Search - Beauty Therapy: Minimum Makeup, Maximum Impact on DVD

Minimum Benefit, Maximum Ramy Promotion

Penumbra | Atlanta, GA USA | 04/15/2007

(1 out of 5 stars)

"This DVD was expensive and disappointing. I cannot recommend this for anyone who wants to use a DVD as a learning tool for makeup instruction. It's not even good entertainment for those of us who consider the makeup-and/or-hair-styling-instructional-DVD genre as the epitome in chick flick decadence.

The featured makeup artist, Ramy, may be talented - it's hard to tell based on this effort. The DVD comes across as nothing more than an extended infomercial promoting one artist, his New York salon, and his line of Beauty Therapy cosmetics. And not a very tempting infomercial, either.

There appear to be lots of products and colors visible behind Ramy's station as he works on the models. However, he seems to use the same one or two products and colors on all of his subjects. That wouldn't be a problem if the featured colors were so neutral that they did the job for all the girls, but they don't. Even though the majority of the models apparently fall into the warm-with-golden-undertones category, the two favored foundation colors (Porcelain Doll and Almond Princess) were obviously too yellow for most of them. The fact that he used these colors almost exclusively leads one to conclude that the make up line is limited and leans toward warm tones, but not in a natural way.

The production values here weren't very good. Although the DVD wasn't filmed in HD, it's simultaneously enlightening and ghastly to view this on an HDTV. Not only is it disturbingly obvious that the products Ramy uses don't match the skin tones, they don't go on evenly. Ramy continually stresses that his foundation is a liquipowder that goes on liquid but "dries to a micronized powder" - a very blotchy powder apparently. The finished faces looked unnatural with patchy areas of uneven pigment around the mouth and nose and obvious lines of demarcation. Almost every one of the girls looked like a "Glamour Don't" after the make up was applied.

Although his contouring work is pretty good, Ramy demonstrates by working on one side of the face and then turning the model's chair so we can see the difference between the two sides. Unfortunately, while he's working, the camera is usually on the side of the model that isn't being worked on, so most of the time it's hard to tell what he actually did to get that effect.


If you're interested in picking up makeup tips and techniques, a much better choice would be the DVD, "Your MakeUp - Simple Steps to Amazing Looks". That DVD, also available on Amazon, has higher quality video, more practical instruction, and greater diversity among the subjects. It features a variety of male and female make up artists using generic make up and describing in detail everything they're doing and why. It is far more interesting and instructional than Ramy's extended sales pitch for his cosmetic line."

Smart and well organized!

R. Ramos | Dover, MI | 11/15/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"
This is a great DVD. It is better than any book or beauty magazine! The artist is definitely skilled and quite creative with his designs and use of color. There are some good suggestions for what color cosmetics to wear depending on your skin tone, facial shape, eye and hair coloring, which I find very helpful and useful. There are also many great tips and tricks from how to shape eye brows, contouring cheeks and nose, make your lips appearing bigger and fuller or how to do a great make up in just 30 second! I enjoyed Ramy's sense of humor as well. Very good production , A+
"