Do it Yourself: Bridal Makeup

Happy Sunday Friends!

Thank you so much for all the love, support and comments I received on my last blog post about body image and self love. If you are new to this blog please check it out! It got over 220 views, the most popular blog post I have shared, and that's all thanks to you! 

With wedding season upon us I wanted to share with you the bridal makeup look that I created for myself. I love makeup, always have, and I love doing my own makeup. I am not professionally trained but I'm very comfortable doing my own makeup and knew that if I did my own I'd get the result I really wanted. 

To start, I created a Pinterest "Bridal Hair and Makeup" board so I could collect ideas of what I thought I may want for myself. About two months before the wedding I did a hair and makeup trial to see what my ideas looked like on me. I went to MAC and had them show me the best products for a hot and humid environment, that would be long lasting, and keep shine away. I asked a lot of questions and got a lot of useful tips and suggestions. The end result was beautiful and I had a whole list of the products and brushes that she used. MAC will do an appointment like this for free but at the end you have to purchase $50 worth of products. I did end up purchasing most of the suggested products, but also used some of my own. 

I am going to list every product I used, the order that I applied it, and how best to apply them. I have included the price in Canadian dollars, the product name and brand name. Here's a photo of most of the products I used except the foundation and primer are slightly different than the ones described below and I am all out of bronzer:

Primer-Prep & Prime Natural Radiance in Radiant Pink, MAC $49: 

The photo shows my current primer which is the original formula that is clear and untinted, for the wedding I used a pink tinted version, called radiant pink. Now, due to the price I did not purchase this product but instead asked for a sample. MAC is awesome about giving out generous sized samples of all their products and even put them in a small pot with a screw top lid. The Prep & Prime range of primers have always been a favourite of mine but I don't always use a primer for daily use. These primers are a gel-cream formula that glide on the skin and set up almost immediately. Silicone helps leave the skin feeling soft, even and mattified but with a pearly luminescence. I love this pearly finish but some people have said they find it too "sparkly" or "shimmery". So I would suggest getting a sample and trying it out prior to your wedding. To apply, take a pea-sized amount from the sample pot or one pump from the bottle, on your pointer finger. Take your finger and dab some product on both cheeks, chin, nose and forehead, and than use your fingertips on both hands to evenly cover your face like you would moisturizer. Some people with dry skin may need to moisturize before using primer, but the natural radiant primers do provide some hydration and in a humid environment my skin was so moisturized that this was all I needed. 

Setting Spray- Prep & Prime Fix+, MAC $26:

A setting spray traditionally is used after you've completed your entire look, but MAC created Fix+ to be both a primer and a setting spray. It was explained to me, that after every layer of makeup you apply,you can lightly mist with this spray. I used it after I applied my primer and at the very end of my finished look. Hold the bottle about 2 feet from your face and pump once or twice to distribute a light mist, but do not saturate your face so that it is wet. Another way to apply is to mist the air in front of you and walk into it. I find this spray hydrating, smells lovely and helps my makeup apply evenly. 

Foundation-Pro Longwear Foundation in NW13, MAC $40 applied with 130 Short Duo Fibre Brush, MAC $51:

In my Spring Favourites post I raved about Pro Longwear Nourishing Waterproof Foundation, which is a new re-invented formula that is slightly different and, in my opinion, superior to the original. Had this been available at the time of our wedding I'm sure this would have been recommended, but only the original was available in 2014. I put 1-2 pumps of foundation on my hand on the fleshy spot below my thumb and pointer finger. This gives you the ability to build the product up in coverage since it is on your hand and not going directly on your face. I dab my brush lightly in the product and than dot my face with the foundation in the same 5 places I put my primer. Then using the flat topped brush blend the foundation allover my face in a circular motion. I will add a little disclaimer about concealer here. The concealer recommended to me was in the same range as the foundation, Pro Longwear Concealer NW20, MAC $26. However, for whatever reason, I never used to wear concealer, I just used a little extra foundation under and around my eyes. I now own this concealer and wear it daily, and love the coverage it provides. Had I used a concealer I would use one pump of product on my hand and than blended under the eyes using the same brush. 

Powder-Mineralize Skinfinish Natural in Medium, MAC $37 used with Large Powder Brush, Quo (part of brush set unknown individual price):

Using a large fluffy powder blush, lightly coat the brush in the mineralized powder and apply over your entire face, including eyelids, in a soft buffing motion. This will help set your foundation (and concealer), remove shine, and make it last longer.

Bronzer-Bronzing Powder in Laguna, NARS $52 (single) or Blush/Bronzer Duo $54:

I own the duo which has both a blush and bronzer. Laguna is the most perfectly universal bronzing shade that works for my very fair skin. It always looks natural and has a very fine mineralized shimmer that is so soft it doesn't appear as shiny or sparkly. Using the same large fluffy powder brush I applied just a touch of bronzer in the spots where I had naturally gotten sun: forehead/hairline, temples, under the cheekbones, along jawbone and down the length of and sides of my nose. Blend this all in so its soft and natural.

Blush-Pro Longwear Blush in Stay Pretty, MAC $32 applied with Blush Brush, Quo (part of set so price unknown):

This pink blush is described as light bright blue pink in a semi-matte formula. With a fluffy blush brush I swept this on the apples of my cheeks and and along my cheekbone up towards my hairline. I love blush, it is my favourite product, so I had to make sure I didn't go too blush happy and just created a soft flush. 

Highlighter- Mineralize Blush in Just a Wisp, MAC $32 applied with same blush brush:

The highlighter that the MAC artist used on me was Vanilla loose pigments swept along the very top of my cheekbones. I already owned this frosty silver pale pink blush so I decided to use it as a highlighter. I knew that anything too shimmery or sparkly could show up as shine in photos so I used this sparingly and just dusted the tops of my cheeks lightly with the mineralized blush.

Eyeshadow Primer- Pro Longwear Paint Pot in Painterly, MAC $26:

This was another product I listed in my Spring Favourites that I purchased for our wedding but fell in love with more recently. This is a cream shadow that sets to powder. It creates a base for shadows to stick to and can intensify their pigmentation and help them last longer. I apply this with my pointer finger, swirl it in the pot and apply over the entire lid. 

Eyeshadow-MAC Trip: 4 Neutral Eye & Cheek, MAC (discontinued so price unknown) applied with 213, 275 and 224 MAC Eyeshadow Brushes (see website for current prices, mine were part of a set):

I used all three of the eyeshadows in this palette, a frosty champagne pink in Sunday Best allover the eyelid including the inner corner (tear duct) and under the eyebrows along the brow bone.The middle shadow, a matte rosy pink called Girlie I put allover the eyelid but keeping it mostly in the centre and bringing it no further than the crease (not bringing it up onto the brow bone or into the inner corner, leaving those spaces with just the lightest shade). The darkest shade is a deep plum with flecks of wine-toned sparkle called Agate. The first two shadows I used a rounded shadow brush to apply allover (213), the deepest shade I applied into my crease with an angled brush specifically for contour (275). I have hooded eyelids so I do bring my crease colour slightly up only my brow bones, otherwise you won't see it. Using an angle brush (266) I also put Agate along my lower lash line about halfway. I than used a fluffy clean brush (224) to blend the shades together so there are no distinct lines between the colours. 

Eyeliner-Kohl Shaper for Eyes in Black Coffee, Clinique $21:

I don't usually wear liner, it's not really part of my daily routine, but for my wedding day I wanted to step up the drama and apply a liner just along the top lash line. I used this dark espresso brown shade and followed my natural lash line. I am not good with a cat eye or a "flick" at the outer corner so I left it fairly simple and only traced my lashes and slightly lifted the outer corner. This added a bit of pop to my blue eyes.

Mascara-Extended Play Gigablack Lash in Intense Black, MAC $20:

This mascara is both waterproof and long wearing. It has a tiny brush that helps coat all lashes and creates a lot of length.  It lifts and defines and can appear similar to false lashes. I had wanted to wear false lashes but chickened out, I have worn them on many occasions, but worried that with nerves, heat and humidity I may have a meltdown while applying them or they wouldn't last all night. This mascara was a great alternative, I applied to both top and bottom lashes and it created the length that I wanted. 

Eyebrows- Eye Shadow in Espresso, MAC $19 applied with a 266 Small Angle Brush, MAC $24:

My eyebrows are fair so I always use shadow and an angled brush to fill them in. Take a bit of shadow on the brush and using upward strokes fill in the brows so that it appears natural like hairs. Follow along the natural shape of your brows enhancing them. 

Once this entire look was complete, and before applying my lip products, I did another mist of Fix + to set everything. 

Lips- Lipstick in Sunny Seoul and Cremesheen Glass Lipgloss in Paper Lantern, both MAC $21 & $24:

This was the final touch, lipstick and gloss. Sunny Seoul is a frosted warm pink that has a bit of coral in it. Paper Lantern is a soft pale pink that toned down the brightness of the lipstick. A beautiful combination. 

So here's my final look, forgive me, these photos are not the best quality and are selfies (😂) but show you close up how it all looked:

Here's how it looked on the professional camera, I've zoomed in so you can see my makeup better:

Lastly here is how it looked later that night (about 5 hours later):

My final tips for any brides who feel confident enough to do their own bridal makeup:

-Practice lots, know how to do your look from beginning to end, and practice it months beforehand.

-Trial all products you plan to use. Make sure you have no reactions or issues with anything you plan to use. Do not try anything new on your wedding day.

-Be confident in your skills, if you chose to do your own makeup then be confident that you will do a great job

-Relax

-Give yourself lots of time, do not rush this step. Our Wedding was around 5pm and I started to do my makeup around 2:30 or 3pm so that I had plenty of time.

-Don't stress the small mistakes, every little boo boo can be fixed!

I hope you have enjoyed this thorough tutorial on how I did my bridal makeup. If you have any friends or family members who may benefit from this information please share,

Teal next time...xoxo Kathleen

Self Love & Body Image

Happy Tuesday friends!

In January I shared my tips on getting motivated and setting goals and now that it is May and the days of skimpy clothes and swimsuits loom over us, I thought I would talk about self love and body image. I want to share my experiences and journey in hopes that it will help or inspire at least one person.

Let's start at the beginning, back in elementary school. I was a tall girl, taller then most other girls my age, and I was chubby too, much bigger boned and fuller than other little girls. My mom used to let out the waistband on my leggings and skirts. I wasn't athletic, sports weren't really my thing, I had a big aversion to doing team sports and being in the spot light. As I got older I began to hate gym class and really felt uncomfortable participating in physical activities. Maybe at some level I began to see my body was different, I didn't enjoy being in shorts or changing into my gym clothes in front of the other girls. At one point in gym class a boy asked me, in front of other kids, if I was pregnant, me, a child, not more than 10 years old, really? Why would a child ask another child that question? That is my first memory that I have of being made to feel utterly worthless and ashamed. One of my friends told her mother what happened because that evening I was sat down by my mom and we discussed it and I don't remember words, just tears. That moment in time started the snowball that became my self hate and insecurities.

Next let's jump to high school. I'm chubby, I have braces, red hair, pale skin (for real?! Look at this hand I was dealt!) and I was only twelve when I went into the 8th grade because I have a December Birthday. This year was hard, new school, new classes, new people and life wasn't so kind to me. I didn't make a lot of friends, I stuck with the few I knew from elementary and tried to befriend the other quiet nice girls, but it was still really hard. Now comes the second moment in time where I was humiliated and embarassed. A group of girls sitting near my locker started asking me about my clothes, something from Sears or a department store because I wore ladie's sizes and not girl's sizes anymore, and one of the girls told me to go get some style. I have blocked out the other words but I specifically remember those ones. They say sticks and stones break bones but these words broke me. And so the snowball grew even larger.

I cannot tell you that there were no friends, no fun moments, no enjoyable days in high school, but if I had to sum it up as a whole it was the worst period in my life. Towards the end of grade 11 things started too feel too hard, too overwhelming, I didn't want to be in this body that people shamed and made fun of. I began to control what I ate, I started out small but the more I cut back on eating, the more empowered I felt. Finally, I had control of my life, when previously I had felt helpless. Soon it was summer and I was hanging out with some new friends from the school year who introduced me to other friends, including boys from another school. I was losing weight, feeling better about myself, boys were noticing me now and sadly this all reinforced my desire to control. 

Back to school for my final year and people are noticing my weight loss, making comments, either positive or negative. But I felt good, and it fueled my illness. I have never felt comfortable placing a label on my dieting, at first it was an extreme limitation of food but eventually it was an eating disorder, it was anorexia. I went from a tall and curvy 160 pounds to 115 in about a sixth month period. I bleached my red hair so it was blonde and I tanned my pale skin so it wasn't white anymore. All the while, this disease made me feel powerful and desirable.

After high school I started to drink and go to parties and the alcohol and late night fast food binges made me gain weight. I put on maybe 15 or 20 pounds and I looked healthier and my desire to diet wasn't so extreme anymore. I cannot say the exact moment I changed from having an eating disorder to being healthy again, but it was some time between high school ending and college beginning. 

In college I maintained a healthier weight, tried to exercise at the gym, ate as balanced as possible for a busy student by day and club goer by night. I drank too much, flirted too much and still had no self worth beyond the attention I received from some young guys at the bar who never even asked my name. 

At twenty I started in University and I met my now husband at my nightclub job. Prior to meeting him I had only casual encounters with men and I didn't have any positive relationships to create a foundation. Finally, I was with a man who loved and respected me and my body. At first I was shy about eating around him, undressing or even removing my makeup. I only felt beautiful with makeup and clothes on, because that is the validation I received in society. I began to slowly develop self confidence and as new lovers do we dined out a lot and stayed in bed a lot and not much else mattered! 

You may be thinking, where is this going, so it started out rough but she found her happy ever after at twenty? Wrong! I gained a lot of weight in that first year of our relationship and than I lost a lot of weight, again, after doing an extreme paid diet program called Dr. Bernstein. Although I have kept off most of that weight for the last seven years I still continue to go up and down at least twenty pounds every year or two. I constantly battle my weight and struggle with control. It is a journey and I have succeeded and failed many times, but I have never developed another eating disorder and I can say that I love myself enough to not harm my body in that way ever again. 

So, here I stand before you, holding my melting snowball and feeling as vulnerable as ever, but I feel proud. Proud to say at 32 I'm ok with my body, I love the person that I am, I like my red hair. I have curves, I have lumps, I have rolls and dimples and stuff that jiggles, but I am strong, healthy, smart and I am beautiful. I know my value and my worth but I still have a lot of progress to make on my self esteem and my body image. I still feel that little girl inside me squirm in discomfort when someone looks at me the wrong way or says something inappropriate. I still look at my body in the mirror and have a hard time loving what I see, but I have gotten to a place of liking and I can strive for love. I want every little girl and woman to know that the key to love is to love yourself. Only time and experience has gotten me to where I am today. I wouldn't be the person that I am had I not been broken at one time or another. You have to look within yourself and find your purpose and your worth and pick up all the broken pieces and keep moving forward. I hope that every parent can teach their child that every shape is beautiful and that even when words break us we can be whole again. I wish for a world where all women of every shape and size knew self love and knew she was beautiful. No one ever deserves to be made to feel ashamed or worthless by another human, but if we can teach our children young we can give them the skills to be confident enough to not let words break them.

In my final thoughts, I want to say that I have forgiven those who have hurt me and who figuratively threw the snowball into my hands. I release them from the pain they caused. Let's work together as women and build one another up, support one another and be kind to one another. We need to create a society that doesn't place such strong value on the female body and how it looks. Practice what I am working on, look in the mirror and learn to accept what you see and eventually love what you see. Sending hugs and kisses to anyone who has had a similar journey, if you would like to share please leave a comment or send me an email. 

Teal next time....xoxo Kathleen