If you’re regular readers of my blog then you know I admire the talented makeup artist and Ambassador at Every Age for Lancôme, Sandy Linter. Together with her friend, and mine, Lois Joy Johnson— founding editor and former beauty and fashion director of MORE magazine—Sandy and Lois have written the best step-by-step, makeup tutorial for midlife women: Makeup Wakeup. To celebrate the book’s phenomenal success, and it’s recent publication in Russian, I’m giving away a copy of Makeup Wakeup. Don’t worry! This one’s in English! Read on to learn how to win.

“I’m like you are with your readers. I tell it like it is. I’ve made mistakes, but I talk about Botox and surgery and what I did to make me feel better.”

Like all of us, life has thrown Sandy Linter some curves, but she’s bounced back with grace and determination. Since the days when she partied nightly with the Andy Warhol crowd at Studio 54, Sandy Linter has had a cult-like following.

Name a model, celebrity, fashion designer or photographer and Sandy’s makeup artistry has set the tone for countless covers and fashion layouts for Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Cosmopolitan and more magazines than she can count. Today, Sandy is as much in demand as she was when she’d slip into the next day’s 5am photo shoot, still wearing the clothes she’d worn to “Studio.”

Makeup Wakeup is more than a “how-to” book. It’s like dishing with girlfriends, only these girlfriends have helped define what it means to look our best at any age. Makeup Wakeup features “before” and “afters” of some of Sandy and Lois’s real life girlfriends like: Supermodels Nancy Donahue, Patti Hansen, Cheryl Tiegs and Carol Alt; “Behind the Velvet Ropes” Lauren Ezersky; actress Sigourney Weaver, rockstar Debbie Harry, plus the forward is written by Bette Midler.

One of my favorite parts of this 288 page, full-color tutorial are the specific brands and colors Sandy and Lois recommend, as well as the “before” and “after” of Sandy doing her own makeup.

If you’d like to enter to win a copy of Makeup Wakeup, leave a comment at the bottom of this blog post, and to increase your chances of winning, subscribe to 1010ParkPlace.com. If you’re not the lucky winner and would like to purchase a copy, click on this link.

HERE’S A PORTION OF ONE OF MY CONVERSATIONS WITH SANDY LINTER:
(Read the the full Style Inspiration piece we did about Sandy Linter)
BC: One of the things I love about Makeup Wakeup is that you and Lois have different styles and approaches to makeup. You help women find something that works for them and not follow a cookie cutter look.

SL: The book has two, distinct flavors because Lois is a beauty and fashion expert, and I’m a makeup artist. I feel one way; she feels another, but we arrive at similar places.

BC: What made you and Lois decide to be so brutally honest about Botox, droopy skin and plastic surgery?

SL: All of the women I makeup, who are over 40, 50 and 60, have questions about eye surgery, lips and facelifts. They want to talk about surgery. Since this is a makeup book for women over 40, you can’t avoid talking about it. Lois and I wanted to write a beauty guide we’d read ourselves; one that solved the kinds of issues women face every day.

BC: One of the reason women love this book is because you talk about yourself.

SL: I’m like you are with your readers. I tell it like it is. I’ve made mistakes, but I talk about Botox and surgery and what I did to make me feel better. It’s not for everybody.

BC: You’ve been doing little procedures all along. I’ve never done anything. Not even Botox. So I’m afraid I’d windup with a drastic new look I wouldn’t like.

SL: You should be afraid of that, so you know what? You pick the one thing that bothers you most, and do that first. Then you heal and live with it, and if you want, then you do the next thing that bothers you.

BC: What’s the most important thing women over 40 can do to take care of their skin?

SL: Sun protection. Women spend thousands of dollars on laser treatment to correct sun damage. Plus sun damage can cause cancer. In the book, Lois talks about her skin cancer. The entire tip of her nose had to be rebuilt because of it.

BC: What’s the worst mistake women over 40 make?

SL: The worst mistake is to give up and stop wearing makeup. Women say, ‘Oh, I have wrinkles. I can’t wear foundation,’ but there’s all kinds of new foundations with better texture, so keep-up-to-date with your products. Don’t wear the same thing you’ve worn forever. Go to the makeup counter and try two or three colors on your jaw until you find the right one. Learn how to make the most of your eyes with eyeliner, mascara; get good brushes; learn the techniques.

BC: As you know, I’m all about survivorship. What’s made you survive in an industry where so many come and go, or succumb to drugs, ego and fame?

SL: When you first knew me, I was really involved in a rock ’n’ roll lifestyle, and I wound up burnt-out. It’s a really weird feeling because you don’t know you’re burnt-out until maybe a year after. You just have to start all over again. I blocked out all the people around me and just zoned in on my own little career. I rebuilt it from the days when you knew me as a star (gesturing from high to low), then went to there. No one knew about me for years. Then little by little, I got back.

BC: What would people be surprised to learn about you?

SL: (Sandy dissolves into gales of laughter.) People would be surprised to learn a lot of things about me, but I won’t tell them!