So a couple of months ago I got the opportunity to be the makeup artist on the set of Building Rome's music video for their song "What Are We Fighting For?" If you haven't heard of the band, they are an alternative rock band based out of St. Louis, MO. They are comprised of 3 very talented and hilarious guys who were a lot of fun to work with. :D

The director of the video, Amy McClung of Blue Wave Video Production, had contacted me saying that she wanted a look on the guys inspired by Green Day's "American Idiot" makeup. Even with freelance makeup artistry there aren't a ton of opportunities that call for such an intense, all-out look especially on GUYS so I was, of course, totally stoked.

To read an article Amy wrote about the experience click here.

This is a behind-the-scenes photo I nabbed from Amy's article:


I know you can't really see it but I was wearing my faux fur scarf since it was FREEZING inside the warehouse where it was shot! This is TJ, the main actor of the video, being a good sport while I put some shadow on his lids. I always feel delightfully evil when putting makeup on guys! See what us ladies go through? See? Mwahahaha!

Here are some snaps I shot of the guys.

TJ, the main actor. He had amazing blue eyes and looks quite young for his age (early 20's) so we had to give him a rougher, weary look. Some contouring, dark undereyes, and taupe shadow did the trick.


This is Tom, the bassist and backup vocalist. He is probably the funniest person I've ever worked with and does a fantastic over-prideful grandma impression a little TOO well. "My grandson invented the scuba!" We went lighter on his smoky eyes since he's already so fair and has amazing red hair!


Meet Brian, the drummer. Classy tie and Gucci shoes. Can't beat that! This is so weird to say, but his eye sockets worked really well with the shadow, so I added the pic where he's looking down to show it off.


And finally we have the lead vocalist and guitarist, Jon. You are a rock star Jon, through and through! For kicks I added his before shot for comparison. We wanted an especially grungy look for him so we went all out with the black guyliner and shadow as well as contouring. Did you also notice how much more neutral his lips are in the second shot? It's funny how these quite pretty guys all came in and when I finished their makeup I realized they all still had cherry red lips! I made them all sit back down and put concealer on their mouths to match the heroin-chic look. ;D


All the guys together. What a good looking group. ;)


And behind the scenes during shooting.


Just for fun, here's a little behind-the-scenes video I took on set. ^.^ Sorry that I look rough, it was a looooooong day!

Hope you guys enjoyed this peek into a particularly fun makeup job. ^.~

Tell me what you think in the comments! If you want to check out more about Building Rome, visit their official page at http://www.buildingromerock.com/ and youtube channel or follow them on Twitter. :)

I'm off to pack for my Memorial Day weekend trip to the lake. Hubby's family has a small cabin so I'm totally stoked to relax for the long weekend! The plans include watching Totoro on DVD, reading a good book in bikinis on the dock, riding the waverunner, and of course doing some sweet outlet shopping. :D :D :D

See you next week after my break!

Woohoo! Looks like this month is teeming with amazing blessings because I have another giveaway announcement to make. I know, the last one just happened, but this one is for my loving blog readers. <3

First off I do want to announce the winner of my youtube giveaway. Sorry it took so long to get this up but the winner just got back to me! Out of 344 pages of comments at the time that I stopped the giveaway, the random number generator came up with page 237 and the first comment on the page. Congratulations xkrnbebe! I hope you love your giveaway prizes. :D


Now onto the current giveaway. Some of my hardcore readers may know that I absolutely love the site beautyticket.com and have purchased there many times with absolutely no affiliation with them whatsoever. They just have really great brands at discounted prices since they stock limited edition or overstocked items. Was this site a brilliant idea? Absolutely!

There's no surprise that when Jill from beautyticket contacted me on Twitter and asked if I wanted to host a giveaway for a $100 gift card to beautyticket.com I was totally thrilled! Yeah, you read that right. I would go nuts if I was the winner, but lucky for you it's not me but one of you. Hehe.

It's crazy easy to enter. Just three rules:

1. Follow my blog
(You don't need a blog to follow, just click the "follow" button at the bar to the right. You must be publicly following the blog so I can verify that the winner is a follower. :)

2. Tell me in the comments what you would buy with $100 at beautyticket.com.
(My personal answer is err'thing YSL.)

3. Leave a valid e-mail address so I can contact you if you win.

In case you need inspiration of what to look like while you are trying to decide, here is a photo of Hannah and myself pondering.


The contest ends in 1 week, Sunday May 30th at 11pm CST and is open to US and Canada.

Ironically, when I asked Jill about if there was anything else I should mention she told me that beautyticket.com is currently offering 20% off all YSL until next Friday with the code YSL20. Yay, my fav! Can't get much better than that. ;)

I will give a bit of a warning: if you like something on the site you should grab it now because things can sell out quickly. Although it may not help in selecting items since there are a lot of change-ups in products, you can check out some of my past hauls from beauty ticket here and here.

Thank you Jill for this opportunity for my followers! And thank you everyone for all of your love and support. GOOD LUCK!

Check it ouuuuuuuut on blogtv with me tomorrow! I'll be hosting a little video chat session at 12 PM noon Central Time. I wanted to pick a time that my international friends could come say hi as well. :)

To find out what time it will be in your part of the world, please convert it here:
http://www.timezoneconverter.com/cgi-bin/tzc.tzc

Near the bottom of the list is "US/Central" which is where I'm at. Just put your location in the second box.
For instance in Singapore it will be 1 AM on Sunday, in Japan it will be 2 AM (sorry it's so late!), in London it will be 6 PM, and in Vancouver it will be 10 AM.



Just for kicks, feel free to leave a comment of where you are currently at. I'd love to see where everyone is from! Don't worry, you can comment anonymously, I just think it's a lot of fun to see. ^.~

10 points to Gryffindor if you can guess this character. Hope to see you tomorrow!

This review has been a long time coming. Sorry for getting it up so late! Sometimes it feels like there is so much I want to cover and not enough time to get everything posted in time for it to still be interesting. I'm sure you have all seen everything about this set and are totally bored of it already! Well, for those of you who haven't seen it I wanted to share a little more eye candy. :]

My review today is on the Paul & Joe Beauty collaboration with Alice in Wonderland. I believe this set came out around February or March of this year and includes a collector's tin with a blotting paper case including an extra set of blotting sheets, and it also has a clear lip treatment stick. I got the blue set, 02.



I bought mine from Dermstore.com. If you make an account and add it to your wishlist first, you get 10% off, plus they have free shipping standard so it was only about $43 shipped (compared to about $60 shipped that I had seen online.) The actual page for the one I got is here.

Obviously, this was still quite a splurge for me! I justified it by thinking that I'll definitely be using everything in the set, and the blotting sheets already come with a refill. Paul & Joe blotting sheets with the case are $25 and the refills are $6. Lip treatments are $20. That's everything with no Alice on it as well, so... Yeah. :)

Here are some stock images of the set, starting with the tin.


This is the front of the blotting paper holder


The refill pack

And the lip treatment


I was just disappointed in the lip treatment because the casing was cardboard which is just cheap for such a nice brand. At least it does feel nice on the lips. I rarely take it out of the tin since I don't want anything to happen to it but I do grab the blotting sheets often so it's definitely not going unused.

All in all, like I said in the video, it's a splurge purchase for those who are into cute packaging. I've always had nostalgia for Alice in Wonderland from reading the books in my adolescence so it's special to me and I'm glad I bought this set. ^.^

Hope this helps anyone who is thinking of buying this! Let me know in the comments what your last splurge purchase was. I'm not the only crazy one spending money on blotting sheets and lip balm, right? ;)

For a look at my previous Paul & Joe hauls click here.

Disclaimer: I purchased everything in this post and video with my own money. I am not affiliated with any companies or stores mentioned in any way. As always, my reviews are my 100% honest opinion.

So I've heard online today that May 14th is Bloggers Without Makeup Day (via: this blogher article) based on a feud with Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb on the Today Show vs. Rosie O'Donnel who accused them of plastic surgery. The challenge? To do their show with no makeup.
I found the video clip quite refreshing and liberating. I feel that we as women are expected to be this platform representing grace, elegance, and being beautiful with no signs of stress or difficulty and let's just be honest. Who is really like that? Every model you see in a magazine, everything you see on tv, every billboard or advertisement is a falsification for what we think is expected of us. If we don't live up to that standard than we are categorized as boyish and less feminine. Even in the working world, we are expected to paint our faces, wear stilts, and suck in our tummies to be worth listening to. What a difference "professional" means for men!

This is a fascinating topic to me because I personally didn't wear makeup on a regular basis until I was 21, a junior in college. Don't get me wrong, I love makeup. It's an artform and it does make me feel confident and expressive. I'm not going to say that my bare face is loveliness... quite the contrary actually. I'm rather plain and my high school and college years were right at the worst of my acne problems and I was grandly overlooked by classmates. BUT what I learned was to be okay with myself for who I was inside and let that define me as a person, not my face.

It's strange to now be in the world of youtube and blogging because so many people out there see your face before they bother to read your words or listen to what you have to say. There are snap judgements made and I think people get offended if you don't look how they want you to look, talk how they want you to talk, or apply makeup how they think is best. Isn't that just the most bizarre concept? But we all do it without comprehending why, or considering what that person is going through and feels.

So yeah, I just wanted to write my two cents. I'm not saying it's easy to love yourself with a bare face but I think it is important to love who you are as a person, disconnected from your face and body, first. And we should also love others with no makeup too. From doing makeup on other people, I get the joy of seeing lots of beautiful women with no makeup on and I'm always delighted to see the potential in their canvas. This woman has gorgeous green flecks in her brown eyes, and this woman has wonderful rosy lips. This one has beautiful dark eyelashes, and this one has delicate hairs on her face which act as a natural mattefier. No woman isn't beautiful.

On that note here is me with a deep breath *gulp* showing my bare face.

Photos without makeup, straight from the camera. Not even lighting correction. Just resized and watermarked. (Ahhhhhhh!)


Bravery always feels a bit naked. ^.~

Here's to No Makeup Day!

I'm not gonna lie, I'm especially excited about this tutorial. Remember that whole Facebook doppleganger thing where you'd choose the celebrity who is your lookalike as your profile photo for a week? I chose 2NE1's Sandara Park since she is the celebrity I'm most often told I look like. In fact, a sweet girl even private messaged me to tell me that someone else was stealing my photo to use as their facebook photo (but it was actually that I was using Dara's photo! hehe...)

2NE1 is one of my favorite Korean pop groups and I've always had a soft spot for Dara so I'm totally flattered to have people think we look alike! Most times when people tell me I look like someone I don't see it but for Dara I can somewhat see the resemblance as with Narsha from Brown Eyed Girls.

Check out their Try To Follow Me video here:


And my tutorial here:

Hey everyone! Thank you so much for your words of encouragement from last time. I will say that my sadness was from trying to lift up a friend who is really hurting right now, and she does read my blog so I know that your sweet comments have really helped her as well. :) I'm constantly bowled over at how much love and caring you generously give since I feel like, who am I to deserve all of the kindness that you freely give? I'm encouraged that I'm not hated for opening up a little bit. I feel like God has really given me this blog to help me through the tough times as well as the easy so THANK YOU. I feel like I am wrapped up in a thousand hugs. ^.^

Anyway, getting to the topic at hand, I'm really excited to share the Unii palettes with you. This review has been a long time coming but I finally had time to depot my NYX shadows that I'd been dying to consolidate. If you've been a long-time follower of my blog you know how much I love my NYX single shadows and that I have about a billion-million of them. I'd been having a lot of trouble with them because although I love them to death they really take up such a large space in my makeup drawers. In fact, most of them were in a totally different room (versus my vanity which I moved into the living room so that I have natural light) so they were going sadly unused. I really wish NYX would come up with their own palette because I'd buy them without thinking twice but until then, I think this is a really great option.

Here's my video review, as well as my comparison to MAC palettes and my thoughts on Z-Palette:


Here's a little behind-the-scenes with my depotting. I couldn't really take pics during the process because it's MESSY but I was thinking that maybe I'll make a video of my own technique soon.


And here are all the palettes I received (eggplant, twilight, lemongrass, pomegranate, snow)


Snow

Pomegranate

Eggplant

Lemongrass

Twilight

As you can see, I could fit 10 NYX shadows in each palette while keeping the thumb grip in. I also just think the shadows look pretty when they are turned diagonally, isn't that silly of me? ;D I did notice while I was depotting that some of the NYX shadow pans are shallower than others but it's not really a big deal when it's in the palette.

In the video you can see that the magnetic sheet that comes with each palette is segmented into 3 long strips. They happen to be a really nice size for just cutting into squares to attach it to the NYX shadows. Just be sure to remember to write down the name of the shadow right when you depot each one so you don't forget which is which! (This happened to me when I accidentally placed a shadow in my palette without adding the magnet to the back. I had to look at my own swatch pics to figure out what it was. lol.)

Final verdict? I absolutely was impressed by the quality and design of these palettes. It feels nice and sturdy, has details like the thumb grip which actually is useful, has a built-in mirror, comes with sticky magnets, and is great for cleaning and re-organizing what's inside. I only wish that it wouldn't smudge as much (not that I would change it, but it's something to be noted) and that it were a bit less expensive since each palette comes in at $29. As I noted in the video, Z-Palettes are $20 and I'd rather pay the $9 extra for the extra quality and durability since these are much more travel-friendly and clean.

I hope this review helped any of you who are interested in purchasing the Unii Palette! My favorite is the white one and I'm really hoping they come out with more colors in the future like *pink* because, knowing the quality, I will buy another without a second thought. :)

<3

Disclaimer: These products were sent for review consideration. As always, my reviews are my 100% honest opinion. :)