My lovely cousin, Diana!

Just as my last post was uploading, I saw these and completely forgot I had them! You cant see her face in these, but it's my beautiful cousin, Diana. She came over a few months ago and I was playing with her hair and this was the outcome. I wasnt too fond of the messy curly bun on her, so we took it down and just put half up and left the headband and poof. I love doing with her hair and makeup!

Blue water

I am very sorry about the pictures in my last 2 post which I uploaded via my cell phone, I just realized how bad they look. I'll have to find my adaptor so I can go in and fix them in these next few days.

Right now, I'm really procrastinating... I should be cleaning out my kit from Sunday, but I'm on here instead. After a gig or trial, I take everything out and just leave the essentials in like cotton buds & pads, face wipes, disposables, primers, lashes, etc. When I have a new gig, I add the shadow and lip palettes, setting sprays, foundations, and brushes. I have a trial later this week, so I would need to take everything out and pack it again! Nah, I think I'll just leave it in there. Ugh, but I hate seeing it by my door... oh well, I guess I'll go reorganize it. :/

Let me share the look I did today for a company picnic! I have a new blue shadow that had been dying to try, so I figured I would try it out and match the water. :) I did a simple eye with a pop of color and wore it with my favorite pink gloss, MAC's Wildly Refined... which is discontinued. I think that I might be the only one crazy enough to wear falsies to the river!

MUA problems! + tips

So yesterday was Stephanie's Quinceañera, photos coming soon of the final look. Man, it was a long day! I got to her house around 8am and the lady doing the damas' (maids or court) hair was already working. Stephanie's hair and makeup took me a total of about 2.5hrs to do! Just curling her hair took me about 45 minutes because she has so much hair and its super thick.

Of course she's 15 and her best friends were part if her court, so she laughing and moving all over the place while I was doing her makeup. What does this mean to me: mascara all over the place, smudged eyeliner, crooked lip liner, etc. Basically having to re-do many things. Lol. It's OK because she's like a little sister to me and all her friends were there. For anyone who is thinking about hiring an MUA for a special event or if a friend is doing your makeup or whatever, here are a few tips (more like rules) to make the application process go faster and smoother for both you and the MUA.

1. Start of with a clean face. If you can, have your favorite moisturizer on already. You never now how a new moisturizer will react with your skin.

2. If we haven't asked already, PLEASE inform us beforehand of any skin allergies or if a certain brand or product makes you break out! The last thing we want is to irritate your skin.

3. When applying mascara or eyeliner, Let us know if you need to blink! We promise we'll stop to let you blink a bit. If you blink while we're applying them, we might accidentaly smudge the liner or mascara and have to start over again! We might even poke your eye and make your eyes water which is even worse!

4. Tip 3 applies here too! Please stay still if we're applying false lashes and follow what we say, as every MUA has a way which works best for them. If you move the lashes might end up crooked, not glue properly, or we might get glue all over and glue your top and bottom lashes together!

5. Actually, just stay still in general. It's OK to talk, we'll let you know if we need you to stop for a bit. Enjoy getting pampered and relax.

6. Let us know what type of look your going for and give a few examples, that gives us a variety of options to work with. The look might not be the same on you as the person/model may have a different skin tone, eye color, eye shape, facial features, and face shape. All of this contributes to the overall final look.

7. I guess this is more like 6.5. How your final look is now to how it looks in photo are two completely different things. General rule of thumb: if you feel like it might be a little bit much, it might be just enough for photo. So keep that in mind if photos will be taken.

8. Give us space to do our work. A counter, desk, or you dining room table is fine. Chances are you don't have a high director's type chair like we love to use, but if you have a stool or a tall chair, perfect. If not, a regular chair is fine, but it can really take a toll on our back when we're doing a party of like 4 or more.

9. If we're doing hair and makeup, please give us and yourself enough time. Depending on the makeup look and how elaborate the hair is, plan for about 2 hours... it might be more like 1-1.5. Just play it safe. Same for large parties, give your MUA examples of the looks so they can give you an estimate on how long it will take.

10. Please, please, PLEASE let us know if there is something you don't like or want to change of the look! You want to look beautiful and we want to help to make sure you're completely satisfied, but we can't if you don't let us know what you don't like. In my case I will always do a makeup consult about 2-3 weeks before to try out different looks and hair and take some photos for you to compare. This is when you NEED to express your concerns so we can make the changes.


Well, I really hope this helps you out and makes everything go smoothly for you and your MUA.

This is the look I wore yesterday to the party, keep in mind that this is +12 hrs after I applied it. Oh, and excuse the shiny face, I had just gotten home and did not want to add more powder... I just wanted to go to bed! If you look close in the first picture, I had already started taking one of my lashes in the inner corner when I realized I hadn't taken a picture yet! Lol.

These are the nails I did, completely blinged out and the color matched my shoes perfectly!The color is Frostbite by China Glaze.

Quinceañera Shoot

This is Stephanie, one of my best friend's younger sister. We recently did a photo shoot at the beach for her Quinceañera which is tomorrow. Although we did a smokey eye on her, I wanted to keep it as soft as possible. Club makeup at the beach... yeah, not gonna happen!
Anyways, here are a few photos from the shoot at Mukilteo/Everett area. I love her face/skin in the last one, and it was just a test shot!

Perfect Neutral

Personally, nothing makes me feel more beautiful than a neutral eye and bold, bright lip! That's exactly what I did today. :) I didn't take a picture, but on my lips I wore the Covergirl blast flipstick I think the color is called stunner. I'm not sure the name, but its the one that Sofia Vergara is wearing in the ad! I felt like the eyes needed a bit more, so I added some really fun lashes too.

Off to bed, I've got a pretty long day tomorrow!

Lucky Green

I am completely in love with MAC's Lucky green! I bought it last October, wore it one and completely forgot about it. It is the most beautiful light green with yellow shimmer. Today, I decided to use it to do just a simple look with a soft brown and some black liner. What do you think?

On another note, this is one of my favorite palettes in the whole world... but it's a little tricky to get the color as vibrant as it looks in the pan.

Normally, I would either use my handy-dandy Urban Decay Primer Potion (UDPP) or a white base like NYX's Jumbo Eye Pencil in Milk. I have about 10 different primers and decided to do a swatch test to see which of the ones I use most will make the color more vibrant.

I decided to use the teal color for the swatch test.

in order from left to right: No primer, UDPP, concealer, Benefit Stay Dont Stray primer, NYX Milk Jumbo Eye Pencil, LA Splash Eyeshadow primer/sealer.

Isn't that crazy, the LA Splash primer is more vibrant, but dang near imposible to blend shadows! Oh well, guess I'll have to use a white shadow and then layer the color ontop so I can blend it better.

Let me borow your freckles!

Meet Rachel, my little brother's girlfriend! More on why I have pictures of her on here a bit later, first, the story behind the title.

So, a few weeks ago I went to an interview for a part-time job... nothing beauty related. The gal who did my interview said she loved the look I was wearing and asked how I got it to look so perfect. We got to talking about me being a freelance MUA and it turns out she's getting married this September but doesnt have anyone doing her makeup yet. I let her know I would be more than happy to do her makeup and would send her examples of work I've done along with my rates.

She is fair with tons of freckles, which I find so gorgeous! While going through my pictures I realized I didn't have any examples of gals with freckles I could send her... and don't know anyone with them either. Last week, she sent me pictures of the hair looks she wants for her and her bridesmaids, both of which are for long hair. I dont have anyone with long hair I could practice the looks on either! Great, I'm screwed.

Sunday, I was on FB and saw a picture of my brother with his girlfriend and remembered that she has both freckles and med-long hair! I happend to walk out of my room when he was talking on the phone with her so I asked him to tell her to let me borrow her freckles. The look on his face... PRICELESS! LOL! She agreed, thank God.

The bride wanted me to try out two different looks: 1 neutral w/freckles & 1 more dramatic w/o freckles. Also, we tried out both the bride and bridesmaid's hairstyles. Since Rachel hardly ever wears makeup, my brother could not take his eyes off her!

Neutral look

Dramatic look

  

Bride's hairstyle

Bridesmaids' hairstyle