Jennifer Lopez Reveals Her Favorite Beauty Look of All Time

In celebration for tonight’s VMAs, where Jennifer Lopez will receive MTV’s Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award, which acknowledges her range of stellar music videos, one beauty moment stands out from the rest. “'Waiting For Tonight' with the crystals on [my] face,” Lopez told Vogue.com this summer. “Kevyn Aucoin did it.” Thanks to the late, great makeup artist, her look in the video, which was released in 1999 at the brink of Y2K fever, boasted a top model-approved, Aucoin-certified noughties touch, such as a narrow brow, smoked eyelids, and a slicked-back ponytail, as well as long, french-manicured nail tips.

Throughout the balmy short Lopez is glowing and fresh-faced, flanked by palm tree leaves and lime green strobe lights. Later, she transforms into a bedazzled avatar, dotted with crystals and two diamonds, her gaze never leaving the camera. As for how the futuristic look came to be? “I showed [Kevyn] this picture of a model who was [covered] in spray paint and had glitter on her face. It was some fashion picture,” Lopez said. “He was like, ‘We’re going to do that but we’re going to do it different.’ And he just did his own version of it.” As for how the look was executed? “He [used] different-size crystals, he sprayed me with airbrushed glitter, he blew glitter [on me],” recalled Lopez, who breathed heavily into her palm to recreate the magic image of Aucoin applying makeup. “It was just layers and layers [of sparkle]. He was like, ‘And we’re not going to paint your skin blue, black, or yellow—it’s going to be your natural tan skin.’” At the time, it won Best Dance Video. Today, the beauty look deserves an award of its own.