Makeup artist taking air out of facial scars.

AIRBRUSHES, compressed-air atomizers used to spray paint, produce a smooth surface of color without brush strokes. So they seemed like ideal tools for applying an even coat of makeup. But a standard airbrush was too blunt an instrument for Dina Ousley to use for theatrical makeup, so she designed and manufactured her own and now teaches her technique and sells her equipment from Dinair Airbrush Makeup Systems Inc. in North Hollywood. And she found another use for her innovation--camouflaging burn victims' disfiguring scars.

"I've been airbrushing since 1981. I was in hair and makeup, working freelance in commercials and pilots. The makeup artists never had enough time to do our job with the equipment we were using. They were already using airbrushes to spray fingernails with patterns. I thought, if they could do that with nails, I could do it with makeup.

"I tried out regular airbrushes, but the compressors were too high-pressure. So we came up with a compressor that sprays at very low pressure. We had to create our own little gauges. It comes out perfect for high definition television because the low-pressure means it comes out in little dots, and digital cameras don't read them, they blend it. My partner George Lampman and I went around to chemists to get our own formula (for makeup) made and experimented. It's a whole new technology, and it had to be a smooth liquid so it would spray, not be brushed on.

"We had wealthy clients who became investors, and we put up our money to start the company. We incorporated in 1991.

"At our office, we assemble the equipment, we do shipping, manufacture and package some of our makeup, and we have a school and a studio where we do our work.

"A makeup artist I knew recommended me to Peter Grossman at the Grossman Burn Center (at Sherman Oaks Hospital). He totally reconstructed Zubaida (Hasan), an 11 year-old Afghan nomad girl who was burned severely. So they brought Zubaida to our studio and I did the makeup for her to appear on the Oprah Winfrey show.

"Now we have a prosthesis designer in San Diego making an apparatus for us for burn survivors to be able to airbrush themselves to cover their burn scarring. We're also training some of the burn survivors through the Grossman clinic so they can do it themselves and for others."