Exploring Estella: Beautifully heartless - Face

Makeup in the Victorian Era was very limited and also restricted. Victorian women were not allowed to wear makeup, so they focused more on skin care and the less they did on the face, the more they did to their hair. 

Estella is portrayed, through Pip's eyes, as a very beautiful woman. 

So, what was the definition of beauty in the Victorian Era? 

Here are a few examples: 

1. Fair Pale Skin 

Pale skin shows the status of a women, a woman with a tan shows that she is of a lower class and needs to work outside to survive. A rich and wealthy women was normally very pale. 

2. Eyelashes 

For as long as we know it, the eyes of a woman are very important. In the Victorian times, eyeliner and mascara and eyeshadow was unheard of. A man would be drawn to the freshness of a woman's eyes and long full natural lashes would've helped.

3. Small Rosy Lips 

If you look at a lot of Victorian paintings or illustrations, many of the women have very small dainty lips. 

So what cruel and cold elements can give Estella? 

You can spot a mean person a mile away, when I think of a cold hearted woman I think of: 

> Large beautiful eyes

> Thin arched eyebrows 

> Pointy nose 

> Sharp cheekbones 

> Thin lips with a strong cupids bow. 

For my final image of Estella, I will be shooting in black and white, this means that I will not need to focus on colour. Instead, I'm going to focus on the sculpting of the face i.e. contour. 

Apart from adding the beautiful and cruel elements that I have stated above, I am going to create the illusion of puffyness under the eyes, as I feel Estella suffers a lot from the 'training' Miss Havisham gives.