Best face forward Makeup expert steers women to suitable cosmetics

There are wardrobe consultants who help you sort through your shopping mistakes and tell you what not to wear.

And stylists who take one look at your mousy hair and determine the perfect cut and color.

Tamara Efron is a different kind of makeover expert. Her specialty is makeup.

Putting it on, of course. And throwing it out.

In an hour, she can sort through the 22 shades of taupe eyeshadow and 16 coral lipsticks you were seduced into buying at the makeup counter and find the perfect one.

Or tell you where to get it, often on the cheap. The best part: Despite her tony surroundings, she's not a snob. She just bought her favorite lip tint at Whole Foods in Greenwich for less than $4.

"Most people have the perfect makeup already," says Efron, a makeup artist at the Warren-Tricomi Salon in Greenwich. "They just have so much of the wrong stuff, they can't find the right stuff."

Maybe you are one of those confused sorts who inspired Efron, once a house artist for some luxury cosmetic brands, to create the service she calls "makeup wardrobing."

At $200 an hour, the consultation is as pricey as a luxury face cream, but Efron makes a good cosmetics case for it:

"If you look in your vanity, or that drawer where you keep your makeup you may have spent that much or more on things you never wear."

Her goal is to make her clients more confident and educated -- the kind of makeup buyer who can politely say "no" to a counter artist who has just painted her face and tries to sell her the entire collection of the season's big color story. Even if vivid teal liner and almondine pencil is really not her best look.

"When I worked at counters, people bought everything I put on," says Efron, still astonished. She attributes that phenomenon to issues of consumer confidence rather than her charm as a salesperson. "I want you to become so knowledgeable about what works for you and what doesn't, that you can shop for cosmetics and say 'yes' to what works and 'no' to what doesn't."

Too booked to make house calls, Efron asks her clients to come to the salon with all their makeup. It's best, she says, to separate them into cellophane bags by category i.e, lip glosses in one, eyeshadows in another. Tell her a bit about your lifestyle as she empties your bag and she quickly gets the picture of you and your makeup weaknesses.

"I can tell you want to bring out your eyes and you are confused by lipstick," she tells a client who arrives with more than 100 pieces of makeup, most of it eyeshadows, liners and lipsticks. And not a single blush. "You need to be more rosy. We are going to work on that."

To another who has 12 taupe shadows of ever so slightly different hues, she says, "You have beautiful makeup, but you buy the same thing over and over again." Polite translation: Her client is a cosmetics counter sucker. She adds, with a playful growl, "Your brushes need a good washing."

It is not unusual for Efron to have her clients toss lots of their makeup. We watched her throw away 93 items from one client's bag, leaving her with just 22. "This is all she needs to create a great face and build on it."

She grimaced at the sight of a brand-new coral lipstick another client had purchased a day earlier, excited about the summer trend of glossy, coral lips. "It's granny coral," Efron pronounces, explaining that while coral is indeed a very hip color story this summer, it is not for everyone. Especially if it is frosty. "If you are going to wear coral make sure it is very sheer or it's going to look too granny." In the same cosmetics bag, she finds a sheer coral gloss, a shade called Bunny Girl by Pout, and is now ecstatic. "This I love. Perfect coral," she says, and waves around the gloss wand for dramatic effect. She swipes it on her client's hand in several spots and mixes it with lipsticks from the client's personal stash. "All of your lipsticks work really well with this. You can make five different looks playing with this gloss and your lipsticks. You don't need to buy a thing."

While Warren-Tricomi sells cosmetics by Paula Dorf and Kevin Aucoin, the salon does not consider makeup wardrobing a vehicle for selling makeup, Efron explains.

"Our job here is to make our clients look their best. I'm familiar with every line out there. I've used them all. Shopped them all. Worn them all. And when someone comes in for this kind of consultation, I have an obligation to tell them what they need is in CVS, Sephora or Nieman Marcus if that's where they can find it."

Her clients leave with shopping lists, based on places where Efron has found holes in their wardrobes. In one case, she suggested a bottle of Trish McEvoy brush cleaner, a top-of-the line bronzer brush and a new tube of Stila lip glaze in Apricot. Her client had let it dry up. "It's an amazing color you were ignoring," she tells her. For another there were suggestions for blush, new eye liner and brow pencils.

Sometimes Efron invites her clients back for a makeup lesson, teaching them to use what she's wardrobed. It is an added expense and not one she recommends every time. "Some people need help putting it on, some don't."

Listening to Efron as she tosses cosmetics is like getting a cheat sheet for a makeup artist's pop quiz. Here are some tips we gleaned from two wardrobing sessions:

* Confused by foundation? Most women are. Here's a trick for getting color right. Take three shades you think suit your skin tone. On clean, moisturized skin make three vertical lines on your face with the competing shades. (Make sure the lines are far enough apart that they do not blend.) Head outside. "The line you can't see is your color."

* Like cream blush? So does Efron, but only on clean skin. "With foundation, powder and other makeup it separates and breaks up." She suggests cream blushes only for women who can go without foundation or want to wear a light day look. For best application, use a foundation brush.

* Avoid lipsticks and glosses with a gray undertone. This hue is often found in fashion lines, and while pinkish grays are OK on the runway, "Dead people have gray lips. You don't want them at the office."

* Your best cosmetics will make you look like a real baby face. "Your perfect colors are the colors of your baby lips, baby cheeks and baby skin." Use those colors as inspiration.

* Check out inexpensive drug store bronzers. Cheap lines, Efron explains, are made with less pigment than their high-end rivals. Since you want a natural look with bronzer, "cheap is the way to go."

* Don't buy your makeup based on magazine "best" lists or model credits in magazines. Efron tossed one client's Nars blush in Orgasm. Even though the peach, shimmer powder gets kudos galore in the beauty press she told her client, "It's a great color, but not on you."

* Mascara is personal. Find your favorite, cheap or pricey, and wear it well and replace it every three to six months.

* Budget tight? Try cream-to-powder formulas that are a cinch to apply and dry to a crease-free consistency.

* Buy the best brushes you can afford. Efron can find just about any product she craves on the cheap, but not brushes. Natural fibers are best and top lines do them best, she says. Her picks are by Kevin Aucoin, Trish McEvoy and Shu Uemura. "What you use to apply your makeup is often more important than the product itself."

* Clean your brushes once a month in an anti-bacterial soap and air dry. In between, use a spray cleaner to disinfect and remove residue daily. She likes a spritz by Trish McEvoy. She mists her brushes with it, then dusts them off on a tissue.