Smoky & Sultry Fall Session

 

Kara is a repeat client. Every year we get together so I can do her makeup for Halloween. This year she chose to be a flight attendant, and we decided to give her a "smoky and sultry" look to top it off-- hence the title of this post. 

The deep smoky eye and bold red lips are classic. 

Marilyn Monroe would be proud. 

But while we're on the subject of the overall look, can I please point out how great her skin is?! My only job was to give it the glow it needed to pull everything together, which I did with ample highlighting and a side of bronzing. 

I also gave her brows a slight more dramatic touch than her everyday wear. But it was necessary to help frame her face and make everything look polished. You have to understand, that as an artist, I see everything in terms of balance. 

Overall, I loved this look. I think it's one that would compliment anybody's eyes, face structure, skin tone, etc. 

Would you be bold enough to rock this look? Leave me comments and let me know! 

My Halloween Cat Makeup

So, for Halloween, I was first considering doing one of the ever-popular deer looks this year.. But then, I saw so many deer all over the internet that I decided to deviate away from that and do a classic cat look. 

If you look up cat makeup online, you'll see that there are many different looks out there to help you decide what kind of cat you'd like to be. I was inspired by a look I saw a fellow makeup lover do on Facebook and an Instagram photo that I'd seen recently as well. I basically used that inspiration to develop the look I wanted with my own twist. 

Like with the eyes, which I did not imitate. I just sort of started working on creating them without a clear image of what I wanted, and went with it. You'll find that when you're artistically inclined, you're very likely to start on a project, whether it be makeup or a a painting on canvas, and as you work on it it just starts to come together before your eyes. 

A lot of the shading and the added touches are instinctual. With the deep shading on either side of my nose up top, I just kept darkening that area to make it look more hollowed out, because it felt right. 

I'm so grateful to be passionate about such a powerful thing. Makeup is incredible, and what you can do with it is surreal. I've had people ask me how to know what shades go together in a palette, what type of lipstick looks good with what, how to do this or that. And the truth is, I may not be able to really explain it to you because it's all instinctual. It mostly comes to me naturally.

But the cool thing about makeup, is that there is always room for us to improve, constantly, because it is an art form. So if you're not where you want to be, then just keep at whatever it is you're wanting to improve. 

Also, I'd like to point out that I made the ears you see me wearing in these photos. I actually cut ear shapes out of cardboard, hot glued a sequence ribbon to the cardboard ears, and then hot glued the ears to a headband. It was super easy! 

The thing I really enjoyed about this cat look aside from the opportunity to be creative with makeup, was that it was very cost affordable! 

If you're looking to be something simple but sensual and fun, then try a cat for next Halloween!  

xx 

Gold Glitter Glam Halloween Makeup Session

As my knowledge and skills have increased over the last few years, I've done some work I've been very proud of. But the eye makeup I did for Kara last Friday really took the cake. I wasn't even sure what I was aiming for, but was so pleasantly surprised with how the eyes turned out. 

Her makeup was actually part of her Halloween costume as Forrest Gump's woman, Jenny. I know Jenny doesn't wear this much makeup and looks a little more natural in the movie, but seeing as it was Halloween and all, she wanted to go all out. 

This eye look started as an everyday gold and brown smoky eye, but we amped it up with the gold glitter I packed onto the lid all over the gold shadow. 

To make it even more more dramatic, I gave her stark black winged liner and thick black falsies. 

You can see that I also smoked out her bottom lash line with brown and black, and I used the black liner to also line her waterline. I tend to lean more towards smoking the lash line out with shadow and lining the waterline rather than using eyeliner solely across the lash line. I hate how lining the bottom lash area closes off the eyes and can sometimes look sloppy if recklessly drawn on. It's best to smoke it out with the deeper shadows, so that way you're giving the eye a softer and sexier smoked out effect. 

Lastly, I applied a pink liner and pink lipstick to her lips to give them a hint of color, but not to over-power the glam of the eyes. Remember, save a bolder lip for a more natural eye, and keep lips more natural when you do a more dramatic eye look. The opposition helps to bring out the right features in the face and show off whichever you've spent the most time on that day. 

If you all have any questions, comments or suggestions, please feel free to share them in the comments! 

I'll also be uploading (late, I know) my Halloween makeup from this year, so keep watch for that to be up on my blog soon! 

xx