By Hannah Trumbo
June 2016

Kiss and Makeup, Provincetown’s makeup, skincare, and fragrance store, has been a shop favorite for locals and tourists alike since 2012. Christine Horovitz’s shop fills the independent beauty niche perfectly. Upon entering the shop, you’re greeted by Christine or by one of her immensely helpful employees, and shelves of curated products by brands you may have never heard of. That is what makes shopping at Kiss and Makeup such a unique experience – you will leave having learned so much about your personal beauty needs, and in hand have indie products that none of your friends will own! It’s a win-win.

For beauty product-obsessed folks like me, it’s easy to get carried away, with products as local as Provincetown (Three Custom Color) to as far as New Zealand (Triumph & Disaster), but you will have an experience like no other. I sat down with Christine at the Wired Puppy to talk all things beauty and Provincetown:

How did you start working in the beauty industry?
I was a fine art major and I also had a love for fashion, and went into fashion retail marketing. I also always liked hair and worked in an upscale salon and loved seeing the transformation in people – whether it was hair, makeup, skin. I ended up being an assistant at Magpie hair salon as well, and once the makeup artist got sick and I had to step in to do a client’s makeup. This weird click then happened – it was like art to me. I later got a job working as a makeup artist in South Beach, traveling with models and doing makeup for their photo shoots. Eventually I started managing makeup counters for department stores in New England for Christian Dior and Mac Cosmetics, doing events and appointments when new makeup lines came out. I’ve also worked extensively with Stila Cosmetics.

What is your relationship to Provincetown – how did you find yourself here, and create Kiss and Makeup?
I came to visit a friend who moved to Ptown, and the art culture here was really what sucked me in and I thought it was so beautiful here. I felt like I needed to be in Provincetown, so I moved here for three years in the 90’s. Years later, while working in New England, my husband passed away, and I knew Provincetown was my healing place. I sold my house in Rhode Island and when I got back here I felt clear.
I wanted to be somewhere that inspired me and that I loved. I am a beach person, but I also love the tight-knit community here: people have your back here. Business owners elevate each other and lift each other up. It’s hard having a business here year-round, but this [the beach] makes me so calm and keeps me going. You can walk everywhere, too, and I can’t get a foot without hugging somebody I know – you don’t get that anywhere else.
After two years I decided to open my own store and it needed to be involving something I loved to do. And there was nothing like Kiss and Makeup – you have to look at what’s around you and offer something different. Luckily it’s been great. I’ve always liked working with customers more than anything – educating people that come into my store everyday and recommending great products.

What is the concept or theme of your shop?
I wanted it to stay similar to my former location in the East End, and to have the products stand out for themselves, a clean aesthetic. I’ve also loved Japanese art, and I wanted to reflect that in the bamboo floors and countertops and the wave wallpaper print – a mix of modern and earthy at the same time. And I’ve always loved the colors blue and orange together.

 What are some of your personal favorite products and brands at the moment?
I’m always on the hunt for the perfect foundation, and Stila just launched this serum built into a foundation that’s blowing my mind – it’s so pretty, luminescent and stays on all day and makes your skin look healthy. Every woman needs the perfect foundation – it’s the one thing that can really change a person’s look. I’m obsessed with liquid matte lipsticks now, too.
But it also starts with skincare – if you can correct your skin, you don’t need a lot of makeup. Previse by Sean Patrick Harrington from Provincetown is great – the preservatives are plant-based; there are no chemicals in this line, and the ingredients are kept so simple. His line features a cleanser, toner, and the moisturizer/serum, and the products are organized according to your skin type. I’ve seen customers over time improve their skin using Previse. I love Suki so much as well – within three days I saw a huge difference in my skin, which is why I love it. I love seeing Suki’s line help people with a variety of skin issues. You can’t push what you love on everybody, though; it’s about asking your customer tons of questions and looking at what lines are going to give them the most benefits. Dr. Gross is also my favorite anti-aging line, and he uses fruit acids instead of chemical acids. And for hair care, I discovered Living Proof: this line has changed my life and they keep coming out with these great products that restructures the hair. I saw immediate results with their products.

 With so many beauty brands out there, describe to us the process of deciding and then featuring such independent labels – do you follow any guidelines when choosing products to feature in your shop?
There’s a couple of ways I find products. When I travel, I find stores like my own. I want to discover new things, and I’ll order the products and try them. I’m very tactile and need to see and touch the product and then do the research. I also look at what’s popping up online and reach out to companies that I see or hear about. The product has to have a great aesthetic, a great product. I thought I had to have these brands that people recognized but what I found was that all the niche brands that I had were doing better. People want to get something that they can’t get everywhere else, something that reminds them of their vacation.

You also carry such neat fragrances that you can’t find anywhere else – one of my favorite parts of your store.
I’ve worn the same fragrance for a long time and I found out that there are collectors out there who love a lot of fragrances. If I’m going to get on board with a new fragrance, I want something that’s not found in a typical department store. I want something that doesn’t smell like everything else – I love handcrafted fragrances, like D.S. and Durga and Olo, and they are all made to order so they are fresh. It’s an investment and people want to take home a fragrance that’s going to remind them of their trip and that’s special to them.

What trends from 2015 are totally passé, and what new looks and inspiration are you excited for in 2016?
What I’m over is the whole contouring thing: it’s important for photo shoots, stage, and drag, but all these girls now look muddy. It’s sad to see such a young generation feel like they have to sculpt their face, but it’s unnecessary. You can create shadows with blushes and bronzers. Highlighting is ok but it doesn’t work for everybody – it accentuates bad texture. They are pushing it on media so bad and people want to look like the Kardashians, but I want people to celebrate their own uniqueness and stop cloning each other. A beautiful makeup is clean, accentuates someone’s features and is not transforming them into somebody else. There’s a time and a place for dramatic makeup, but for everyday – no.

One trend that I love is healthy skin – for instance, new foundations that are multipurpose, with ingredients that are illuminating. Love that trend. I love that brows are important but again I’ve seen it overdone; it should be natural. I want to see people more into nudes and natural colors as well.
That’s part of my job that I love, changing people’s perceptions of what they think they should be wearing and doing something else on them and seeing them go, “Oh wow look at what that look did, that’s so cool.” Women empowering women is an important thing, and we’re also so conditioned to what we learn as a kid. I watched my mom put green eye shadow on from lid to brow! So you are conditioned with what you know, but you can have someone else take you out of your comfort zone and show you new ways to move forward with your makeup looks. We’re constantly evolving, our features, our skin, and we get stuck in a rut because it’s easy but it’s not necessarily right anymore.

Describe to us a perfect day in Provincetown for you.
Personally I’m an outdoor girl: I love to walk on the beach and take pictures. And then I have all this energy left for the rest of the day, maybe even for another long walk on the beach. It clears my head, I feel more creative. There is a stronger community in the off-season as well because it’s so crazy in the summer, so we have dinner parties, we’ll go to the movies, things we don’t get to do in the summer. I love to explore the Cape too and I like to get lost and find beaches I’ve never heard of, nature trails I’ve never walked. There are so many great little towns to get to know. And I can’t tell you how many great things I’ve discovered – my goal is to find all the ponds, and to get other people out. The swamp near Marconi beach [in Wellfleet] is magical for me and I always take people out there. You’re in the woods but you see the beach and the ocean. I’ll find beauty in everything outside, and I think artistic people are always looking for beauty in nature.

Thank you Christine! Be sure to visit Kiss and Makeup – and she’s open all year long!

Kiss & Makeup

244 Commercial Street

Provincetown, MA 02657

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