Until burn survivor Wendy (not her real name) met makeup artist Maurice Stein a decade ago, she dreaded leaving her house. Before a gas stove explosion almost burned her alive in 1987, she had been a 23-year-old cocktail waitress with long, blonde hair and blue eyes, and generated plenty of attention from the opposite sex.\n\nHowever, the fire from the explosion incinerated her hands, nose, ears and eyelids and left her face an unrecognizable mask of colors and scars. When the hospital nurses allowed her to look in the mirror, \”I screamed and cried,\” she said. \”I looked like a monster.\”\n\nWhen she finally left the hospital nine months later, people stared at her when she ventured out, and cosmetics didn\’t help. Her old Clinique foundation slipped off the scars and thicker makeup looked waxy.\n\n\”I was desperate to find someone to help me,\” Wendy said.