It's pretty rare to have my brother tell me about a sale, let alone having him tell me about a sale I didn't know about! So I was pretty stoked when he mentioned Guess (and other brands) having a huge warehouse clearance down at the RNA show grounds from 28 April to 6 May.

After having a taste of Guess clothing from last year's Boxing Day sale, my brother was keen to add to his collection. I'm also pretty partial to Guess fashion so we rushed there after my makeup classes and got in a good 2.5 hours of shopping. Ok, to be honest, I had 2 hours of shopping with my brother acting as a bag carrier, and then he had the last 30 minutes to himself.

Difference between guy and girl shopping:
Him - 1 shopping bag, 3 shirts, 1 pair of jeans, 30 minutes, around $74 in total, and finished shopping until at least later half of the year.
Me - 3 shopping bags, 2 hours, 10 items, $385, and nowhere near finished shopping (I was still sneakily browsing while he was looking for his clothes). :p

I calculated to have saved over 71% in total (so it's pretty close to the advertised claim of up to 80%) and would have spent over $1300 if everything was at full retail price. So proud~ =3

xxEva

How often do you go see a movie? 10, 20, 30 times a year?
How often do you go to a theatre play? Probably only once?
Clearly, the big budgets are in the films, which is why all but the big star theatrical performers will generally do their own makeup. However, that's not to say there's no makeup artist on hand.

Theatrical makeup artists are probably more needed for their guidance and support rather than the practical. Given multiple performers, there's not enough money or time to get everyone done by MUAs.

The main things to consider when applying theatrical makeup is colour, lighting, and distance. Different colours under different lights will give different results. Here's a quick reference chart:

		Colour of Lights
		Red	Blue	Green	Yellow	Violet
Colour of Makeup	Red	Fade	Darken	Black	Red	Paler
	Orange	Lighten	Darken	Darken a lot	Fade	Lighten
	Yellow	White	Orchid	Darken	Fade	Pink
	Blue	Dark Grey	Pale Blue	Dark Green	Dark Grey	Darken
	Green	Darken	Lighten	Fades	Dark Grey	Pale Blue
	Violet	Almost Black	Orchid	Almost Black	Almost Black	Very Pale

I feel the importance of eyebrows are frequently overlooked in makeup. To really appreciate them, try blocking out your brows and going for a walk outside. It's likely people will find there's something weird going on with your face but probably can't quite put their finger on it.

I consider brow blocking part of special effects or theatrical makeup. I mean, it's not every day that you'll need to hide your existing eyebrows and paint over them or draw on fake ones. :P Work with what you've got, yeh?

However, the application process is relatively simple:

1. Dampen a powder puff with water (squeeze out excess water so it's not dripping wet) and press-roll the puff against the brows to flatten the hairs even more. Alternatively, talc can be used instead of water for this step, but talc also has the annoying ability to make sure nothing else sticks to it.Thinly coat a disposable mascara wand in Spirit Gum and apply to brows. The aim of this is to get the brow hairs to lay flat on the skin. There's two ways of doing this: Either brush all the brow hairs against the direction of growth so that they're pointing upwards or brush them in the direction of growth the way they would probably prefer to be. If brows are particularly thick and bushy (ie. guy brows), I suggest brushing them backwards and upwards so they don't stack on each other and you end up with a protruding, caveman browline.
2. Use a spatula to scrape off a small amount of wax and spread over the brows a section at a time. This smoothes the ridges between brow hairs and creates an even surface. The wax should cover the whole spirit-gummed brow with the edges blended into the skin.
3. Use a finger to feel the brows for uneven application or puckering of the skin. To prevent puckering, don't pull skin taunt when applying the wax.
4. Fix the wax with a plastic sealer (Watermelon is particularly good but tends to dry out in the container). The sealer needs to overlap the edges of the wax and skin to grip properly.

It should only take around 5-20mins for a good SPFX mua to do these steps. Remember, this method is only to smooth down the brow surface. It will not hide the brow colour; use makeup or prosthetics for that.

Of course, I'm not going to let you (or your model) walk around with no brows, so here's the removal process:

1. Make sure eyes are completely closed during the whole removal steps
2. Remove sealer with cotton pads soaked in makeup remover.
3. Use a cotton thread to drag against the brows and remove the wax (if you've ever seen people using a piece of string to cut chunks of clay, you'll know what I mean. ^^U). Alternatively, use a spatula to gently scrape off the wax.
4. Soak cotton pads in spirit gum remover and hold against the brows to let the solution start dissolving the gum before wiping off.

Phew! Isn't it good to have your brows back? Plus, you've probably never realised how long your brow hairs are until they're brushed out and stuck down halfway up your forehead. X3

xxEva

Not that the Academy of Makeup (AOM) is trying to give us hair qualifications, but some smart alec obviously went to the Government with the suggestion that makeup artists should have hair cutting skills for the sake of maintaining makeup continuity. So we had to learn basic sectioning, trimming, blow drying, curling and setting skills.

I was quite disappointed with the lack of official instructions on how to do updos, which was what I was really looking forward to. It felt like the classes were too focused on cutting and blow drying, with the purpose of just getting this component out of the way.

But enough whinging; here's the basics of what we'll be assessed for hair in 1.5 hours, with a view to recreate Victoria's Secret volumous, big head of curls:

1. Dampen hair with spray bottle. Not too much spray as dripping wet is too hard to work with. Detangle with a wide toothed comb.
2. Part hair in quarters: down middle of head and then across from top of head to back of ears. Section off with clips.
3. From the back of the head, section off starting from bottom. Run a section of hair through two fingers and trim as necessary.
4. Continue the process by working up the head and using previous trim line as a guide.
5. Repeat for side of head, grabbing a bit of hair from the back as guide. Trimming should take 15 minutes for the whole head.
6. Resection from back of head and blow dry each bit with a barrel brush, lifing roots up for volume. Ends should be curled under.
7. Work from bottom back of head upwards, then from bottom of each side upwards. Should finish blow drying on the centre part (personally, I hate centre parting, but it's easier to do this for the assessment). Blow wave should take 30 minutes, tops.
8. Place hot rollers horizontally in a column, from forehead down to nape of neck, then horizontally across side of head, brickwork style. Spray each section of hair to be rolled with a light mist of hair spray before wrapping around rollers. I do not have that much hot rollers, so will only be doing it for half of the head and will be curlling bottom half of head with tongs and/or GHD.
9. Spray each section with hairspray after curling.
10. By the time the bottom half of the head is curled, the hot rollers should be cool enough to remove. If not, and time is ticking, then I'll blast it with my hair dryer set on cold air.
11. Curls should be lightly shaken out and roots backcombed to blend roller section marks.
12. Finish with defining mousse or shine spray. Hairspray to set.

From all this, I'm discovering hair trim and blow drying is not my thing. All those days of just letting my hair grow out and air dry is probably doing me no benefits here. But I've found that despite being a total klutz, I've improved immensely with my hair skills in the last few lessons and might even have a chance of finishing within the one and a half hours.

Hair styling on the other hand, is way more fun! Despite not being taught set styles, we were allowed to let loose our creativity on our uncomplaining mannequin heads to create a number of up-dos.

xxEva