Bridal Makeup: Lessons Learned

A couple of weeks ago, I had the privilege of being a makeup artist for a day and do the makeup for my maid of honour's bridesmaids, which included myself. We got up at 5:00 am for the big day and we had until 9:00 am to get ready before the groom and groomsmen arrived. It was hectic, rushed, but ultimately a beautiful and super fun day.

Today, I wanted to share some lessons I learned from doing bridal makeup!

1. Don't underestimate how much time is needed to do each person's makeup. Even though we were up at 5am, I didn't start doing the bridesmaids' makeup until approximately 6:30am. I also had to wait for each bridesmaid to get their hair done. I did end up finishing the other two bridesmaids' makeup, but rushed on my own. Try to allocate at least an hour per person. 

2. Even if you pack a lot of makeup that you think you'll use, you'll probably only end up using 1/3 of what you brought. I probably packed 5 or 6 blushes, but I ended up using just the Hourglass Ambient Blush palette on the three of us. 

3. Don't wait until the last minute to match foundation shades. Unfortunately, we couldn't find time to meet up and do the foundation match at Sephora, so we did it the night before the wedding. For one of the bridesmaids, there was barely enough foundation in the sample bottle at Sephora to do a full face. We were lucky that there was just enough, but it would've been bad if we couldn't find matches in another foundation. 

4. Relating to 1., because I was doing the makeup as a friend and not as a vendor, I was asked many questions. Questions about what product I used, why I used that product, and what that product was used for. I also had questions about how to do certain things like, how to use gel liner, how to keep pencil liner from smudging, how to do a smoky eye, and so on. With so many questions, make sure to allocate even more time per person. 

5. While doing the bridesmaids' makeup, they kept saying I should consider doing it full-time and asking whether I've thought about it. Let me tell you, I thought about it at least a couple times that morning! But at this time, makeup is just a hobby and not something I feel could do at a professional level.

6. Prepare a makeup bag for touch ups in advance of the wedding day. I thought I would have time to pack all the essentials for the day, but I was already so rushed in finishing everyone's makeup. So, I just threw whatever brushes and powders and products I thought we would need for the touchups later in the day into a big makeup bag.

7. Corrector and setting spray are essentials. Corrector is necessary after staying up late the night before and getting little sleep, and setting spray will help the makeup last a lot longer than without the spray.

8. You get such relief and such joy when you hear from the bride that she loved the looks you did on the bridesmaids. Then it makes all the stress and pressure so worth it.

No Buy For The Rest Of 2015

Well, the title of this post says it all. I've put myself on a no-buy for the rest of the year. I've come to a point where I recognize I have too much makeup - much more makeup than I really need. The same goes with skincare products. There was even a point this past week where I looked at the promotions for holiday collections and I didn't feel any want or temptation to get anything. I had more thoughts about what items in my beauty stash I want to get rid of.

For the past couple of months, I used my maid of honour's wedding as an excuse to go out and buy more makeup, even if it was duplicates of products I already own. It was the excitement of being able to open new products and using new products, but now I have way too many of multiple products open at the same time. However, I will still save these duplicate products to use at my own wedding on my bridesmaids. 

I'm at the point where I'm more than satisfied with the amount of items and what I have in my beauty collection. But, I'd also like to pare down my collection to only the items I really like and can foresee a future in using them. I've already pulled out a few items I know I want to give away or rid from my collection.

As you might know, I'm getting married in 8 months, which means I'll be moving out in 8 months. That means I need to start thinking about what to pack and what needs to be disposed of or donated. So, hopefully a no-buy will help with curbing my hoarding tendencies and further piling up of beauty products.

Of course, during the next 3.5 months, I'll have to restock on everyday essentials. That's the only exception to this no-buy. Though, I have so much stuff stockpiled, I probably won't need to buy anything for next little while.

For anyone else that's also on a no-buy for the rest of the year, good luck! I hope this no-buy will help each of us realize what products we truly love in our collections. I don't know if I'll be posting about my decluttering or my progress in paring down my collection, but there may be an update post here and there. 

THEFACESHOP Haul

After having the opportunity to try out some of THEFACESHOP's sheet masks (review), I wanted to try out some more of THEFACESHOP's products. 

I'm a fan of the sheet masks, the fabric ones, not the hydro gel ones. So, I got 3 new ones to try out from the Real Nature Mask range - Lemon, Blueberry and Rice. I'm always on the hunt for products that help with softening, brightening and illuminating the skin. I'm hoping these one work out well for my skin. I also got the Bright Eyes Modeling Gel Patch mostly because I've always wanted to try out some eye patches and to see if these will help with brightening my dark circles.

Aside from all the masks I got, I bought a Konjac Cleansing Puff. I'm always looking for better ways of clearing my skin of the dirt and blackheads in my pores. This seems to be a trend in skincare and honestly, I really like how squishy it is. So, we'll see how well this really works!

Have you picked up anything from THEFACESHOP lately?

Eyeshadow Palettes for Weddings

Today's the day. By the time this has been posted, I'll already have been awake for at least 2 hours and gotten my hair done for my maid of honour's wedding and have begun doing the makeup for the other bridesmaids. So, for today's post, I thought it would be fitting to show the eyeshadow palettes I've brought along with me to do the bridesmaids' makeup.

I decided on doing a soft smoky brown look. Something that was simple and classic and wouldn't be too complicated to do.

To achieve this look, you'll need a good mix of various shades of light, medium and dark browns that are both warm and cool. You'll also need some shimmery and matte shades so it doesn't look too one-dimensional. I personally don't have one palette that includes all of these shadows, so I'm using a mixture of 3 palettes.

The Urban Decay Naked Palette, Bobbi Brown Warm Eye Palette and Make Up For Ever Artist Palette Volume 1 - Nude. Both the Urban Decay and Bobbi Brown palettes contain a mixture of shimmery and matte shadows with predominantly warmer shadows. Actually, when you compare the two, they contain 3 very similar shadows - a light matte brown, medium matte brown and shimmery champagne pink. However, I find the UD shadows are a tiny bit cooler. This will be good to cater to those who have cooler or warmer skintones.

The third palette, the Make Up For Ever Artist Palette - Nude contains iridescent, satin and metallic eyeshadows, with one matte black shadow. I find that this palette leans more on the neutral to cooler side of eyeshadows, but still works well on any skintone. They're quite pigmented, so they'll have to be blended out well. An important shadow included in this palette is a matte black. It'll be useful for setting eyeliner or for further smoking out the look later in the evening. Or, if you find black is too harsh, the dark matte brown in the Bobbi Brown palette is an excellent alternative.

With all 3 of these palettes, you'll have all the necessary eyeshadows you'll need to create a simple smoky brown eye.

Preparing for a Wedding - Part 3

It's now less than a week until my maid of honour's wedding and I'm super excited for her! You can also read Part 1 and Part 2 if you haven't already done so! Today, I'm continuing with part 3 of my series on preparing for a wedding. I'll be talking about some of the necessary tools and items.

Let's start off with the brushes. I definitely had some gaps in my brush collection and needed to purchase some new and extra ones. I got a couple of the Sigma E25 blending brushes because you can never have enough blending brushes! These are kind of like the MAC 217 in that it's flat but fluffy. You can pack on the colour, but also blend out eyeshadow. Just don't make the mistake of ordering from the Sigma website, like I did. I discovered Obsessed Canada after ordering my Sigma brushes and paid for the consequences due to the poor Canadian dollar.

From Real Techniques, I got a couple more of the Setting Brush and the Retractable Lip Brush. The Setting Brush is such a great multi-purpose tool. You can use it to of course, set your makeup, but also to blend out concealer, apply highlighter and for touch ups. The Retractable Lip Brush is pretty self explanatory. I didn't have any, so I thought it would be good to get one to apply lipstick or any other lip products.

Then, I purchased two eyeliner brushes from Joe Fresh. One is an angled liner brush, which also be used for the eyebrows. The other is a bent liner brush. This will be good for creating fine lines and getting into the inner corners, which can be tricky to reach.

Lastly, the miscellaneous but necessary items. A pack of makeup sponges and makeup wipes. I certainly don't have the money to shell out for a Beauty Blender to use on each person, so some cheap makeup sponges will have to do. The makeup wipes will help with some minor cleaning because I expect to be using my hands as my palette and things will get messy!