TAKE A NEW LOOK: NEW 'DO, NEW LOOK PLEASE CONTEST WINNER

DURING: Diane Cook, left, looked over a book of hair styles with Angie Arnold, a stylist at Special Effects before her makeover.

AFTER: At right, Diane Cook after her makeover.

When Diane Cook sent in her entry for the Southeast Missourian's Spring Makeover Contest, she got right to the point.

"Help me!" wrote Cook, a bookkeeper who lives in Chaffee.

She was picked as the winner from a field of nine entries for the makeover, which included a free haircut and hair color makeover from Special Effects styling salon and a free color analysis and makeup lesson from the Color Me Beautiful cosmetics service at JCPenney.

Cook said she almost didn't enter the contest at all.

"At one point, I almost chickened out, but then a couple of days before the deadline, I did it."

Cook, 41, said she was tired of "seeing the same old thing in the mirror every morning."

Cook's husband, Kenneth, is a truck driver and their five children range in age from 10 to 19.

When the big day came, she confessed she was a little nervous.

At Special Effects, stylist Angie Arnold handled the cut and color job.

Cook was growing out a perm at the time, and her dark brown hair needed to be shaped up. She said she did color her hair "just to cover up the gray" from time to time.

"Tell me what you don't like about your hair," Arnold asked her when they met for the makeover.

Then they started looking for a new 'do.

In the end, Cook settled on a short, layered cut that she felt would need little maintenance.

"I took a little length off of the bottom and added a few layers and textured the top so she could get some height out of it," Arnold said.

Red tones were also added to brighten up the dark brown and complement Cook's skin tone, Arnold said, "and I taught her some styling techniques."

Next stop was the makeup counter where Karen Van Ells worked with Cook.

Cook said she doesn't usually wear much makeup, "just a little in the mornings."

A little coverstick was used to hide the dark circles under Cook's eyes, and eye shadow in Parchment, Coffee and Foxy Lady was used to bring out her eyes.

Ruby blush and Madeira lipstick, a deep wine-red, completed the look.

Color Me Beautiful is based on seasons, explained Becky Davidson, and Cook was deemed a deep Winter.

"She wants to go with deeper colors, with her eyes and her hair. Her lipstick should be deeper. If you're light-eyed and you wear a deeper lipstick, all people see is your lipstick. They don't even notice your eyes," Davidson said.

Deep plum, berry and neutrals will work well for Cook, she said.

"She wants to stay on the cool (blue-toned) side," Davidson said. "She doesn't want to get too dark."

The Color Me Beautiful system is based on finding coordinating and complementary shades for hair, eyes and skin tone, Davidson said.

"It's like putting a fuschia pillow on an orange couch," she said. "If somebody's warm and they wear a fuschia lipstick, it looks wrong. It doesn't fit. Some people will see it and find it offensive."

When the cutting and coloring and making over were finished, Cook was a woman transformed.

And, more importantly, a woman very happy with her new look.

"I think I look wonderful," she said, beaming. "You'd think I was two different people. I didn't think it would make this big a difference."

"I had to stare at myself a few minutes," she said.

What she especially liked is that her new look isn't too made-up.

"The hair style is real easy and the makeup isn't overdone," she said.