Tear Sheets

Thursday 4 September 2014

Summer to Fall Makeup - 2 Looks in 1

Hey Beautifuls!



I've been getting questions on how you can transition your makeup from summer trends into fall looks, so I thought I'd do a video for you!



Have a peep!





Sunday 27 July 2014

My Makeup Dream (Indiegogo Campaign)

Hey Everyone!



The video says it all. Please watch, and then visit the campaign.



Anything you can do to help is much appreciated!





Sunday 20 July 2014

Makeup Shaming

Today, while surfing the interwebs, I came across this article.

And it enraged me.

I have a very real problem with this whole "women wear too much makeup" thing that people throw around, egged on by magazines.Why does it make me so angry? Because if you go out in public without any makeup on, people say you look tired, or sick. Because the argument to "go natural" is a particularly nasty form of reverse psychology. 

The overwhelming insinuation in all forms of media is that women are "ugly" without makeup. But then those women are accused of essentially "lying" about their looks by wearing makeup. The women who do wear makeup, especially those that tend to favour dramatic makeup, are shamed for it and told they are wearing a mask. We are encouraged to take no-makeup selfies (complete with sexy filters) to show our "true beauty", but unless you see someone in life, standing in front of you, you'll never see all his/her imperfections. I saw some horrific, hateful ccomments on so many of those no makeup shots, saying how ugly those bare-faced women were. The same bare-face haters would then spew vitriol on photos (very often re-touched and/or filtered) of women with lots of makeup on 

It's so sad to me that going without makeup has come to be considered "brave", and that makeup is villified, when the messages we receive are contradictory and highly manipulative.

What ends up happening is that no matter how much or how little makeup you wear, it's never enough.

WHAT IS GOING ON????

1) The Beauty Propaganda Machine has totally warped what we believe women look like.

2) Women struggle with self-love because they will NEVER good enough.

And then this happens: The perpetrators of the media pressures (magazines, beauty/fashion "Experts", and those people who drink that special brand of koolaid) - who tell us we should do this or wear that, or try this look, or follow these Do's & Don'ts - then use photos of made-up celebrities that are usualy VERY heavily re-touched and enhanced (yes, even the "candid" red carpet shots) and they say "SEE??? MAKEUP! LET'S BLAME IT ON MAKEUP!!!!"

Makeup is the fall-guy, and is somehow to blame for our warped ideas of what women should or do look like. I'm speaking as a professional with more than ten years in the beauty industry. The "makeup" in MOST of those shots, illustrating how "terrible" these supposedly beautiful women look without it, is NOT Maybelline or Hourglass or MAC. It's Adobe Photoshop. 

The problem is that it's not always on purpose. We have ALL been drinking the koolaid for so long that many of these writers don't even realize they are a vital part of the Propaganda Machine. All of these articles are pretending to say "beware, these women are covering up their real selves with makeup", or "look how vain these makeup wearers are" or "go ahead, ditch the makup, you look great", when in fact the message is loud and clear: "You're hideous. Wear makeup."

The media essentially shames you into believing that everything you are is wrong and ugly, and you should strive to reach their impossible beauty standards, the only illustrations of which should actually be classified as computer generated images, not photographs. 

And because the standard iswholly  unattainable, we constantly fall short and become more and more discouraged, more and more self-loathing, more and more convinced that "beauty" is something we can never have or be. 

But we will never look like the women in magazines. The women in those magazines don't look like that in real life.

Makeup is not a magic wand. It's not the stamp or burn or blur tool. At best, it's a nice Instagram filter.

I truly, HONESTLY, don't think anyone is ugly. I have never looked at someone and thought that they were ugly. That's such a strong, nasty word that I would like to have banned from use in reference to someone's looks. Save it for truly disgusting personalities. I have definitely seen beautiful people with ugly attitudes. Save that word for instances of cruelty, violence and horror and the roots of such instances, where it belongs. "Ugly" has no place in the vernacular we use to describe facial or body features.

I happen to think makeup is great fun, like an awesome pair of jeans or heels that make you feel sexy or a great pair of earrings that make your eyes pop. I am sick and tired of hearing people blame makeup for our insecurities. It's the media that is responsible, not makeup itself.

Yes, I know that people use makeup to cover up insecurities. But where do you think those insecurities come from? We are CONSTANTLY being told we should have flawless skin, no under eye circles, no pimples, long eye lashes, full lips, straight noses, sharp cheekbones. BUT we must do it so that it looks TOTALLY natural.

Guess what? Blemishes are natural. So are under eye circles and uneven skin tone, wrinkles, short/wide/flat/big/long noses, round/long/square/heart-shaped/diamond-shaped faces, almond/round/hooded/deep-set/sloping/monolid eyes.

You should do it or not do it for  YOU.

There is nothing wrong with covering up your dark circles, because they can make you look tired even if you don't feel tired. 

There is nothing wrong with evening out your skin tone. 

There is nothing wrong with playing up what you feel are your best features. 

There is nothing wrong with being creative and drawing lines on your face if that is what you like. 

And there is nothing wrong with not wearing makeup if you don't want to. 

I do believe we should all dilligently work to a place where we love ourselves and each other as much as we can, without the limitations of impossible beauty standards, even when we're not wearing the miracle-butt jeans or heels or the awesome earrings or the sexy smoky eye. Makeup is an accessory, and we have the right to play with it or not as we choose to. 

What needs to stop are the mixed messages coming from all sides. Stop scape-goating any and everything other than the ridiculous beauty propaganda machine. 

STOP THE SHAMING of women for wearing/not wearing makeup. 

Enough already.

Sunday 29 June 2014

Charicature Files

Hi lovelies!!

Doing my best to keep up with my blog, and kinda failing because I'm getting into the swing of filming and editing videos on a regular basis, plus I have a bunch of different projects I'm working on.

ANYHOOS!

Over the last month I've been working on one of the most fun projects I've done in a WHILE.

The team of AnimeKon approached me and asked if I'd be willing to help them put out a series of videos of character transformations.

In a nuthsell, AnimeKon, for those of you who don't know, is our local Pop Culture Convention. This year is AnimeKon's fifth year, and they have enjoyed great success because for  long time we have wanted soemthing like this. It's really not feasible for us to fly out to Cons in the US becuse airfares from BArabdos are horribly expensive. As the Kon has grown, we've had international guests like author Tobias Buckell come (he's a repeat guest, such a lovely man!) and Cosplay Maven Yaya Han (also an absolute sweetheart and so supportive and inspiring to our cosplayers!), among others. This year we have the lovely Meagan Marie and the awesome Johnny Zabate of Junkers Cosplay coming in!

There is an AnimeKon Cosplay Competition, but because it is really one of the only chances we have during the year to cosplay, most people come to AnimeKon in costume (as you would expect at a Con). They work very hard to create costumes with very limited access to scultping/painting materials, because if they miss out on cosplaying at an AK, they have to wait a whole year for the chance to come around again. It's very inspiring to be a part of this community!

And so we had the idea of doing some Cosplay tutorials. We chose a theme eah week and had people enter for a chance to be made up on camera. Thank you to everyone who entered!
Our themes and chosen characters were:
Week 1: Star Wars - Queen Amidala
Week 2: Bleach - Half-Hollow Ichigo
Week 3: Game of Thrones (in honour of the EPIC just-finished fourth season) - Melisandre
Week 4: Marvel - Electro
I also threw in a surpirse video because I had to get in on the transformation action. I made myself up as Morticia Addams.

They weren't advanced cosplays int erms of the costumes, rather we wanted to show people how they could create characters with makeup (which I find to be one thing people seem to have a general hard time with), and approximate costumes at home with what's readily available in the island. Everything I used was purchased here in stores, not online or overseas, or were taken from each person's own closet. We decided to do it in June rather than July (AnimeKon is in August) to give people time to practice the techniques and get the materials.

Though we of course couldn't do a whole lot of characters (we scheduled four videos, one per week for the month of June), I tried to choose characters that would help me teach a wide array of techniques: from facepainting clean, crisp lines (Ichigo) to more controlled chaotic patterns (Electro) to using shading and contouring to alter a face shape (Melisandre). The techniques can be adapted and used for a wide range of characters.

We had such wonderful responce to the series and had so much fun creating the characters that we've added the Charicature (a play on the words 'character' and 'cariacature') Files to the callendar for next year.

I have a whole Cosplay Playlist on my YouTube channel. Please do check it out!

I'll be at AnimeKon this year of course, and this is the second year I'll be having a booth!!

Check out the transformation photos below, and please do check out the playlist!

See you at AnimeKon!


Keishaas Queen Amidala

Patrick as Half-Hollow Ichigo

Robyn as Melisandre

Dexter as Electro


Me as Morticia Addams







Tuesday 24 June 2014

On Blogging




I woke up this morning to find that the lovely Lucinda of Moden Makeup had nominated me for a Leibster Blogger award. Thanks girl!! 

I confess I didn't even know what this was. (Shame) It's an award for little-known but promising bloggers who have fewer than 200 followers, to help promote them. It's such a great thing for those of us that are really just trying to do share our love of all thing beauty-related.

The rules of the Leibster Award are:

1. Acknowledge the blogger who nominated you and display the award.
2. Answer eleven questions the blogger gives you.
3. Give eleven random facts about yourself.
4. Nominate eleven blogs you think are worthy of the award (but they must have less than 200 followers).
5. Let the bloggers know you nominated them.
6. Give them eleven questions to answer.


The questions Lu asked her nominees:

1. Where is your favourite place in Barbados to shop for shoes?
Payless. Only place I can find cute shoes in my (gigantic) size that don't murder my feet.

2. What message do you hope to convey most via your blog?
That we are all beautiful, and that makeup really is a fun accessory with limitless possibilities that we have access to.

3. Skittles or M&Ms?
Chocolate. #thatisall

4. What are you currently using now as a facial cleanser?
I use my Noxema Original Cream Cleanser and the Noxema Triple Clean Anti-Bacterial Face Wash. (See my Skin Care Heart to Heart video)

5. What character would you love to play in Game of Thrones?
YIKES! I'm such a huge GoT fan that this is a really hard question...I would honestly gender-bend and play Tyrion if I could. or Varys. Both fascinating characters. 

6. Does your house have ac? If, yes; what are the directions? Cause the way this heat set up...
I WISH. What I would give to have AC in my house...

7. In what circumstances is the use of slang acceptable while blogging?
I think it's important to put yourself in your video/blogs. So using some slang, if that's how you normally speak,is perfectly fine, as long as you keep your audience in mind and make sure that for the most part, most if not allyour viewers/readers can understand you.

8. #TeamJoe or #TeamRyan?
I have no idea which Joe and Ryan we're talking about. Manganiello and Gosling? In that case, Joe, all the way. He's yummy.

9. In what year do you think Barbadian companies will take bloggers serious?
Last year I might have said never. But as Social Media becomes more and more vital to our way of life, I think Bim will eventually come around. as to a specific year? Beats me. I'd sy within the next 10, though (conservative guesstimate).

10. Who will win Road March this year?
I'm not a Soca fan. I support Chrytal Cummins-Beckles because she's family and I know enough about Soca to know that she's very good (but gets the short end of the stick because she's a woman), and Gabby I adore as a folk artist, but I honestly don't really care otherwise. Sue me.

11. What topic would you like to see more Barbadian bloggers focused on?
This is a tough one. I'd just like to see more Bajan Bloggers, to be honest. I want people to realize that blogging has endless possibilities for sharing passion and information.


11 Random Facts About Me:


1) I love otters.

2) I'm addicted to Game of Thrones (duh) and Sherlock.

3) I LOVE fantasy books, films and TV, but I don't like it when they go overly campy. Hence my love for GoT and films like The Hobbit. (P.S: Smaug is one helluva sexy beast!)

4) I very much support Equality. Equal Rights for all Human Beings. I do believe it is possible and will one day be a worldwide reality.

5) I used to teach Salsa. I'm one of the original founding members of the SalsaCraze Club at the University of Miami. (I was the first Treasurer and an Assistant Instructor for one semester, and then Secretary and Instructor.)

6) I love Nature, especially at night.

7) I love body modification. I'm currently stretching my ears and I just pierced my lip. I have a whole playlist of my body mod vlogs.

8) I have dabbled in acting. I'm fascinated by the process that actors go through to create characters and bring them to life.

9) One of my dreams is to do makeup for Film and TV. I'm saving to do the Film & TV course at Cinema Makeup School but it's going to take a while... :'(

10) I have never broken a bone. (That I know of. I did injure a toe really badly once but never got it X-Rayed.)

11) I'm addicted to TYT Network and I support Wolf PAC.


I Nominate

(I realize some of these have been nominated already, most by Lucinda. But these are honestly blogs that I follow and love, so I'm nominating them too)


My Questions for my Nominees (if you've already answered Lucinda's questions then don't worry!)
1) What your favourite food?
2) Do you have any tattoos/piercings?
3) What do you love most about Blogging?
4) what is the most frustrating aprt of blogging?
5) Current favourite TV Show?
6) Best Film of 2013?
7) Favourite snack?
8) True Blood or Vampire Diaries?
9) What's your ideal wy to spend a lazy Sunday?
10) Place in the world you most want to visit?
11) Coffee or Tea?



Monday 10 March 2014

GRWM: Blue-Brown Smoky eyes & Matte Nude Lips (+playlist)

Hey beauties!! I've been doing Get Ready With Me videos recently! Have you seen ny of them? Check this one out: