The Beauty Sleuth

Recently, I did a little fashion video for director/photographer David McIntyre of Image Loading (www.imageloading.com) which was loosely based on the song Sweet Gene Vincent, by Ian Dury. We were inspired by the music and decided to get a few local dancers to be part of the visual ( Thank you Celeste and Wilson 🙂 ) and booked the lovely Snow, from Q models to play our rockabilly/muse. It was a ton of fun and I am really happy with the results. For the beauty note, I used a variety of product, playing with colour and texture.

Here’s a shortlist of the products I used for this project:

Boy:

For Snow, as she has the most luminescent skin to start with, I didn’t want to pretty it up too much. I really wanted a lived in feel, all smudgy and imperfect. I left her skin to breathe, keeping it powder free and glossy with a little Caudelie Beauty elixir spray. For any imperfections, I only used a touch of foundationr on Snow’s skin (as it was almost perfect anyway!) I like Smashbox High Definition FX foundation. It’s lightweight and disappears into the skin.

Make Up For Ever’s Flash Colour palette is a tremendous source of inspiration for me and is my go-to product for almost everything. In this case, the black eye smudge, and touch of white highlight on her cheekbones, bridge of the nose and chin. I love this product because you can make it as transparent or opaque as you want. The control is amazing and it lasts and lasts. For her lips and eyelids, I used a touch of Suvana ( an incredible organic Australian PawPaw product) just to moisten those areas. This product, while not yet Stateside, will be very soon. I’ll keep you posted on it’s arrival!

For Snow’s hair, I wanted to create a quiff shape but instead of having a traditional look of pulled back and sides, I wanted to add some interesting texture as well. After spraying with Fabricate, I chose to set the side and back sections the hair using large U pins wrapped figure eight style. The advantage of setting with the U pins is that I could then shape them to fit snugly against the head for a neat appearance. For the coif, I first prepped the hair with Extreme re-reconstructing treatment. It gave Snow’s delicate hair a nice sheen and smoothed the cuticle so I could control the textures later. Once I blew out the hair, I added some volume to the top section of hair by backcombing. I coiled the hair to create a quiff and pinned into place. I sprayed the hair with Waxblast 10 and finished with Workforce 09 fexible volumizing spray. All styling products from Redken.

Girl:

Our girl character was the model to feature the clothes for the shoot. We wanted to play up her femininity and prettiness. I went very glamourous, building the look over four clothing changes. For my product I chose: Ten Limited edition Collector’s palette, Emphaseyes inner eye liner both TARTE Cosmetics, TARTE COSMETICS The eraser 4-in-1 natural concealer, BURBERRY BEAUTY Burberry ‘Light Glow’ Natural Blush No. 01 Russet Blush, SMASHBOX Jet Set waterproof eyeliner in Jet black, LANCOME Colour Design in Red Haute, topped with LA LAQUE FEVER in Evening Splendor.

For her hair, I went from a exaggerated 1940’s coif to a a huge height defying tower!. It was a lot of fun to do and with some help from some very reliable product, the changes went of easily. I used the product listed above as well as liberal amount of L’OREAL Elnett Extra-Strength Flexible hold (white can) This is only available States-side at New London Pharmacy in Chelsea, NY but I get mine in the UK when I am there.