On the heels of my first televised interview (I’ll post a blog with the video in it soon) describing how I made my way from my previous career as a social worker to the world of makeup, I thought it fitting to share with you this bit of my back story… as well as what I’m currently carrying in my own personal makeup bag, as I told it to Sarah Howard, of beautybanter.com. 

“My first real intro to makeup started when I was 8. I was going to a friend’s house for a sleepover party, and out of the blue, my mom gave me a big ziplock bag of all sorts of products from the back of her makeup drawer. The ones that still stand out in my mind consist of a super shimmery grey eyeshadow, electric and pale frosty blue eye shadows, intensely pigmented peachy pink liquid cheek color, and an orange lipstick in a gold tube that I doubted she ever wore. I packed that ziplock full of tricks in my overnight bag and I was the hit of the party.

Soon thereafter it was my birthday and my mom invited her friend, who I vaguely remember was a makeup artist – maybe at a local department store counter – over to do makeup on all my friends. We still have the photos, and it was the first time I saw my blonde/red eyelashes with mascara – and I LOVED it. I couldn’t believe I had eyelashes like everyone else’s- dark and thick and framing the shape of my eye! That was the beginning of me begging to wear makeup, and my interest in all things beauty.

I got sidetracked for most of my early career-life, devoting my time to being a social worker  – which couldn’t have been the furthest thing from the world of beauty or fashion- my own wardrobe not excluded. The one thing that I did insist upon was introducing ‘beauty days’ to my clients – particularly around special days like mothers’ day, or valentines’ day – where I’d either collect products to pamper them, or bring in makeup or hair artists to give on-site makeovers to the lovely ladies who came in to my office for help.

I had the most gorgeous clients – of every skin tone, hair type, and ethnic background. I remember there would be times when I was floored by the beauty of a mother and daughter from west Africa, both with amazing skin, draped in gorgeous fabrics of rich color, or the stunning Latina clients with deep dark eyes and features that women pay plastic surgeons to recreate on their own faces. I was also really lucky to work with a large transgender population, and in particular, male-to-female transgendered folks who frequently dressed as women. It was from those clients that I learned the fantastic transformative power of makeup, and I knew I wanted to make a switch to try my hand at the beauty industry full-time.

I didn’t know enough to be scared, so I marched into all the different agencies and eagerly told the agents who would speak to me that I was willing to work for cheap, and that I wasn’t a kid who would screw around on set – I was there to work! It all happened so quickly, and after assisting some of the best for about a year, the agency that I love – The Wall Group – offered to sign me as their first makeup artist on their brand new emerging talent board.

That was nearly 6 years ago, and I can’t believe how far I’ve come, and how much I love this industry. I began my career in social work helping women feel better, and I love that I still get to do just that, every single day. I’m extremely passionate about the burgeoning green beauty component, and love finding out about new products made with ingredients that are safe enough to eat.

This year I decided to leave NYC and spend awards season in LA, rather than flying back and forth. Plus, I hate the cold so it wasn’t a difficult decision. Award season is full of excitement for me. I love working with the beautiful and funny Isla Fisher, and got to switch up her look a lot for the Golden Globes (pictured) – and she loved it. Doing makeup on the gorgeous and talented actress, Amanda Seyfried, is always such a treat as well. I like doing all kinds of makeup, but what I like most, is making a face we’re all familiar with really dazzle on the red carpet. Nothing is better for me than when I hand my client the mirror after finishing creating her look and seeing her eyes widen and a smile spread across her face as she takes in her reflection.

• My makeup bag is from Kahina Giving Beauty. They make fantastic products and give back so much to the Berber women in Morocco who make them. The products in my bag are simple but contains exactly what my staples are when doing a red carpet look.
• Dr. Alkaitis Universal Mask: I carry the sample size in my purse just in case I travel and forget to bring the full size! This green mask is truly therapeutic – it soothes, nourishes, and calms my skin when it’s inflamed or broken out. The key is to keep it damp while it’s on your face – spritzing with water or hanging out in the shower, letting the steam keep it damp.
• Vered Organic Botanicals Balancing Face Oil: It’s an herb infused oil that contains anti inflammatory and anti bacterial components. My skin is so sensitive, and I love that this one never irritates it and I think, calms my breakouts. I use it day and night, and I’m never stingy with application. I only use oils on my clients, too which I know is why they always glow on the red carpet.
• Shu Uemura Eyelash Curler: Simply the best. Change the pad every 6 months, and get a new one every year, if you use it daily. Clamp it as close to the roots as you possibly can and your eye will instantly open. Every actress I work with knows I’ll be curling the hell out of her lashes.
• Cover Girl Lash Blast Mascara Very Black: I’m obsessed with lashes. This is my favorite, despite it not being a ‘green’ beauty product. I don’t care – it does the job and gives long, thick, lush lashes that stay all day- and I use, like, 10 coats.
• Kjaer Weis Lip Tint in “goddess”: I love this deep rich color, and that it’s sheer while still well pigmented. I love to use it on my cheeks, too! It looks awesome on so many skin tones, as well, and the color is totally buildable.
• Burt’s Bees Tinted Lip Balm in Sweet Violet: this is my go-to for every day, all day. I have a zillion of them. It’s 100% natural and such an awesome color. It’s also what I like to give my clients for the after party when I know they’re not going to be interested in keeping up their precise lipstick look that I created for them. This is easy, moisturizing, and full of color, and there are a number of other colors, so I can pick the one that matches each client best.
• Zoe Organics 100% Organic Everything Balm: I use this delicious little stick on everything – scrapes, rashes, bites, rough cuticles- you name it. I have one in my work makeup kit and use it all the time when I want to moisturize shoulders and upper arms, but can’t risk getting any oils from lotion or cream into the hair (or the hairdresser will kill me!)
• Ilia Beauty Balmy Days Lip Balm: When I don’t feel like having any color on my lips, this is my favorite. It’s full of coconut oil and feels delicious. I give them out to clients to use at night leading up to red carpet events because they’re so penetrating and rich – they get a pout ready!
• Tata Harper Aromatic Stress Treatment Roll-On Oil: I keep this with me at all times, both to bring immediate relaxation to myself and my clients. I always roll some on my wrists before I start a makeup application so my client can enjoy the effects of aromatherapy – particularly before stepping out onto the red carpet. They generally ask to have some put on their wrists before leaving the house, too!
• Roots Rose Radish: The pretty little open shell on the right of the photo is another scent that I love from a really cool company started by a woman who’s a trained herbalist – and a doula! – and she makes everything she sells. This one is freakin’ delicious: rose, franinscense and patchouli – but not *that* kind of patchouli. It’s warm and earthy and rich and makes men go nuts in the best way when they smell it!
• Celsius Bio Intelligence Scar Cream: My friend Spirit, of the best ever green beauty product website: spiritbeautylounge.com, gave this to me to try when I told her I’d gotten a bad burn on my finger. It’s full of healing ingredients and is all natural… and it worked! I keep it on me just in case anyone has a healing cut that needs a little TLC.”

 

photo: Tim Bell

This is my beautiful friend, Mini Anden.  To have a conversation with her, you’d have no idea she was born and raised in Sweden because she doesn’t have a trace of an accent. We’ve known each other for a number of years now, and I absolutely adore her. She’s really intelligent, we have the same sense of humor   (I love it when she cracks us both up while I’m doing her makeup), and she’s a great listener and advice-giver. All of that mushy stuff aside, she’s an incredible model, and at just under 6 ft tall with a body that she subjects to intense workouts including a fusion of pilates and boxing known as piloxing (she has serious abs that I’ve actually tried punching just to see how strong they are – and they kinda hurt my hand!), she’ll have a career in front of the camera for as long as she wants.

She’s also a totally natural beauty. I really prefer how she looks mostly bare-faced, unless she’s been made up for an editorial photo shoot in a magazine with really intense makeup. Her eyes are incredibly blue, in that almost unreal, is-she-wearing-colored-contacts? way.  She’s also a perfect freckle-face, with tons of cute dots all over, although the size of this photo doesn’t let you see just how intense they are.

We shot the photo above after a long day on set, after she’d taken off most of the makeup I’d put on her for the day’s shoot. As you likely know from the makeup I do, I like to accentuate the beauty that already radiates from each woman, rather than drawing her a new face on top of the one that exists. In Mini’s case, I wanted to show how just a little eye makeup and slight skin perfecting makes for a polished look.

We did a very basic touch up before putting her in front of a window, against a white wall with no fancy lighting or makeup tricks used.

The products I used were:

Toning Mist, Kahina Giving Beauty: I had Mini close her eyes, and on her freshly washed face, I generously sprayed this mist to help replenish moisture and calm her skin.

Facial Lotion, Kahina Giving Beauty: I’d already given Mini a face massage with oil earlier in the day, so for this photograph I opted to use a less dew-inducing option, while still offering great hydration.

Shu Uemura Eyelash Curler:  I know many people are scared to curl lashes once they’ve been coated with mascara, but if you do it carefully, and just barely tap the curler when you’re holding it just at the root, you’ll be fine. NO TIGHT SQUEEZING here, please. You’ll take off the mascara where the metal touches your lashes and have a blank space that no amount of recoating will really help cover.

‘Cloud Nine’, Kjaer Weis Eye Shadow: This is one of those really flattering (for fair to medium complexions) champagne/ivory shades with a pearly finish that does a great job of illuminating the eye without leaving behind those horrible bits of glitter. Using this MAC brush I like to place the eyeshadow in the inner corners of the eye, in the very center of the lid, and trace a bit underneath the bottom lashes. I then use my clean finger tip to gently blend the shadow into the skin in the inner corner, and generally I’ll use this brush from Laura Mercier to buff the shadow into the lid.

Black Eyeliner, Vapour Organic Beauty:  Just a light smudge of an eyeliner swiped and pressed into the under side of the outer edge of the top lashes, and then wiggled in between the lashes, and maybe even just a teeny bit smudged on top of the outer edge of the upper lash can do a lot to emphasize the eye without making it look made up.  Depending on the shape and color of your eye, you might find your eye looks best with the entire inner rim lightly darkened, but for most almond shaped eyes, accentuating the outer upper lash line is just enough.  You can try this look with a brown, gray, taupe, or even purple or navy liner to see which you like best.  Different colors will accentuate your eye color ; for me a dark purple liner will not so much read as ‘she’s wearing purple!’, but will simply make the green of my hazel eyes pop.

Very Black, Lash Blast Mascara by Covergirl: I love dark black lashes, even if it’s just a light coating. As I’ve said countless times, this mascara is super black (whereas so many others are more of a light black, almost gray), and can be layered for a more intense look. If you read my blog because you’re looking for only ‘green’ beauty recommendations, I apologize – this isn’t one of them!

Concealer, Mineral Fusion: I like these concealer duos because similarly to the much acclaimed Laura Mercier secret camoflauge duos, you can blend different amounts of the two colors together to get the exact shade you need for the specific part of your face on which you’re laying the product. Under your eye, for example, you’ll want to use a high concentration of a peach/orange concealer to combat the purple – trust me, it totally works. I’ve used straight orange pigment to cover super dark circles under the eyes of women with very deep complexions with great success. Then you blend the more skin-colored shade over top and pat with your ring finger to create a seamless cover on the skin.

On most faces I concentrate on coverage under the inner 1/3 of the eye (never put concealer under the outer 1/3 of the eye unless you want to accentuate your fine lines and wrinkles!), underneath, and around the outer edges of the nostrils, and on any spots or redness/discoloration you may have, but only if you ensure you’ve blended both the color and texture into your skin so that you’re not just highlighting the spot.  For small blemishes, using a really tiny brush like this with a concealer that matches your skin exactly can be helpful.

Bone Beige, MAC sculpting powder: I often swirl this underneath and on to cheekbones as a sculpting powder and I like it, as well, as a non-shimmering bronzer. On Mini, I lightly underlined her cheekbones with Bone Beige using this contour brush.

Freja, Luminous Shimmer Blush, by Alima Pure: I’m usually against products with particles of glimmer, but in this case, they’re really very small, and the color and glimmer combine nicely to give a very-barely-there-pink to the apple of the cheek.

Honey Lip Balm, Burts Bees: Mini put this on herself, as per usual. Ever since I can remember, I’ve seen Mini with this little yellow tube in her pocket, purse, or hand. I can honestly say, it does her lips right, and I’ve never seen them chapped!

 

Just for fun, here are two shots of Mini that I love that really show how transformative a little makeup/hair/styling can be. Note her dark eyebrows in the first one. They look incredible for this photo, but would look shocking if you ran into her at the grocery store looking like that.

 

One last endearing thing I’ll leave you with about Mini is that she and her husband, Taber, have a house full of dogs. Mini tweets pictures of them in various positions that make me laugh and laugh. I took an immediate liking to Gus, the skinniest, long-nosed munchkin in the center of the first photo; i think it’s because we resemble one another.

Thank you, Mini, my love!!!

 

I’ve been on a Gwyneth Paltrow high lately. Recently Ms. GP ran a post on her fantastic blog, GOOP, that included a few paragraphs from me, on my favorite runway looks for the fall season. Soon thereafter she booked me to do her makeup for a big red carpet fete, called the Golden Heart Gala, which honored Michael Kors, and benefited his charity of choice (you know I loved this!): God’s Love We Deliver. GLWD is the NYC tri-state area’s leading provider of nutritious, individually-tailored meals to people who are too sick to shop or cook for themselves. I volunteered in their kitchen at one point, and I certainly used to connect my clients with them, back when I was a social worker. They provide such an important service. I’m grateful to them, and to Mr. Michael Kors (a fashion designer, for those not familiar (who would that be?)) for making a donation to them in the amount of 5 million dollars. HELL YEAH!

Now back to Gwyneth, who I’m convinced has more energy than any other human being.

The look she rocked (sleek ponytail, fantastic Michael Kors cut out black dress) including the makeup look I concepted for her, was picked up by countless online magazines (and a few in print) and heralded as a stunning ensemble from head to toe. I agree, she looked incredible.  I’m happy to say that I pushed for the darker eye, and Gwyneth agreed to take the risk, because I thought the graphic shapes of the dress needed the complement. Do you think this much about the shape and color of your eye makeup when you’re picking out your clothes? If GP were looking down at the floor, you’d see how the sheer gray eyeshadow covered her entire lid up to the crease, and then blended heavily into the bottom portion of the crease. I then pressed navy blue shadow pigment along her lashline and along the bottom half of her lid, and then along her bottom lashes. It looked really cool, and perfect for this time of the year.

Here’s a cut-and-paste of the how-to-get-the-look article that ran on Glamour.com, written by Petra Guglielmetti (thanks, Petra!) two days after the event:

Makeup artist Katey Denno, who created this look, was kind enough to reveal her how-to. “The hard edges of the dress told me that her makeup should be minimal and focus on one feature,” she says. “She suggested a smoky eye, but I took it a touch heavier than she’s used to; luckily, she liked it! I love her in a dark smoky eye, particularly with a little navy and gray blended with black. I opted to forgo lining the inner rim, which I felt gave her smoky eye a softness.”

Here are the exact steps and products you’ll need to recreate Gwyneth’s eyes:

1. Curl your lashes and apply several coats of CoverGirl LashBlast in Very Black (that’s my fave–read all about it here!) on top and bottom, then comb your lashes once they’re almost dry.

2. Smudge Alima Pure Luminous Shimmer Eyeshadow in Navy along your lashes and blend it up into the lid, as well as along the outer corner of the lower lid.

3. Press Make Up For Ever Eyeshadow in Dark Grey into the outer V shape of your top lids, up to the crease.

4. Smudge Vapour Organic Eyeliner in Black along your top lashes and the outer 1/3 of bottom lashes.

Doesn’t sound too tricky, right? I really think this would be such a wearable look, unlike 90 percent of the red carpet stuff we see. 

 

 

Susan is one of those women who is constantly busy doing interesting things, with interesting people, for interesting causes. I always learn something about the humanitarian efforts around town and around the world when I see her. I can’t say I’ve learned how to be a great ping pong player since I’ve known her, but I have tried my hand at it while at her well-known ping pong club, Spin.

One thing I have learned (through some trial and error, I’ll admit) is to use about 80% cream makeup products on Susan, relying on powder only for eyeshadow – which is always blended well and smeared along the edge with my finger or a q-tip -and the teeniest little bit of translucent powder on her T-zone to set her foundation. This months’ Allure Magazine has a great article complete with makeup tips and tricks from makeup artists on how to look your most youthful, which aren’t really applicable to the youngest models with whom I work, but for anyone in their very late twenties on up, I think these are some good rules to follow.  I see Susan again next week and I’ll try to do a different look on her and blog about it soon, complete with a product shopping list. Did I mention that my mom and Susan bear a striking resemblance to one another?

This is what I used on Susan in the picture above:

Darphin Organic Jasmine Aromatic Care Oil (Smells delicious!)

Darphin Predermine Densifying Anti-Wrinkle Cream for Normal Skin (seals in the oil I just applied)

(I allow the above to settle into the skin for a few minutes before starting the foundation)

 Armani Face Fabric Foundation, SPF 12, This stuff will not settle into fine lines. I apply it very sparingly  – starting in the middle of her face and tapering off the further I get from the center – first with Armani’s natural bristle foundation brush, and then lightly tapped into perfect submission with the Beauty Blender, a perfectly textured and shaped sponge (that was just thoroughly soaked and squeezed dry in a towel)

MAC eyeliner in Teddy – one of the best in brown/black/gold (smudge-able and long wearing). Drawn along both top and bottom lashes and dotted inside the lash line, and then smudged with a thin synthetic brush to create no hard edges.

Lancome Color Design Quad Eye Shadow in Showstopper Style (this is the best set of shadows I’ve found that works well on so many different skin tones). I generally don’t use the lightest shimmery shadow in this quad (four different eyeshadow colors in one palette) on women over 45, as the highlight in the corner of the eye often looks overdone. Instead I use the tan shimmer all over her lid but not above the crease, as well as very softly under the bottom lashes before the liner, smudged with a q-tip.

Lancome Color Design Sensational Effects Eye Shadow Smooth Hold Matte in Mochaccino, which is a soft taupe-brown, which I use lightly along the outer edge of the lashes and gently fade towards the outer corner of her lid

Cover Girl Lash Blast Mascara in Very Black – enough to seriously coat the upper lashes

Kjaer Weis Cream Blush in Blossoming (one of the most incredible all natural  – 95% organic – makeup lines on the market. added bonus: beautiful refillable containers) I like to apply with a soft synthetic brush and then blend with the sponge in small taps.

Laura Mercier Lip Liner in Baby Lips – I first line her lips, and then fill them in with the pencil to help the color stay longer and appear more intensely.

Laura Mercier Creme Lip Colour in Tea Rose

Dr. Haushka Lip Balm in a pot, applied on top for a little added shine without any of the stickiness or reflectiveness sometimes inherent in lipgloss.