WILL IT MAKE YOU BLUSH?
My friend Harvey Helms is out with a new book shaking up the cosmetics industry called BLUSH.It’s kind of a kiss and put on the blush and blush and tell.I sometimes like to let writers interview themselves. Being Harvey is so funny I thought I would let him do the heavy lifting and let everyone know what theywant to about his book at the same time…How did we meet? Well Tracey I was enjoying my morning coffee watching the Today Show with Kathi Lee and Hoda and on you walked with your fabulous book “Between A rock And A Hot Place! It was love at first sight! I immediately wrote a column about you and your hysterically funny book for Betty Confidential! You became everyone’s fairy god mother!The rest as they say is history! What made you decide to write Blush?Other than the fact that you truly are a beauty junkie!? Answer- Crazy really! I was sitting in a movie theater in Ohio watching The Devil Wears Prada with a friend and people weren’t laughing in the right places! My friend said “Honey, this movie is sickly funny but it’s not real life.” It was definitely real life for me! I worked for that Miranda Priestly type character several times in my cosmetic career! I left the evening that night knowing I had to share my diary, blemishes and all!Plus I was almost murdered in college for being gay so I wanted to share my story so that young gays could know that things can get better. Enough of this bullying and suicide! Weren’t you one of the first men to sell behind a cosmetic counter in the south?- Yes Ma’am I was! Men in cosmetics departments today is the norm. When I started it was like I was part of a freak show that I vividly convey in the first chapter, “I’m the Revlon girl”.4.Was Tammy Faye Baker one of your customers? Did you do that to her? Answer- Yes she was and no I didn’t. We weren’t allowed to touch her so her “Signature Tammy Faye Look” was of her own doing. I loved her and she bought tons of make up from me. She wore the Estee Lauder fragrance Private Collection so we could smell her in the store before she ever made it to the department. She gave me her seal of approval-kind of like a kiss from cosmetics Gods.5.The conversations with your mother Grace are hysterical! Was she really like that? Answer- Absolutely! my mother was candy coated evil. I mean that in the best way possible. With her sweet southern accent she could tell you to kiss her ass and you’d reply “Why I’d love to!”You call Blush a “Traumedy?- Answer- My life has been a traumatic comedy. The crazy men I’ve loved in my life are worth the read You were marrying men before it was fashionable.Yes, but no spoiler alert here please darling! But you know we all love a glamorous Hollywood ending. Don’t you think this would be fabulous TV? Is there anything you would have done differently in your lifeMany things, but the top two that come to mind are:1. Start wearing sunblock immediately after coming out of my mother’s womb and..2. Begin using firming eye cream in the 7th grade!
Harvey
