Track hair and makeup products, wigs and pieces
Keep your hair and makeup kit as products — one per shade — and attach them to the looks that use them, so any look can be redone exactly.
A hair or makeup look is only repeatable if you know exactly what went into it. "Foundation, light" does not get the same face back three weeks later; "Armani Luminous Silk, 5.75" does. Products are where a hair and makeup department keeps that knowledge: the foundations, powders, hairsprays, wigs and appliances of the kit, each with its shade, its brand and where it came from, attached to the looks that use them.
They work the way wardrobe works for costume. A product lives once, in the production's warehouse, and the looks point at it.
One product per shade
Record each shade as its own product. Luminous Silk 5.75 and Luminous Silk 6 are two products, not one with two shades, because that is how a kit is stocked and how a look uses it — a look wears one shade, not the line.
The shade is the field that makes this work, and it is searchable everywhere a product can be found: in the production search, and in a look's attach menu, where typing "5.75" leaves only the products in that shade. Typing the brand instead leaves the whole line, which is the quickest way to see which shades you already hold.
Brand suggests the brands already used for products in this production as you type. Take the suggestion: one spelling per brand is what keeps the line together when you search for it later.
Categories
The category says what kind of product it is. It reads on the product's page and on its sheet, and the form offers the hair categories first.
| Group | Categories |
|---|---|
| Hair | Hair Color, Styling, Wig, Extensions |
| Makeup | Foundation, Concealer, Powder, Contour, Blush, Eyeshadow, Eye Liner, Mascara, Eye Brows, Lip Color, Lip Liner, Skincare, Nails, Body Makeup, Facial Hair, Prosthetics, Scars, Tattoos, Removal, Razor |
The makeup categories are the same names a makeup look uses for its details, so a look's Foundation detail and the foundations it uses read alike.
The category is optional. There is no "Other": a product the list does not name — toupee tape, a sweat spray — simply has no category. You can take a category off again at any time.
Wigs, extensions and prosthetics are pieces
Most products are consumables, but a wig is a piece: there may be a hero wig and a stunt copy, and the one on the block may need redressing before the next scene. For the Wig, Extensions and Prosthetics categories the form adds two fields that tell them apart:
- Item Role — hero, double, stunt or distressed. It shows on the product's card, because two wigs photographed on the same block are otherwise impossible to tell apart in a grid of thumbnails.
- Condition — the state it is in: needs redressing, lace lifting, ready.
A product that already has a role or condition keeps those fields in its form whatever its category.
Where a product came from
Source, Supplier and Supplier Ref. record where a product came from, in the same terms as wardrobe: purchased, hired, made, stock, the actor's own, loaned, or from another department. For a hired wig, the supplier is the wig house and the supplier ref is its number — the one they will want quoted when it goes back. Supplier suggests the names already used on products, as Brand does.
Unit Cost and Quantity record what a product cost and how many you hold. The product page reads all of it back in one line — "Hired - Wig house (LF065)" — which is how a return is planned.
Using products in looks
Hair and makeup looks have a Products panel. Attach the products a look uses, or create one from there if it is not in the kit yet. A costume look has no products panel — costume wears wardrobe.
Attaching does not copy. There is one product, with one set of photos, and every look that uses it points at it. That has three consequences worth knowing:
- One product can serve both departments and any number of characters. A setting spray used in Elizabeth's hair look, in her makeup look and in Cesar's hair look is one product attached three times.
- Deleting a look does not delete its products. Rebuild the look and you can attach the same products straight back.
- Deleting a product removes it from every look that used it, across every character. If a product is shared, check its page first: it lists every look that uses it.
Cloning a look carries its products to the clone, and merging two looks moves the products of the one that goes to the one that stays.
A character's products
A character's page has a Products card. It lists the products that belong to that character — a wig made for the actor — together with every product used in one of their hair or makeup looks. A product created from the character's own Products page, or from the menu of one of their looks, belongs to them; one created in the warehouse belongs to the production.
In a look's attach menu, the character's own products are listed first, then the rest of the kit.
The Products card on a character's page shows for anyone on the team who can see the hair department or the makeup department.
Moving through products
A product steps to the previous and next one in name order, from the buttons above it, and what it steps through follows how you got there: from a look, that look's products; from a character, that character's products; from the warehouse, the whole kit.
Products in the script
Products can be referenced from the screenplay, like props and wardrobe: mark the words that name it and attach the product, and the reference icon after the text opens it. A reference points at the product without attaching it to the scene.
Getting the list out
Three exports, from three places:
- Product Sheet — one product with its details and photos, from the product's own page.
- Products Catalog — the whole kit, from the warehouse's Products page.
- A character's catalogue — from the character's Products page: what they own and what their looks use.
A production backup includes products under Makeup, with the catalogue, a sheet per product and each character's list.