The Subway Beauty Salon - NYTimes.com In taking photographs of subway riders, Jeff Mermelstein opted against furtiveness. "I felt like if I got caught in the confines of a subway car, I can get in more trouble than I'm wanting to deal with at this age," he says. But many of his subjects were too engrossed to notice. Mandy Schmieder (far right, middle row on the following pages), an actress and real estate agent whose schedule demands the timesaving tactic of applying lipstick underneath Midtown, says of her habit: "I feel very self-conscious when I'm doing it, but when I look at [other] people, I'm just like: "How's it gonna look when they're done?" " Another actress, Jocelyn Druyan (top right corner on the following pages), says there's an advantage to applying makeup in transit: "You look better when you first arrive, because your makeup's nice and fresh." Average commute in New York metro area: 34.6 minutes New York's Rank in public-transportation usage among the 50 largest metro areas: No. U.S. revenues generated by makeup in 2010: $6.2 billion