It's Almost Time, Y'all, It's almost time!!

*Bonus prize to the first person to correctly identify the movie line from the blog title*

Movie quoting aside, it IS almost that time, y'all! Autumn is almost officially here, and as my favorite of the four seasons, it is the time when I do all my best and most favoritest things: blogging, fall makeup looks, HAVE MY HAIR LAID LIKE MISSISSIPPI MASS CHOIR, TEASED TO THE GAWDS, and rock my fly ass Ooh-Girl-Thems-Is-Kayute! stiletto boots!  There's a short post coming very shortly, detailing the boots that are currently on my wish list, just in case one of y'all wanna sponsor a sista.

I can't believe I haven't blogged at ALL in 2011. That must be a misprint on my dashboard.

Anyway, I'm scouring twitter and the blogosphere today in search of any new makeup colors that I haven't already discovered. As I've officially moved away from MAC and Bobbi Brown altogether, the search continues for deep, intense fall/winter colors and looks that bring that FIYAH. Of course I still have some of my old palettes, but is there anything new that I don't know about yet? Chime in and let me know in the comments.

I have some very very MAJOR planning going on over here guys, something I think you all will be very proud of me for doing once it's finally unveiled. As such, I'm funneling all my resources (read: all my damn money) into that project so I have to be VERY savvy when it comes to shopping for boots and skirts/dresses this fall. The FIRST place I plan stop is Marshall's followed immediately by TJ Maxx. In case you all didn't know, i do NOT shop at those places normally, just because I don't have the patience to go through them rack-by-rack; to me, it's the equivalent of trying to kill a mosquito in the dark. My other problem is something I've lamented about endlessly in the past: i have Fred Flintstone feet, and its impossible to shop online for shoes and boots. I mean, who REALLY sells a 10W?? I have yet to see any fiyah stilettos in that size. *sigh* Hence, I avoided discount retail stores like the plague. But the bestie texted me a few days ago raving about some Vera Wang boots she scored at the Marshall's near her house and has NOT stfu about them yet. I must admit, they were KAYUTE!!  (If I seem ultra excited, it's because she's FINALLY into boots! First it was shoes, then last year it was booties, now this season, FINALLY!)

So now...I'ont know, y'all. I might have to camp out at one or two locations to see if Vera was kind to the platypus-footed of the world and made some shoes that won't squeeze my pinky toenail off.

One of my other sistagirls put me on to the ULTIMATE CHINESE CONNECTION for hair this season, too! I'm sure most of you don't know that I tried going natural earlier this year, in the spring...but it was such a #fail on so many levels. Namely because I didn't really want to. I didn't have the patience or the desire to maintain my hair in its natural state, I wasn't gonna spend the money on the products, and overall, it just wasn't my thing. I did take some pics, and I'll probably do a small post on it later, just because, but it was very BLAH for me. So, yeah, no.  With my new China connect, I'm getting much better quality hair for my wigs and sew-ins for almost HALF the retail cost. *super swoon!* Which leads to my confession that I'm finally ready to start doing youtube videos. I've avoided it for so long, but my friends keep pressuring me to do it and I'm sick of hearing their damn mouths (LOL) about it so from now on, when I make a new wig or do a sew-in, I'm *finally* gonna just do a video and upload it. My whole thing is: There's so many (literally, MILLIONS) of hair/makeup videos on youtube, done by folks who TRULY care to do them...what's one more video?? Eh, whatever. I'll do the videos and see what sort of response I get.

Classes just recently restarted so if (when) you see some random postings about me pulling my hair out because I hate Biology or I'd rather eat my own vomit than take this Math class, just bear with me. Please and thank you. I'm also working on building my organizing blog...again, bear with me. It's a work in progress. :-)


Oh, and don't forget to post about the makeup in the comments!

StickyGloss kisses!

BeautifulDay




 

New Look Tuesday + MAC Spring Colour 1 Forecast Collection

Okay, okay, okay. I know I'm late on the Spring Colour 1 Forecast look but please forgive me. It's been a rough few months.
Anyway, in an effort to not let my blog go completely into shambles, last night I mustered up the energy (i'm so lazy these days) to do the look with the pigments. Let me just say 1. I love that these colors come in mini-pigments. The regular sized pigments are just entirely, ENTIRELY too much color! Who the hell is ever gonna use all that color?? The new crushed metal mini-pigments in this collection are not only smaller, but they come stacked in convenient little plastic rounds which totally works for my kit.

Looksee:

I didn't get the entire collection, mainly because the blushes, lipsticks, and nail polishes were basically duplicates of colors I already have. But I didn't have any pigments in any of these colors, and I promised myself I'd get more.

The look I did last night is was prepped with the following:

Olay Refreshing Toner
MAC Prep + Prime Foundation primer
Too Faced Shadow Insurance (my favorite eyeshadow primer, btw)
MAC Cash Flow paint pot (as a cream base for eyeshadow)

It's always tricky to use pigments and not have them end up all over your bathroom sink, your table, or yourself. There's just too much of it. The best way to apply pigments, I've found, is to use a synthetic brush that's meant for creamy products: foundation, concealer, flat eyeshadow brushes. Fluffier brushes will have pigment falling every which way and lemme tell you, it is HELL to cleanup. I used my MAC 239 Flat shadow brush but even that was too fluffy...so I switched to the 194 concealer brush. Perfect. Depending on how bright or intense you want the color, you should only dip the brush into the color halfway down the bristles each time. Pigments are buildable (like most MAC shadows) so if you have the patience to build up to a vibrant intensity, pigments may work for you. The crushed metal pigments don't have individual names (way to go MAC) but I started with the lightest lilac color all over the eyelid. It takes a few minutes to get even coverage because the pigment will fall off if you don't press it on hard enough, or if your cream shadow base (if you used one) gets dry. But, press the first color on so that it sticks, AND so that it covers the cream base. *note: only do this if you WANT the cream base color not to show thru. In my case, I didn't because Cash Flow is a greenish/goldish/olive color and didn't really work for the look but it was the only thing cream I had to work with.*

Once the first color covered the entire eyelid, I cleaned the brush a bit, dipped it into the second pink color and pressed it on just beyond the halfway mark on my eyelid. Not in the center because that would look weird, lol, but at about the 3/4 mark. Before I forget, let me mention that after this look was finished, I did go back and press these colors on again because the fallout dulled the colors down a bit. So, a second "coat" might be necessary, if you want it vibrant. Once both colors were pressed on,  I used MAC's Carbon eyeshadow to smoke out the outer eyelid corners (using the MAC 217 brush) and to softly line the bottom lashline using the MAC 219 brush.  I blended Carbon up into the crease about halfway.
Pulling the color softly from the outer corner towards the middle of the lid, I also blended the Carbon with the pink pigment color until they were seamless. Ditto with the lilac and the pink pigment colors. You don't want the colors to bleed into each other because they'll get lost and just be a bright shiny mess. In the picture below, i tried not to overblend so that you could still see the lilac, the pink, the black, and the purple individually. Sometimes when I do a smokey eye, I never know what to do with the top of the eye, especially when using metallics. It's like...now what? So, I learned to use a contour color in the crease. Usually, a dark brown will work on any skin tone. But, since this look already included a black color, a brown would probably have gotten lost. So, I took my fluffy 217 brush and just smoothed out the edges of the entire eye with MAC's Fig. That's the color that you see just below the highlight of my brows. It's kinda brownish purpley (is THAT a word??). Blended that allllll the way over to the inner corner, down to the lilac color, and that was it for the shadows.

After eyeshadows, I lined with my favorite BlackTrack gel liner, curled my lashes for a full 2 minutes (it is HARD to wait a full 2 minutes while you just stand there with your lashes caught in a death trap a.k.a. eyelash curler), then put on one coat of mascara. While waiting for my mascara to dry, I filled in my brows with MACs Spiked brow pencil, and used MAC's Jardin Aires pigment to highlight just under the brow. It's perfect because it's not too much shimmer and blends really well. Blend that down into Fig so that it's seamless, and it's done. Once my mascara was dry, I applied Red Cherry false lashes in #15. Let me justify how sloppy this lash job is by saying that because it was late at night and I knew I'd take this makeup RIGHT OFF, I only put on enough glue to hold the lashes in place long enough to take pictures, lol. If I were actually going to wear this out of the house, they'd be way more secure.

For blush, I started with the MAC cream color Cherche' as a base. It wasn't dark enough, so I topped it with a combo of MAC's Blunt blush (which i always default to for contouring my cheeks) and Sweet As Cocoa just under the cheekbones for contouring. For the apples of the cheeks, I used MAC's Azalea, below:

Though this is a bright pink color with an icy shimmer (and yes, it is THAT bright in real life so be real careful when using the blush brush. Tread very VERRRRY LIGHTLY, lol.), the look still looked a little dead so I highlighted this color with Mineralize Skin Finish in Porcelain Pink:

This completely awesome product is the culprit for the beautiful glow on my cheeks:

(Again, ignore the shabby lash job, please and thank you :-)  )

My concealer is MAC Studio Tech concealer in NW43, the closest thing to my perfect concealer I've ever found. I am one of those weird people who applies foundation and powder last, so after the concealer I applied MAC Studio Fix Fluid in NW43 all over, i set my concealer with Mineralize Skin Finish in Dark, and kinda bronzed my whole face (just one light coat, didn't buff it in) with Mineralize Skin Finish in Sunny By Nature, below:

Lips are based with MAC Young Spark, one layer of MAC Veneer lip lacquer, and topped with Prescriptives' Cosmic lip gloss.

I'm teaching a class/having a makeup party this weekend and I'm really excited about it! Stay tuned for pictures from the party...

Lemme know what you think in the comments!

Oh! After the look was complete, I decided to get fancy and add some glitter to the eyes...it ended disastrously (read: all over everything in my bathroom) but I did get a few pics of it before bedtime.

 

The glitter doesn't really show up on camera as much as it does in person, of course...but trust me, there was glitter E.V.E.R.Y.W.H.E.R.E.

Until next time, loves!


<3 BD.

Upcoming Wedding

Really excited about a wedding Im working on Friday. Its at a Catholic Church in DC. I met the bride, she's totally awesome, and she's one of my new favorites because she loves her dramatic makeup. I'm doing hair and makeup for her. She was really really excited about her look during her trial so that always gives me a rush, lol. Her wedding is Friday at 4.

I'm so glad I am over and done with having the flu. It's the pits :-(. I have been REALLY lax with taking my camera with me to my trials so i PROMISE I will take my camera with me to the wedding (and my next trial).

I'll post the pictures (that i take on friday) here on Saturday....the pro photogs take FOREVER!

What a long day

Mondays are usually crazy days, whether you're working your day job or your side hustle. Either it's crazy busy, the phones won't stop ringing, customers are extra needy because of how little work they did the previous Friday, bosses are extra demanding, everyone has a problem, no one has an answer, and the paperwork just continues to stack higher and higher. Sigh.

I need a vacation from Mondays.

So, up this weekend, I'm meeting with a bride who I met through www.brides.com.
She lives in Texas but is traveling back to her home state (MD) to have her wedding. The great news is that she's already *technically* married so alot of the stress and pressure and nervousness that alot of brides-to-be experience about the impending MARRIAGE, she's already gotten out of the way. The bad news is that, just like every other beautiful bride to be, she's still got a wedding to plan....just as if she weren't already married. There's still the caterer, the venue, the reception venue, the florists, the dress, the invitations (and the family), the cake, and, oh dear God, the hair and makeup. Enter MOI, lol.

Originally she'd planned to only have makeup done. She'd already gotten her hairstylist taken care of. This was, oh, maybe a month and a half ago. Fast forward to this past weekend. Bad news! Hairstylists oh-so-rudely cancel at the last minute, with not so much as a "oops, our bad! *sniff, sniff*" Nothing. Just "yeah, we're not gonna make it out there. But you can pack up your whole bridal party and bring them here at 5am if you'd like...yeah, sucks to be you, ma'am." OH NO she ditn't!! RUDENESS!! Again, enter moi. Some folks make my job so easy. And for that, I must thank the Goddess of hair and makeup, Alandriadite, for smiling upon me and all the other ready willing and able beauty stylists who eagerly pick up the pieces of these broken doves we know as "left high and dry at the last minute" brides. Thank you, Goddess Alandriadite. You are truly too kind.

Anyway, i get a call from her, panicking, saying that she is in desperate need of a new hairstylist for her wedding day because of a cancellation. Hmmmm...desperate need, you say? New hairstylist, you saaaaay? CANCELLATION you say?! Why, as a matter of fact, i DO know of a hairstylist who just HAAAAPPENS to be available on the very same day that you're getting married. Let me check with her and see if she's interested....

*standing to the side, scratching my temple, pretending to contemplate my interest*

Ok, she's definitely interested! Let me go ahead and get that. Of course, I'll do it for you, dear! Let me just send you the prices, you send me some pics, and we'll re-do your contract. Easy day.
So now, on top of the original makeup contract, I now have a revised hair and makeup contract worth a little more, i've come to the aid and rescue of a harried bride to be so she can now worry less about one less thing, and I'm a complete and total hero.

*brushing my shoulders off* It's all in a day's work. Hmph.

We've already picked out her makeup look:






















And now, it's time for hair. My tasks this week are to compile hair suggestions and email them to her. She says she wants spiral curls which, though it's a relatively easy style, is time consuming...so we're gonna do that at her trial this week. I went and got some great new styling products and tools, so I'm all set for now. I will let you know what pics I come up with as far as suggestions go....and of course, I'll have pics for you all after her trial so you can see how it turns out. I, for one, think this look is gonna be great with spiral curls. I can't WAIT! This is such a great way to end my crazy Monday, I almost forgot what today is already, lol. I truly truly love my job, and I wish this kind of career joy and passion for each and every one of you, even the haters. You deserve joy too.


Good night, my loves.

Beautiful Dae