1973 January February March April May June July August September October NOVEMBER December

MY WORLD by David Bowie A WEEKLY DIARY EXCLUSIVELY WRITTEN FOR MIRABELLE MAGAZINE

3rd November 1973

   Ah yes, well, to get back to my make-up and fashions... Angie is out shopping with Daniella today, so maybe I'll be able to keep my mind on the subject this time!

   Sometimes I just sit and watch Angie putting her make-up on, carefully preparing herself to face the world. I get so engrossed in the art of it all that there are times when I forget what I'm supposed to be doing, like now, when I meant to tell you about me and end up getting completely involved with Angie!

   Actually it's from Angie that I learned so much about make-up... and, of course, Freddie, too. Freddie always tells us what colour we should make our hair for certain outfits and what kind of make-up he thinks would go best with his fantastic fashion creations.

   Once in a while Angie and I use the same colours, like light pink powder on our faces with light blue eye shadow around our eyes, or golden powder on our cheeks with dark green shadow on our eyelids.

   Well, I thought you might like it if I gave you a few little hints on your own personal 'Bowie' look!

   First of all, I see a lot of photos of you in the papers wearing your new Bowie haircuts, and while some look really attractive, some are just not carefully adapted to your lovely little faces. You must be careful to choose your hairdresser with great care and attention. It really doesn't depend on how much you spend, either. It could be that your own best buddy has the taste and talent to do it better than the most expensive hairdresser. Unless you have very together and turned-on friends, though, you'd best trust a professional.

   Susie cuts my hair usually, but when she's not around - like now (she's at the Chateau d'Herouville helping Mick Ronson record his album) Freddie often has a go at my locks... and I sometimes snip a few strands myself, only you have to be a bit careful about doing that!

   It looks like, as usual, I'm running out of space just whilst I'm in the middle of telling you something really important, so don't rush off and have your hair cut until after next week, when I've given you a few more tips!

10th November 1973

   There seems to be so much to say about make-up and fashions that I'm afraid I'm going to carry on talking about them for at least another week!

   Anyway, I was just telling you about haircuts and how to go about it all. You see, you've really got to study all the photos of the looks you really like, then look at your face and hair in the mirror for a really long time, experiment and play a little, use your imagination and decide which way you think you'd look most attractive. You should know exactly what you want when you talk it over with your hairdresser, or whoever you've entrusted with the cutting of your precious hair.

   Now, if you've got a good friend or hairdresser that you trust, they may have their own ideas and you'll have to come to the right decision between you. But consider it carefully, because the haircut's the most important thing - you can't change it every day like you can your make-up and a mistake will sometimes take months to grow out.

   Colour is next... a lot of people look best with their own natural colour, so you should really consider the matter quite carefully before you start trying to fool around with what nature gave you. Remember with colouring you can also make mistakes that it might take months, even years to completely recover from.

   If your hair is already quite light, you can just use colour rinses or food colouring to alter the shade, and you won't have to bleach or dye your hair at all. If you have brown or black hair and you really decide that you want to change the colour, you may have to have it stripped first and then dyed to the colour you want. This is usually quite time-consuming and expensive when done at the hairdresser, and doing it at home can be very dangerous because bleaches can very easily damage your hair forever.

   So my advice to you all is to be careful about things like this. It's all right for me because it fits in with the kind of life I lead. My life is one long theatre, so dressing up and being colourful is all part of it.

   See you next week.

17th November 1973

   Back to the subject of hair for a little longer. I just hope you aren't bored stiff by the whole business!

   Anyway, I must admit, that for me at least, it can be great fun to change your hair colouring occasionally, but if you are about to launch into it, first don't forget all my warnings and to ask some advice from a good reliable hairdresser... also, you'd best be sure that your school teachers or parents aren't going to force you to change it back as soon as you've done it! Especially as dyed hair dyed back to its original colour never really looks anything like the same!

   My favourite colour for the autumn is canary yellow, but I understand from the papers that some teachers just go crazy at the mere sight of canary yellow hair!!!!

   Anyway, back to my hair - Susie always colours my hair, and she uses a mixture of three different colours to do it. She says that the process is a professional secret though, so much as I would like to - I can't tell you how she does it. I must say, the more I watch Susie (and other hairdressers) at work, the more I am impressed by what an art hairdressing is. It's extraordinary what you can do with a bit of time, patience and talent.

   Since my hair is blond to begin with, Susie doesn't need to strip it or bleach it before putting the red colour in - which is why my hair manages to stay in a nice healthy condition. I wash it myself with a very basic natural shampoo and blow it dry, brushing it all back whilst I am drying it. I used to use a bit of setting lotion to give it body and get it to stand up, but now it just seems to go that way all by itself - with the help of Susie's expert cutting, of course!

   Speaking of haircuts, Lulu just came by for a visit, looking really lovely with her new short cut, so once again my lovelies, my attention is being rapidly distracted by a beautiful lady! As I am always saying, it's so great to have such wonderful friends as Angie and I have. I think in all my travels, it must be my friends that I miss most.

   But... I'll be back next week, with some more about the 'Bowie' look from the man who knows it best!

24th November 1973

   I've still got a great deal more to tell you about make-up and what I use, so here goes again...

   I use old-fashioned mascara, the kind you wet with a little brush and then brush onto your lashes. It comes in a cream cake form. I almost always use black, except occasionally I use blue.

   I often paint waves of colour all the way across my eyes and eyebrows rather than just on the lid area. This is usually in a pink or mauve tone and extends all the way across the nose and eyes and up into the hairline. I don't use glitter too much because I've found that it falls into my eyes while I'm performing, and as you can imagine, that can be a little awkward! Also I find the look of glitter just isn't soft enough for me. Sometimes I outline the gold circle on my forehead with tiny gold rhinestones which are stuck on with eyelash glue.

   I used to shave my eyebrows off, only lately I've taken to waxing them off. Sometimes I paint my fingers with red water colour, and powder my arms and legs with coloured or golden powder.

   Once at a concert, I even coloured my toes with red water colour! I like red a lot. I use red, pink, violet, mauve, orange and yellow more than other colours. I hardly ever use blue or green powders or eyeshadows.

   Very occasionally I use pearlised gloss on my lips in a very light tannish pink with white silver highlights. In the last few concerts I did in England, I painted tiny lightning streaks on my cheek or upper leg. Once in a while I put white powder on my hair, which made a strange sort of glow in stage lights but looked like white hair in photos.

   So now if you feel like going to a fancy dress party, or any parts dressed as Mr. Bowie, you will know exactly how to go about it!

   I have to admit, I don't really wear all this make-up around in the street, that's all for on stage - off stage is a slightly matter!

   So next week, I'll tell you about the make-up I wear off stage. Don't worry, I don't wear very much, so I won't be boring you too much longer with details of Mr. Bowie's face and body secrets.

   Until then,

Created: April 1998 © Paul Kinder

Last Updated: 18/7/98