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Cynthia De La Rosa On How She Got the 'Too Much' Beauty Looks Just Right
Beauty
TSS Talent
Cynthia De La Rosa
The Netflix show’s head of department for hair and makeup, shares the beauty must-haves used to bring to life Jessica, Felix, and more.
Between all the romantic “awwwws” and cringey “oooohs” in Lena Dunham’s romantic-comedy "Too Much," there’s a whole lot of amazing beauty to swoon over. Bold nail polish, bottles of Glossier You, and a whole lot of lipstick can be spotted throughout the show, from the minute Meg Stalter’s character Jessica Salmon arrives at her "estate" in London to when she gets her Jane Austen-style ending in the series’ finale.
All that incredible beauty is the amazing work of Cynthia De La Rosa, opens in new tab, the show’s hair, wigs, and makeup designer. Working closely with Dunham and the individual cast members, De La Rosa — coincidentally, like Jessica, is also an American expat living in London — developed each and every character with care, consideration, and a ton of research.
While many of the characters dabble in similar elements like winged liner and red lipstick, it was important to De La Rosa that everyone had a very different beauty identity. She also wanted them to be unrecognizable from their everyday aesthetic or past work. “I didn't want someone to think, Oh, that's a stereotypical look for Emily Ratajkowski or Naomi Watts,” she tells The Set Set. “I tried to move away from what they looked like on a daily basis and really think about how I saw these people walking down the street, as well as what their environment brought to their aesthetics.”
When speaking about the show, opens in new tab, Dunham has talked about how she wants the audience to be able to imagine themselves in Jessica’s happy ending. De La Rosa sought to inject that level of relatability and realism into the makeup, too. “It was important to me that the makeup and hairstyles felt plausibly achievable by the characters themselves and this meant purposeful imperfection,” she says. “I spoke with each actor about how far they felt their character could go with applying their own makeup and then took this into account when designing their looks.” What’s their skill level? Who is influencing their looks? What are they trying to express? These are all questions De La Rosa asked herself and the cast to land on looks that one might expect to see strolling through London Fields or grabbing dinner in Notting Hill. Below, De La Rosa takes us through our favorite characters' looks, breaking down her inspirations and some of the products she used to achieve them.
Meg Stalter in "Too Much."
Jessica's Modern-Romantic Makeup Look
Megan Stalter’s Jessica lives in a world of pinks and ruffles, which is directly reflected in her makeup. “All of the colors in her palette are either muted pinks or muted blues, with a few cherries and reds in there,” explains De La Rosa. “It was a bit ‘60s-meets-Strawberry Girl.” As the show progresses, and she spends more time around her coworker Kim, she adopts red lipstick from time to time. “You’ll notice Jessica’s aesthetic kind of changes with the people that she’s environmentally influenced by,” says De La Rosa.
Jessica's character is always dreaming of Regency-era England, so De La Rosa wanted Jessica’s beauty look to embody that idea of an English rose. “I'm also a massive Jane Austen nerd and could really identify with moving to the UK and this idea of England versus the reality of England,” she explains. “And so I thought, wouldn't it be beautiful if her hair and her makeup always feels like she is lilting towards a Regency aesthetic? That meant tousled, messy updos, face-framing tendrils, and flushed cheeks (courtesy of the Make Up For Ever HD Skin Face Essentials Palette). “Her character is also always a little flustered, so I wanted her to have this ruddy, rosy cheek throughout the show.”
In addition to a rosy flush, Jessica is never without her signature cat eye. “Her look is always lilting towards the ‘60s, and her winged liner is a nod to that,” explains De La Rosa, who used a combination of Inglot products to create a steadfast wing. In the final scene of the series (beware, spoilers ahead!), when Jessica and Felix tie the knot, De La Rosa fully leaned into the decade, dreaming up a look reminiscent of Priscilla Presley with light pink tones on the lips and a ‘60s-style bouffant. The look felt cleaner and more polished, but with that winged liner still triumphantly in place.
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Kim may be a fellow New York expat, but her entire aesthetic needed to feel very different than Jessica’s. “She knows and feels secure in herself, which is different to Jessica’s character who has an element of vulnerability to her,” says De La Rosa. Working closely with actor Janicza Bravo on the look, De La Rosa felt this translated into more of a natural makeup look “that is really only elevated by a lip or an eye,” she explains. “That was very much part of the character; it's that cool girl who gets facials, but doesn’t necessarily need the makeup.”
For that just-from-the-spa complexion, De La Rosa relied on Augustinus Bader Essence, Weleda Skin Food Light, and the Embryolisse moisturizer on days she needed extra hydration. Next came the Danessa Myricks’ Yummy Blurring Balm. ‘This is a fantastic primer that’s not only great for naturally oily skin, but also good for performers who are on camera for nearly ten hours a day. It helps the makeup stick,” says De La Rosa.
Kim’s character wore a rotation of lip products, from deep, mauve-chocolate color (Lisa Eldridge Lipstick in Painterly) and a vivid cherry red (Isamaya Lip Balm in Cardinale) to more neutral tones like the Jones RoadLip Tint in Nude Rose or the Kosas Tinted Lip Oil.
Emily Ratajkowski in "Too Much." Netflix.
Wendy Jones’s Clean-Girl Vibe
Emily Ratajkowski’s Wendy Jones is a knitting influencer in the show, so it should come as no surprise that De La Rosa scrolled through Instagram to help spark ideas for the character’s look, from her Y2K-inspired makeup to her tousled bob. “Everything about Wendy is naturally trendy and when we started planning the look, everyone was cutting their hair into a bob,” De La Rosa explains. “We dressed loads of wigs and the first one she tried on is the one in the show.”
The ultimate Instagram girlfriend, the model Gabriette, served as major inspiration for Wendy’s makeup look. “It’s that kind of Y2K, late-90s, camel-colored palette, but then creating the Wendy Jones version of that,” says De La Rosa. That meant leaving Ratajkowski’s full brows alone, warming up her skin tone with bronzer ( Chanel Les Beige Healthy Glow Bronzing Cream in Medium Bronze), applying blush high up on the cheeks (Rose Inc Cream Blush Refillable Cheek & Lip Color in Foxglove or Pat McGrath Divine Blush in Nude Venus), and overdrawing her lips in a pinky-brown color.
And like any Instagram influencer worth her Likes, Ratajkowski obviously wears faux freckles. “We didn't want it to feel natural but rather she was doing that trendy thing of drawing them on,” explains De La Rosa. “I really felt like Wendy Jones is the kind of person that someone would be like, ‘Oh my God, your freckles are incredible!’ And then she'd do a how-to.” How did De La Rosa do it? With the Julia Pop stencil and a dark-brown pencil.
Linnea’s Minimalist-Goth Aesthetic
For Adwoa Aboah’s Linnea, it was important that her hair and makeup made sense with her goth ensembles, designed by Arielle Cooper-Lethem. It was also important to De La Rosa that we saw Aboah like we’d never seen her before, on screen or down the red carpet. “Adwoa normally has her head shaved or her hair cane-rowed, so instead we made a wig for her that was really long, sometimes wavy, and dyed a blue-black shade to really evoke that goth-girl aesthetic,” says De La Rosa.
Like her character’s obsession with Felix, Aboah’s skin is on full display in the series. “Adwoa has incredible skin and she’s very confident showing it off,” says De La Rosa, who prepped the skin with Tatcha The Water Cream and Pat McGrath Divine Skin: Rose 001 The Essence, and then added a sheer base of By Terry CC Serum in Apricot Glow and the Pat McGrath Skin Fetish: Sublime Perfection Concealer.
Linnea’s cat-eye—drawn on with the Lisa Eldridge’s Kitten Flick Liquid Eyeliner—comes to a severe point at the inner corners of her eyes for a punkier feel — a sharp contrast to Jessica’s sweet ‘60s flick. For her lips, she switched between a deep brown and a matte red. “I wanted some of the traditional eyeliner shapes and lipstick colors we see in goth makeup, but very paired down,” adds De La Rosa.
Will Sharpe in "Too Much."
Felix’s Noughties Emo Look
Beauty is just as important for the male actors' character arcs as they are for the women — especially in the case of Will Sharpe’s Felix. “We see him over a 10-year period, in different bands, and working through his mental health issues,” explains De La Rosa. His look changes with each band, which required a lot of wigs — and a lot of research, with De La Rosa looking to bands like Blink-182 and Japanese and Korean rock groups for inspiration. She also asked Sharpe to grow out his hair, which not only gave him a rock ‘n roll vibe, but also De La Rosa flexibility when designing his Regency-era look. “Overall, it was more of a noughties, Emo musician meets Mr. Darcy," she explains.
In general, from his clothes to his grooming, Felix was supposed to feel a little bit dirty (he is, technically, living on his friend’s couch for most of the series). Salt spray and deep conditioner gave his hair a lived-in, unwashed quality, while smudged eyeliner and chipped dark-green nail polish enhanced the effect.
