Long Hair Up Class Part 1

If you follow me on Twitter you'll probably know that I've been attending an evening long hair up class at a local college.  It's on Wednesday nights 6.30-8.30pm for 6 weeks.  I am now halfway through so I thought I'd share what we've learned so far!  Ideally I would like to do tutorials for these styles but some are pretty complicated to translate via blog post so I'll just need to have a go and see how they turn out...

Week 1

Although this was the first style we did I found this the trickiest so far! You use the same piece of hair on the left and right of each level so it needs to be quite long. It uses a repetitive figure of eight motion for the main body but it is easily adaptable to whatever look you're going for. For example you could make a bow at the to and then go onto the middle section; built it outwards to give it more dimensions; or create a different shape with the hair.

Week 2

This one probably isn't to everyone's taste as it slightly reminds me of Medusa haha!!   However I think it could be adapted to look really nice, for example adding some little flowers, pearls or gems to follow the shape of the hair.  Also instead of twisting the hair you could make fishtail plaits.  The tutor showed us how she used this effect on a bride recently, she used padding to make the bottom bigger and sit in the nape of the neck, and the top was more 'drapey' rather than twisted - it was lovely!

Week 3

creepy me in the background!

This was what we did last week - my favourite so far, and to be honest, the easiest too!  It is quite simple but very time consuming, I wasn't happy with how I finished it as I had to rush as class was finishing!  I can definitely do a tutorial for this one as it's pretty straight forward, with lots of repetition.  She only showed us how to do the shape at the bottom, and left the front bit for us to come up with something ourselves so it was really interesting to see how everyone's turned out very different!

I'm looking forward to this weeks' which she showed us last week, an asymmetric plait which she finished in about 5/6 minutes!!  I will put up the rest of the styles at the end of the course although follow me on Instagram (LooweezBx) for photos every week :)

<3

College #3: 19th Century Hairstyle

I am putting this under the heading of 'college' rather than the previous hair tutorials I have done because this probably isn't something you would be creating for your average night out!  We are doing 'Postiche and Padding' unit of hairdressing where we have to create styles from 19th, 20th and 21st century.

This was my first attempt at a 19th century (1800s) style which I roughly copied from my research.  It's not perfect but I was quite pleased with it so I thought I'd show you all!

1. I decided on the area where I wanted to fit on the padding.  Because I looked really big I used two pieces.  Then I started pin curling the area.
2. Finished pin curled area.
3. I attached the padding and secured with hair pins.
4. Next I backcombed the hair surrounding the padding to create volume and thickness.
5. I folded all the backcombed hair in, smoothed the top, and folded it in under itself using more hair pins.
6. I took the whole front area and curled it using tongs, then ruched it and piled it on top of the head.

Finished front

Finished back

<3

What's In My [Kit] Bag?

As promised here is a breakdown of what is in my makeup kit bag for college at the moment.  You will notice there is a lot of Bobbi Brown in it which is because that is what they made us buy for our starter kit - don't even get me started, I think it is ridiculous and horrendously overpriced, especially for practicing on each other!!!  I would not buy Bobbi Brown ever again, it was only because we were basically forced to... This pile of shit skinned me £350 *deep breaths*

Anyway, enough moaning and onto the kit!  To make things easier I have put (CF) beside items which are cruelty free as there are a lot in here which aren't.

I got the bag from eBay for about £17 but I kind of wish that I just splashed out for the £30 Charles Fox one as I feel like this won't really last and the strap is actually sewed on squint...  Joys of eBay!

In The Pockets...

1. Bobbi Brown Skin Foundation SPF 15 in Golden 6 
2. Bobbi Brown Moisture Rich Foundation SPF 15 in Warm Sand 2.5 
3. Bobbi Brown Moisture Rich Foundation SPF 15 in Porcelain 0
4. Bobbi Brown Tinted Moisturizer in Medium

1. Bobbi Brown Lip Color Sandwash Pink 22
2. Bobbi Brown High Shimmer Lip Gloss in Black Ruby 8
3. Bobbi Brown Lip Liner in Ballet Pink

1. Benefit They're Real Mascara
2. YSL Touché Eclat
3. ELF Eyelid Primer
4. Surgical Spirit in a recycled Lush bottle!
5. Victoria Jackson Show Off Lip Compact

On The Inside...

I've got a few smaller bags inside to keep everything nice and neat, then bigger things just float about loose in the bag.

1. Bobbi Brown Oil-Free Even Finish Compact Foundation in Beige 3 
2. Bobbi Brown Oil-Free Even Finish Compact Foundation in Warm Ivory 1
3. Bobbi Brown Bronzer/Blush Duo - Bahama Brown & Pink Peony
4. Coastal Scents 10 Blusher Palette (CF but their brushes aren't)
5. Kryolan Loose Setting Powder (CF)

In this bag I have my powder puff (I use this when resting my hand on people's skin when doing eyeliner to stop me smudging their base), mascara spoolies (I clearly need some more haha!), spatulas, pointy cottonbuds and a pencil sharpener.

In the other bag I have makeup wipes (CF), lip balm (CF), eye makeup remover (CF), cleanser (CF), toner (CF - it's Lush!), eye cream, moisturiser and hand sanitiser. 

I've not labelled these are there's just so many!!  Most of them are just my own which I've got in sets at Christmas and never use...  If there's one in particular you're wondering about just let me know in the comments and I can tell you what it is! 

1. The Body Shop Shimmer Waves (CF)
2. Bobbi Brown Blush in Slopes 17
3. Kryolan Classic Lip Mini Palette (CF)
4. Bobbi Brown Pot Rouge in Powder Pink 6

Lastly I have Kryolan Dermacolor Mini Palette in Fair (CF) which I used to do a tattoo cover-up in this post, and a very cheap and cheerful MUA light pressed powder (CF).

So there you go!  I think I will also do a post on sanitising products as that is a very important part of being a makeup artist and also helpful for your own items, especially if you are prone to breakouts.

<3

College #2: Basic Tattoo Covering

In college we had to a tattoo covering project as part of our basic makeup unit.  Unfortunately it is only a very small section whereas it could easily be a while unit in itself!  So this is just a very basic demonstration of how to cover a plain black tattoo.

You will need:

- Cleanser
- Heavy duty concealer: I used a mini Dermacolor palette in Fair
- Fine translucent powder
- A small brush i.e. eyeliner or lip
- Powder puff
- A big fluffy brush
- Cotton pads

I don't have any tattoos so I used my friend Laura to model for me as she has a black butterfly on her back.

• I started off by cleansing the area.
• Using a small brush I went over the black using D32.
• This is the first layer of D32 on the tattoo.  I have left the smaller wing bare for comparison.
• I then pressed a translucent powder onto it with a puff and removed any excess with a fluffy brush.
• I repeated the last two steps to build up D32 into two layers.

As you can see D32 is a reddish colour, this puts that tone back into the black which means using skin colours over the top will hide the tattoo much more easily.

• Next I moved onto concealing the whole thing. I matched Laura’s skin tone using a combination of D406 and D1W and applied it over D32.
• I powdered this layer to set it.
• Finally I touched up any areas which needed extra coverage.
• One last layer of powder to set it all into place.

The final effect

Before and after

This was only the 3rd time I had tried tattoo covering as I didn't have anyone to practice on in between college and doing this one for the project!  However, I am pleased with the outcome but next time I will try to blend the edges of each layer in more as I am doing it.  Dermacolor is quite fast drying and makes blending later on very difficult.

Being able to do this perfectly would be a fantastic skill, there are probably quite a lot of woman out there who would want visible tattoos covered up for their wedding!

<3

College #1: Bridal

As you probably know I started a Fashion Make Up course a few weeks ago and I thought it would be quite fun to catalogue the things I do and add to my blog!  We have started very basic which I am so grateful for!  Although I would say I am quite good at eye make up, I don't know all that much about foundations as I don't really wear them much.

So first we started with basic make up, which is just a flawless base, with a wash of colour on the lips and darker shadow pushed into the lashline, blusher and some lipgloss.  Now we've moved onto bridal!

I took some pictures of my model - at the moment we pair up and do each other's make up to practice - at different stages.  Unfortunately the lighting isn't the best so apologies for that!  Claire also had sunburn on her nose and it was peeling so I just avoided her entire nose which looks a bit weird but never mind!  Also apparently we look alike, what do you think???

Before

'Flawless' Base

At this stage I had only applied foundation and concealer.  Claire's skin is combination/oily so I used an oil-free foundation.  Her undereyes weren't particularly dark to begin with so I didn't need to use any corrective products, I just used a concealer which was the same colour as the foundation.

Bridal 

This is the finished bridal make up (click to see close up).  I actually totally forgot to put mascara on, I'd tinted her eyelashes a couple of weeks ago and they are still black so you can't really tell...

Face Chart

This was the first time I'd made a face chart so it was a bit weird!  Normally you are supposed to prepare these before you do the model's make up, but yesterday we just filled it in as we went along.

Hopefully I will do lots more of these, and they'll get a lot more interesting!

<3