us to board the Orient Express, to dream of far off lands where mysterious passions are indulged and all inhibitions fade.

ALLLLLL ABOARD!