This Crazy Job!

It's been a crazy week; shoots with Imogen Thomas (no gossip there though...none that I can repeat anyway). But we went for the more demure look instead of the FHM style she is renowned for.  I think it suits her.

Dramas with  certain TOWIE PIPE (The Only Way Is Essex - People In The Public Eye, for those of you who are not offay with the latest abbreviations!) Fashion shoot and Hollyoaks girls; in particular , Rachel Shenton who plays Mitzeee.  Now anyone who has seen the show, will know Rachel is the doppelganger for Cheryl Cole. I have met Cheryl and in the flesh, when Rachel puts on the Newcastle accent, you would be hard done by to know the difference between the two,....me thinks I would seriously start checking somebody's DNA!!

The Hollyoaks girls were all done on the same day, but with only one photographer and a fairly warm day, I had to find a way to keep the makeup fresh without the need for over powdering.  Now I know some of you have been spraying you face with hairspray...horror!!! but a less lethal method is waiting for you at Face Atelier.  The Face Atelier Face Finish (RRP £13.00)  I bought mine at a trade show but Love-MakeUp.co.uk sell Face Atelier Products. It is the ideal way to finish your face and preserve your makeup all day long. A fine hydrating, alcohol-free mist with the faint scent of  cucumbers.  I spritzed before and after applying makeup and the only thing I had to retouch were the lips..result!

In my hunt for a sun protection that does not leave you looking ashy or like you've just rubbed yourself in lard, as some of  you may recall, I have located one for my body (Nivea Sun invisible) I have at last found one that works for the face Clinique SPF 30 Targeted Protection Stick (RRP £15.50) Clinique blurb states that it  "steps up protection against the aging and burning effects of UVA and UVB rays for fragile areas-eye-area skin, lips, nose, earlobes, even scars. UVA defense helps guard against premature aging. Conditions, comforts. Ophthalmologist and dermatologist tested. Oil-free.".  I use it all over my face and massage it in, it leaves no marks and it also works under my makeup...another result!

Clearing up S**T!!!!

I have woken up on a dreary Sunday morning after having a long awaited lie in. Switched on my phone (I never leave it on all night....have had one too many drunken phone calls at 3am!).  As usual my Blackberry started to ping like a Tesco till on a Saturday morning. I had 82 messages in my email inbox! Bleary eyed, I scrolled through them....only 6 were actually for ME, the others were all SPAM!   I have no interest in Hilary and her blinds! I don't want to spend 3 hours filling out some poxy survey so I can earn 10 points to spend at a later date! Dolphin, your bathrooms look lovely but I don't need a new one! I'm not interested in giving £5000 of my hard earned money to become a financial whizz kid! I definitely don't want my penis/ breast/lips/thighs enlarged/reduced/sucked out! I have no use for diet pills made out of rhino saliva  and if I wanted to be friends with the "very friendly"  Olga from Russia, I'd contact her myself!!!!

So, as I am going away on holiday (did I mention Thailand...so excited!!) and will be bringing my phone with me. I do not want to spend valuable air time scrolling through this pile of S**t. So I have just spent almost an hour, going through and pressing unsubscribe on all of them (you can usually find it in the small print at the bottom of the email).  If I keep this up all week, hopefully by next Sunday, when I switch my phone on, there will only be  2 or 3 inbox pings....like angels saying good morning!

This Weeks Tips

Those of you who have read previous blogs, will know about my feelings with regards to sun protection (a must!) but also my abhorrence for those heavy creams that leave a white film on the skin.  After my disaster with the Clinique sun protection body spray (a rash). I have been searching for a replacement.  A sun protection that provides protection from UVA and UVB and is totally invisible.  Well say hello to my little friend! Nivea Sun Invisible Protection (available 2 for 1 at Boots RRP £14) This product is 100% invisible, 2 weeks on and no adverse irritation.  Result!

Also revising the best body lotion in the world!!! I thought my skin was soft using Kiehl's Superbly Restorative Body lotion...but I take that back.  What's been getting me to purr like a kitten is Kiehl's  Creme de Corps (RRP £44.00) okay, the name isn't so cool in English (it means body cream in French) but ignore that and buy some, my  dry skin feels incredibly soft and moisturized and no greasy after feel.

Which case to buy??

When I first started out as a makeup artist. I wanted to put my kit into something very professional looking.  So I took myself off to Charles Fox and got myself a huge makeup aluminum box with draws and compartments.

1st makeup case

It cost me the best part of £200 and when I put all my kit in it, I thought it looked the business, I carried it on a trolley and I felt brilliant.  This lasted all of half an hour when I tried to lift it up the stairs at the tube station.  It weighed a ton!  It was a great case, if I was hired by the BBC for a long contract and could keep it in the makeup room indefinitely and had it delivered by forklift, but it just was not practical for carrying on the tube.

So I purchased an ordinary suitcase, but with a "durable" hard side to it to protect my makeup during flights. They are easier to carry on public transport, but lets face it, they are not built for the sort of abuse us makeup artists put them through. So I have had handles snap off, countless zips broken, not forgetting the time  a wheel flew off into oncoming traffic.  I had to drag the case home ( like dragging Dawn French home, face down by her hair! Result,  an aching back and a case in shreds down one side).

As I got more regular clients, I didn't always need  to carry everything AND the kitchen sink, so when traveling by public transport, I limited it to a holdall (for tissues and hair equipment etc) and a small beauty case

They are compact and light and I am able to carry everything I need in them. I have two, one filled with makeup for black skins and the other for white and I tweak each case as and when I need to.  These cases are available at BeautyBox and prices range from £40-£60.

Finally, there is a fairly light weight makeup case designed specially for today's form of makeup artist.  It's sturdy, with robust wheels. It even has a hard top, for those moments when you can't get a seat on the tube, just sit on your case. As well as the seat it also has a handle at the top for easy lifting.  If like me, you carry all your blushers, eyeshadows etc in clear pastic zip bags, you can just slip them into your case, but the case also comes with its own little bags. It's made by ZUCA and prices start at £194.00 at Screenface (cheaper if you buy them in the States).    A high price, but when you bear in mind that ZUCA give you  "LIFETIME" guarantee, I think you can consider it a good investment.

Why isn't my butt like Beyonce's???

A few months ago me and  3 other slightly overweight friends decided to have a "fat off".  I   have always fluctuated between getting healthy and extremely lazy. In my repertoire of exercise equipment over the years has been the fold up multi-gym, the mountain stepper, the hula hoop x 2 (one ordinary and one weighted Devina McCall special) 2 x mini trampolines, 3 x boxers skipping ropes, Thighmaster, Slendertone muscle toner x 2, Wii fit and countless exercise videos (and accompanying Tae Bo gloves) and last but not least, Zumba DVD!!  Don't get me started on the various gym memberships!

None of  them have held my interest for longer than a couple of weeks, but being a competitive individual, I thought the fat off would be an ideal way to get me off my rapid expanding arse!   Alas a couple of months went by and even my competitive edge could not compete with the cheese and onion crisps and family bar of whole nut!  So here I am, about to go on my holidays with people who think a little light exercise is a 10k run around Hampstead Heath.  So to save my embarrassment in those holiday photos, with us  looking like a before and after shot for weightwatchers (me being the before!) I have gone into overdrive.

I have taken heart in the fact that one of the heaviest of all of us is now walking around looking like Jessica Rabbit.  She is literally half the woman she used to be. What has helped is a little App called  Calorie Counter. What I find great  is it lets you add whatever you eat onto a diet diary, whilst telling you how much calories it contains (its amazing all the shopping brands it contains, I was surprised my Tesco fresh BBQ chicken wings contained 850 calories...so much for protein!) it will also work out how many calories you have burnt from doing housework, shopping, to full on exercises like boxing.


So here I am, 4 weeks from my paradise island, with a jelly roll that could start a tsunami!  The Devina Hula, the mini trampoline and the skipping rope, have all come out of moth balls. That and my little App is going to help me get the kind of body Beyonce is always shaking in my face.  God help me!

We are all running from this

to This!!!

Catchup!

Forgive me.  Its been a couple of weeks since my last confession. It has been full on, the past few weeks, with no days off in between...but hey, that's the nature of this business; feast or famine!


So in the past few weeks I have met some great people, Estelle for one. Who gave me a sneak preview of her "hot" new video with Rick Ross ...she got moist in certain sections apparently (I think its premiered now, so not breaking any rules there!) Also photo shoot with rising talent  Bunmi Mojewkwu  or Mercy from Eastenders, if you prefer. As I don't watch it, I only know her from Misfits (she's the one who had the power to make people bald!). She's out of the show now. After you  portray a Nigerian who has to get married to stay in the country (no sterotyping there then!) there's no where for you to go.  But she's got theatre projects in the pipeline though, so good luck to her.   It was her first photo shoot, but she was a trooper and great fun.

Also did a shoot with a TV Psychic who was told what your spirit guide looked like and could then draw them for you to keep. He did come across as if he spent a lot of time cultivating his herb garden, if you get my drift....but maybe that's just me! Also taught at LondonMUSE, a makeup school in Central London. It was refreshing passing my knowledge on to enquiring young minds. Basked in 35 degree heat at one point last week, till the owner of the studio had to order a portable air conditioner. Thank you Jesus!  Still can't stand  Melody from The Apprentice (delusional, lying, back stabbing bitch that she is, surely she can't be in it much longer??)

Did a great test shoot. Got a bit tired of waiting for various photographers to sort out dates, so I  bit the bullet and organized one myself.  The models (decided to use two, one for beauty and one for fashion, heaven knows when I will get the chance again), great stylist, made my own wigs, used airbrushing for the makeup and am truly happy with the results.

To get me back on track  after my back breaking work load. I went to the Six Senses Spa in Canary Wharf. The massage was great (she used her elbows and everything).  So were the various steam rooms and hydra-pool  but I went there when they officially opened a couple of years ago and we had fluffy towel bathrobes and slippers and beauty creams in the changing rooms.  It seams Six Senses have instilled there own austerity measures and the slippers have been replaced by rubber flip flops and the bathrobe by poly cotton with no tie belts and if you didn't bring your own cleanser, hand soap would have to suffice.  As I said, the treatments are still good, so it was still really good value.  I'm just grateful their still around.  Thorntons are closing a lot of their branches...big surprise there, we girls love our chocolate..all making do with cadbury's obviously.  Mothercare, TJ Hughes are going and Jane Norman has gone completely.  These are institutions, I thought would be around forever....When will all this stop???

I'm taking myself off to Thailand shortly. It's only for 10 days, but don't be surprised if I don't return and I 'm found 10 years from now living in some bush in Thailand living on rice and green tea and forever the happier!.....