Reviews for The 5-Minute Face: The Quick and Easy Makeup Guide for Every Woman

The average rating for The 5-Minute Face: The Quick and Easy Makeup Guide for Every Woman based on 2 reviews is 2 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-12-05 00:00:00 James Weinrich I returned this book to the bookstore. I hardly ever return books, even if they are so bad that I stop reading them partway through. But I found this book obnoxious enough that I returned it. You, however, may like it a lot. Let me ask you this. When you stand in line at the grocery store, one of the magazines you probably see on the racks is O, The Oprah Magazine. And I'm sure you've noticed that Oprah graces the cover of every single issue. Does this irk you at all? Sure, she's a self-made woman, and good for her for becoming so successful, and when you're that successful you can do whatever you want with your magazine covers. But do you find it at all arrogant that she's on the cover of every single issue? If not, then you probably won't have any problems with this book, either. But if you do, read on. Carmindy's picture is all over this book. She's on the cover and the about the author pages, but that's to be expected. But she's also sprinkled throughout the book, and the pictures just get more and more gratuitous. There are seven pictures of her pretending to do make-up on the models, obviously pretending because the model is already fully made up and she is grinning away and holding a brush to some random spot on her face. Then later in the book, she drops the pretenses of even pretending to be making these models up and just puts in pictures of her posing with the models she made up. But most peculiar of all are all the full-page shots thrown in that have nothing to do with the application of make-up. There are twelve full-page shots of the author sprinkled throughout the pages of the book. I will grant you that a couple of them are legitimately related to the content of the book. There's a picture of her in the section on what makeup to wear with blond coloring, and she's a blond. Of course, that happens to be the only coloring that has pictures of two different models, all other types of coloring are adequately illustrated with just one model, but whatever, it's still legit. There's a picture of her demonstrating a bronzed face in the appropriate section, fair enough. But some of the pictures are just completely random. There's a part on how to do your makeup for a red-tie event. It talks about how to wear red lipstick appropriately. Then you see a picture of her in makeup that is nothing like the one she's talking about. There's a two-page spread of her holding her fingers up in the numbers one, two, three, four, and five after she demonstrates the five-minute face. You cannot go more than about three pages without seeing the author's face. Now if I were a huge Carmindy fan, and I masturbated to her pictures at night, then yeah, maybe I'd like this book. But this book seems almost as focused on the celebrity of the make-up artist as it is on the technique of make-up application, and that just wasn't what I was looking for. However, I do feel compelled to mention that I tried the five-minute face, and I am actually very impressed with it. Some of it is standard stuff: use concealer to cover flaws, use lip color and blush. Some of it is a little less standard, like using highlighter. And I found her advice on how to do simple eye makeup ingenious. She recommended to completely skip the eyeshadow, and use nothing but some highlighter on your browbone and eyeliner on your upper lid. (Well, okay, she also advised to use mascara, but I am blessed with excellent eyelashes so I skip that part.) And suddenly, in one minute you have great looking, well-defined eyes. Who knew it was so simple? Since I've actually started adapting her technique for doing eyes, I feel compelled to give it at least two stars. But I got too sick of looking at her face to rate it any higher than that.

Review # 2 was written on 2008-01-28 00:00:00 C David H Harris Carmindy does wonderful work, most people will agree. However, tutorials aren't exactly her strong point. The pictures were beautiful, cut up lipstick makes me smile everytime. I also enjoyed the variety of models she used. Unfortunately, I have a much different take on makeup that Carmindy. I enjoyed her writing about inner-beauty, but it didn't seem much more inspiring that the usual magazine self-esteem boosts. I don't wear makeup everyday, because I don't really care what I look like. I enjoy more of the Kevin Aucoin approach. Five minutes is not relaxing, it is still rushed and serving the purpose of looking "acceptable" everyday. Why not add a little fun to your routine? When I sit down with a book to try new makeup techniques I want it to take much more than 5 minutes. Her approach would be good for teens, because it would be almost impossible to overdo any of her looks. Even the smoky eye is a bit conservative, in my opinion. If anything, Carmindy inspired me to put away the tinted gloss and go with the red lipstick, anything else would just be too boring for me.