Working late on Oscar night as the beauty editor of Glamour magazine, Andrea Pomerantz Lustig was deluged with calls and e-mails from hair and beauty experts.
“They were explaining how the actresses got their looks,” recalls the Upper East Side journalist, who has been a beauty expert for more than 20 years. “The insiders’ tips were a gold mine of information and, as usual, they wanted me to pass them along to our readers.”
BEFORE & AFTER PHOTOS: LUXURY LOOKS FOR LESS!
But there was one big problem — those gorgeous A-listers on the red carpet got their pricey primping for free, or paid for by the movie companies. At the very least, they could write it off as a business expense.
Where did that leave regular women who aspire to Hollywood glamour without the starlet salary and the team of people behind the scenes?
“There is a huge disconnect between the price of beauty and the money real women can actually spend on it,” says Lustig.
“Feeling beautiful shouldn’t come with a steep price tag.”
Intent on bridging the gap, she wrote her book, “How To Look Expensive,” out today, which shows you how to look princess-perfect on a pauper’s budget using go-to products and techniques gleaned from Lustig’s contacts in the beauty biz.
“Taste doesn’t come with a platinum card,” she says. “Looking expensive takes practice, knowledge and education. It’s luxe, not loud. More Paris, France, than Paris Hilton.”
Here she gives five readers of The Post million-dollar makeovers — without the sticker shock.