Dear Dino,
Do any of those lip-plumping products actually work?
Barbara, PEI
Dear Babs,
They do work because they have irritants like cinnamon and camphor which cause the lips to swell. I’m not a fan of products that irritate the lips for effect! A shimmery or glistening pale lip-gloss is a healthier choice. And please stay away from those “snake sucker” lip puckering gadgets too.
Dear Dino,
I have tried these long last, two-step lipsticks without much success. They are too drying and makes my lips look puckery and leathery. I like the idea of putting lipstick on once and forgetting about it for the day but all my girlfriends say I look like a vampire. Help!
Buffy, T.O.
Dear Buffy,
It sounds like you weren’t doing the second step of a two- step product and that’s why your lips look the way they do. It’s very important to use the balm/gloss after the colour sets to add moisture back to your lips and lend shine. The colour is delivered to the lips via alcohol, which evaporates after application leaving the colour to stain the lips. See the importance of the second step? But I have good news for you. Revlon has a new one-step long-lasting lipstick that is wonderful called “ColorStay Ultimate Liquid Lipstick”. You can use it lightly like a stain or layer it on for a very rich colour. It sets itself and keeps lips looking lovely. My favourite shades are: Perfect Peony, Miracle Mauve and Supreme Sienna. Let me know what you think.
Dear Dino, If I wear a moisturizer with an SPF 15 and a foundation with an SPF 30, does that mean I’m getting a total of 45 SPF protection? Sandra, Bowmanville, ONT.
Dear Sandra,
I love this question because it’s one I get often. The answer is no, sort of. Layering sunscreens doesn’t add up to higher protection. You will get more than a SPF 15 but less than SPF 45. It’s better to use a higher protection product if you want more protection. SPF 30 is the new recommended strength for daily low sun exposure situations while a higher one of no more than SPF 50 is needed for high sun exposure and outdoor activities.
In association with Pamela Kennedy Communications, Smashbox Cosmetics and Dino Dilio Beauty, my team of makeup artists from George Brown College participated in the 15th Annual Children’s Aid Foundation Women’s Golf Classic at The Eagels Nest Golf Cub in Markham. Congratulations to Andrea, Jessica, Kia, Natalia, Nicole, Samia, and Yin Yin for lovely makeup artistry and shout outs to Sahar and Shadi who were on digit duty. The event raised $265,000.00. Visit The Children's Aid Foundation to learn more and to donate.
It was my honour to be apart of the Cityline Cancer Survival Show with Bill Rowley and Janice Meredith. Working with mother and daughter Kathy and Rachel was a pleasure and very inspirational. Congratulations Mary, JC and the incredible Cityline team for a sensational and sensitive celebration.
As seen on Cityline with Dino Dilio
When you’re run down, sleep deprived, stressed out and exhausted - your skin takes a beating and shows it! Here are some quick beauty fixes that rescue and revive your skin with improved versions of our favourites and some easier to use hybrid facial masques.
The new generation of masques can do everything for skin. Detox, purify, firm, brighten, plump and lift your skin and mood - providing immediate relief and results. They are a real time saver when you have to look great – fast.
Body Shop Bouncy Sleeping Mask
These are rich and creamy designed to super moisturize, hydrate and nourish dry skin.
Example: Body Shop Bouncy Sleeping Mask – a smoothing, refreshing and replenishing night cream-gel you sleep in. Rinses off the next morning to reveal fresh and soft bouncy skin.
Body Shop Seaweed Ionic Clay Mask
For oily and troubled skin to detoxify deep cleanse and control excess oil and clarify the complexion. Negatively charged ions act like magnets to draw out dirt and impurities from the pores. Wet mixture dries hard. Needs to be rinsed off with warm water.
Example: Body Shop Seaweed Ionic Clay Mask
These pads are super concentrated, saturated gel pack of intensive treatment, works instantly to help reduce lines and wrinkles, de-puff and minimize the under-eye puffiness, guards against future damage. Gels are applied and left on for 10 minutes. Cools and comforts under the eyes while infusing the area with concentrated doses of soothing and hydrating ingredients. Can be used over top of makeup. Also make versions for forehead and side of mouth lines.
Hydro Cool Firming Eye Gels
HydroCool Firming Face Gels
Sheet Masques are a cloth like film or material saturated with active ingredients. The masque is laid over clean skin and removed. Some kinds harden and lift away while others just disintegrate into the skin.
Example: Masque Bar by LookBeauty at Shoppers Drug Mart
Masque Bar by LookBeauty at Shoppers Drug Mart
Balea Ultra Firming Face Mask
These masques are very light in texture, apply as a wet gel and then dry to a peel away film that lifts off impurities and dead skin cells.
Example: Life Brand Hydrating Facial Sheet Hyaluronic Acid & Konjac. Also available for other skin types and conditions.
Recommendations available at Shoppers Drug Mart, Murale and The Body Shop
Glow Magazine | September 2014 Issue, Beauty Report - Keep Lips Au Naturel
To get a natural nude lip, use a light layer of foundation over the perimeter of your month to highlight and prime. Apply a nude lipstick to the centre of your lips and work outward with your finger. If you have a slim lip shape, build them up first with a nude pencil.
- Dino Dilio
To view the article online click here | To view a PDF of the article click here
By Kelly Ann Buchana | MetroNews - Crossword, July 31, 2014
13. Across - "Cityline" guest expert Mr. Dilio (Makeup Artist)
A mechanic's set of tool drawers anchors celebrity makeup artist Dino Dilio's kitchen desk
Original article from The Toronto Star | By: Rita Zekas Special to the Star, Published on Fri May 02 2014
Original article from The Toronto Star Click Here
I am so not ready for my closeup.
I am bare-faced — not even a smidge of concealer — as I step into celebrity makeup artist Dino Dilio’s mid-town apartment. It feels like the dressing room of a Hollywood diva: specifically Diana Ross.
The back wall of his living room/makeup studio is complete with a bulb-ringed professional mirror; racks of makeup and accessories; and framed posters of Ross and The Supremes, with a sprinkling of Josephine Baker and female impersonator Craig Russell.
His apartment in the Yonge-Church corridor is one-bedroom, one bath, living room-cum-studio and is just over 700 square feet. “It was built in the mid ’50s, the first luxury apartment in Toronto,” says Dilio, who lives there with his cats Max and Sam.
He has been here over 20 years. “It is close to the subway, there is a lineup of taxis at the ready. I don’t need a car,” Dilio explains.
His celeb client list includes everyone from actress Kim Cattrall to Barbara Amiel Black, wife of disgraced former media baron Conrad Black. He has worked with singer-actress Diahann Carroll, Hollywood movie actress Rachel McAdams, home décor mogul and model India Hicks, actor Kevin Spacey, CBC broadcaster Jian Ghomeshi, Sex and the City author Candace Bushnell, and even Robin Leach, Mr. Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.
Dilio has been Cityline’s makeup artist and expert for 23 years. He’s served as national makeup artist for Revlon Canada, Murale, Shoppers Drug Mart and Hudson’s Bay. He’s the former creative director and senior makeup artist and manager for the city’s seminal Mira Linder Spa. He is author of the makeup manual Let’s Face It. He has his own line of cosmetics called DDB using the same manufacturer as Chanel, Bobbi Brown and NARS. And he currently teaches makeup artistry at George Brown.
Dilio is blasé about celebs. “Half the time I didn’t know even who I was doing,” he swears. “I put powder on Justin Bieber’s nose and I didn’t know who he was. Same with Charlotte Church and Chantal Kreviazuk.”
His wish list? “Diana Ross,” he says without pause. “She is from that old school. I got booked to do Tina Turner but she likes to do her own makeup to become ‘herself.’ It is part of the process of becoming that person who hits the stage.”
Dilio comes from the give-’em-the-old-razzle-dazzle school of home décor, which he describes as “exciting and elegant. Women feel comfy and at ease here — and so do men.”
But to be at ease in his apartment, they must also love disco.
“I made the disco ball chandelier. When the sun comes down, the whole room looks like a disco. I found the chandelier at a lawn sale and pulled it apart. I changed the plastic bits into crystal.”
Disco balls hang from his terrace railings and one sits in an ashtray on the black lacquered side table, which is bordered by two Ghost chairs.
Disco balls are a favourite of Dilio, who made a chandelier from this lawn-sale model.
Dilio gutted the kitchen and living-room areas. “I did everything, put in a parquet floor, stripped, stained and urethaned.” He painted the walls a shade of stone because “I needed something neutral to not change the skin tones and to make the art pop more.”
Club chairs make a comfortable corner of the living room, highlighted by one of Dilio’s disco balls.
The living room coffee table doubles for both dining and makeup consultation. “A client comes over for a consultation with her makeup and I usually tell her to get rid of it. Get a better foundation, simplify. People are product junkies. You don’t need 17; use seven.”
His demographic is women aged 55 to 80. “They aren’t served properly in department stores or Sephora,” he says. “They don’t have the experience there to apply makeup to the mature face.”
But he has. Dilio has been doing makeup for more than 30 years, starting in his native Montreal.
“I watched the Avon lady come over and make up my mom and grandmother. When they were asleep, I’d play with that makeup and put it on myself. I hid it because it would upset my dad,” he says. “A friend of my mom’s was a former model and she was getting ready for the evening and I volunteered to do her makeup. She was impressed. I was 17.”
Dilio eventually found what he calls a “rinky dink” school to teach him modelling and makeup courses in the evenings. It was problematic because some of the nights conflicted with his TV viewing.
“Dynasty was on,” he laughs. “I told them ‘I can’t go tonight because I get more education watching Dynasty.’ And 30 years later I’m doing one of the stars (Diahann Carroll.)”
We move to the kitchen, which also serves as his office. His desk is fashioned from a mechanic’s set of red tool drawers, opposite the fridge with its Vegas showgirl magnet complete with feathers and pasties.
A Mastercraft work bench, topped by a chalkboard for quotes and recipes, extends the counter space in Dilio’s kitchen.
The counter with the butcher block top is a Mastercraft work bench from Canadian Tire. A blackboard hangs over it with the Andy Warhol quote, “Good business is the best kind of art.” “Every week I write a new quote,” Dilio says. “When I cook, I put the menu on it.”
On a ledge over the counter is what he calls his “tchotchke corner” that features goodies like a talking moustache and pet monkey. Above it all hangs a montage of rubber duckies à la Warhol whose colours match the striped rug in front of the sink. There is a caricature of Dilio with Diana Ross by illustrator Maurice Vellekoop. The white wall tiles are original, as are the heated subway floor tiles in the bathroom.
A caricature of Dilio with Diana Ross by Canadian illustrator Maurice Vellekoop.
“When I moved in, the kitchen had a pantry,” Dilio recalls. “I ripped it all out. It is a corner apartment and I opened it up so I got a cross breeze.”
“I’m going to die here; I love it.” he vows. Unless he meets someone to take him away from all this.
“I have a dream to have a little house but I’ll keep this place as a pied à terre,” he muses.
And the shrine to Diana Ross will travel between both.
Kimberly Roberts as Judy Garland, Make-up and Hair by Dino Dilio
Vanity Fair put together a history of her most memorable doppelgängers. It was my pleasure and privilege to be apart of this moment, recreating the legendary Judy Garland on Kimberly Roberts.
To view the full article please click here.
MARYAM SIDDIQI | 12/03/23 | Last Updated: 12/03/23 11:53 AM ET
Original article from the National Post Click Here
The thing with French women is that they can go three days without a shower, then throw on some wrinkled clothes, tousle their unbrushed hair and slap on some red lipstick and still look chicer than any other women on the planet. I want to be able to not shower for three days, you know? So, I head to the cosmetics department at The Bay to find my red.
While there is a red for everyone, it’s recommended getting help to find the right one for you, because to the eye, red is red is red, but on your lips, red can be purple or pink or orange or … you get the idea. I quickly found out the hard way — trying on a handful of reds at home — that the wrong red is something that should never be seen in public.
Fortunately, I have help. Dino Dilio, The Bay’s national makeup artist and CityLine‘s resident beauty guru, is my guide through the sea of makeup counters. I come clean with him before cleaning and priming my lips for the makeover: My “lipstick” of choice is a white tub of Blistex lip balm. I’ve never worn the stuff; I hate the smell of it, and the feel of it. Like the pro that he is, Dilio is unfazed.
“Lipstick is the first fashion that you can adopt to your face,” he explains. “But red is a commitment. It’s worse than dating.” I believe, in general, that dating is a huge pain in the ass but dammit, I am ready to go steady with red, so Dilio and I head to the Chanel counter, a brand that, he says, is known for its reds. He also lists Yves Saint Laurent, Dior and Lancome — all French brands, I point out. Dilio explains that the makeup routine of French women consists only of face powder, mascara and lipstick. Simple, chic and exactly the same (minimal) time commitment I want to put into my routine.
Dilio pulls out a dozen or so reds and tests about eight of them on his hand to find the temperature of each shade. Reds can be split into three groups:
Clear Generally universal reds, like fire engine or poppy, that look good on everyone.Blue Berry and wine shades that look best on darker skin tones (olive, brown, black). This temperature is also ideal for those with yellow or darker teeth. Blue reds will make teeth look whiter.Warm Oranges, rusts and auburns that are ideal on fair skinned women with light hair and eyes.
With olive skin, dark hair and eyes, we quickly eliminate most of the options from the colour patches on Dilio’s hand as being too orange or pink. We settle on a berry red called Excessive from Chanel’s Rouge Allure range, which is also creamy (texture is another element to picking the right lipstick). Dilio knows I am a gloss kind of girl, so picks a lipstick with moisture. For those looking for a matte lip, he recommends Nars’ Velvet Matte lip pencils, which essentially are fat crayons that do the job of both a pencil and lipstick.
For someone wanting a sheer look, Clinique’s Chubby Stick is ideal — a delicate colour that’s easy to apply. Then the real test: Dilio asks me to apply the colour. I hesitate, explaining that I have no skills and will look like a clown. Rightly so, he is unmoved. I put it on my lower lip, rub my lips around and … look like a clown. I put one more coat on, and then Dilio takes over, fixing my sloppy edges with a dab of foundation on a brush.
“You want to start in the middle to prevent bleeding at the edges and you always want the corners to join. You want one mouth, not two lips.” he explains. “Use a pencil to finish around the edges. If you’re not artistic, don’t start with a pencil — it’s the worst thing to do.” The lip pencil should be half a shade lighter than the lipstick — the right shade will blend right into the lipstick. Dilio lines my lips with the pencil and colours in about half of each lip as well. Another light coat of lipstick applied with a brush and I am ready for the reveal.
“Oh my god, that’s a lot of red! I can’t do this!” is what I thought as I held a mirror up to my face. Either I grimace or Dilio reads my mind, because he quickly ushers me to a full-length mirror. “What you want is a hint of colour, not a slap in the face,” he says. And sure enough, when I look at the whole picture, I see a pop of colour, and nothing remotely resembling a clown.
Interestingly — and importantly, for me — I couldn’t feel the lipstick, or rather it didn’t feel any different than a fresh coat of lip balm. And, amazingly, it didn’t smell. At all. “There are more cases of sensitive skin than ever before,” Dilio explains. “Companies have caught on that anything with a fragrance means no sales.”
I try my hand at wearing red (around my house) the next day, and already I’m a bit better at applying it and a bit more comfortable wearing it. A couple more practice runs and, mon dieu, I’ll be ready to stop showering, I think. But I have to confess: I also bought Chanel’s gloss version of the lipstick (it’s red, just not R-E-D). Am I ready to make the permanent jump to red lipstick? Clearly, I have commitment issues. C’est la vie.
Learn the secrets to looking your best with makeup lessons from top Toronto makeup artist, Dino Dilio. Book Dino as your luxury wedding makeup artist or engage him to enhance your appearance for a special event. For over 20 years, Dino has been a leading beauty expert on Canada’s national lifestyle television program, Cityline.
