Screen Images By Adrienne M. Brown Washingtonpost.com Staff Monday, June 29, 1998

The first lady makes a luscious redhead. Other tricks include darkening her lipstick, evening out her skin tone and adding just a touch of smoky brown eyeshadow. (AP file photos)

"Cosmopolitan's Virtual Make-over," a software package that retails for $39.99, can only be described as ridiculously fun. When you were younger you played dress-up. Now technology has made it possible to play make-over with equal abandon. Go ahead, try new hairstyles and colors, eye shadows, lip colors. Tweeze and fill your eyebrows, experiment with foundations, and, if you like it, add a beauty mark. If you don't like it, just clear the page – after all, it's just a computer image.

The program requires only one thing from you – a picture. Make sure the picture is just your face with your hair brushed out of the way. If you have long hair, pin it up (when you start testing hairstyles on the site, you don't want your old, long hair sticking out at the bottom). And no makeup! This program is designed to help you start from scratch. For best results, load a color photo. If you don't have a picture of yourself already online or if you don't have a scanner, Cosmopolitan and Kodak have provided an envelope for the film or picture you want put on a disk. Just send it off and wait for your digitized image to be returned.

The set-up of the program is very simple. Your photo goes in the center of the screen. On one side are all the tools you need to make yourself into a beautiful Ms. – or Mr. – Potato Head. There are also options to create a slide show of pictures of your new look, print the pictures or, if you need inspiration, load a photo of one of the Cosmo models.

If you buy the extra style pack for $19.99, you can add glasses and hats to the mix, although, unfortunately, you can't try hats, glasses and hair at the same time. The style pack has a wider variety of hairstyles for you to try, including many African American natural and braid styles. The pack is still lacking lipsticks and cosmetics for darker skin women; but the company that makes the kit, Sega Soft, is working on a version for Essence, a magazine for black women.

"Elle's Beauty Guide," a software program that retails for $29.99, approaches beauty less as a game and more as a way of life. The guide includes sophisticated advice on fragrance, skin and cosmetics, as well as an exclusive product section by its sponsor Lancôme. Each section has an online test for you to fill out, followed by advice and product recommendations catered to your responses. You can print out all the results for the next time you head out the store.

House Speaker Newt Gingrich only needed a hair update and a wattle tuck to get back on the style track.

If you've ever spent an hour spraying yourself stinky at a fragrance counter, the scent section will definitely excite you. Far superior to fragrance tests to be found in magazines, the 50-question quiz includes such probing questions as "Instead of dreaming of love, do you do something to find it?" or "On impulse, would you follow Indiana Jones?" According to Elle, your regular scent should complement those qualities brought out by the test.

The tests in each section are specific and helpful. Elle gives those small tips you can normally only get from your mother, including how to correctly remove makeup, which skin creams to use, how to choose a foundation, specific care for your skin type and personal coloring tips. Elle makes sure you learn something new with this guide.

Each section throughout the guide also recommends higher-end cosmetics from Christian Dior, Shiseido, Clinique, Chanel and Lancôme to help you follow the advice. Finding low-cost alternatives won't be hard, though, because Elle is so clear on every point.

The guide is pretty self-explanatory and with a little trial and error is simple enough to navigate even by novice computer users. There's an option box in the lower right-hand corner that automatically hides while you take the tests and get advice. Although it may look like there's no way out of some sections, that option box is always there. Another navigational hint: When you are answering the questions, drag your answers onto the central picture. Once you know these little tricks, this guide becomes the perfect addition to every woman's makeup armory.

Both programs – as different as the magazines – prove that beauty is a possibility for every person. Well, at least a technical possibility.