Everyday Face: Part Two!

Thank you for everyone's feedback and questions regarding the start of your everyday face! I really appreciate it and love answering questions and helping people be beautiful! After writing this all out in text, I've put some consideration into making a video of daily makeup application as well, so you can see visually what I'm explaining. Please let me know if this is something you'd be interested in watching!

So to continue on with the everyday face, we've got our primer, foundation, concealer, and powder on and have let this all set for at least 5 minutes. After that, it starts to get really fun.

Contour
I didn't start to understand the beauty of contouring until the last two years, and now it's one of those things when I somehow skip over it, my face looks so flat and ghostly. Contour can be frightening because it's really dark, skin tone colours. I haven't experimented with too many but once it's on your face and blended it's really not so scary.

What happens with foundation is it totally flattens your face. It makes it all one matching colour (hopefully) but then all of your natural shadows are removed. Contour is bringing them back to your face. The most natural and light way to apply is in a '3' formation on the sides of your face starting at the forehead, bringing the curve down the temple and side of the face. Then the middle of the 3 goes into the hollow of your cheek bone, and then once again curves down the rest of your cheek, and down your jaw line. Personally I end up sitting in the hollow of my cheek for awhile and piling on that contour because this is where FABULOUS CHEEKBONES COME FROM. Have you seen Angelina Jolie in Maleficent? My god. So great. Them cheekbones.

I also add some contour to the sides of my nose to give my nose some dimension again as well. That's all you need. Three down the sides of the face, and just straight down the sides of the nose. Depending how white my face is looking that day I'll blend the contour out a bit more, and in the summer I might get a bit more all over my face to get that tanned look happening.

Eyebrows
If I had to choose a favourite feature to accentuate, this year it would probably be brows. I love my eyebrows, I probably love your eyebrows too. They are so beautiful. They frame your entire face and they're just SO GREAT. If you have never filled in your brows, you do not know the world that you are missing. It's a world filled with love.

I'm pretty simple with my brows. I just have a brow pencil right now and I follow the natural line of my eyebrow. Then once I get to the end I realize that somehow it seems I've lost half of my eyebrow and I draw that on and my face looks so much better. But don't draw too far or you'll end up with all those crazy brow photos you see all over the internet.

The best way to determine the length of your brow is to take a straight item (I usually use my brow pencil) and hold it to the side of your nose. Where the pencil falls beside your brow, is where your brow should begin. Then you want to tilt your pencil so it's on an angle beside your nose, and then see where the pencil hits your iris in your eye. This angle is where you should accentuate any sort of arch you want to have in your brow. Then you keep tilting the pencil a little bit more and see where it hits the corner of your eye, and this is where your beautiful brow should end! BAM! Simple! You've got the line of your brow, now just fill in the natural area of your brow and you're set. You can be a bit more heavy handed if you'd like to have a really strong brow look, but otherwise a light hand is great for those beautiful natural brows.

Blush
If you miss out on blush, your face is also going to continue to look flat. Blush is not just putting shadows back on your face like contour, but it's actually putting natural colour back into your face. I must admit I'm not very adventurous with my blush. I've purchased so many to try and be adventurous but I only use maybe 2 or 3 different colours, one of which of course contains glitter for those super fun days! I also own maybe one or two liquid and cream blushes, but I have to say those normally stay in my makeup case and never see the light of day. I'm definitely a powder blush person!

I normally apply blush last, to make sure the colour I'm picking goes along with the eye makeup look I've created, but because I'm talking about my 'everyday' look I know whats going to be on my eyes, so the blush is generally a light pink. I apply it with another large fluffy brush, but definitely not as large as my face powder brush. I also sometimes utilize an angled blush brush, but sometimes that just depends on what brush is clean that day.

To see where the blush should go, give yourself a quick smile in the mirror and you should be able to see the roundest parts of your cheeks, the lovely apples so they say. Your blush should start on that apple of your cheek, but never more than halfway through your eye. This brings the blush too close to the nose area which is just going to make you look like you have a cold or something. The blush should be lightly dusted from the apple of your cheek all the way up on a diagonal into the temple. Please don't ever just apply a little circle of your blush on the apple of your cheek, because then you're just going to look like a china doll. To make the blush natural it's going to be blended up the cheek, almost right into the hair. Make up is all about the blending!!

I'll leave you beautiful faces here for today! We're almost done with our everyday face, but the final and BEST part is going to be eyes of course! I can't promise the post is going to be up this week because it's Christmas of course and it's going to be a pretty hectic week! I hope you all have a beautiful Christmas with your friends and family and stay pretty!!

Everyday Face: Part One!

When you very randomly decide to drastically change your life, it's really hard to have confidence. I feel like I knew my last job inside and out, and now I feel like my whole life is inside out and I don't know what I'm doing with myself every day when I wake up. A really big  support for my is everyone who has taken the time to let me know "I read your blog, I'm so happy for you, and you're going to be amazing!"  You're all so encouraging, so supportive, and I appreciate it so very much. 

I have a girlfriend who was always curious about my daily makeup application and whenever I would mention something she didn't know about she'd ask intently and then go out to her nearest beauty store and ask the salesperson for recommendations and obtain the product for herself. The products she had no idea about but ran out and bout anyways that stand out in my mind would be Primer and Setting Powder. It's funny because these are two products I hardly ever leave the house without putting on my face, and she didn't even know they existed! Unfortunately we both changed jobs and I don't get to see her beautiful face every day anymore, but maybe she'll read this post and get some new pointers!

I'd like you give you an overview of what goes on my face for a regular day. This will sound like an excess of makeup to most of you but this is my full face. I do not do this EVERY day. If the boyfriend and I are just having a lazy day together usually tinted moisturizer and mascara will suffice. This is my full, 'everyday' face, when I feel like looking as what I see as over the top perfect.

Prep The Face
Always cleanse, tone, and moisturize! Never start your makeup routine without a fresh face. It would be like trying to paint art over a canvas that has already been painted on. You want your face to be clean, fresh, and ready for a new day! Once I apply my moisturize I usually give it a few minutes to soak in. I find this to be the best time to blow dry my hair. I can't just sit there and wait because I'll inevitable begin applying stuff on my face before the moisturizer is all absorbed and that's just bad news.

Prime the Face
I have very uneven skin. When I was growing up I suffered from some severe acne as a teenager and I have a few scars on my face from that lovely and memorable time. For this reason I always use a primer on my face to help fill in the mild scaring, large pores and those developing fine lines. I have a variety to choose from but most of them contain SPF. I have a moisturizing one I use after I've maybe had an obscene night of drinking because my skin gets really dried out and I look terribly haggard, but generally any primer is acceptable.

Even the Face
Foundation! I have very red skin over the last few years and this leads foundation to be a huge staple in my life. This is another product I normally try and obtain with SPF in it because sun protection is important! Anyone who has seen my makeup collection has noticed the huge lineup of foundations I have available. Mostly I like trying many different kinds and seeing that works best on me, but I also just LOVE foundation.

Foundation is the basis of painting my picture. Foundation is applied all over the entire face, including the neck. I'm sure as a pre-teen you all experienced the same as me and had the dreaded line on your chin. This would've been from a combination of having the wrong foundation colour, and NOT BLENDING DOWN THE NECK. If you do anything when doing your makeup, make it THIS. Then make sure the foundation is blended all over your face, even up into your hair line. I normally use a foundation brush that offers optimal buffing to literally buff the foundation into my skin. Many years ago I would maybe apply foundation with my fingers or a small sponge triangle from the dollar store and take a minute or two to apply it, but these days I normally spend a good 5-10 minutes buffing the foundation into my skin to ensure great coverage and a perfect blend. If someone knows you're wearing foundation, you're not wearing it right!

Conceal
Most people actually apply concealer before their foundation, but I've gotten into a routine of applying it after my foundation. This way I can see if there are any spots, red marks, or dark circles my foundation didn't conceal alone. This actually leads to me having to put less product on my face because something I would've originally put concealer on may have been sufficiently covered by my foundation! Normally my concealer is only applied under my eyes because I'm getting old and constantly have dark under eyes (I never thought it would happen to me...) but occasionally I have to conceal a blemish that isn't sufficiently covered by my foundation, or cover the redness that happens around my nose.

Set That Face!
One of my other favourite products is setting powder. It's really become a staple in my makeup routine due to the fact that I have oily skin. This causes my foundation to actually become moist and move about during the day which is something NO GIRL WANTS! If you get too close to my t-zone and I haven't applied setting powder, you're going to get unset foundation on you. Setting powder I apply all over the face (and neck!) with a large kabuki brush. I never loved kabuki brushes so much until I loved setting powder so much.

Once I've covered my face in all this crap it has to set. It's like letting the paint dry on the wall. You can't immediately start putting the rest of your face over this base because it will all start to smudge. This is normally when I would move on to straightening my hair because this distracts me for another 5 minutes that I have to wait around. Otherwise, I pluck my eyebrows a little bit.

Seeing as I put so much stuff on my face on a regular day this post is getting a little longer than I had originally imagined, I'm going to break this post up. Stay tuned for the next steps for your beautiful face coming this week! Let me know if you have any questions, and stay beautiful!!

How To Change Your Life!

In the last month I lost both of my Grandmothers. Two amazing, beautiful, wonderful women who lead interesting, meaningful and exciting lives. While I sat at each of their funerals listening to the stories of their worlds and the amazing things they did, it really made me think about my own life and what I really wanted to do with it. Over the last 10 years I've worked odd jobs and have been good at them. I've always been in customer service and getting by day by day. Getting up miserable, unexcited, lacing passionate and wondering what I'm going to hate about the day today.

I don't want people at my funeral to be saying “She answered phones really well”

So, I've decided to change my life. After feeling depressed for a few days and unable to function, I really sat down and thought about what I wanted. Who I wanted to be in my life. What I wanted people to remember me for.

Those of you who know me well, know I've had a never ending passion (some may say obsession) for makeup. When I was a small child I was a dancer and was constantly being covered in makeup due to dance competitions and recitals. I thought Wet and Wild Red lipstick was the only lipstick that existed. When I was entering high school I specifically went to the 'trade school' in our area. Most kids went there because they had low marks, bad behavior, or needed additional assistance. My marks were fine, but I read that they had a Cosmetology program and that instantly piqued my interest. Unfortunately, I attended the high school and the Cosmo program was almost entirely hair based, which didn't really interest me. I remember doing one day of cosmetics and it was some simple face shape learning.

This lack of experience and training lead me astray in high school and put me on a path where I really didn't know what I wanted in my life. I didn't know where I wanted to go, what I wanted to do, who I wanted to be. Eventually, when I did go to college I decided to go into General Business Studies to decide what kind of business field I wanted to go into, because that was practical and I thought it's what I SHOULD do. Makeup was always that passion but it was always advised that it was a difficult field to be in, something I couldn't make money doing. It was impractical and I should not pursue it.

In the end, I am not making any money, every day is difficult and impractical, and I'm doing something I can't stand.

So I've decided to change my life.

As of today, I am officially registered for the Makeup Artist Diploma program at the Canadian Beauty College, and I've also been hired to Sephora for the season where I will be able to work until I begin school at the end of January (and hopefully make some great contacts!). As of today, I am IN THE COSMETICS INDUSTRY, and I feel so happy I could explode. All my life I have wanted to help other people feel comfortable in their own skin. Growing up I lacked confidence and was so unhappy with my appearance, and I think it really inhibited my growth and confidence to be who I wanted to be. I know the idea of makeup can be superficial, but if I can help one person feel more confident and comfortable in their own skin, if I can teach them one tip or trick to help them feel a little better about themselves, and maybe boost their confidence for that job interview, that first date, that high school prom, then I think that is all worth it.

It's a difficult time to be changing my life after having done the same thing for so long, and to be honest it's a little bit frightening and overwhelming, but I really wanted to change, and these are the first steps I'm taking. It's been a wonderful feeling to tell people that I'm going to get into Makeup Artistry and they actually say to me “Yes, you are made for that”.

Those of you who have known me for a long time know I love makeup. You'll also know that I've loved writing and used to have a pretty consistent blog I wrote very randomly about. While my new career is going to be a lot about myself, and putting myself out there and showing what I can do, I'd like to take this chance to reinvigorate my blog, and set it on a path of documenting my future.

I thank everyone who has been supporting me through this time, and for supporting me into the exciting future I am about to lead. I am truly looking forward to 2015 and what it has in store for me.

I urge you to follow your heart, and I urge you to contact me if you want to get your makeup on!