Gold Leaf

Oh my, I am so awful with blog posts it's ridiculous!! So this is the first one of the new year, and I've been so busy I finally have a day off to sit down and show you some stuff I have been doing!

In between studio's I have been doing wedding make ups, make up lessons, you name it I've been doing it.

So this is a little preview of something I did last Friday. We had beautiful Abbie who is 17 as our model for the afternoon and I put so much different make up on her she won't need to wear any now until she is at least 20!

To start with we kept it nice and natural with a bright pink lip for some tutu's we were sent over by a designer.

Then I experimented with something I've been wanting to try for ages.....gold leaf!

I found this pack in HobbyCraft cost about £6? Its great there is so much in the pack it will last me for ages, need to find a good tub for it now!

For this look she has a black smoky eye quite basic and I was planning a black lip but what I picked up thinking it was black greasepaint was actually deep blue! Whoops! But actually in the photographs it turned out a really nice bright colour. As I'd never used gold leaf before I was debating on how to get it to stick to the lips but using a clear gloss it stayed on perfectly. The leaves are really easy to tear into smaller pieces and I just randomly stuck them in different shapes and sizes in the middle of the lip. And this is the finished look! For my first time, I was pretty impressed (if I do say so myself!!) and I can't wait to try something with gold leaf on the eyes!!

All Hallows Eve..

Its that time of year again. Halloween is nearly upon us, and for the first time EVER I am going out trick or treating!!! I am ridiculously excited for this and tried out a little make up idea for a witch. I probably won't actually be wearing this as I walked downstairs and was greeted with 'So hideous is the look you were going for..right?' So I figured I may genuinely scare small children going out like this.

I am available for hire to scare off children as a 'trick' ;)

Please excuse my horrendous skin, I didn't put a base on as I have a stinking cold and was blowing my nose every 5 minutes!


I was having a little play with eyebrow shapes aswell, now decided I prefer my left hand side as it gives a nice edge to the look. Took ages to get the black pencil out of them aswell!!!


First step on the eyes I used a white & black pencil just to create a nice smooth base for my shadows. I smudged these out and then went over the white to make it stand out more. I used a MAC Black pigment pot on the outside to create a smoky look and a Rimmel Glam Eyes in Glam Ice over the white for a shimmer.

To create the look under the eyes I used an eyeliner by Me Me Me and its shaped, the best way I can describe, like a felt tip pen! I find these SO easy to use and they dry almost instantly. I followed the natural shape of my eye and then flicked the opposite way as you would to do a flick on the top of the eye. I used a bit of the MAC pigment to smudge this and make the look more smoky.

I have 2 sets of eyelashes on here. The top ones are by Eylure 107 and the bottom are from Sally's by Ardell 110. You can buy lashes for under the eyes but I wanted something dramatic so I used normal lashes.

The lips is actually a MAC eyeliner! The pigment in these are really strong so I just used it as an all over base. I then used my eyeshadow brush with some of the left over black shadow on and just smudged into the edges.

Hope you are all inspired!!

Midlands Fashion Designer Award 2012

On Friday I was very excited to be part of the Make Up Team backstage at the Midlands Fashion Designer Awards at The Birmingham Botanical Gardens. The awards are such a great evening and a really important way for up and coming designers to showcase their work.

We were using Youngblood Cosmetics who sponsored the show and specialise in mineral make up. I'd never used this brand before and have always been a little aphrehensive about mineral make up and I don't totally know why? Maybe because I thought the foundations wouldn't give as much coverage as much as a liquid or compact. But I was actually pleasantly surprised with the brand.

The kit we were given was extensive and looked sleek in a large metal carry case. The packaging for the brand was beautifully simple. The Head Make Up Artist Jules Cardozo-Marsh created a simple runway look to go with all the outfits, flawless base, contoured cheekbones, defined brows & a colour wash on the eye.

I'll start with the base. I wasn't overly keen on the cream concealers as I found they weren't thick enough to keep dark circles under the eyes hidden. I also found there wasn't a great range of shades, only 5 which to me doesn't seem alot.




The foundation we used was their mineral foundation in powder form. I loved the coverage this gave and it didn't look cakey even after several touch ups throughout the evening. The product was really easy to blend and I used a MAC 130 brush. There is 16 shades all together in the loose powder foundation which can all be blended easily. I found 'Soft Beige' was a pretty good match for most fair skin tones. We also used these foundations on the lips to create a matte base and they worked pretty well. The lips became dry after a while but then that would be expected with any kind of foundation base on the lips, so I can't criticise for that one!!



For the eyes we used one colour in a simple colour wash way. We used 'Granite' from the crushed eyeshadows and I found this was a lovely colour and nice and easy to apply. On some dark skin tones I used a pressed powder in 'Concord'. This I wasn't so impressed with for all the reasons I thought before hand. I found the colour went on patchy and found it quite difficult to build up a flat layer of colour, something I could have done without backstage at a busy fashion show!!

All in all I was pretty impressed with the extensive kit that Youngblood provided for us and the quality of their products.

New Offer

Cocoon Photography have just launched their brand new studio and are offering Beauty or Boudoir shoots for £99! This includes hair and make up, outfit changes and an 8x6 mounted print.
The link below will take you to the offer:http://us1.campaign-archive1.com/?u=c05d4fdf624fea051962c9089&id=f4d015fe19


I spent a tonne of money on make up today so I will be reviewing my beautiful new lipstick shades soon!

For now I will leave you with an image from Hannah's shoot, one of our beautiful sisters from Wednesday..

Emma x 

Welcome..

 

Hello and welcome to you all! After many people telling me to do this I have finally given in to technology and got myself a blog! Here I'll be sharing shots of recent shoots, new products I've bought and ones I highly recommend.

When I get a little better with this, I'll start including some beauty how to's and tutorials, any suggestions are more than welcome :)

I'll start with a little something I worked on today with Cocoon Photography..

Meet Stephanie & Hannah, two gorgeous sister who had a sister shoot today in the studio. Still can't get over how much they look alike!

Products used in this shoot:
Concealer: MAC Studio Finish
Foundation: Illamasqua Compact
Powder: MAC Transparent Loose Powder
Blusher: MAC Pinch Me
Bronzer Bourjois
Urban Decay Naked Palette: Virgin, Buck, Sidecar & Dark Horse
Eyeliner: Me Me Me Pen Liner
Lips: Estee Lauder Gloss