In living color

If, at some point in your early years, your mom caught you pilfering her cosmetic kit red-handed – complete with smudged lipstick and blush so vivid and bright it put trannies to shame – then here’s a message for you: welcome to the club. The thing about colorful makeup is it can easily get out of control. One swipe too many of that purple eyeshadow and people will get the impression you have a troubled home life. Conservative folk liken bright maquillage to looks best left for under streetlights – i.e., your garden-variety hooker. Excessive? Hell, yeah. But it’s oh-so-fun.

Come makeup spring cleaning, it’s ideal to invest in a couple of bright sparklers. If the perfect little black dress needs the right accoutrements to set it off – maybe a vivid red patent pump or a sequin-encrusted clutch – the same goes for makeup. A little va-va-voom goes a long way.

Enter Artdeco, a cosmetic label hailing from Germany. Created in 1985 by capable Kaiser Helmut Baurecht, the label is part of a new wave of products brandishing something not acceptable since the much-maligned, now much-celebrated ’80s. If the decade was deluged with such misbegotten artifacts as shoulder pads and stirrup leggings, it at least made life more colorful. Think neoprene coats in ochre, rubber galoshes in polka dot prints and patent purses in purple. Another bonus? Defining your cheekbones in fuchsia was considered the height of fashion.

These days certain references are reincarnated in a much more subdued palette. No reason everyone should go to work looking like they just came from a Kiss concert. Yet Artdeco’s reason for success – nay, its path to glory – lies in its unabashed embrace of the bright and campy. Consumers can celebrate the joys of rollerskating to disco in teased hair, spandex cycling shorts and eyelids dusted with babydoll pink shadow with hints of lavender highlights. Or they can opt for something more in the spirit of Joan Collins in Dynasty, all smoky-eyed and red-lipped.

Artdeco’s line of shades ranging from punchy primary colors to more understated contemporary hues like sand, bronze and steel are suited to any skin tone. And though the products are priced mid-range (averaging P300 and up), the packaging rivals their more upscale counterparts. The label has a few cool tricks up its sleeve, like the refillable eyeshadow compact. The individual cases (three fit into one compact) have magnets molded into the bottom so replacing them is a snap.

Another standout is the award-winning Eye Designer Applicator, a double-sided foam-tipped applicator that plugs into eye powder. (The cap is filled with eyeshadow powder and also functions as the cover. Applying makeup in a dark vehicle was never this easy.) Also refillable, the Eye Designer Applicator makes for a more compact tool – no need to lug around a brush and several pots of eyeshadow. One applicator is more than enough to deliver some smokin’ eye power.

There are more than a few reasons not to indulge in a more colorful look – you’ll outshine your colleagues in the workplace, creating an atmosphere dripping with tension and making you the subject of envious stares. You could be cast in a commercial, causing you to lose some much-valued free time. But perhaps the most important reason is, to paraphrase that ’80s anthem by Cyndi Lauper, sometimes you just wanna have fun.

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Artdeco is available at Watsons and will soon be available at Rustan’s Essenses.