Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Make a matched gift and support Jewish journalism. DONATE NOW
The Schmooze

She Knows How To Look Gorgeous — Using Israeli Army Face Paint for Makeup

(JTA) — You may think camouflage face paint is about blending in. But done right, it can be the key to that standout military look you crave.

Just ask American Israel Defense Forces soldier Hannah Laskow Defore.

In a sendup of online makeup tutorials, the 19 year-old Los Angeles native, last week posted a Facebook video explaining how to make the most of the army-issue coverup. The video has since been viewed about half a million times.

“I always thought makeup tutorial videos were funny because the people in them take them so seriously,” Defore told The Times of Israel.

Her color palette ranges from beige (which she dubs “peace in the Middle East” because “all you can see is sand”) to olive green (which she says really “brings out [her] eyes”) to black (which she calls “kitchen” because it’s “the same color as all the food we eat on base”).

Despite taking some goodnatured shots at army life in the video, Defore is in no hurry to get home. She plans to stay in Israel after her service ends this summer to study entrepreneurship. Maybe she’ll start a makeup line.

It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!

This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions. 

We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.

As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday! 

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:

  • Credit the Forward
  • Retain our pixel
  • Preserve our canonical link in Google search
  • Add a noindex tag in Google search

See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.