Preview: The beautiful Alex B ... modeling again?

Oh how I wish that our much loved Dubai model Alexandra B would get back into modeling!! We all miss her beautiful face and kind personality sooo much ... but she now has a real job ;)

A couple of days ago we all got together in The Studio ... the uber-talented Dr. Beck was shooting Alex and her sister Ela, whilst the incredible Dina Yassin was styling and I enjoyed doing Hair & Makeup.

HOW TO STEAL HER LOOK

I love this look ... it's a shame that I rarely get to do makeup like this.
The market here in Dubai most often demands very heavy makeup looks ... too heavy if you ask me, but still fun to do!

I wanted to showcase Alex's amazing skin, therefore I chose a sheer buildable coverage foundation like MAC Face & Body (which i adore!). I love that this foundation retains it's dewy sheen if set carefully with only a tiny bit of Make Up For Ever HD powder (where needed).

The cheeks were sculpted with Kryolan blusher, "R19" as a contour under the cheekbone and "T0" to add a subtle pink to the cheekbone and thus tie in with the stunning pink Chanel lipstick ("Chanel 167 Super").

The eyes were only lightly contoured with MAC eyeshadow in "wedge" and "dazzlelight", which I also used to highlight down the bridge of the nose, the inner corner of the eyes and on the cupids bow. I then used MAC's limited edition fleshtone coloured eyeliner, which I prefer so much over any white eyeliner.

Latest Photoshoot: Velvet magazine editorial ... Get the Cover look

It’s out !!! I have been waiting for this editorial to be published in the new issue of Velvet magazine … I love the result and the fact that we got the cover ... it looks amazing.

Absolutely everything about this shoot was great, our models the beautiful Gemma and incredible Masha (both available through my agent bareface), the fantastic Adam Browning-Hill behind the camera, the stylist extra-ordinaire Guillaume Nallet and the supporting team including photographer Jason Gareth, who I recently shot The Desert Dweller with.

Adam had originally planned to shoot this story in and around some amazing stranded old tankers in Sharjah (near Dubai) for which he had received permits. However, as the whole crew rocked up to start shooting at sunrise the security insisted that we needed a further permit ... after 3 hours of waiting we suspected that the city probably didn't want to be associated with some old stranded tankers in a fancy fashion editorial, which is why it was probably taking so long.

Slightly disappointed but not willing to give up on the shoot, we brainstormed locations and decided on the uninhabited "Ghost Village" in Ras Al Khaimah (about 45min away from where we were).
Check out my blog entry on the Kurv. magazine shoot for more information about this haunted place!

Thank you so much for these beautiful images Adam! 

HOW TO: HAIR and MAKEUP

It was another 3am start for Hair & Makeup, curling and setting the hair and getting most of the makeup done before we moved to our location. I had curled and coloured the hair extensions the day before so all that was left for me to do on the morning of the shoot was to curl the models’ own hair and secure the extensions as well as cut them.

In terms of makeup, photographer Adam wanted the girls to have a beautiful golden "Cavalli Model" tan, which meant that I chose my MAC Full Coverage foundations 3-6 shades darker.

I used Illamasqua bronzer both as a blusher and on the arms adding a golden sheen. I then emphasized the eyes with loads of black eyeshadow from Mikyajy in the crease (all the way from the bridge of the nose blended out sideways) as well as underneath the eye. I added highlights on top of the lid using bronzy gold MAC pigment and my fave Illamasqua liquid metal in Solstice for the inner corner of the eyes. The lips were plumbed up using DIOR Lip Maximiser.

I had originally planned a more pewter/copper coloured look for the eyes, but considering the new location it just seemed that a darker eye defined with black eyeshadow worked better. I, however, stuck with the nail colour I had mixed the night before from the original eye shadow pigment and thought that worked beautifully even with the new look.
I do this a lot for shoots, it's so easy. Just get some clear nail polish, scrape some of your eyeshadow pigment off and mix it ... its that easy to get a nail varnish to match your eye look.

HAIR MASCARA to achieve GOLDEN EYEBROWS
My favorite part of this shoot’s makeup must be the golden eyebrows, they worked beautifully in combination with the golden jewelry and the overall feel of the shoot! Rather than bleaching the brows I used Frederic Fekkai Hi-Lights Hair Mascara. It’s amazing, the mascara is so highly pigmented that the brows literally lit up with the flash.

Beware though, the bushier the eyebrows the better this hair mascara works. You can see the difference clearly below, Masha on the left has stronger eyebrows so I was able to work many coats of the Hair Mascara into the brows; Gemma on the right has less strong eyebrows so the effect of the gold eyebrows is not as strong.

BEHIND THE SCENES

... take a peek behind the scenes of our shoot ...

Final shot of a long 14-hour day

About 30 of these jumps and we had the shot ;)

Latest Photoshoot: The Desert Dweller ... Behind The Scenes at my hottest shoot ever!

I had a wonderful day shooting this editorial with the incredibly talented photographer Jason Gareth. It had been so long since I last had worked with him, back then we had shot a series of photos for Esquire's "What She Wants" centerfold with the beautiful model Alexandra P.

Shooting outdoors in Dubai is not as easy as it sounds ... there are permits you need to get, sudden sandstorms, swarms of onlookers, lack of location trucks, ... and for 5 months of the year scorching heat! So this shoot fell right into those 5 months where those of us who have been in Dubai for some years normally refuse to leave the house in an attempt to avoid the heat ... despite starting at sunrise and taking a break between noon and 4pm it was 42 Degrees Celsius (107 Fahrenheit) continuously! Having said that ...  I still had a fabulous time with a grand team!!

Teresa and Lisa, our swedish stylist team, did a fantastic job pulling an eclectic mix of pieces from the stores whilst maintaining some local influence through their use of bedouin scarfs; and our gorgeous model Yvette from the US bravely maintained a happy face despite the intense heat.

For those of you who know me personally, know that I worked in Motor Racing for almost 10 years prior to my career as a makeup artist. I used to be a Race Manager and organized races all over the world ... so for our photographer Jason to bring along the "Moon Leopard" as a prop for our shoot was the coolest thing ever for me. The "Moon Leopard" is the first car that was ever built in Dubai, made entirely of stainless steel ... cars don't get more beautiful than this!

Anyway ... back to makeup artistry and fashion editorials ;)

Isn't the location absolutely amazing?! Our photographer Jason had chosen an abandoned bedouin desert camp near Dubai's Big Red dune. We usually head out this far for shoots, as the desert sand in Dubai is white and everyone prefers the red sand found closer to the mountains, so did we. 

Take a sneak peek behind the scenes ...

Chilling with our stylists ... Not sure why we are not working?

The heat has melted my MAC Pro Paint Sticks palette... so sad :( but still funny

Up the dunes for the editorial opening shot

Penultimate shot "Let me fix that eye gloss one final time ..." yeah right! Every four minutes the same procedure ... but I really wanted glossy lids for this shoot, so I had to retouch creasing lids for 10 hours ... it was worth it though, it always is!

Latest Photoshoot: Zahrat Al Khaleej Middle East Magazine - 70s Revival

The last three months I have been blessed with jobs, loads of advertising (thanks to my amazing booker Rosh from my agency bareface), beautiful editorials shot by some amazing photographers and lots of interviews.

Amongst all this I have had yet again the chance to work on an editorial shoot with one of my favorite models french beauty Alexandra P @ bareface. We shot for Zahrat Al Khaleej, one of the largest weekly magazines in the Middle East who produce a fashion issue twice a year. Our story shot by my good friend photographer Billie Muller, revisited the 70s.

HOW TO 70s inspired Look

I wanted to capture the 70s in a modern way. The hair was waved with a tiny curling iron of 1/4 inch, twisting the sections as they were curled around the iron. A deep part was then gelled into place with section clips allowing it to dry into place.

I used RCMA foundation thinned out with MAC Strobe cream applied with a Beauty Blender and set with Make Up For Ever HD Powder (one of my favorites).

For the eyes I used a mixture of MAC Pro Paintsticks as a base and eyeshadows to add depth; finished off with my all-time favorite Illamasqua Liquid Metal in their gold "Solstice" to add dimension just above the lashline and the inner corner of the eyes. I used the same Liquid Metal on the cupid's bow of the lip (be careful when applying your Liquid Metal on the lip as it will mix with your lipstick which does't look so nice, make sure your brush is tiny to avoid this).

Mac Pro Paint Sticks in "Pure White", " Landscape Green" and "French Violet"

My Mac Pro Paint Sticks palette after last week's editorial shoot in the desert at 40C+. Oh so sad! 

To further enhance the eyes I used a set of "Girls Aloud" strip lashes on top and MAC single short lashes at the bottom outer corner.

TAKE A PEEK Behind The Scenes

Thank you Billie and Alex for these wonderful photos! 

Latest Photoshoot: Beauty Shoot with photographer Martin Beck and Model Hana Nitsche incl. "How To" Makeup

There are a number of models I just adore ... German model Hana Nitsche is one of them. Inside and outside such a beautiful person. 

When she was last in Dubai we got together very impromptu and shot some Beauty with the incredibly talented and edgy Dr. Martin Beck (frequently spotted wearing scrubs ... shooting loads of Hospital Ads recently). It was such a lovely day!

From a makeup point of view I wanted to expand my book with some, what we call here in Dubai, modern "European" fashion inspired Beauty, for me this meant demonstrating more experimental eye makeup combined with flawless beautifully contoured skin and a nude lip. 

HOW TO "bleached but not bleached brows"

Instead of bleaching brows, I used an alternative method. 

I filled one of my disposable mascara wands with foundation, I used RCMA cream foundation on Hanna. Using my wand I brushed the foundation into the brows - up and down & back and forth until all hairs were evenly covered, then I set and further concealed it with MAC Mineralize powder et voila finished.

A talented retoucher will do the rest and the effect is the same as bleaching, without putting your model through the hassle of bleaching. 

The second look we shot centered around tiny beads which were glued to the face.

HOW TO: glueing near the eyes

The methods for glueing objects onto a face are endless, my two favorite glues for Beauty shoots are Kryolan Glitter Gel in clear (near the eye) and Ben Nye Glitter Glue (everywhere but the eye). So, in Hana's case I obviously used the Glitter Gel to keep her eyes safe and free from stinging. It worked great, the beads stuck to it perfectly and I could place numerous beads at once saving time. 

The only downside of the gel is, looking at the unretouched photographs in "super-zoom mode" which makeup artists frequently do when examining other makeup artists work :) not excluding myself, that the glue leaves a tiny bit of shiny residue wherever it is not covered by a bead and, hence, again, our retoucher needed to help out here. Thanks Tamzin :)

Thank you Hana & Martin for these incredible photographs!