Yaby Liquid Foundations

Okay to answer you question Aziza the Yaby Liquid Foundation colours in my kit are:

On the Yellow side: Buff, Pecan and Caramel

Apparently Buff is the MUST have colour for the yellow side b/c it's a very common colour for white girls and it's mixed in w/ a lot of the other colours to adjust them. Liz (Yaby creator) herself told me that Buff and Pecan can be mixed together w/ different amounts of each colour to make a range of colours.

There is one shade lighter then Buff but I have the Face Atelier 0- Foundation Adjuster so if I need to go lighter I just add a drop of that. Remember you can mix different types and brands of foundations together to get different consistencies and different coverages. If you think your cream foundation is a bit heavy or matte mix a bit of Face Atelier or something similar w/ it to make it a bit lighter or dewy.

On the Pink side: Vanilla, Peach Cream, Almond Butter

Peach Cream and Almond Butter are apparently great colours for men b/c they do tend to have more pink in their skin. Also if you think some of the colours are a bit too pink you can always cut them w/ a little something from the yelllow side. Some colours like Rubarb (which I don't have) look very pink but I think they are more for adjusting then for use on their own.

I also have Cherry Blossom which is a colour adjuster to add more pink but I actually use it more as a natural looking cream blush. It gives a great rosy glow to the cheeks.

Liz also has other liquid adjusters which are very useful: White - make lighter, Blue - Neutralize Orange (bit too much fake tan), Purple - Neutralizes sickly yellow skin, Green - for those pesky red zits or rosacea and Apricot - great for the under eye area.

I should also mention that Liz does have a large range of colours for darker skintones. Caramel being the darkest shade on the yellow side, Chocolate Chip being the darkest on the pink side and Hot Fudge is a dark neutral shade. At this time I don't work w/ a lot of girls w/ darker skintones so I'm waiting to get some of the other darker shades. When I was working w/ Liz at the makeup show there was one very dark black girl who came to the booth and Chocolate Chip was a perfect match for her...she was quite surprised not only at the match but at the price!

I have started using Yaby liquid Foundation on myself everyday and I love it. I'm Honey w/ a bit of Buff lol.

Kit Organizing!

So for x-mas I got a new makeup kit from my bf Alistair! Thank God b/c my other one was literally falling apart. It was actually quite embarrassing and had been ripping at the seams pretty much from the first wk I got it. It was like a Frankenkit w/ all the ghetto stitching I had sewn on it. My old kit if anyone is interested was the MUFE Professional Bag which was great b/c it was lightweight, clothe over the shoulder bag w/ lots of pockets which I like b/c I do take public transportation so I pack light but the stitching just isn't reinforced enough...apparently it's a big prob w/ the bag I found out from MUFE (they ended up giving me the bag for free b/c they didn't have any in stock when it ripped at first for me and I was leaving for Shanghai).

The new one is a bit heavier but it does seem a lot sturdier and well made but it is still an over the shoulder style bag. I have a ton of room in it and I think for a lot of simple jobs I might be able to pack light and carry a small hair kit in it too! It comes w/ trays in the bottom section but I personally took them out and I'm just putting pouches w/ stuff in there (one good thing I kept from the MUFE bag was all the removable pouches). It's from Yazmo.com if anyone is interested and they sell a ton of great makeup kits whatever your style is.

So I took a bunch of pics of kit so anyone that is interested can see how I pack for a shoot and the kinds of products I like to take w/ me. The stuff I'm showing in the pics is a lot of makeup for me and truthfully most of the time I wouldn't pack all this stuff...as mentioned before I usually like to keep it as light as possible and pack for that specific job if at all possible.

My Kit
The empty bottom where I took out the trays
One of the side pockets. If I do bring hair stuff in this kit this will be a good pocket...otherwise might use it for cellphone, water, apple etc.

Packed Kit
Inside the top of my Kit
Pouches in the Bottom Container (where trays were originally). Can you tell I like Yaby already lol. Seriously condensed my kit SOOO MUCH! I Normally wouldn't bring all the palettes in the pouch to EVERY shoot.
Brush Pouch

Big Pouch #1 - Yaby Palettes and MUFE Flash Palette - 3 Yaby Powder Foundation Palettes (Light, Med, Dark) and Highlighting Palette (Love). 1 Homemade Lip Palette (just took all my lipsticks, cut and smooshed them into empties and put them in a Yaby Freestyle Palette (many different brands). 1 Freestyle palette w/ Yaby Blush and 2 Nixie Blushes w/ a few old MAC Shadows. 3 Eyeshadow Palettes - The one on the far Right is my Neutrals Working Palette w/ cake liners and eyebrow colours too. The others are more fun. They are all a mix of Yaby shadows (pearl paint and reg) and I pressed a bunch of OCC, Face Atelier and Fyrinnae pigments into shadows...plus there's a few old MAC shadows.

Big Pouch #2 - Foundation Pouch - I have another pouch inside that one which holds my Face Atelier Foundations and my Keromask Consealers. 2 RCMA Palettes (which to be honest I don't use that much). Graftobian and Cinema Secrets Palettes and Yaby Liquid Foundations.

Side Pouch Randoms - Mixing Palette, MAC Brown Shadow Palette, Blush Palette w/ La Femme and Nixie Blushes. Benefit Leg Moisturizer (creates a nice sheen on the legs and smells nice :) ). Not shown but also carry hand towel and wipes here too.
Pouches inside the top section of the kit...and there's still more room!

Small Black Pouch - Random Tools - Eyelash Curler, Tweezers, Sharpener, Nail File, Disposables (Lip/Mascara/Spatulas), Scissors, Eyelash/Eyebrow Comb, Tide Stick, Eyebrow Razors Etc.

Bigger Black Pouch - Eye Stuff - Mascara - Black, Clear, Brown, Face Atelier Transforming Gel, Under Eye Brighteners - Benefit and Smashbox, Urban Decay Primer, DUO Eyelash Glue, MAC Matte and Glossy Gel, Fyrinnae Eye Primer and Pixie Epoxy (helps glitter stick)
Lip Pouch - Face Atelier Lip Gloss, OCC Lip Tar in Clear and OCC Lip Balm in Tarred and Feathered, MUFE Glossy Full, Random Smashbox Lip Palette, Face Atelier Lip Putty and Lip RX, 2 Graftobian Lip Palettes, MAC Lip Exfoliater and Benefit She-Laq

Med Black Mesh Pouch #1 - OCC Lip Tars - Black/White and Primary Colours, Alcone Sponges, Smashbox and Benefit Luminizers, Eyelashes, Camera Ready Cosmetics Cream Blush Wheel and Empty Bowl

Med Black Mesh Pouch #2 - Nail Polisher Remover Pads, Makeup Remover Wipes, Eye Makeup Remover, Q-Tips, Various Primers - MUFE, Fyrinnae (Cream and Powder) and Benefit, Cotton Pads, Makeup Puffs, Yaby Translucent Powder, Eyedrops, Mouth Wash, Mini Sewing Kit, Embryolisse Moisturizer, Vaseline, MAC Strobe Cream Etc.

Liquids Pouch - 99% Alcohol, Water, Toner, Glycerin, Final Seal, Brush Cleaner, Hand Sanitizer, MUFE Elixir, MAC Fix + Etc.

Okay so that's EVERYTHING in my kit...and I'm not lying there is still a lot of room in there! Plus like I said before I normally wouldn't bring ALL of this stuff to every shoot. I highly suggest everyone condense their kits...it just makes everything quicker to find and therefore you are quicker on set. I really don't even know what I would do w/ a rolling kit anymore...I don't know if I could fill it lol!

In Beauty Update

Some ppl are curious where I got the magazine in Toronto. The location I got it at was an International Press Mag Shop one Block East of Bathurst on Bloor. I'm pretty sure it will be sold out there now though b/c they only had 2 copies and I've mentioned it to a few ppl. The distributor in Toronto is a guy named Frank. Super nice and his email is: fursino@speedimpex.ca . Outside Toronto it gets a bit harder but you can email the actual magazine and they can help you find a distributor near you. The magazine's email is: instyle.fashion@msa.hinet.net .

Hope that helps everyone and hope everyone has a Happy Holiday!!

In Beauty Magazine

I FINALLY got my copy of In Beauty Spring/Summer 10 Magazine. For those of you that don't know In Beauty is LITERALLY my makeup and hair beauty bible for the fashion seasons. Stumbling upon the premiere issue last yr was literally one of the best things to happen to me as far as research and expanding my ideas for makeup/hair trends.

Basically, it's a magazine that gives detailed explanations and close up pictures of all the important runway shows in Milan, Paris, London and New York. It's so great to have these pictures as references b/c a lot of times when you look at the runway pics after the shows you can't see the makeup and hair up close enough to see all the details and nuances b/c let's be real the main focus of these shows are the clothes lol.

The magazine is a bit pricey at $45 CAN but for me it is worth every penny and MORE! Seriously, it's a magazine of pure gold...every page is just more and more inspiration. I'm so glad I came across it by pure luck that first time and actually bought it.

It's always a guessing game when trying to figure out when this magazine will come out b/c it only comes out twice a year a few mths after the runway shows and it's VERY hard to find in stores b/c 1. Not many stores carry the magazine 2. The stores that do only carry like 1 or 2 copies 3. It's becoming a big magazine for makeup artists to buy

Thankfully, I'm persistent and even when I was working in China I had good friends go find a copy for me. The magazine is actually made in Taiwan so I had to contact them and they told me when it was coming out and put me in touch w/ the very friendly and patient distributor in Toronto who even had a copy sent to a store personally for me b/c there were no more it stores at the time.

So if you do happen to stumble upon this little gem I say BUY IT! BUY IT NOW!!

My Magic Wand!

Today I was doing a model portfolio building shoot for this really nice actress/model that contacted me - Shirleyann Mason. Basically we wanted to get 6 different looks done throughout the shoot. Up until now she's mostly just acted but wants to possibly get into doing some work in Japan so she needed to build a modeling portfolio and fast. The girl is a NATURAL.

Anyway, I don't know why I never mentioned this item before b/c it is seriously like my magic curling wand. EVERY time I use it on set everyone ohhs and awws over it and LOVES the results. Plus it's so much easier and quicker (at least for me) to use then a regular curling iron. It seriously makes me look like I'm much better at hair then I am lol...and today was definitely NO exception.

My magic wand is my Cortex Curling Tong! I got it on Ebay and seriously I'm in love! There are way more expensive versions out there too but this one works fine for me. Comes w/ a glove too so you can wrap the hair around the wand w/out burning your fingers (which I have done OUCH).
As you can see it doesn't have the clamp of a regular curling iron. You just take the hair and w/ the glove on wrap the hair around the wand and hold...so simple!

So the following pics are just some behind the scenes pics I took throughout the shoot...she looked way better then these pics give credit for but I just want to show the variety of hairstyles I was able to get w/ just curling the hair ONCE and then just changing the curl and style throughout the shoot.

The first look was just really natural no makeup/makeup natural hair. The second look was when I first curled the hair. We were going for a really doll like look. I put her hair into a really pretty high ponytail (I also learned how to do that perfect clean coveted ponytail recently..a real hard thing for a lot of makeup artists). Then I curled the tail into pretty little ringlets.
After that look I pulled all the ringlets apart so that it was just a huge ponytail of curls and then I pinned it to the side and changed the makeup.
Next w/out touching up the hair AT ALL. I just took out the pins and ponytail. Switched to a smokey eye and this is the hair I got - GORGEOUS!
Next I went really high fashion. Dark eyes - Dark Lips and really contoured cheek bones. I slicked back the top of the hair and then frizzed out the curls around the neck. These pics don't illustrate the slicked back part of the hair that well as they were taken between takes but I'm sure you can get the idea lol.
The final look was just thrown in last minute and I just teased the hell out of the curls...the same curls that I did hours ago w/ that tong! Look at how many TOTALLY different looks I got out of ONE curling application!

Who would have thought those clean little ringlets in the first pic could be transformed into this!

My Fyrinnae Order FINALLY Arrived!

So about a mth ago I ordered from Fyrinnae . For a long time now I've wanted to check out their loose eye shadows which I've heard are AMAZING. So finally I ordered about 20 eye shadow samples (hard to get the amount down there are SOO MANY great ones!), 5 mineral blushes, a powder primer and a silica primer along w/ eye lid primer, pixie epoxy (good for glitter and shimmery shadows) and a pigment modifier that helps w/ pigment pressing (which I'll be doing a video on in the near future :) ). The great thing is how affordable everything is...I mean even shipping internationally to Canada was FREE (that never happens). The sucky thing was waiting! I knew the orders took up to two wks to be shipped but then it took an additional two and half wks to get here (apparently that's rare) but it finally did and I'm so EXCITED to try everything out. I wanted to use some of these colours on the shoot I had over the weekend but unfortunately that wasn't a possibility b/c they weren't here yet :(

So I've done some swatches on my arm of a few colours. I'll do some today and I'll do some more over the next couple of days. In the pics the LEFT side is applied w/ a damp brush for a foiled wet look and the RIGHT side is applied w/ a dry brush. The Left side really pops in the pics and the Right side looks more subtle but also remember this is a point and shoot camera it doesn't really show it's true beauty.

The first one is Dragonskin (great green w/ gold flecks)
Jade Ghost - Pic doesn't do it justice...one of my favs actually (shimmery white w/ mint green sheen)
Digital Faerie - I love this one wet!
Biker Chic - Black w/ blue sparkles - I think this will be great for a smokey eye!

Electro-Koi - Gorgeous Orange w/ gold shimmer - I think this was the colour I was most surprised about how much I liked it!
Wicked - It photographs Blue but it's actually Purple w/ Teal shimmer...very pretty!
Equality - I think dry this will be a great layering colour - I know you can't see but it's kind of a shimmery silver/taupe w/ multi colour sparkles
Immortality - Black w/ multi colour sparkles

The last one I'm showing today is actually more of a glitter - Lights of Moscow. I put it on dry and over the pixie epoxy I mentioned earlier. I definitely suggest putting a sticky base of some sort underneath it or applying it wet just so it sticks to the eye.

I'll post more tomorrow if I have time...I have a shoot tomorrow so I'll have to see :)

Amanda in Wonderland

Finally yesterday all my hard working and LONG planning w/ photographer Dexter Quinto all paid off! Dexter and I had been planning a creative together for literally MONTHS! So long in fact my makeup concept had to switch from Fall/Winter looks to Spring looks lol. Sometimes this happens when you're working w/ a really good photographer and you want a really strong team to get really strong images...it takes awhile for all the pieces to fall into place.

I take creatives VERY seriously! I'm VERY picky w/ them and basically only do them for three reasons 1. Fill a hole in my book 2. Amazing Team and Concept 3. Editorial Submission (which should include an amazing team and concept lol).

Truthfully, I needed this shoot for more then just the pictures. For the past few mths I've been sort of in a creative funk for various reasons. I just wasn't getting the opportunity to do any cool shoots w/ good photographers and the few shoots I did do were just not living up to my expectations. The creatives being offered to me were totally not worth it and the ones I was trying to set up for myself were just taking a long time to fall into place. It was a big difference compared to what I was use to in the past when I actually had quite a few editorials coming out. I was actually beginning to doubt my abilities and creativity...it was kind of depressing :(

Because of the mths of talking and things getting postponed and what not I was actually pretty nervous to shoot w/ Dexter b/c there was so much build up. I've worked w/ him quite a bit before but it was really clean head shot type stuff. I knew he was taking this A LOT more seriously and b/c of all the talking I knew his expectations for everything were high...I was just hoping I could live up to them. To say that I spent a few hours lying in bed thinking about the shoot over the last couple of wks would be an understatement.

Thankfully, yesterday the makeup and hair Gods were w/ me and things went Fantastically! Truthfully, I'm really happy w/ everything I did hair and makeup wise. Plus the stylist we got - Annie Lam w/ Plutino Group must have been reading my mind b/c all her outfits were PERFECT for the colour palette I had picked out!

Our model Amanda w/ Elite was gorgeous and so nice! Seriously, a real pro! It was a LONG day and she was totally there and kept her energy up the whole time and from what I saw just yesterday I know it will be worth it!

I seriously CAN'T WAIT to see these pics! Veronica, Dexter's assistant took some amazing behind the scenes pics. If she sends them to me I promise to post a couple.

P.S. Also want to do a shout out and thanks to my great assistant David Smith yesterday. He really helped me out a lot!

IMATS Toronto

So this weekend is IMATS Toronto. For those that don't know IMATS stands for International Makeup Artist Trade Show. Very excited! This is the one time of year that I really try to stock up on all the kit necessities that I need, plus some fun extras I've been drooling over b/c of the amazing deals offered. At first I was a bit worried about the vendors list but it's really come together now and I'm really excited to check things out and spend WAY too much money as per usual lol. Plus there's also tons of cool workshops and seminars for ppl to check out.

I won't have much time for the workshops or seminars b/c I'll be helping out Liz Yu at the Yaby booth this year w/ fellow blogger/MUA/friend Ashley Readings. So make sure if you're coming to the show to say hi b/c I love meeting others in the industry...esp. those who might actually be reading my blog lol.

It's so weird b/c last yr IMATS happened less than a wk before I left for Shanghai so it was pretty crazy and surreal for me for a number of reasons lol. It has officially been just over a year since I moved to Shanghai and then came back to Toronto. Crazy how much can happen in a year and how much things can change!

Girls, Girls, Girls!

So I told you about the Boy's Commercial Shoot I did w/ Troy Moth a few mths ago. I also did a similar Girl's shoot w/ Troy recently. The styling is a little more edgy but I really like the pics and I think it's a great addition to my Commercial book.

The models are Fayruz & Jacquie (Sutherland):

Boys, Boys, Boys!

As a makeup artist it's important to have a well rounded portfolio that includes - Editorial, Beauty and Commercial looks. When I came back from Shanghai I knew the area my portfolio was still lacking in was Commercial which in Toronto is what will actually get you the work lol.

Everyone kept saying the same thing. We love your book and you have great Editorial and Avant Garde Beauty work but you really need more clean Commercial work. I knew this was true but the hard part is finding a photographer to shoot a creative of Commercial work b/c let's be real...it's not very creative and who wants to shoot that for free just to build the book.

So when Troy Moth, one of my favourite collaborators and photographers said he also needed to build his Commercial book I was thrilled. A few mths ago...when it was still relatively warm and sunny we shot a great boys commercial shoot. Really clean, really commercial and overall perfect for my book!

Here's a few of my favs from that shoot:

Btw the stylist from this shoot was Nadia Pizzimenti (Judy Inc.).

Kill the Queen - Halloween 2009

I know I'm a makeup artist and Halloween should send me into some sort of orgasmic frenzy but it doesn't really. Sure I don't mind getting done up and going out for the night but overall I'm not obsessed w/ the Special Effects Gore makeup. I took it in school just so I knew the basics but it was definitely not my passion. I find like Star Wars people who are into Special Effects are REALLY into Special Effects lol!

Anyway, I decided to go out for Halloween to Tattoo Rock Parlour...it's a rock bar/tattoo parlour in Toronto and overall I really like it. Cool music, decent crowd and a good time. Very last minute costume but overall I think it was a cute idea. I went as a murdered Prom Queen. Got to still do the pretty makeup and look hot but also include some of the gore that goes w/ Halloween. I did the stab wounds very last minute like practically walking out the door so don't judge too harshly...plus it's weird doing it on yourself lol.

So here's a few pics from the night:

"Oh No...Someone's After Me!"
"I'm Scared and Vulnerable...but still Sexy"

"AHHHHHH!"
"I'll Get You W/ My Shoe"

Beware the Prom Queen
I'm Murdered but that doesn't mean I can't look Pretty!

Btw if you didn't notice my crown says "Bitch"...I'm a Prom Queen - Enough Said lol!