Everyone these days has a pinterest account. If you don’t, you live under a rock or you are too busy making the things that other people are pinning. For those of you that live under a rock, pinterest is a website that works as an online pin board of sorts. You can save a link that leads to something you find interesting (such as recipes, hilarious & snarky ecards, hairstyles, clothes, basically ANYTHING) You can categorize your boards to keep your thoughts organized. I love to check out all of the hair and makeup pins for inspiration. I look for things I’d like to try and also to keep a variety of looks on hand for clients that don’t exactly know what they might like.
The very best thing about this is when a client brings in a picture of something they like. This opens the line of communication and helps me understand exactly what they want. Many clients misuse terms like 1. Bob 2.Long Layers 3.Short Layers 4. Stacked. Someone pinned a picture of Jessica Simpson with hair past her shoulders layered to the hilt and the caption said “Love her long bob”. No Ma’am. If this client came to see me and asked for a long bob I would not have given them a cut that looked like Jessica Simpson.
I love seeing things that I don’t know how to do. This list is long… L.O.N.G. I’m a firm believer in never thinking you are all that. I got news sweetheart, you ain’t, and I ain’t either. The very second you decide you know everything is the moment your creativity dies. To really harness your creativity and put things that float around in your head into fruition (look it up) You must first have the courage to try something new, something you havent done before.
I remember thinking this when I saw a picture of Kim Kardashain (not my fav) looking a lot like an alien from Avatar with caption that said “contouring”. It showed how someone who already looks perfect can look even perfecter with flawless makeup. That’s great for a person that has someone on staff to do their makeup everyday but what about the regular gal? Would this be something that is #1, Doable and #2. Too much work for not enough result. When discussing this topic for the blog we decided to do several posts on our “Pinspirations”. Some were inspired and wanted to try updos we pinned, some wanted to try new methods for coloring, and I wanted to recreate Avatar… I mean Kimye’s weirdly perfect alien/Armenian skin. Here’s the best part. She’s obviously not perfect if someone has to create cheekbones for her. This made me happy, until I realized that I too have no cheek bones. Wamp Wamp.
We were discussing who would be a good candidate for this makeup trial. We thought at first it should be someone who is beautiful with good skin. Immediately Lisa came to mind. We scratched that when we decided she looks pretty without makeup and that wouldn’t be that impressive to make a pretty person with nice cheek bones into a pretty person with nice cheek bones. We needed someone with the potential for homeliness. Someone who looks scary without makeup and normal with makeup and someone without cheek bones. I then realized what had been under my nose the whole time. Me.
My thought process when taking this picture was obviously “Mug Shot”. Tyra would be so disappointed in my inability to “smile with my eyes”. Should I smile with the little eye or the one with the weirdly high eyebrow? Maybe my sunspots could cheese for the camera. Maybe. Under normal circumstances I would never put an especially homely picture of myself on the world-wide web, but in this case it serves a purpose. Remember in the Victoria’s Secret post about hairstylists loving a challenge?? Well here it is.. A CHALLENGE!
This was my (PIN)spiration:
NOT THIS:
weirdo.
Anyhow. Back to the task at hand (and don’t lie, you giggled a little bit at that last picture) First I put some concealer on my entire busted face. This covered all the sunspots, uneven skin tone and any blemish that may take away from a flawless finish. Next I mixed 2 shades of a liquid foundation together. One is about 3 shades darker than my natural skin tone and the other was a perfect match. Then I used a triangle sponge to apply this mixture to my nonexistent cheek bones, around my temples, and along my jaw line. Then, I commenced to blend, blend, blend, blend, blend, and then after that a finished blending.
Look at my eyes now. There is a glimmer of hope. The hope of a new day. The hope of peace on Earth. The hope of cheek bones.
It looks like the cover of a sad novel about a girl with a rare skin disease.
The next part of this process is just as important as the first. Highlighting. This is done with highlighter stick, a reflecting powder or your very lightest shimmery eye shadow. This is applied to the tops of your cheek bones, under your brow bone, and down the bridge of your nose, like so:
After this step, I applied my eye makeup as usual. Lightest shade on the lid and brow bone, medium shade in the crease and darkest shade lining the lashes and in the crease. A little mascara and all of a sudden, I look alive. I look like someone would trust me to do their hair and maybe even their makeup!
I still have a weird eyebrow The Rock would envy, but I have pulled off the illusion of cheek bones.
Here is another photo, this time with only half of the face done. This kinda puts it in perspective. Even if you don’t care to do the contouring it still shows how even the shape of your eyes and nose look totally different when you change your skin tone with well placed color and shading.
Cray Cray huh? I hope you found this information useful, if not I hope all you girls with perfect cheek bones take nothing else away from this post but this…
You ain’t all that. 🙂 Until next time boo! xoxo
Mia Alexander Salon 