Pogue on Makeup and HD TV!

Sorry just one more from David Pogue. The best part of HD Tv is the clairity and detail. I guess for those who appear on it, it's the downside!

Wow, wait till I tell you about the makeup I wore yesterday.

Sorry, couldn’t resist that opening. Actually, they make you up when you go on TV, and I’ve made seven TV appearances in the last 72 hours to comment on the release of Windows Vista.

Anyway, I sat down in the makeup chair at a cable news network yesterday and was joshing with Sandy, the makeup artist. “So can you make me look halfway decent?” I said, grinning.

“Sure. I’ll airbrush you,” she said.

I laughed—but then I noticed she was *not* laughing.

That’s weird, I thought. Didn’t she know she had just cracked a joke?

Awkward pause.

Then I said: “Wait—you mean airbrushing, like airbrushing a photo, right?”

She goes, “No. I mean airbrushing your face.” And she pulls out this gleaming silver artist’s airbrush jet, six inches long, connected by a hose to a compressor that looked like a lawnmower engine.

“Say WHAT?” I said?

“Close your eyes and hold your breath,” she said. And she proceeded, yes, to airbrush my face, spraying the makeup onto every exposed inch of my skin. Afterward, she wiped off my eyebrows and lips.

OK, I’ve done a ton of TV, but I’ve never been spraypainted before.

When I mentioned that, she replied—and this is why this story is appearing here in a technology blog—“It’s because of HD.”

That’s it, then. High-definition TV is gloriously detailed and sharp—but it also reveals every pock and imperfection of skin, and reveals the caked artificiality of standard makeup. Airbrushing on the foundation instead produces finer, more even, less noticeable coverage.

As I left the makeup room a minute later, I asked the anchor, who would be interviewing, if she, too, was airbrushed by Sandy every morning.

“Oh, yeah, it’s fabulous,” she said. “It just stays on all day. I’m gonna have to get me one of those machines for home.”

And there you have it: One new technology begets another. It’s the circle of life, baby.

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