Paula Garces Gives Red Carpet Style Tips

By Mariela Rosario • January 14, 2010 • 12:30pm

For Colombian beauty Paula Garces, getting gorgeous for a red carpet event takes plenty of preparation. “I don’t go on a liquid diet like some actresses do, but I definitely drink a lot of water two days before to flush the system, and I get lots of rest. And I moisturize day and night.”

Garces also experiments with hair and makeup on The Mun2 Look, a new style magazine show created and co-produced by the actress. You'll find her on the show sporting everything from a side bun to a faux-hawk, and makeup ranging from clean and fresh to rock star, with dark, heavy eyeliner and smoky shadow. The Mun2 Look, premiering the first of six episodes Jan. 23 at 3 p.m. on Mun2, will include step by step makeovers, fashion tips, answers to burning style questions and how to get the look for less. Celeb guests include Kat Von D, Dania Ramirez, Jenni Rivera, Pitbull and Wilmer Valderrama, and Garces hopes to snag Fergie and Mariah Carey in the future.

Garces, whose other possible upcoming projects include another Harold & Kumar movie and an English/Spanish language action comic book about a native Colombian heroine of the 1500s named Aluna, is full of helpful beauty tips. For example, “I’m wearing Spray Legs,” she says, pointing to her smooth, tanned calf. “It looks like you’re wearing stockings but you’re not,” she raves. “If you got a nick while shaving or you have a bruise, it covers up everything and looks really natural.”

Read on for more of Garces's red carpet secrets.

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Crediting her grandmother’s genes and oil-rich avocados for her silky skin, Garces keeps it hydrated with Neutrogena, MAC, and Avon moisturizers. “I don’t go crazy with hundred dollar creams,” confides the actress.

Garces makes sure to get a good night’s sleep the night before the big event, and that morning meets with her makeup artist/hairdresser to strategize her look, “based on what I want to wear—80% of the time I have a smoky eye,” she says. “Usually I have a very nude lip, but I’m trying to add more color. I love Makeup Forever HD foundation because TV cameras can be harsh on your face,” she explains, noting that she slips some in her purse along with Maybelline mascara.

Depending on her dress, she might wear her long brown hair wavy, flat-ironed straight, or slicked back, in “the tight bun, J. Lo look. It’s a very Latina thing to do, and it gives you sort of a fake eyelift,” she adds with a laugh. “A lot of times I wear what I call my Shakira look,” she says of the thick, wavy “typical Colombian hair” with which she was blessed. Other times she’ll wear it swept to the side in “very ladylike, kind of Joan Crawford 1940s waves.” She’ll wash it the day before, because slightly dirty hair is easier to work with. “If you wash it that day it can be a little static-y and not behave or bend the way you want it to,” she explains.”

One of her favorite hairstyles was the high, straight ponytail she wore with a cream-colored, one-shoulder Carmen Marc Valvo gown and Jacob & Company drop earrings to the 2009 ALMA Awards. Having gotten married at City Hall, it was the bridal look she never had. “I felt like a princess,” Garces remembers.