Last Wednesday I attended Dior's (free) masterclass which took place at Swarovski Crystallized store. The event was held only for AOFM graduates so it was lovely seeing some of the girls in my class again!
Goody bag containing a mascara and a Skinflash stick - thank you Dior
Jamie Coombes (DIOR's national make-up artist) gave a demonstration on how to create a glamorous red carpet look using some of their new products.
Marie Claire's Beauty Director - Lisa Oxenham - was also there to give us tips on how to become a successful make-up artist then going over the S/S12 catwalk trends!
Halfway through the masterclass my right eye started to feel really irritated - I'm pretty sure I'm allergic to the lash glue. It was annoying as my eyes kept watering and my nose kept running so I couldn't concentrate or take pictures during the demonstration!! I really liked my eye make-up that day so was gutted I had to take lashes off.
Loved the shape of the eye-liner flick!
Ended up going home with big-small eyes O_o
Last weekend I went mad on ASOS trying to find a Christmas party dress and ended up spending over £300... yet I'm STILL a Christmas party dress short!! Yep, definitely need to get on that tomorrow before all the pretty dresses get snapped up....
OOOH OOH OOH!! This is so exciting - I waited 3 months to my hands on these babies and I received them on Friday:
Jeffrey Campbell Lita's in taupe suede!!!! OMFG!!
Gaaaahhhh. I can't wait to take them out for a walk!!! OMFG.
An on that note I think it's bed time for me, goodnight my pretty little dolls.
I have been on the hunt for the perfect red lipstick for some time now. However, I always find myself standing at the drugstore counters in a state of confusion after trying on less than three shades. Why? I always encounter these problems:
1. How do I pick the right shade for my skin tone?
2. What lipstick finish is best?
3. Do I need lip liner? If so, should that be a darker shade to the chosen red lippy?
I have NEVER owned a red lipstick in the 27 years of my life... until now. Say hello to the new additions of my lipstick family:
My favourite lipsticks right now are MAC Ruby Woo and Russian Red. Honestly, they are both gorgeous and have a really nice cool tone which compliments most Asian skin! Both are a matt finish but it's really down to personal preference with the type of finish to buy (but matt will stay on longer than a glossy finish lippy). I bought Media for a Halloween look so for me it's not a colour I would wear everyday but it is a beautiful dark purple/red.
Very similar although Ruby Woo is slightly lighter than Russian Red.
I also splashed out on lip liners too:
Kiss Me Quick is my favourite and goes well with the two red lipsticks. Burgundy as you can tell compliments Media to give a define outline.
As for the lip shape? Unfortunately you just have to practice! I find it handy to use mirrors in different angles - sometimes it can look perfect from straight on but slightly unflattering from the side.
Playing around with lipstick after work
Lately I've been thinking of really putting effort into making better videos, I mean to REALLY try. Buy fluorescent light, HD camcorder, reflector...the lot! First of all I need to practice my make-up skills and secondly I need to save up!! I also want to set up another site under a different username, I'm not feeling 'Kuroxdoll'...never have done. 'XDOLL' was already taken so I added kuro, means black in Japanese, hence the black font for kuro in my header. See, I'm clever like that.
Also, alot of people mispronounce it as ku-rox-doll which irritates the hell out of me - it's 'ex-doll'!!! Which sounds just as stupid but that's how you pronounce it!
How is everybody? It's been so long since my last entry even my blog banner decided to disappear!
Work has been really tough the last two months and it's not getting easier. Hopefully by the end of November things will slow down a bit and I will be able to blog and make videos again
This is just a quick update to say hello... so 'HELLO'.
Here are a few pics of me after various hairstyles and colour change. The first pic is what I currently have!
So where have I been for the last two months? Well, I have something very exciting to announce...
.......I am now a qualified Freelance Make-up Artist!!
AOFM - Art of Freelance Make-up
The course spanned over a three week period with the first two weeks covering make-up and the third week covering hair styling. My favourite lesson was our editorial/high fashion day taught by Jo Frost, the first assistant to the most influential and AMAZING make-up artist in the world - Pat McGrath. She was very constuctive, gave us pointers, direction and was very down to earth.
The academy is located on Dean Street (Soho, London) and I enjoyed every second of it. Can't believe it's only been over a week since we finished! I am back in my full-time office job now and it's pretty deflating because more so than ever, I know this isn't what I want to do, it isn't... me. I NEED to keep it up, keep praticing the skills I have learnt or it'll be a complete waste of time. The next step is to get myself in the industry whether it be assisting for free or get a counter job for a make-up brand. Working at a Bobbi Brown counter would be my ideal job right now as I love the branding, the products and what the brand believes in. It won't be easy leaving a well paid full-time office job but if you are committed, you have to take the jump.
What I have discovered is that I am not a hair person. Don't really know why. I just don't... get it. I enjoyed learning techniques styling, setting, blowdrying, sectioning etc. but seriously, I only do make-up!
We had a professional photoshoot on the last day where we have to draft up a mood board of a beauty look and one editorial. These are some screen shots of how the editorial ones turned out:
We have to pay the photographer to photoshop pics that we like but we can have 10 copies of hi-res unretouched photos. As I don't really have the budget, trying to pick 2 from 90 pics is really difficult!! These photos will be the start of my portfolio... hopefully there will be plenty more to come!
We also had a shopping day where we visited make-up stores such as Benefit, MAC, Bare Escentuals, Shu Uemura as a class and receive discounts of up to 35%. As you can imagine, most girls were saving their £££ for the MAC store, me included! We were given a 35% Mac Pro card for two weeks - here's a photo showing one of my many transactions from last week:
Kidding. The top two rows of eyeshadows aren't mine, they were bought by a fellow AOFM school friend but I asked her to put it next to mine to give the photo more impact, haha.
Anyway, as I am back to my normal routine I will try to upate more and maybe do another tutorial. Going on this course has opened up my eyes on applying make-up on different eye shapes. For so long I have only practiced on myself or other Asian friends and hardly on western eyes so I wasn't too confident with my skills. However, it became apparent that it was easier for me to adapt/adjust to western eyes than those applying make-up on my eyes! I felt bad... my eyes are so small... not much you can do to it!
Until then, hope everyone is having a lovely summer so far. Will be back to update shortly! See ya.
Hi guys! Hope everyone is having a lovely extra long weekend - I ♥ Bank Holidays! Although I'm not enjoying it as much as I want to as mother nature has a wicked sense of humour. Hot water bottle and painkillers is what I have to look forward to!! *grumble grumble* Now where's my chocolate bar?
So I have spent much of this morning editing another makeup tutorial! My OCD nature is my eternal enemy as I literally spent 3 hours on perfecting the first minute of the video, that's right, the FIRST BLOODY MINUTE.... I drive myself to drink sometimes lol.
Here's a sneak peek of my upcoming tutorial:
What do you think?
It's really difficult to give the end result justice as I record all my videos using my laptop webcam and it tends to wash out everything. Even adjusting the hue/contrast/brightness it still washes out all the detail - I applied so much bronzer but only a smidgen of it came across in the video! When I came to wash my face I gave myself a fright in the bathroom mirror as it looked more like ganguro make-up than a tanned/bronzed look!!
Just came back from my sisters hen weekend and I'm completely wiped out. Drinking at 11am is never a good idea especially if it continues through the day and well into the night! A male strip show and a night out clubbing with a portion of onion rings and chips later we finally called it a night at 4am.
Anyway, that aside I wanted to post my video tutorial based on Kanako Kawabata's eye makeup. I recorded this on the day of the Royal Wedding so it has taken me a while to edit/upload this. I was reluctant to pay £79 for a video editing software but in the end I gave in - I used the trial version to edit and produce the video (which took a week!) but only to realise they stamp 'TRIAL VERSION' (and the software name) for about 5secs at the beginning of the vid! I was so annoyed as the end video was produced in their own file type so I couldn't convert it!
(Stupid thumbnail makes me look so chubby!)
Also, did anyone notice my new header? My boyfriend helped me photoshop the banner and I love it! We made a few in the end but picked this one as I currently have a girl crush on Sayoko - she's so hot!
