The eyeliner is the most difficult part, says Susanne Emmermann. “There are blind women who can do it, but I’m definitely not one of them.” So she doesn’t have the fine black lines around her eyes – but otherwise she has good make-up all over. Emmermann owes this not only to the Berlin star make-up artist René Koch, but also to his own brilliant idea.
“I gave René Koch the idea of offering a make-up course for visually impaired or blind women,” says the clerk at the BVG, who lost her sight at the age of 32 due to what is known as retinitis pigmentosa, a progressive degeneration of the retina. She just wrote a snappy email to the well-known make-up artist: “Don’t you want to bring some color into our lives?” She asked in it. And: “We can’t see, but we want to be seen.”
Koch, who already beautified Marlene Dietrich and Hildegard Knef in his career, got back to him immediately – a few years later his free course “The touchable make-up” has long enjoyed great popularity. In his workshops, for example for the Germany-wide Day of the Visually Impaired on June 6th, Koch not only gives his participants a tour of the Lipstick Museum, which he runs in his apartment. A color consultation is also part of the program; In addition, Koch gives helpful tips on how to apply all the beautiful shades. “First of all, it’s about trying it out together,” says Susanne Emmermann, “and then it’s all about the practice.”
René Koch
Full house: René Koch’s workshops “The touchable make-up” have been extremely popular for years.
Since she herself was not blind from birth, Susanne Emmermann has an idea of how the applied make-up looks and works, which simplifies things a little. It’s different with Hannah Reuter. She was born severely visually impaired and can basically only perceive light-dark contrasts very weakly. Like Emmermann, she also attended René Koch’s courses – and now she no longer leaves the house without make-up. Reuter relies on the complete range of foundation, eye shadow and mascara, lipstick and blush. In the workshop, like the other participants, she learned to approach the application of make-up tentatively. “We do a lot with our fingers because we have better control than with a brush,” says Reuter. “Besides, our sense of touch is very well trained anyway.”
Hold mascara static and batter eyelashes over it
Lipstick and rouge, for example, can be easily applied with the fingers if the contours of the lips and cheekbones have also been carefully explored with the fingers beforehand. “And as far as the mascara is concerned, René Koch gave us a great trick,” says Reuter: “Hold the brush statically and bat your eyelashes over it.”
Aya Schamoni
She came up with the idea for the make-up course: Susanne Emmermann, who also founded the moles on tour.
In addition, the make-up artist has a foundation powder ready in a salt shaker, so the course participants know: A good shot from the shaker and the perfect amount of the opaque color accumulates in your hand. According to the linguist, who is now responsible for public relations at the non-profit association Allianz für Assistenzhunde – Pfotenpiloten, she now needs just five minutes for her simple daily make-up.
Provide different colored pens with different numbers of glue dots
Susanne Emmermann, who organizes the group Moles on Tour with several other visually impaired and blind people, says that after losing her sight, she stopped wearing make-up altogether. “At first I had no experience of how that could work, and I didn’t really want to look grotesque,” she says. But if you want to go out and get ready, like many sighted women, good make-up is a must. In general: “The desire to dress up was never really gone,” says Emmermann, who often comes to Koch’s make-up courses with the whole troupe of moles on tour.
René Koch
Make-up artist and course participant: Hannah Reuter wrote a book about her life with a sighted daughter.
Hannah Reuter also didn’t put on any make-up at all before she came across the star make-up artist. “I was even advised against it by a lot of people at the time,” she says. “Don’t do that,” the others would have said, “you can’t see if something blurs.” She only dared to do it when she was 28. For many visually impaired or blind people, make-up and their own appearance in general are perhaps of secondary importance, she says. “But we move in the same world as the sighted, and I had the feeling for a long time that I was missing something without make-up.”
Today she knows which colors suit her best: different shades of green over the eyes, a coral red on the lips during the day or a deep bordeaux for the evening. By the way, Reuter, who is the mother of a sighted daughter and wrote the book “Blind mit Kind” about her everyday life, can smell her lipstick. “The coral red smells fruitier, the burgundy red, appropriately, a bit more tart and heavier,” she says. Otherwise you have to keep your make-up box in order so that the right color always ends up on your face; different pens with different numbers of glue dots, for example. Of course, things can always go wrong, says Hannah Reuter – “just like with every sighted woman”.