Understood.

However, I suspect you're NOT going for the smokey low-key look of the young lady's head shot. But rather the typical high-key look of a cosmetics promo where the look of the skin and the makeup itself is emphasized.

As always, you need some quality gaffers gear plus the skill to use it.

IN all the cosmetic stuff I've seen in magazines, the lighting has been not just high key, but high key with PRECISION control of shadow details and very, VERY smooth "transfer zones" between light and shadows with wide, soft falloff.

Part of that puzzle is large, soft sources. The other part is superior control of spill and light placement.

All that gets mixed with a good eye and understanding the face of the individual model in order to maintain the correct amount of contrast between highlights and soft shadows and to place those where they do the model's face the most good..

Also, you may need to pay attention to the model's beauty mark. That kind of detail MAY impact the make up artists ability to use a "high coverage" foundation to smooth the skin surface out.

Then again not. What I know about makeup is contained in having Mary W's phone number and making sure she's in the budget when I need to do something like this.

On a cosmetics shoot, the makeup artist is as critical as a qualified jib or Steadicam op when that tool is called for.

Let us know how it comes out.

I've looked at some cosmetic ads and as you say, High key. So I'm thinking a pair of softboxes with egg crate and a hairlight with a magenta gel to fight spill from the greenscreen. Would a 150 watt fresnel be good for that?

I'd stay away from small sources for ANYTHING. Even a 150 fresnel will give you a bit of a hot spot off shiny hair from beyond a couple of feet.

If it was me, I'd go with softbox/grids for both key and fill - and use another black-wrapped off to act as a strip bank. (Or you could use an actual Chimera Strip Bank, but that's up to your budget) the point would be to generate a controllable band of highlight to wrap around the hair and shoulders as needed.

Just my 2 cents. Others, I'm sure, may have even more valid approaches.

Ooops, fell over the edge on that last part, I googled "Strip bank" (got a few hits in Vegas), and still am not sure what you mean. So...you're suggesting for the hair light I should somehow black wrap a softbox (to limit the size of the light pool?) to create strip bank? What's a strip bank?

A strip bank is a narrow softbox (like a strip of light). You'd achieve a similar effect with a Kino 4' 2Bank or something like that. If you've already got a softbox for the hairlight, you can blackwrap it (or purchase a strip mask from Photoflex), but you're wasting a lot of light. A strip bank is more efficient.

Good luck.

~~Dave