"No Makeup" Makeup

Sometimes we don't want to make the effort with so much make-up and the dramatic look but at the same time we still want to wear make-up to feel good and that's wear the "no make-up make-up" trick comes in.
"No make-up make-up" is basically wearing make-up without making it look like you have make-up on ;) the skin in the main focus. It's all about fresh glowing, healthy looking skin which is perfect for summer and it is pretty simple to do.

I recently shot with a beautiful model from Germany called Lorena and she had beautiful skin with some freckles. When I saw her I just thought "I don't want to do her make-up so it looks like she has it on" I don't want the make-up to be seen when you look at her. She was going to be professionally photographed so I did take a while to achieve the "natural" look on her because it could look quite washed out with all the studio lighting and camera flash but I will be explaining how you can achieve the natural no make-up make-up look on yourself or anyone else for every day.

 


Products to create fresh looking skin:
Use your favorite moisturizer. You can use a primer if you want but it's good to use one especially in the heat. I used Maybelline baby skin primer (£6.99) , For foundation I used Makeup Forever face and body foundation but a really good one is Neutrogena Healthy Skin Foundation ($11.37) It is a cheaper option and gives a beautiful dewy finish. For concealer I used Laura Mercier secret camouflage a little under her eyes and on some blemishes (I used a MAC 217 brush to apply the concealer lightly) A cheaper option would be Revlon Colorstay Concealer (£6.99) It's one of my fave drugstore concealers. I combed through her brows and used Anastasia Beverly Hills Brow Wiz in Brunette (if you are from the UK you can purchase this on cultbeauty.co.uk)  For the glow on the cheek bones and brow bone I used NARS Illuminator in Orgasm, a cheaper option would be e.l.f. Essential Shimmering Facial Whip in Golden Peach ($1.00) To warm up her skin I used Tom Ford Shade and illumnate on her cheeks and sides of her forhead but I recently tried a drugstore foundation (yes foundation!) to bronze/contour and I was amazed! You can try L'Oreal Nude Magique Eau De Teint in 220 Golden Sand (£9.99) It's so light weight and easy to work with especially if you want a natural looking bronze look. To keep the foundation in place I lightly dusted some translucent powder by Ben Nye.

Eyes  
You can skip using any eyeshadow and just apply a few coats of mascara but I used Bonjour Summer Eyeshadow Palette by Too faced, the colors I used are Firefly all over the lid and Sand Dollar on the inner tear duct - I know that Kiko Cosmetics have amazing eyeshadow palettes that are super cheap and have beautiful bronzy colors. I literally used my fingers for this look except for the concealer. I used a Kiko Mascara and for lips I used Heidi D cosmetics Lipstick in Natural rose - I put some on my finger and pressed into her lips to give a natural looking lip tint and topped with some clear gloss and that's it.

I love using my fingers sometimes because it gives the "effortless" finish and it saves time if you are doing make-up on yourself. I always say your hands are your best tool when applying make-up, just make sure your hands are sanitized before you touch your face.

Here's some more pictures of different looks I did. I just changed up the eye make-up by adding eyeliner and smoking out some shimmery black shadow.

 

I hope you enjoyed this blog post. I wanted to recommend some decent make-up that you can buy for way cheaper and still look as glam so I hope that helped :) Tag me in your no makeup makeup pictures on Instagram with the hashtag #soniaxfyza I would love to see! 

xxxx

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Using the right tones to contour

So I'm constantly getting asked about the right tones for contouring and bronzing and I'm always seeing so many people use the wrong shades to contour. When you use the wrong shades to contour you can either look really muddy/dirty or too orange. Contouring is meant to be faded in the background because it's used to create an illusion. when contouring the nose with powders we are making it seem thinner/more in shape than it really is so if you are using the complete opposite of your undertone it can look really obvious.

Knowing your skin tone is the first step to getting the right shades to contour. You are either cool toned, warm toned or neutral. I have taken pictures and swatches of my favorite powders to contour with. Before I get in to that I want to explain more about undertones. When you know your undertone it is so much easier to match your own foundation, concealer, blush, lipstick. It is all down to color theory. I know many of you have come to me and said "the girls at makeup counters always match me wrong!" but if YOU yourself know your skin type you wont have to waste so much money on different foundations you are matched to.

WARM UNDERTONES
You fall into this category when you have golden/olive or yellow tones. You can tell if you look under your wrist and your veins are mostly green.

COOL UNDERTONES
You fall into this category when you have beige or pink tones. If you look under your wrist your veins are mostly blue.

NEUTRAL
Those with no obvious tones of olive, yellow, or pink. People with this skin tone tend to have the easiest time finding foundation, concealer, and powders that are just right for them. If you look under your wrist your veins are a mixture of blue and green.

Contouring Powders

NARS CASINO - $38

ANASTASIA BEVERLY HILLS CONTOUR REFILLS - $14

MAKEUP FOREVER SCULPTING KIT - $48

SLEEK CONTOUR KIT - £6.49

If you use the warm tones and you have cool tones your face will end up looking really muddy. I use the warm tones on people with olive skin like Sonia. The warmth works well with tanned skin. If you are latina, middle eastern or indian this will work well -HOWEVER a lot of the times if you are much more fair the warm colors can look muddy.
Cool tones work well for Caucasian/European skin since it has pink under tones it will look very subtle and easy to work with. if you are fair skinned anyway the cool tones will work well. (i use the cool tones to contour with and I have swatches on my arm)

  As you can see the cool tones work better with my skin tone (the shades swatched are for different skin colors with the same undertone)
The warm colors are too orange for me and would end up looking muddy the more I blend them out and I would be left with a dirty looking face.

Using matte products to contour with is much more realistic looking than a shimmer. There are so many contour powders/bronzers out there but knowing your own skin tone helps a lot when choosing the right one for you.
When it comes to application, realize that whatever part of your face you apply contour to is going to recede visually, making the area next to it pop out. So you want to apply under your cheekbone (never on top), around your hairline and the outermost edge of your face, on either side of your nose (never the bridge), just under your nose (above the center of your top lip) and just under the center of your bottom lip. Do not veer from these areas of application and you'll be contouring just right. Going over your contour with a clean powder brush all over the face gives you a blended, seamless finish.

It can be pretty difficult to understand undertones at first but I tried my best and I really hoped it helped you. xxx Fyza

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Chantel Jeffries Makeup

As a lot of you know I was the make-up artist for Chantel Jeffries while she was in London. I had a great time working with her and she is such a sweet girl. Her face is a dream to work on and made my job a lot easier (haha!) I did a few looks on her and I thought I'd give product break downs of what I used for each look since I got so many questions.

This was the first look I did on Chantel "fresh off the jet" as she said xD
Because she was on such a long flight and had some puffiness around her eyes I prep'd her skin first. Skin is so important, even if I'm working with models I take care of their skin because they have to wear a lot for shoots. I used Eyebright Soothing Eye Lotion by Liz Earle, it instantly calms itchy, puffy eyes. For all over the face I used Embryolisse moisturiser and Too faced pore primer. I let all that sink into the skin before applying foundation.

Foundation - Makeup forever HD foundation in 153 Golden honey blended with a Beauty Blender. Using a beauty blender gives it more of the flawless airbrush finish and no brush strokes! For under eyes I used the Motives color perfection quad in light - reason I used a foundation because I feel as if concealers and highlight sticks oxidise under the eyes and end up looking cakey and gray after a while, so using the motives quad is much for blend-able. I used the darker quad for a cream contour and blended it all together with a beauty blender and setting it with Anastasia Beverly hills contour kit. I usually set the under eyes with a colorless loose powder.

The base is prepped for eye make-up and brows. Priming the eye area with too faced shadow insurance, starting with smoking out smoulder by mac on the lash line and BLENDING  it with cork by MAC not going past the brow bone. I did the same on the lower lash line using a Kiko mascara and added two pairs of Huda Beauty Giselle lashes for that extra drama. Cheek bone highlight is Laura Mercier Candle light and this blush is soo pretty I got it at Sephora in Madrid (pictures) For the lips I used 1C MUFE lip liner and I mixed Yash lipstick by MAC. (Setting your make-up with powder and a powder brush gives you the real life Photoshop finish)

SUNKISSED BRONZE NO3


The Summer Glow

This was my fave look to create 

I prepped the skin the same way except I didn't use the too faced primer, I used the MUFE HD primer (white)

I used MAC face and body foundation in C4 (Chantel's foundation and concealer colors are the exact same as Sonia's for all the people who ask about Sonia) I used Laura Mercier Secret Camouflage Concealer in SC4. Even though this is a dewy look we still have to set it with powder ALWAYS. without powder your make-up will be running and melting the first hour. I have to make sure every one's skin is set and prepared for all those flashes and lights. I powdered the skin the same way and added the glow later using Laura Mercier Candle light (I love loose powders to highlight when going for a dewy look) I contoured with Charlotte Tilbury Kit very lightly & used a cream blush by NARS called Enchanted.

Brows: Anastasia Beverly Hills brow wiz pencil in Brunette and brow powder in soft brown.

Eyes I lightly dusted gold and bronze colors from Urban Decay Naked palette (1), I curled Chantel's lashes with Kevyn Aucoin lash curler to prep them for individual Lashes by Huda Beauty in Alyssa coating them with L'Oreal carbon black mascara on top and bottom lashes.

Lip liner is Nutmeg by NYX with NUDE BALLET  Liquid Lipstick gloss  L'Oreal.

Vampy Lip

MUFE HD foundation, MAC pro Longwear concealer (it's not as thick has a cream or stick concealer)

I blended the concealer with a MAC 217 brush. Lashes are Huda Beauty Monique and I used Motives eye shadows to create a subtle cut crease and smoked out Onyx on lash line. NARS Orgasm Blush, Anastasia Beverly Hills to contour. Lip products were amazing and are not expensive at all

SEPHORA 09 PLEASANT PLUM

KIKO 12

I hope this answered your questions, I'm still trying to get the hang of blogging so be patient :)

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First Blog post!

So this is my first blog post and I have no idea how this all works. I actually was hiring someone to make everything for me because I literally have no clue about the layout or anything so I'm sorry if it looks quite boring. They said it will take about 4 weeks for production?! I didn't want to wait that long and I don't think the people that follow me would like to wait that long either. This is what we have for now....

I wanted my first post to be about becoming a Make-up Artist and advice for anyone out there who wants to become a Make-up artist. If it's really your passion you can do it! Being a make-up artist isn't just something someone does as a side job or just because it's a hobby, it is actually a job just like any other job that you should give your 100%. It may start off as a hobby and then built up to be your passion. I started make-up at around 14 years old but professionally at age 17 and if I told you the amount of knock backs I got you wouldn't believe! The knock backs got me frustrated but I never gave up, I carried on. When you have the passion for something and know you want to do it, don't let anything stop you, NEVER compare yourselves to others, you can aspire to be like another artist but don't say you're not good enough, practice, know your worth and just study it as much as you can.

Make-up is an art, it takes a lot of hard work to perfect, knowing the details such as skin color, shades, color theory, face shapes, eye shapes, nose shapes, there is so much. Often people are mistaken for surgery when it's actually MAKE UP! you can do anything with makeup but do remember make-up is not cosmetic surgery, it only enhances what is already there. I read a lot of books and spent a lot of my time at school in the art department. I practised make-up so much and I knew that's all I wanted to be, I wanted to be a celebrity make-up artist and do high fashion/catwalk shows because I was so inspired by fashion magazines my mum would buy.

I didn't let my age stop me, I was only 17 years old and I would take as many clients as I could, I worked with almost every skin color by the age of 19. Everyone would tell me to apply for a job at a makeup counter because anything I used I would sell it just like that to the client without having to speak about it. At 17 I applied to MAC and in the UK we have to go through a phone interview process (i still think this is so stupid!) it is a 10 minute interview where you just talk....i'm more of an artist so I didn't really like talking. there is 3 interview steps and I failed it, you could only apply once every 6 months and I failed the interview EVERY SINGLE TIME! what was I doing wrong? I studied the brand, I knew the products AND I knew how to apply. It was always a "unfortunately...." before the person would finish the sentence off over the phone, it got me so mad I literally wanted to cry "do they not know how much I love makeup and I want to do this every day!" I told my mum but my mum told me not to give up and that there's many more opportunities out there. I applied to a lot of brands but I couldn't apply more than twice a year because they were all under Estee Lauder. Eventually I realized that MAC here didn't care how good I was they just cared about selling so they don't hire an actual artist...more a retail assistant which killed the whole "MAKEUP ARTISTS COSMETICS" vibe. I WAS DONE with applying I had bigger plans and now I finally realize why I got all those knock backs, God had something better planned. I am living my dream, travelling the world, meeting people from different cultures and working on full day shoots where I get to express my self. I now think, working in retail would have been a prison for me, I wouldn't get to be as creative as I wanted to because I would be nagged at for not "reaching a sales target" I wouldn't be able to travel as often as I do, I wouldn't be able to hold seminars teaching other people what I know.

Please try your hardest if you are passionate about something, work hard to get where you want, be prepared for a lot of harsh words and knock backs because when you really want something you go get it. Practice as much as you can, upload your work on social media, continue reading books, going to seminars, spend money because it will be worth it and I am not just saying that.

I hope this story helped a lot of you and i'm sorry it was so long. I will post as much as i can xoxo Fyza

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