SPECIAL TODAY: Following Aja's Authentic 1950s Look Tutorial!

So today we're doing something different! We're going to follow my friend Aja's (VividMakeup on YouTube) tutorial on doing an "Authentic 1950s Look". Aja, as I've mentioned before is an up and coming YouTube "makeup guru" and she's the reason I've become interested in it, I love her to death! I met her when we were both going to "Vancouver Film School" (her in makeup, me in screenwriting) and enjoyed many dinners together discussing boys and drinking!

Anyway, here's her lovely new video tutorial:



I followed all her instructions pretty closely, the only change being that I'm dark haired, don't have 50s garb, forgot to do the birthmark, and didn't go pickup some false eyelashes.

Here's my video response with the look on!



Hope you guys enjoyed! Love ya lots!

- Tyrel

Making Face #4: Shimmer!

So tonight's look was "Shimmer", a look that's fairly easy to do, but stupid hard to photograph with a cheapo camera :P. The look makes you shiny, but not in a sweaty sort of way or a Stephanie-Meyer-Vampire sort of way, it's a pretty look that could be described as "radiant beauty".

Here's how:

1) Apply light concealer where needed (you know, red-ish areas that don't blend well)
2) Take some highlighter lotion (I don't have any, so I used a highlighting eyeshadow that's used under the brow) over your face lightly to give it a pretty sheen
3) Use a small amount of blush on the cheeks and temples
4) Line your eyes with a nice brown eyeliner and blend into the lashes and above
5) Use a burgandy colored eyeshadow to go in a circle around the eyes blending out so there's no line
6) Take a highlighting beige eyeshadow in the brow bone
7) Black mascara is applied to the upper lashes, Burgandy to the lower (Don't get "Urban Decay's Big Fatty Mascara, it dries out before you've begun to use it and it's just not a nice product)
8) Use a lip liner to line your lips and then fill them in
9) A nice pinky lip gloss to shine the lips up

It's so sad that picture don't really work that well unless you have a good camera, it looked way better in person (as do all the looks) but here goes:

My bum is in the last 2 :P

That's all for now loves! Tonight for dinner I made Taylor and I broiled Chicken Breast (which I had on a wrap and Taylor had in a salad) with some mixed veggies! Yum! I have the next 2 days off from work too! YAY!

Love ya,
Tyrel

Making Face #3: Simplicity!

"First principles, Clarice. Simplicity" - Hannibal Lecter

So tonight I did my third look from Kevyn's wonderful book, this one being called "simplicity" it's wonderfully simple and makes any girl look natural in such a wonderful way!

This look is so wonderful and simple (hence the name), here's how:

1) Dab a little concealer where needed and blend
2) Take a simple brown shade (lighter) and use a brush to outline your eyesocket bone under your eyebrow (this makes a nice shadow effect)
3) Curl and mascara the eye lashes sparingly (no spiders!) For this look Kevyn (and I) just did mascara on the top lashes
4) Apply some (supposed to be liquid, but I don't have that) blush to the cheekbones, chin, and temples (SO PRETTY!)
5) Grab a fleshy tone lipliner and outline
6) Lightly fill in the lips with the lipliner and BAM! Sexy simple!

I LOOOOOOVE this look! So classic! Makes me think Audrey! (I wish I looked like Audrey <3 )

So yeah, for a simple day out, you'll love this one! It's just effing flawless! Tonight I went to dinner with Taylor at "White Spot" in Surrey after a stressful day for both of us at our works (Tay got barely any sleep because of our noisey neighbors and had to work at 6am! and my work was just busy, bleh!) and then I came home, had a nice long shower with my love, organized my makeup (gotta take a pic for you guys soon! My collection is just getting lovelier and lovelier! My girls keep me well stocked and I barely need to buy anything! Thank you to companys that give free stuff! Most of it is stuff gotten for free that doesn't work with their skins <3 And then I obviously did my blogs/looks!

Love ya lots,
Tyrel!

Making Face #2: Dramatic!

Here's Some Music to go along with the look...

I'm wondering if writing is a curse of drama, cause right after I say I won't be a whiney girl like Julie from Julie and Julia, my life gets a little dramatic.

It could also be that my next look is called, just that, "DRAMATIC". I won't get into the drama because really, I don't want this blog to be about that, I'm not planning on novelizing my feelings/life through this process. Anyway, Friday was look-less because of a wee bit of drama.

I had a BBQ to attend that was put on my Taylor and a mutual friend of ours, Alexxa. I needed a look that was quick but drew attention quick (I mean realllllllly, what's the point of this project if I don't get to talk about it and possibly recruit some sexy girl models to do my stuff on?)

So I remembered Kevyn Aucoin mentioned how this look was quick and very noticable because he only had 15 mins to prepare Jewel for it. It's one of my favorite looks, a heavy smokey type with sparkle, it just begs people to ask about it:

So it's quite simple:
1) slap on some concealer sparingly in areas where it's needed
2) use a complimentary brow liner to highlight your brows (I honestly can't believe how easy it is to pop them brows, it makes ALL the difference!)
3) grab a nice sparkly color that's neutral and complimentary (supposed to be liquid, but I don't have any :( ), brush over the eyelids and sweep under as well
4) now we're gonna Kohl them eyes! Take your eyeliner and do a nice thick coat over the waterline and the upper eyelid rim (it's a pain, I know, but you'll get a technique quite quickly)

5) smudge that liner into and past the eyelashes using a sponge tip or brush
6) reapply and smudge more til it's nice and dramatic!
7) curl and mascara your lashes
8) line your lips with a nice neutral color pencil
9) fill in the lips with the pencil
10) put on a nice lip gloss and dazzle the world!

Ugh, Taylor is so right that I need a new camera... These pics are awful and you can't really see the lovely pinks/purples I chose for my color :(

Still... It was well recieved by my group and I was asked how it was done :P I might have picked up a model that'll let me make her over too <3

Thanks loves, sorry I didn't update with this last night, was super tired!

PS- Big thanks goes out to my lovely friend Sharon for her donations shown below <3

Making Face #1: Sensual!

Hi loves,

So here we begin. For the first look of the book I went with the "Sensual" one which is displayed on Richard Elms and Gregory St Cerin:

I started with this look because it was probably the simplest in the entire book and because it was boys <3 So Taylor was going to let me do it on him at first, but then I showed him how you have to line the entire rim of your eye and he wasn't going to have any of it. I've never done the upper rim so this was a little scary to try... It's not very hard though, you've just gotta develop some control over your urge to blink and you're golden. So this look is easy, you line the whole rim with a fair amount of eyeliner, blink hard several times to smudge, then use a brush to smudge the liner out a bit further and apply lip gloss! Simple? For sure! Sexy effect? Taylor and I like it ;)

And just so you know how much of a super nerd I am I've decided to include a bonus pic! Enjoy, my hair knows JUST when to fall out of place :P

Please, if you have any advise for me, feel free, I take criticisms well <3

EDIT: My friend Brent, who's getting into photography, wanted to practice his post skills so he did a little work on my pic, I love it!

The Quest is layed out...

So, after posting some pics of my attempts, I was amazed to find a crapload of support from my friends: everyone sends me links to things I should check out and try, my friend Sharon at work was full of suggestions and is donating me makeup she's recieved as "free gifts" that she doesn't use, and my sister gifted me a ton of her makeup!

It was suggested to me to check out the book "Making Faces" by Kevyn Aucoin which lays out a billion different looks to try and also goes over Kevyn's story of how he got into makeup. Lucky for me, my sister had a copy so I was able to borrow it!

So here's my goal: You know that movie "Julie and Julia"? The one about the whiniest woman in the world who sets out to do all of Julia Child's recipes and blog about them? Well that's what I want to do, but with makeup! I just don't think a lot of my personal life will come up like hers did... So if you're expecting me to tell you how bad my husband (or partner in this case) is and how I hate my call centre job (which I do) you've come to the wrong place! I want to make this simple, you're here to follow me as I learn how to do makeup. I'm hoping some friends will donate their time throughout my process here so I can try the looks on them (just like in Kevyn's book) and not just do a billion pics of me in drag makeup, but we shall see!

So, enjoy and I hope you stick with me through this "journey"!

And it continued...

So, after my first two tries at makeup I was feeling that improvement was happening already and that if I just kept it up I could be doing sexy looks in no time! The posts I'd placed on facebook were encouraging and some of my loves that I'd been admiring for years began sending me links to the "Gurus of YouTube" that had helped them out in their learning.

My first experience was with "The Accidental Beauty" a gorgeous girl who is quickly making a name for herself on YouTube. She did a review of the "Lash Stilletto" that was linked on my friend Aja's review of the same product. She had a nice look and a link to a tutorial, so I tried following it, but I didn't have the right colors (that's the first look I tried) I thought that I could get away with using 3 shades of blue, but it just looked like a simple dark to light gradient.

My next experience was with "Makeup Geek", recommended to me by my friend Decca who said she found her tips to be extemely useful, which I can see why! Makeup geek is this gorgeous girl who is super helpful in her approach to explaining techniques to the most inexperienced girls (or guys) and laying it out how it is. I followed her techniques on "defining the outer v" and doing "Smokey Eyes" and really learned a lot, she's got some brilliant tutorial videos that make it easy for any girl (with the right colors of course).

So then my sister gave me a few more brushes and colors, I purchased some tweezers, primer, and eyelash curlers so that I could try and work a bit more with this... I tweezed (which was super needed, I'm sure you noticed) and was ready for more...

My friend Taia (who is just superbly gorgeous and has always had an eye for the perfect makeup shades) linked me a bunch of girls on YouTube who I've checked out two of now, first was KANDEE JOHNSON I really can't say enough about Kandee, she is brilliant and I find her tutorials to be ridiculously fun and easy to follow! Define your eyebrows just got super simple, smokey, cleaning your brushes, ugh! She's just amazing! Anyway, I decided to try out her PINUP GIRL LOOK next and I was just blown away by how simple it was and how hot the results were!

Cheesey Pics, I know, but I wanted to demonstrate it as Ebony (whose wig is just very "pin-up-esque")

The look was so easy to follow and I totally recommend it because it makes you feel stupid pretty! I'll be doing more of her tutorials in the future for sure.

Another link from Taia was "The Current Custom" she's a very strange and sarcastic girl. Don't get me wrong, I do like her. She kind of frightened me at first though, I thought it was strange that she liked a "messy look" and that she didn't want to follow rules of makeup, that just sounded weird to me (I was wrong! I love what she does!) I decided that she looked cool enough, so randomly chose a tutorial to follow... "Everyday Smokey Look" freaked the hell out of me "I'm just going to use the sponge applicators for this one" WHAAAAT? But I decided to follow the guidelines set and, well, I was wrong again :P

Obviously ignor the hair and the fact that I'm a boy with stupid thin uppler lip and you should see the prettiness there! YAY! I've got a bunch more YouTube channels to go through (and it looks like Aja just sent me more) oh dear... oh dear... so much to do :P

My next post will outline my goals for this blog :D