Becoming a make up artist

{Something I learnt from my myself}

Some people know exactly what they want to do with their life. At 5 years old, I was sure I wanted to be a makeup artist. I know this because I once found a journal from kindergarten where I wrote 'I want to be a makeup artist'. Simple. Guess I was a determined little kid. Which is odd; I don't normally finish much. Not even a cup of tea. Turns out though that when you want something, you just make it happen. One day at a time.
Actually I was determined to be an actress truth be told, but like any wise parent my mum told me to have a 'backup plan'. My twin sister was pursuing fashion designing and my older sister, well she was dux of her school. I guess when you don't know exactly what you want to do, you just have to ace everything, keep your options open.
Thankfully my mum is a go-getter herself so she felt makeup artistry was a reasonable sensible choice.  To many others over the years, makeup artistry sounded like a pipe dream. Teachers and other adults in my life would nod and smile and reach for just the right thing to say that wouldn't crush my hopes but would bring me down to earth. To put it into context, when I was growing up, very few people specialized as makeup artists. Thus I would often be corrected by those who thought I meant beautician or hairdresser. I can recall at some point in my growing up when I suddenly realized how often people were telling me I wanted to be a hair dresser or a beauty therapist and finding this very frustrating. Makeup just wasn't a real job to most people. I am very proud to say that I really am a makeup artist and even better than that I have a successful business that as well as providing me with a very respectable income allows me to do what I love, be creative and makeup women feel fabulous.

A small selection of my work - want more?: Miss Nessi

What it takes to be a makeup artist

{How a makeup artist can stand out from the pack}

Make up to me is a creative release. I love it the way that I love painting and drawing. I don't go into a makeup job looking for ways to 'fix' or 'correct' something but instead I love to use light and shade to create depth and recreate shapes. Makeup and brushes are tools and I am an artist. To me this means that I can create something special with a few products and a few brushes and that any 'rule' is meant to be broken. I can turn lipstick into cream blush, concealer into highlighter and eye shadow in to brow shaper. As an artist you don't need to be caught up in the label and cosmetic industry jargon.
I love using my instinct for color to choose just the right shade of lip and cheek color even if that means mixing and building with many different brands.

Makeup like art is about building and blending and knowing exactly where to hold back. If I learnt anything in art class in year 12 it was knowing when to stop. A great artist can hold back mid way, because they know that where they're at in this piece is only part of the finished product and each element needs to flow and compliment each other. Your eye shadow shouldn't be plonked on there on it's own, it needs to flow into your eyeliner, and into the natural contours of your face. Just as you lip color needs to balance with the strength of your blush.

{Tip for upcoming makeup artists}

Me on the job - finishing touches. 

Knowing how to hold back is a trap for young players. Often you might find yourself so focused on getting a flawless foundation that you tend to forget you still have all the other features to do yet. It is so important to keep the end goal in mind. A makeup can look absolutely stunning with about half the amount of foundation that I often see used.  And in fact, a very flawless foundation can end up looking fake and over done once you finish the whole makeup. The same goes for big false lashes - bigger is not better. Bigger is over powering and heavy looking. Of using lots and lots of eye shadow but then not getting the depth in eyeliner and mascara. And by depth I mean the pitch blackness of eye liner, not the thickness. A great eye make has all the elements nicely balanced together. 

If you are just starting out, the best thing you can do for yourself is stay focused on the end game. Know where you are now and learn at every opportunity. Be honest with yourself but we kind too. Makeup artistry is an art form and all art forms take time and practice.

BeYou-tiful

What makeup has to do with beauty

Did you see my mum on Farmer wants a wife? How beautiful she is. She’s a loveable person and a looker too!

I truly believe that beauty shines from the inside. Call it cheesy if you like – and then look around at all your friends and family. Who do you adore most? What do you find attractive about them? Do you know someone who seems more beautiful the longer you know them? And what does it all have to do with makeup?

Often the reason we turn to makeup is to make our eyes bigger, our skin clearer or our cheeks rosier; and yet, years of experience has taught me that the most powerful thing makeup can do is make you feel better about yourself.  And that is the number one reason I love being a makeup artist.

Mum and my big sis Laura

I recently started teaching makeup to ladies of all ages, and I realised we’re actually all trying to improve the reflection in the mirror. That’s what makeup does for you. Once you can look at your own reflection and feel good about yourself, you can do anything.  

So how did mum get on Farmer Wants a Wife? Well, she recruited my help of course! We know the power of first impressions, so, we flicked her hair a little to show off her cheekbones, defined her bright blue eyes and kept her styling nice and natural to show farmer john how down to earth she is.

And at the end of the day, the first thing I noticed when I saw her on tele, was how beautifully comfortable she is in her own skin. Sure she doesn’t feel that way everyday, no woman does! That's why the egyptions invented mascara! (That, and to ward of evil spirits).   

Next time you see someone looking gorgeous tell them so! Maybe they don’t realise it today.

Mum, you did your daughters proud.

Speak to you soon

Nessi

How to find your personal style

Did you know your clothes are always talking? You can't hear them because you're not listening, or your busy listening to everybody else’s clothes.  We  all know the fun of people watching comes down to phyco analysing passers by, based on their wardrobe choices. Sure we do it for a giggle, but did you ever stop to consider how close to the truth those insights might be? Every choice you make about your clothes, you do as a form of self-expression even if it comes down to putting very little effort in at all - that’s your way of saying ‘I don’t conform to fashion” and maybe that’s the way you felt on one particular day or perhaps that’s an ongoing look for you. I don’t believe fashion (by definition) is for everyone. I do believe an outfit speaks a thousand words.

Personally, my clothes say that I'm confused! I can't work out if I want to be a fairy or an entrepreneur. Luckily, as women, we have intuition on our side that says 'don't wear tulle to work!'.... so I'm safe there.  And I do love my business clothes. I love my tailored high waist skirt, corporate up-do and I love to secretly imagine myself as a 1940’s power woman. I choose to wear corporate clothes in a corporate world because I want my outfit to proclaim.. “I’m a successful young business women.” And that’s just the tip of the ice burge; I have many different personalities and styles to match. Your clothes - your style - is telling your story, why not embrace it! Whether you’re a sexy girl, or a reserved girl, a glamour puss or a natural girl next door, showing you put a little effort into the way you look, says that you take pride in being you. Women that feel they’re lack of effort shows they value inner beauty really have things all mixed about. Inner beauty could, and should, be one of the first things people see from you.

Imagine yourself at a cocktail party with me. If you told me I looked great, and I said “Oh gosh, thankyou, I spent hours trying to get my hair to look this good”! What would you think? You’d probably think, “Oh thank goodness, I was starting to think I had no style but really I just have no time”. You look at other women and get disheartened because they seem to do it with such ease.  And yet that’s just not true. Here’s the secret I want you to remember. Personal style isn’t as easy as some women make it look. Sure, most stylish women down play their effort by saying things like “oh, this old thing, I just threw it on last minute”.  That’s not true! And in the rare cases that it is true, it’s a result of years of practice.

You don’t have to have natural instincts for style, you just have to be consistent with a little effort here and there until you build up your tool box of tricks. And the pay off is, you'll feel great. That inner beauty that you cherish will be available for everyone to see. You’ll feel like the elegant, feminine or creative women that you are. Listen to your clothes and wear their personality proudly. People are drawn to genuine self confidence so if you feel great and your outfit says 'Hey, I'm sexy and I love it" then others will love it too.

What type of concealer should I use

The term concealer refers to a range of different flaw correcting techniques. To make matters more confusing, concealers are marketed with hundreds of different names, and trying to choose the one you need can create a thought jumble.

Do I need a  a pore-refining redness reducing, eye priming, color correcting age defying super cream or a illuminating match perfecting derma blend.

First you need to know what it is you're trying to acheive with your concealer.

As a makeup artist, I use concealer for three bottom-line reasons;

• for Coverage
• for Highlighting
• for Color-correcting.

Coverage

These are creams, look for a zinc-like texture

Use matte creams for issues such as ruddiness on the cheeks, redness around noses, broken capillaries, pigmentation and age spots.The thicker you go, the more coverage, but the less is more natural.

Highlighting

Highlighter pens, aka illuminators, 'light-reflecting proprieties'

Used for highlighting the brow bone and reflecting light in the under eye area
Light reflecting qualities are like very very fine tiny shimmers which reflect the sunlight and will fill-out areas and highlights things you want to show off like the cheek bones or brow bones, but you certainly won't want an illuminating concealer on a pimple! Plus a camera flash will bounce off an illuminator so be careful to keep it localised so you don't look shiny.

Color correcting

Use Green concealers

Used for very red ruddy cheeks the green corrects the red in the skin. Color correcting doesn't guarantee coverage, but if you only have a redness issue then you don't really need coverage. Or you can use a bit under a medium to thick foundation which is give you the coverage.

Picking the right type for the right job

Under eye area

The mistake made here is to think that more coverage will fix tired eyes. A thicker coverage will only add more weight to an area that is so delicate and can crease so easily. If you just have a purplish darker skin under your eye then a soft cream coverage will do the job. In many cases, this won't work alone.  That's because often the under eye shadow is just that, a shadow. So more coverage can't change the way light acts. If the suns above you, the shadow will always be there. This is where illustrators or a light colored cream (because light colors naturally reflect light) will reflect the sun and reduce the shadow.  It's not perfect though so don't beat yourself up if you still have a little shadow there, your face is 3D.

Pimples

There are two things that show off a pimple, the little shadow it creates and the redness. So the redness is easy, you can just use a color corrector or a thick cream and that will hide the redness. The bump however may not be hidden quite so well. A makeup artist can of course use a range of techniques to hide a pimple pretty well. Otherwise, I have found that a very good quality mineral powder will hide that bump. This is due to the very delicate and subtle illuminators in a good mineral makeup.

Pigmentation

Pigmentation can be very hard to cover. The more natural you want to look, then the more sheer your foundation will. Rather than option for a heavier coverage, use a thick heavy concealer, but dab it on very gently and keep it very localised to the spots you need to cover.  Make sure you are using a matte concealer too, as illuminators won't have enough coverage in them.

What is BB Cream?

Long after we’ve all grown up, we still have our fads. If you’ve never thought about it like that before, then let me be the one to break it to you. Makeup, beauty and fashion fads are not that different to the fads you went through in school. 

BB cream seem to pop up without warning and it was hard to tell what brand had the original. For the first few months that it hits the beauty headlines, no-one is even quite sure what BB cream is, but we all buy a bottle because we figure there must be something different about it.We're left wondering whether BB is actually some intriguing new ingredient, discovered to make us look more beautiful perhaps?  And sadly, we’re all too unsure to be the one to say ‘what the heck is BB cream?’. Just like a fad at school, we don’t want to be faced with those stunned looks, the shock and horror on everyone’s faces when we admit we don’t know what BB cream is!

Ok, so it sounds like I’m picking on BB cream a little, let me give credit where credits due before this tangent about beauty fads loses its meaning.

What does the BB stand for?

As far as my research can tell me, BB stands for beauty balm. Something to do with being an all rounder skin care and foundation, which was originally designed as a sort of post-skin peel foundation. I’m no chemist. And in the spirit of always being honest with you, I don’t even know that much about makeup ingredients. But most makeup artists don’t. We know what textures works best on the skin, what tones look good and how to best apply a foundation to make your skin smooth and glowy. But as far as the chemistry of makeup I’m pretty clueless. And I don’t mind admitting it because let me assure you I’d love to know more, and I am continually investigating as best I can.

What is it used for?

BUT, you ask, what is BB cream? Well from my experience with the product, the texture is no different to tinted moisturiser and the coverage is about the same too.  It depends a lot on what brand you buy – I tried Garnier, just to see what it was all about, and I wasn’t phased at all. But I also don’t usually bother with tinted moisturisers.

So is it any different to tinted moisturise? Again, we’d all need a chemistry lesson to know for sure. But from an application perspective, no, not really. I think perhaps BB cream is supposed to have more skin care benefits – or so my research tells me. But once you hype up a product, most brands want in on the action, (and quick!), so there’s a good chance you’re not buying anything that different to a tinted moisturiser.

Invest or not? If you want very minimal coverage (you get just enough tint out of it to give your skin a bit of color, but coverage will be very low) then go for it. Or, you could just buy a good quality tinted moisturiser.  

Love to hear your thoughts too if you've got a BB cream you love, or are a chemist and can teach me a thing or two - go ahead and share below!

Vanessa

Why the U in Beauty

Hopefully you’re reading this because you’re a bit intrigued by what the U in Beauty is all about. Now, I don’t normally condone using letters instead of words, but in this case U had a double meaning, it’s literally the U, from ‘beauty’ (dah, I know) and of course I’m asking you to remember you when it comes to all things beauty.

As a professional stylist, I hear women often tell me that they don’t really know what they’re doing when it comes to all matters of looking good. ‘I don’t know the first thing about makeup’ they’ll say in a sort of brush-off tone, as though they’re justifying something. So I thought I’d share my insights as an industry exert. I have endless tips and simple to-the-point advice for you on how to improve your hair and makeup skills. The internet is dripping in ‘makeup tips’, many of which have been regurgitated so many times over that I’m not sure what shred of truth they’re still gripping on to. Some get under my skin, as they give false expectations and other are close to helpful but don’t really explain much to the every day woman.  I’ve styled hundreds of photoshoots and works as a wedding hair and makeup artists nearly every weekend, so my main source of knowledge has been hands on (and lets face it, 10 years worth of trial and error).  I don’t share any advice that I haven’t personally tried myself and I also won’t debunk any advice that I haven’t personally tried.

I’ll do my best to share the practical know-how along with the idealistic artistic visions that’s true to my heart. Yes I love the creative side of being a stylist but I also love making women feel good about who they are – you know, the ‘real you’. And let’s be real – hair styling, makeup artistry and fashion bottom line is all about what looks good right? It’s a superficial industry, and anyone who’s pretty is probably brainless. Wrong! Something I know for sure is that beauty is far deeper than looking pretty. I want you to take my industry know-how and do good, use it to be beautiful.