It's very refreshing to go away and take a break, to clear your head, and just get into something else.

Makeup is about balance. When the eye makes a statement, the lips should be quiet.

Find your own way, have an open spirit, and believe in your own beauty.

A fresh face with a red lip is timeless. It's supermodern and relaxed but very chic.

True icons are larger than life, unforgettable with an elegance that's mesmerizingly timeless.

You create the color first, and then the name that fits. It depends - there are no rules. You watch a fabulous old movie, and you suddenly get inspired by it to create a lipstick shade, or you walk through a gorgeous garden and find the most beautiful flower shade for an eye shadow, and then you name it.

I like beauty to be a bit edgy, not typical. For me, the only rule is looking good.

There is a tendency to feature more actresses on covers, but I'm a big model lover. I grew up watching these models, and they gave me the wish, the need, to work in the fashion industry. I loved watching them - their beauty, the way they worked in front of the camera and that power of transformation, especially in the Seventies.

I thought make-up was a very sensual thing.

My goal was always to make the girl look real and look beautiful. It didn't matter how much makeup. Sometimes it was none at all.

You can look glamorous even if you're a housewife, any job you have.

In America, when I first came here, they were used to wearing more make-up - thicker foundation, more Max Factor, that sort of thing. But you have to know who you are and what you look like: if you know yourself a little bit, you don't need to follow trends.

I think if you take good care of your skin, you can achieve better make-up.

Wearing colourful eyeliner in a graphic shape is the epitome of make-up as an accessory.

You are born with this love; fashion and beauty are a part of who I am.

Was I a businessman to start with? I'm not sure. I mean, that comes slowly, when you start having the products out. But at the same time, I was very determined. I knew that I had to make it work. I had no choice.

My mother never wore much make-up, and she was a kind of natural beauty; she knew just how to enhance what she had.

I think everyone deserves to look better and to look good.

A woman who hides behind a mask of makeup is still going to have to take it off at some point... and deal with reality.

From the start, I used a different kind of girl in Nars campaign images. My choice to use models of colour such as Alek Wek, Naomi Campbell and Karen Park Goude was absolutely a deliberate one. I felt that makeup was universal and should apply to everybody.

My mother hated foundation; she hated having a mask on her face - and she pushed me to build my own vision and concept of beauty for women.

Sometimes people are very not sure of themselves, so you really have to give them that confidence. Even models - they need to warm up sometimes on photo shoots.

I love the architecture magazines and all of the French magazines for decoration or whatever. I end up enjoying them more sometimes than the fashion magazines.

Makeup is an accessory to fashion. You buy a bag, you buy shoes, you put on eyeliner, you buy a lipstick, makeup compliments the clothes.

I remember this time I worked with Linda Evangelista on a shoot for Richard Avedon. I just put grease on her face, and it was beautiful.

I love strong looks, so to me, no makeup is strong. As long as it makes a statement, that's what I like. The girls look very real, and I'm probably the only makeup artist who will say that I love a woman without makeup.

I was a very lucky child because at the age of 16, 17 years old, my parents would buy me clothes from Yves Saint Laurent, which was an incredible luxury at the time, but I was attracted to that whole world. I had a pretty nice little wardrobe by the age of 17.

I had no connections, and the fashion world was a closed elite. So my mother made appointments for herself with three top Parisian makeup artists and spoke highly about me... she was my first publicist!

I've always loved the way movie stars in the Forties looked when they were off set. Shot poolside or at their home, they always wore a matte red lipstick with practically no foundation - it was how they wore makeup in real life.

I chose makeup over photography because there was something very sensual about makeup that I loved. But photography was always in the back of my mind. That was always something that I was very connected with: looking at magazines, enjoying photography, and then taking pictures myself when I was a kid.

Transparency is more sexy than a full, pancake finish.

I would find myself in these photo shoots with models and makeup, and I got swept up in it all.

When I was a kid, I loved photography, and I loved makeup.

I like shocking, but I don't like to shock as an automatic process. Sometimes it happens, but it's not my main drive.

As a make-up artist, you always want to be in a good light, whether you're walking down the street or in a restaurant. It is a very key element to me; you can't apply good make-up in a bad light.

I met Iman and Jerry Hall and all those girls in the late Seventies right when I started working at the fashion shows in Paris as an assistant.

I think it's important that you know every detail when you open a store, that you pay attention to everything.

I wanted to be a make up artist. I did it, and the road that I took was quite good.

I always had a vision about beauty in general, so probably that's what really drove me into that direction of creating a makeup brand.

Makeup is very important for a show. It's really an accessory on the runway. You have to be sure that it fits the clothes.

We love those under-eye circles. It's real life.

Even with - the best make-up in the world won't look good if you don't cleanse and exfoliate and have a good basic regime. This is why one of my goals has always been to create a skincare line.

It was the early Seventies, and I discovered makeup by going through my mother's fashion magazines. I fell in love with the photos, the models, the fashion.

I'm not so interested in perfect, plastic beauty, and I think it translates in the girls I've shot over the years for Nars, from Guinevere to Iris to Mariacarla. I love those girls. I love the more interesting faces, with maybe a strange nose, not just the Texan blonde. By picking those girls, I think it's changed what I've seen in other campaigns.

It's not that I'm easily shocked. It takes a lot to shock me. And wildness I like. But vulgarity shocks me.

Sometimes I'm attracted to more odd girls with stronger faces and features or a softer beauty with a lot of character.

I don't think there's a major change between runway and real life anymore.

My interpretation of the word 'ugly'... I like ugly beauty. That can happen. In France, we have phrase 'jolie laide.' We like certain women who are not pretty or cute - it's the opposite in France of pretty. It's more strange and interesting.

It's more fun to have a name rather than a number. I think this gives our products a personality. I get the names from literature, movies, opera, traveling, nature, poetry, sometimes even the street. I keep a small book that I write in. I wake up in the middle of the night and jot down a name for a lipstick or an eyeshadow.

Women don't want to feel like they're wearing makeup. I hope I was partly responsible for that.