Political Weirdos

News analysis has guessed the source of Trump’s orange face for some time—and even the experts I talked to for this piece offered theories: Was it bronzer? Tanning pills? Makeup atop an actual tan? A means to cover rosacea? How much is coming from the makeup artist, and how much is coming from Trump himself?

Kriss Blevens, a makeup artist who has made up every president since Jimmy Carter, offers some clarity.

“Because I have done Trump’s makeup several times, I can tell you that, at times, his face looked bronzer than the rest of him, and that was before makeup,” she says. “My guess was he relied on some self-tanners to try to maintain a certain look that he’d come to feel healthy in from living in Florida.” She believes Trump’s context of living in the state has trained his eye, and even seeing himself in the mirror with so much color had skewed his own objectivity.

“I wanted to neutralize the bronze look, then touch up around the eye area just so it was even in tone,” she says. She asked for Trump’s hands to apply bronzer, and when Trump asked why, she said it was because he talked with his hands and they weren’t as dark as his face.

Then, with the makeup near done, he asked for more pigment on his face.

“He will look and go, ‘Do I need more color?’ And I say, ‘No, you don’t, trust me,’” says Blevens. “I had a word with him, and I’m very diplomatic about it. Owning my power as an artist in the face of power, like a person in power like that—it takes a whole career to even be able to do that.

https://www.fastcompany.com/91181132/its-not-your-imagination-donald-trump-is-less-orange