Really Beautiful

July 2009 | Brigitte German | By Sonja Niemann, Photos by James White
 

She’s always made up, but she can hardly pretty up other people. A shame, Liv Tyler thinks. She would have a made a first-class makeup artist, she says. On the other hand, she’s useless as a celeb.

Brigitte: You’ve said your dream would be to open a spa where you could offer highly personal facials. That was a joke, wasn’t it?
Liv: Absolutely not. I’m often asked what I’d like to do beside acting and modeling, and that is my answer. Simply to have a place where women can come together, do a little sport, let themselves be pampered and prettied up. I was something of a tomboy when I was a child, always with scratched knees – really not a “girly girl.” But my mother and my grandmother were very feminine. And I used to love watching them go about their beauty routine in front of the mirror. So when I was twelve, I’ve got a whole lot of beauty tricks in store, some of which I’ve shown to my girlfriends. And I still like that. When my best friend Victoria comes to visit and goes “Oh, my skin!” I put her in the bathroom, make her a facial and even press her pimples myself…

Brigitte: Really?
Liv: …I take care of her whole face. I don’t know why, but it seems to help.

Brigitte: But mostly you’re the one whose face is really being taken care of, since you’re the face of Givenchy Make-up and Fragrances. What kind of relationship do you have with the man who always does your make-up? It becomes a truly intimate act, when someone comes so close to you.
Liv: Yes, it’s true, it’s very intimate. I’ve been working with Nicolas Degennes, Givenchy’s make-up artist, for seven years now. Although I only meet him four or five times a year. He’s very friendly and he can have a lot of empathy with women. I think that’s an amazing quality in a man. There’s nothing superficial about beauty for him. You can see he loves women – real women too, not just models.

Brigitte: It’s been said that you like to swap beauty tricks with your father. What kind of tricks does Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler have in store?
Liv: I’ve once said that my father and I did facials together. Ever since, journalists keep asking me about it, because they’d like me to talk about my father. But of course I’ve learned everything about beauty from my mother. Though my father really takes care of his skin. He looks good, don’t you think ? And that is, without ever having something done.

Brigitte: It’s not just that your father is a rockstar, you too can sing very well. But except for a short passage in Jersey Girl, you don’t sing. Many much less talented fellow actresses have recorded albums. Why not you?
Liv: I’ve just recorded a duet with my friend Evan Dando…

Brigitte: …the singer in American indie band the Lemonheads.
Liv: Yes. We were in a film together, Heavy, when I was 16. He’s been one of my best of friends since then. He was recording an covers album (Varshons, out in June) and he asked Kate Moss and me whether we’d like to record a duet with him. So I sing a Leonard Cohen cover with him on the CD. I really enjoyed doing it. But recording a full album? I don’t know. I really like acting. What I would love best of all would be to do a musical, a film in which I could dance and sing.

Brigitte: You began modeling when you were 14 but went on to act very quickly afterwards. Film critics weren’t very nice to you in the beginning. Do you sometimes have the feeling that beauty can also be a burden?
Liv: I’ve never really found myself beautiful. I was a teenager when I began working. The only thing I felt at the time was uncertainty, because I was so tall. Even when I was 11 or 12, I was almost as tall as I am now (ie 1.78 meters.) The boys in my class only reached as high as my breasts, and I surely wasn’t to their taste. I felt very self-conscious and I wished I was smaller, more like other women. As I grew up, I learned to accept it, I even enjoyed wearing high heels. But I’ve never gotten rid of that little complex. I always feel most beautiful when I’m in a group and don’t really stand out. But your question was about acting. I never get told: you’re too good-looking to play this role. Maybe they’ll say: you don’t have the right look. But it’s not a big deal, I’ll never let something like that discourage me.

Brigitte: You’ve played in very different films. There were blockbusters, like Hulk, Armageddon, The Lord of the Rings but also smaller, small-budget films in between. How do you choose your roles? Do you have a strategy?
Liv: No. I have no fixed plan. I know some girls are very good at this, for instance often playing in rom coms so it becomes their hallmark. But that doesn’t work for me. I have to say I don’t live in California among film stars, I only mingle with musicians. Musicians record an album, they’re much focused, then they go on tour, then they go home and stay there for a year or two. Actors on the other hand always have to be ‘there’, to be on the red carpet, to be present. That doesn’t suit me. When I’m on a project I work very hard, but when it’s over, I want to take a break and lead a normal life and just be a mother. I’m a “crap celebrity” as it was, really useless as a celeb.

Brigitte: One more question about beauty. You were never scrawny, you always were a little bit curvy, which we found great. That is, you’d eat cheeseburgers, and you wouldn’t care too much about sport. And then you went through this really tough diet and sport program with famous personal trainer David Kirsch.
Liv: There was a time in my life, when I was married, I had a baby, I had founded a family, and I didn’t necessarily want to focus on my body. But now that I’m a little bit older, I really enjoy being fit again, and I really enjoy eating too! though I must say it’s almost never cheeseburgers. I like running, swimming, riding a bike. And I have a son! Each morning, while I make breakfast in the kitchen, he comes on his tiny bicycle and goes around me, trying to make me ride it too. Have you ever tried doing that on such a tiny thing? That’s the hardest training in the world!

Liv Tyler Talks About True Beauty

May 20th, 2009 | InStyle Magazine / Celebrity Beauty Buzz
 

Liv Tyler dished some of her beauty secrets to InStyle magazine, where she said “There is no such thing as the perfectly beautiful face. True beauty comes from having happiness in your life.”

On her favorite beauty trick:
Liv learned from a makeup artist, after applying foundation and a little blush, dust your face with translucent powder, then mist with a rosewater spray and lay a Kleenex over your face for a few seconds. You’ll be left with skin that looks like you have no makeup on at all.

On having pale skin:
I tried to do a spray tan once, the whole experience was so strange – standing there naked with a mask on my face while someone sprayed me. I kept thinking, the things we do for beauty are so funny. It wasn’t for me.

Her one beauty indulgence:
There’s nothing better than getting your hair done. I practically bounce out of the salon. It’s on of those things I rarely do, but when I treat myself to it, I think, Man, I wish I could do this every day!

Source: Celebrity Beauty Buzz (interview by InStyle Magazine)

By Mira Torres, Examinar.com:

Liv Tyler at the Time 100 Gala

 

Okay, I read that people hated it. On the otherhand,  she was voted the Instyle look of the day. I must disagree with the naysayers because I really effing LOVED it. But I guess I’m a bit biased – as I love Liz and I loove Stella McCartney and I love fashion that can be a bit “out there” and different. I’ve been a little tired of the same gaping necklines and draped fabrics which have been seen over and over again at every gala or on Nicole Richie for the last x-amount of years. It seems that popular stylist Rachel Zoe is manufacturing  “celebrity” style on  each and every one of her clients. But that’s for another article…

At the Time 100 Most influential people celebration in New York City, Liv Tyler was the bell of the ball. Stella and Liv took the “little black dress” to all new heights with the Illusion dress. A short black lace ensemble that had fashion critics buzzing about.

To get Liv’s peachy sun-kissed glow:

1. NEW! Midnight Cowboy Body Shimmerlotion ($28.00) – Bathe in it (kidding!) for the glow effect.

2.NARS “Gueule de Nuit” cream blush ($25.00) – a peach coral. Dab and blend from cheek bone to temple.

3. E.L.F. Mineral Shadow in Natural(4Fair) or Sassy(4Miedium/Dark) ($3.00) – Dust gold shadow from eyeline to upper lid.

4. Too Faced Starry Eyed Liquid Liner in “Restraining Order” ($17.50) -There’s nothing more red-carpet than black liquid liner.

5. MAC cream lipstick”Vegas Volt” and Sephora Brand lipgloss “Peach Bellini” -The perfect bright coral lipstick layered with a peach&gold glitter gloss.

Now call up your ridiculously rich british buddy designer, ask her to lend you a dress, and call it (another) fabulous night. Thanks for reading dolls! The object of art is to give life a shape (Shakespeare) and torresmira@yahoo.com.

Article is an opinion from Mira Torres, posted at Examiner.com.

Liv is featured in InStyle Magazine’s latest issue. She shares several of her beauty secrets! Bits of the article/interview are available at Celebrity Beauty Buzz and are posted here:

Liv Tyler dished some of her beauty secrets to InStyle magazine, where she said “There is no such thing as the perfectly beautiful face. True beauty comes from having happiness in your life.”

On her favorite beauty trick:
Liv learned from a makeup artist, after applying foundation and a little blush, dust your face with translucent powder, then mist with a rosewater spray and lay a Kleenex over your face for a few seconds. You’ll be left with skin that looks like you have no makeup on at all.

On having pale skin:
I tried to do a spray tan once, the whole experience was so strange – standing there naked with a mask on my face while someone sprayed me. I kept thinking, the things we do for beauty are so funny. It wasn’t for me.

Her one beauty indulgence:
There’s nothing better than getting your hair done. I practically bounce out of the salon. It’s on of those things I rarely do, but when I treat myself to it, I think, Man, I wish I could do this every day!

For  entire article at Celebrity Beauty Buzz, click here!

Full scans of the article in InStyle Magazine are most welcome!

The actress is shaking off divorce with a hot new body and a romcom in the works, but her favourite role is being a mum.

There’s something very unexpected about meeting Liv Tyler. It’s not that she’s even more beautiful in real life than she appears in pictures (which she is, by the way; disarmingly so). It’s not that she’s toweringly tall — she’s 5ft 10in and that’s before heels. It’s not that, as an established member of Hollywood royalty, she’s relaxed, well mannered and interested in the people around her — our meeting starts with her asking my PR companion how her breast-feeding is going, and she’s sad to learn it isn’t going anywhere. “Oh, but it only hurts for a couple of weeks and then it’s so great!” she cajoles, before turning to me, diet Coke in hand, and asking: “Shall we go next door and start gabbing?” It’s not even her remarkably glossy mane of dark hair or that not a single wrinkle is perceptible on her 31-year-old face (she’ll be 32 in July, she tells me). No, it’s none of that stuff. It’s that this woman, so often considered to be the voluptuous, homely girl-next-door, has developed some serious phwoar! factor.

There is no sign of squidginess on the body sitting in front of me, one that has, in the past, yo-yoed from slim(ish) to decidedly curvy. It’s quite the opposite now: she is so seriously toned that you can clearly make out delineated quadriceps beneath her black Wolford leggings. She seems more in control — even of her sexuality, which used to spill out like its own force field, just like those soap suds she wallowed in while washing the car in that famous scene from the movie One Night at McCool’s.

In fact, the girl who was unaware for most of her childhood that her real father was the rock god Steven Tyler, and who landed her first lead in a movie aged just 16, appears to have done a bit of a Gwyneth and transformed herself from “normal” to well-honed totty. Of course, for Gwyneth it was about making a point of emerging from a self-imposed hiatus as an (almost) stay-at-home mother. For Tyler, it’s a sadder story: she is emerging from the rubble of divorce from the British musician Royston Langdon, the father of her four-year-old son. Clearly, it has made her toughen up. After all, only a few months ago she admitted to being devastated when he moved out of the family home, and that it was so hard to be in her New York home without him that she had to move to California. “The hardest part is when they leave,” she said. “It also brings up a lot of issues — you might feel like a failure, or like there is something wrong with you. You can’t run away from yourself — you have to just deal with it.”

Deal with it she has. There was last year’s blockbuster movie The Incredible Hulk, following on from starring roles in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. There’s a new romcom, The Romantics, in the works, and she’s just signed on for another two years as spokesperson for Givenchy, having already held the role for six. She’s also streamlining things. “I go through phases,” she says. “But, especially when I got married and I had Milo, I wanted to nest and have a family in a way that I’d always dreamt of doing. And I love to cook — I’m such a Cancer in that way. I like to be at home and then when I work I like to work really hard.”

Now, though, she also works out hard. To escape her heartache, she threw herself into a fitness regime. She reportedly trains with David Kirsch in New York, a fitness guru who has worked with the likes of Heidi Klum. Recent pictures of Tyler and Kirsch kissing in a parking lot sparked rumours of a post-divorce love affair, evidence of our heightened fascination with the love life of Hollywood’s sexiest new singleton.

She’s also learnt that exercise should be enjoyable. “I recently got a hula hoop and I’ve been living in LA [she has said it is hard to be in her New York home without her ex]. I put my favourite song on and stand outside and hula hoop in every weird direction until the song’s over and I’m all out of breath. It’s really fun.”

She has also learnt to be at one with herself. “All you can do really is try your best and accept yourself. I’ll always have a more round stomach, but thank God I have thin ankles.”

There are dichotomies with Tyler, however. When she talks, her voice is still quiet and breathy — more like a child than a sex kitten. Despite this, she seems to be fiercely independent. “I want to be able to decide what I’m doing with my life.” She says she “really enjoys dressing up”, but admits being addicted to her sloppy tracksuit bottoms. “The moment I get home I take everything off and put my sweats on or my pyjamas — I like to be comfortable.”

She clearly loves clothes, but says she has “stopped buying fashion magazines. I mean, it’s such fun, but I don’t want to be influenced by everyone else about what’s cool or not cool; I want to be who I want to be”. So, for all the glamour, she’s a grunge girl at heart. No wonder she admits: “I still have my original pair of Converse trainers from when I was a teenager somewhere in my closet.” She also owns up to driving barefoot. “I can’t drive in heels, so I always take my shoes off. Gwyneth is the best driver in heels ever! I’ve seen her, and I have no idea how she does it.”

It’s also clear that it’s her role as a mother that influences her most, and she wants to be as hands-on as possible — which means the usual disruptions. “Milo [who calls her his princess] wakes up every morning at 5.30 or 6 — ping! — and so the hardest thing is the lack of sleep. I try and go to bed before 10 or 11pm, but it’s so hard. If I don’t get more than six hours of sleep for a few days in a row I start to really lose it and just feel so panicked and stressed. When people ask me, ‘What is the first thing you do in the morning? What’s your routine?’ I say, ‘Er, I get up. I make breakfast,’” she laughs breathily. “‘I beg Milo to try and snooze for 30 more minutes!’ Of course when they’re up, they’re up.”

She has added pressures in the motherhood arena; for her, the yummy-mummy contest at the school gate is on an altogether grander scale. “The hardest thing is taking him to school, as sometimes I’ll literally just throw my coat on over my nightgown, but the paparazzi wait almost every day outside his school. It’s so hard because I don’t want to think about what I’m wearing when I’m taking him to school. I want to get him to school safely, then do whatever I have to do.”

Still, that independent streak kicks in: not for her that dressing-up-for-the-press malarkey. “I’m an on-off celebrity,” she says. “I couldn’t live like that all the time. I don’t know how people do it. Honestly, I like a great trench coat and to throw it on over something; I don’t want to be obsessing all the time about my outfit. I love being a mother and a normal mother as much as I can, doing basic things. And I love my job and being spontaneous in life, and if you’re trotting around in heels the whole time, you can’t really do that.” Just as well she’s held on to those Converse trainers, then. Right now nothing is going to slow Tyler down.

 
LIV’S BEAUTY FAVOURITES

Givenchy Phenomen’Eyes “It’s genius. Why didn’t anybody think of it before?” £18.11

Vernis Please! nail varnish in poetique lily Great on pale skin. £11.75

Rouge Interdit lipstick in poetique iris Not red and not orange, just nice. £17.62

Skin Targeters Black for Light mask It brightens your skin. £52

Prismissime Eyes in poetique browns “You can choose the colours you want.” £32.79

Beauty icons Women with something sympathetic in their eyes