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"You don't just wake up in the morning and wash your face and comb your hair and go out and look like Marilyn Monroe. She [knew] every trick of the beauty trade." Milton H. Greene, photographer.
Marilyn exercised daily to maintain her 36-22-36 proportions. Even if Liz Hurley reportedly said she would kill herself if she were as fat as Marilyn, we think she was pretty fabulous.
THE ICON
Marilyn Monroe's name is synonymous with classic beauty, style and, of course, sensuality. Her image is deeply etched into popular memory and her style still elicits many modern-day look-a-likes (think Lindsay Lohan's New York Magazine cover, the platinum Gwen Stefani and Material Girl Madonna).
BEST PRACTICE
Minor plastic surgery, a very extensive make up routine and cropped, straightened and lightened hair completed the transformation from a pretty Norma Jeane Baker to the exquisite and ethereal Marilyn. In a masochistic turn, she was known to indulge in ice baths to keep her skin firm, and always protected herself from the sun, hidden under hats and parasols to maintain her signature porcelain skin.
Her make up routine was no less elaborate, with her make up artist claiming it took from 1.5 to 3 hours to complete. All aspects of Marilyn's look had a purpose — be it her raised hairline, arched eyebrows, famed beauty mark, her feline eyeliner or fake lashes. She even layered 3 shades of lipstick at a time — dark red on the outside, and gradually lightening as she worked her way in for full, glowing lips.
WHAT SHE SAID
"I don't want to make money. I just want to be wonderful."
"My arrival in school, with painted lips and darkened brows, started everybody buzzing. Why I was a siren, I hadn't the faintest idea. I didn't want to be kissed, and I didn't dream of being seduced by a duke or a movie star. The truth was that with all my lipstick and mascara and precocious curves, I was as unresponsive as a fossil. But I seemed to affect people quite otherwise."
WHAT THEY SAID
"This girl had something I hadn't seen since silent pictures. She had a kind of fantastic beauty like Gloria Swanson and she radiated sex like Jean Harlow. She didn't need a soundtrack to tell her story." Leon Shamroy, the cinematographer who shot Marilyn's first screen test.
Marilyn's Cult Products: Red lipstick – in 3 shades; Shu Uemura Cleansing Oil (rinsed with cold water a whopping 15 times every night), followed by cold cream, olive oil or lanolin. And what did she sleep in? "Why, Chanel No. 5, of course!"