Photoshoot: Gorgeous Mansion, Brazilian Swimwear, and Beautiful Makeup - Oh my!

This shoot was located at Georgiou's Place, a mansion and photography studio owned by French photographer and women's clothing designer George Georgiou.  The purpose of this shoot was to promote a Charmosa Swimwear by Brazilian designer Niede Hall.  I did makeup on sisters Alysia Michelle and Jasmine Rincon.  Because it was a swimwear shoot, the makeup was kept soft but very feminine and pretty.  The girls are so pretty that applying makeup on them was truly effortless.

Photography: Jeff Nguyen

Models: Jasmine Rincon and Alysia Michelle

Makeup: Me

Designer: Niede Hall of Charmosa Swimwear

Shoot location:

Makeup station.

The beautiful ladies and me:

I couldn't get over how beautiful the location was and how talented the models were!  The girls totally rocked it seeing how they were NOT professional models.  It was like a movie set!  What do you guys think?

Mylene: Cut, Color, Highlights, Brows

Since I've been in beauty school, I get request for hair services from my boyfriend's family whenever I go visit him in Quebec.  On my last visit, his aunt requested a haircut, color retouch, and highlights.  She requested a trim on the sides and the back, but wanted to try out side swept bangs to look more youthful and to get rid of the middle part.  She also requested more prominent highlights.  While the color was processing, I cleaned up her brows with tweezers.  The entire process took 4.5 hours.

Here are some before pictures:

After:

We mixed three different colors for the color service to get the desired deep reddy violet brown.  Funny thing is, her English is limited as is my French so I didn't realize she wanted only to touch up her roots at first.  What I ended up doing was coloring her entire head and we ran out of her usual color formula, so we used a violet on the sections from the occipital bone down.  On her fringe, I used a freehand technique for the highlights because I thought softer highlights would be more flattering.  I really wanted to style her hair after rinsing out the bleach but her hair has been heavily processed in the past (entire head of hair bleached) and we did a lot more processing today, so I let her hair air dry.  

Also, I'm very sensitive to smell.  Whenever I do a haircolor or perm service, I can taste the chemicals in my throat hours after the service.  Seeing as I didn't have any masks with me, I wrapped one of my boyfriend's shirts around my face as I did the color services.

Taking a food break while color was processing.
No worries--my gloves were clean.

If I had time, I would have liked to do a makeover as well, but Mylene had to get to work.  But it was a lot of fun!  Things would have been a little easier if I had access to a proper shampoo bowl.  All in all, I can't wait to do some more color and highlights!

I know a lot of you guys color your own hair at home (something I personally haven't done yet).  What are your tips and tricks when you do so?  I'd love to know!

My First Film Gig

The day before I flew out to Quebec, I was part of a team of makeup artists working on a short film called "Three Men and a Laptop."  The film is about how it is abnormal to date people online and some other stuff. As somebody who is in a long distance relationship as a result of meeting someone online, you can probably guess how I feel about that.  That in itself is a highly debatable subject anyway.  But it matters not because I was there for the makeup and that's that.

I was lucky enough to do makeup for the leading lady, one of the male leads, and some extras.  It was too crazy and hectic for me to take pictures of myself at work or the cast members I did makeup on.  I did snap a few pics of the scenes of the lounge, the makeup station, and myself with some of the MUAs on set.

My view from the makeup station.

You can see those bright bright movie lights.

The dinky makeup table shared between 4 MUAs.

2 of the MUAs (and former classmates!) and me

Overall, it was definitely an eye opening experience.  Doing makeup for film is much more different than any other gigs I've done before.  There is a constant need for retouching makeup as it tends to melt under the harsh lights.  I rarely do makeup for guys and I definitely lacked the supplies for it.  It was also rather difficult to work in such a tight space with such dim lighting.  I understand that as a freelance artists I may be called to work in less than ideal settings, but for a film...that's pushing it a bit since the camera tends to pick up all imperfections.  All in all I have learned a lot and I aim to be much better prepared next time.

In addition to more makeup, I intend on bringing my own table and some of my own lighting next time.  Anybody have tips or tricks to share?

Experiment: Olive Oil as Makeup Remover

I think many of us have been in the blogging/vlogging beauty community long enough that we've heard of the bagillion ways olive oil can be useful--including for makeup removal.

Well it just so happens that I completely ran out of makeup remover the other day.  I thought I had a back up bottle but apparently not.  Right now the only makeup remover I will use is the Target brand because it is dirt cheap and works better than a lot of more expensive options.  As I don't live near a Target anymore, I couldn't run out and buy some so for a couple of weeks I opted for olive oil that I had lying around the house.

Let's just start with some pictures, shall we?

Before

After

Just to specifiy, I used the olive oil for eye makeup removal only.  That includes my super duper waterproof and long wearing Inglot gel eyeliner, waterproof mascara, and eyeshadows over a primer.  

So is olive oil as good as my trusty Up and Up Oil-free Makeup Remover by Target?  

Well, no.  As you can see, there are still some bits of black on my face.  To be fair though, it is a very good Plan B and is efficient enough.  I did end up using more oil and more cotton rounds to remove all my eye makeup.  Getting all the waterproof mascara off is definitely a lot more time consuming and tedious, and feeling all that greasiness on my face and fingers is quite off putting.  I used maybe 4 or 5 cotton rounds to get the makeup off, as opposed to my usual 2 or 3.

So what happens then?  Well, I ordered 10 bottles of the makeup remover on Target's website only to have them all spill inside the box so I had to drive out to a Target and exchange them anyway.  I've learned my lesson.  I will never run out of makeup remover again!

Christian Louboutin Stiletto Nails: My 1st Attempt at Sculpted Nails

Oh boy.  I've done it again, haven't I?  Started up blogging again only to be overwhelmed by life and neglect it for a few weeks.  I'll do a short update on that at the end of this post.  For now, I want to share with you an experiment I conducted a few weeks ago.

My friend Kristine really wanted Christian Louboutin stiletto nails, and asked me to create some for her.  I have never done sculptured nails before on an actual person (just the fake mannequin hands at school!), let alone stiletto nails, but I was willing to give it a go.  For those of you who don't know, sculptured nails are acrylic nails that are created as an extension of the nail plate without first gluing a fake nail tip on.  Stiletto nails were really hot last year, and they basically look like claws.

Kristine had chewed up her nails so that even though her nail bed was nice and long, I had no free edge (white part of the nail) to work with.  So I had no choice but to glue some nail tips onto all 10 of her fingers.  The reason I need some free edge to work with is because I had to place the sculpture forms right underneath (not pictured).

I then had to trim the nail tips down, tape on the forms, and get to work mixing the chemicals and shaping the nails.  Then file down the acrylic and paint each nail.  The entire process took four hours.

I wish I could say it was a success, but as you can see from the pictures, it most definitely was not.  I ruined three brushes doing these nails because the acrylic hardened on the bristles and when that happens they're beyond saving.  I also ran out of powder so my powder to liquid ratio was off and the nails towards the end became thin and rubbery.  You can't imagine how frustrated I was, and even while using odorless products, the fumes were really getting to me.

Kristine told me the nails started falling off in the shower, which is really odd because I used a primer, and I've had my own nails done using the same products.  Those nails lasted forever.  It made me so sad that all that time spent on the nails couldn't hold them up.  It also frustrated the crap out of me because the nails I did in class were always solid and well done.

You bet your pantyhose and licorice sticks--when I get my hands on more powder and brushes, I'll be looking for my next victim.


Anyway a few life updates.....

• I'm in Quebec right now visiting my boyfriend.  It's so freaking cold--even Mr. Sugarbumpkin insists that this is the coldest winter they've had for a long time.  Needless to say, I miss California weather.  And the food.
• Feeling a bit blue and depressed about my career choice in the beauty industry.  While it makes me happy, I feel anxious about being financially stable and all that fun stuff.
• I've decided to stop buying makeup unless I ABSOLUTELY need it for my clients or if I'm using gift cards.  Same goes with hairstyling products.  So that means no makeup on this trip even though I have access to Canadian exclusive goodies.  Sigh.
• Every time I visit my boyfriend, my skin freaks out and I get a rash all over my body.  My skin becomes insanely dry and this time my eyes have started burning.  Still no idea what I'm allergic to but it makes putting on makeup really unfun.

That's about it.  Mr. Sugarbumpkin has a loooooong day of work and classes tomorrow so I'll be camping out in his place hopefully putting together some more blogs.  While I have been unable to post regularly, I have been collecting material so don't give up on me yet!

Makeup Hoarding: Revlon Colorbursts Lipglosses

I had a bit of free time today so I'm attempting to clean up my vanity and reorganize my storage a little.  I seem to be prone to creating clutter so I'm not sure this attempt will be fruitful.  I did come across something quite terrifying though.

Lo and behold, 11 brand new Revlon Colorburst Lipglosses.

Ever since I tasted my first rancid lipgloss Halloween of 2010 and threw out my first batch of nasty lipglosses, I vowed never to buy lipglosses again until I used up the ones I had.  I didn't think I was buying that many, but I purchased a few here, a few there.  Glosses I liked and some where I thought the colors were very unique.  Not all of them by Revlon, but showing you just the glosses I accumulated from one line of one brand alone terrifies me.  

I haven't quite decided what to do with these glosses yet.  I don't like to open new lipglosses until I have finished some up (WHICH HAS NEVER BEFORE HAPPENED).  I do like the colors obviously.  But I don't know what to do!

As I continue cleaning, I am completely overwhelmed at the amount of makeup I own.  Even as a makeup artist, there is only so much I can use on clients.  If I were doing makeup on other people all day, everyday that would be another story.  I think I may have finally convinced myself that I can start and complete a Project 10 Pan.  

But then I think about limited edition collections out there and my trip coming up....oh boy.

Tell me I'm not crazy.  Am I the only one freaking out about how much makeup I possess?!

Baby Bro's Clipper Cut

To break away from makeup and women related beauty for just a moment, I present to you my baby brother.  I cut his hair yesterday using clippers and shears, after putting it off for the past couple of weeks.  Men's cuts were not something I had a whole lot of practice with in school because I only had so many mannequins I could cut short, and I was too chicken to practice on real clients.  Luckily for me, I have a brother and sister who are willing to let me chop up their hair.

Here are some before pictures:

And after:

Do excuse the faces/poses.  He is but a child.

Have a happy Monday!