NOTES FROM JEN

From Jen…

I wanted to take a moment and introduce myself.  My name is Jennifer Aspinall. I have been working in New York and Hollywood as a professional makeup artist for the last 50 years. I fell in love with the art of illusion at 9 years old when I found a book called Richard Corson’s Stage Make Up. This book changed my life. It covers all the basics of the art of makeup, and in my mind, it is a bible.  It is still available today, and when I teach I often ask my students to invest in it.  By the time I was 12, I was working full-time at various theaters in the Philadelphia area doing makeup and wigs.  When I turned 18,  I moved to New York City hoping to expand my makeup work.  I found work doing print ads, commercials, and of course theatre.  I did my first makeup effects/prosthetic work on a now cult classic horror film, “The Toxic Avenger”.   This was not a great film, but it did great things for me.  It introduced me to the world of special effects makeup, which allowed me to expand my love of illusion and took my career in a whole other direction.  I became one of the first women to work in this more specialized field of makeup.  A few movies and Broadway shows later,  I became the department head for NBC’s groundbreaking sketch comedy show, “Saturday Night Live”.   SNL combined two of my favorite things in the world, character makeup with live performance.  In  1995 Fox Television brought me to Los Angeles to department head a new sketch comedy show called “MADtv”.   “MADtv” ran for 14 years, during which my crew and I received 14 Emmy Nominations and 1 Emmy Award for Best Makeup on Television along with 7 International Guild Awards.  Since “MADtv” wrapped I have been fortunate to continue to work in television on shows like, “Westworld,” “Pam & Tommy” and “Winning Time” and on films such as “Star Trek,”  “Guardians of the Galaxy,” and “Amsterdam”.  I am very blessed to have such a long and fulfilling career in this amazing and creative industry.

My many years of doing special effects makeup for the sketch comedy world have allowed me to become very familiar with the needs of my actors and their skin.  Sketch performers are often asked to go in and out of numerous characters in a short amount of time.  This can mean several makeup and hair changes in one day or in some cases one live show.  This can be very rough on their skin.  A  few years ago I had the pleasure of meeting Lincoln Lee of Dermastetics, a medically-based dermatological company, after a lecture I was giving on Character Make Up.  We hit it off right away.  During our next meeting, I mentioned to Lincoln the need for a product in our industry to protect the actor’s skin without drying it out.  It would have to be something that could be used under our make-ups and glues without inhibiting and could protect against irritation and the harsh chemicals we sometimes use.  A tall order, but we decided to create it!  Six months later we had a formula.   After months of tweaking and numerous tests under numerous make-ups, glues, paints, chemicals, and different kinds of dirt and grease we had a product that not only protected the skin and made it waterproof, it was moisturizing without being greasy!  We decided to call it SKIN SAVER LOTION.  So here we are.  I had no idea I was going to find myself in this end of the business, but this is a good product and I’m proud to be associated with it.  I hope you like it as much as I do.

Please try SKIN SAVER LOTION and feel free to give us feedback.  We are always interested in growing and improving.

Take care and stay inspired,

Jen