Gore Galore!

Halloween looming has me thinking about gruesome gore.

I honestly don't know how I would do my job without one very specific makeup product: 3rd Degree. Its not glamorous or gorgeous but it is indispensable. Two jars are filled with different components of a silicone material that, when mixed together, gives a couple of minutes of working time before it sets up. You can apply it directly to skin to sculpt a wound, wart or whatever. Or you can put it in a mold to create a quick prosthetic appliance.

Want a scar like Frankenstein? Just mix equal parts of jars A and B with a small spatula and sculpt it onto the skin until it looks like what you want it to look like. Once its dry, powder it and then color it up with whatever color best suits your Franken-hue. Going as Phantom? Smear it on to half of your face with a spatula as you would cake batter, let it dry and then powder it with blush. Almost instant burn! Need a gash? Apply the 3rd degree as you would for a scar and then slice it open with your spatula or sculpting tool. Fill the gash with some fresh scab and some liquid blood and you are ready to gross out small children!

Which reminds me: there are also a plethora of different blood colors and textures out there on the market. There are bright red liquid bloods which are great on the show when we want the blood to look fresh and vibrant in a shadowy set. Dark liquid blood is great for a slightly less cartoony look, especially if the light on set is bright or our SVU victim is slightly less fresh. There is also a great great product from K.D. called Drying Blood Jelly that goes on and drips like liquid blood but then dries to that crusty, crackly dark brown red. There are eye bloods and mouth bloods and the gooeyest of all are the thick gel bloods called scab blood. The brighter one is great for adding texture to fresh wounds and a darker version can be applied and then powdered over with a brownish powder to give that "healed scab" look. Gross!

Alcone Cosmetics in NYC and Frends Beauty Supply in Lala have all the above and more to add gore to your holiday. Happy tricks and treats!

Halloween!

In this gloomy October weather, I feel the impending specter of Halloween. People constantly say "You must be so popular on Halloween" or ask "is Halloween your favorite holiday?". It has me thinking how much my job is like Halloween every day. (BTW, people find me more useful at weddings and children's birthday parties and my favorite holiday is my birthday.)
Every day that I work I see people in weird costumes eating candy (from the craft service snack table). Some days I come in and do beauty makeups, corpses in various states of disrepair, tattoos and bruises, a clown and a mime.

But in the spirit of Halloween, I wanted to give out treats of tips! Want to look like Marie Antoinette but can't figure out how to get the paleness/mole right? Thinking of going as Heidi Montag post-op and need some believeable bruising? Need a horrible looking wound and don't know how to make it look gory in 3-D? Send me your ideas/questions and we can come up with fabulous creative ideas together!

Expert Reviews

I am late on the band wagon for a great resource guide to the world of makeup and skin care product reviews.

Paula Begoun has a book that I have constantly passed by at the book store called Don't Go To The Cosmetics Counter Without Me. It always seemed like a losing proposition - a huge tome proposing to catalog the virtues and sins of every cosmetic on the market. With the speed that companies develop new product, the book is out of date before it goes to press!

WELL, last season Sharon Stone started reciting all these very informative insider facts she said she had learned them from Paula's book. E.g. Eye Cream is JUST regular cream in a smaller, more expensive jar. So I finally rushed to Amazon.com for the 8th edition of DGTTCCWOM.
It arrived and I pored over it. Her introduction and methods for testing are very interesting and honest. She is not wowed by packaging or marketing. Its: Does this product work or not?
Personally, I don't need as much help deciphering high and low quality makeup. I work with different products all day long and I can tell immediately if I like how an eyeshadow, foundation or lipstick applies and holds. What often does stymie me is skin care. The effect of a skin care product rather than a cosmetic is more often apparent after long term use.

Will the expensive eye cream fend off wrinkles 10 years down the road if I am consistent? Is it worth it to "invest" in your skin with an expensive night cream? Do the latest "it" ingredients really work better than Ponds Cold Cream or Noxema? Paula gets into the nitty gritty answering these types of questions. Often citing brands like Olay and Clinique as All-Stars and ripping skin care like Dior's for being overpriced, over fragranced and under ingrediented (that's now a word).

As I predicted, the book didn't have half of the product lines I use on a daily basis. However, this is the genius of her website. For an annual subscription fee, her website is continuously updated with pretty much every makeup and skin care line on the market. So if you are at the department store being tempted by a Dior creme for $275 that touts the rejuvenating effect of the whispers of fetal kittens, you can log on to her website, read the review, and then save yourself $275.

So, while I don't think the book is such a great investment, the website is something worth looking into if you, like me, find yourself susceptible to a shiny new jar of expensive miracle nothing.

Inner-Eye Concealer

So I've been thinking about how and why we use concealer. One of the deep issues of the ages.

Specifically what got me thinking was the phrase "under-eye concealer". When dealing with darkness, I would venture that 90% of the time we don't need concealer "under" the eye so much as in the outer and inner corner down into the orbital socket (the area created where your bone ends and your eye socket begins). That is where most darkness peeks through the thin, delicate skin.

The problem with the idea of "under eye" concealer, especially if you are using a concealer that is slightly lighter than your foundation, is that you get left with the dreaded Reverse Raccoon Effect. No one wants this!

I think using a brightening concealer is great, don't get me wrong. But ideally, you want to bring the fresh brightness to the center of your face. Not just UNDER your eyes. Highlight down below your orbital socket into the naso-labial folds. Add a dab between your eyebrows and in the middle of your chin. This creates a diamond of brightness to make your whole face sparkle! And maybe we should start a revolution to change "under eye concealer" to "inner eye concealer".

It could happen, right?

New Flavor Combo: Rosy Bronze

In honor of the end of summer, I am clinging to what minimal color I have attained. I would never go so far as to call myself "tan" but more of a "pale-but-less-so-than-in-February" sort of hue. When I get color, however, I don't go bronze. More of a rosy freckling occurs. So, while applying a bronzer can give that warm, beachy glow, a more natural look on a fair complexion is actually a combination of pink and bronze. Sometimes you want to look like a day at the beach, not J-Lo.
Enter my new favorite flavor combination: pink blush combined with a bronzer. My skin is very fair and very dry so a liquid blush/bronzer combo works better for me. I love the dewy effect that the revlon face illuminator in Gold Light gives. And the combination with Benefit Posie Tint gives a natural sunkissed flush. Or you could use Tarte Bronze Goddess cheek stain with Benetint. Or if you want a powder instead, Benefit Dallas is a great beige/pink/bronze all in one, which is hard to find.
The combo is also a great look on lips. Stick with a pink stain and layer a bronze-y gloss on top. So mix away, slick on some mascara and don't you look ready for Labor Day!

Sunscreen Update!

A word about sunscreen...again.

So you all know what an SPF nut I am. Protecting my face and Leather Bib from further sun damage is a daily task I began too late. And I have my fave sunscreens that I have told you about already. I even remember looking askance at a particularly leathery older actor whose response when I offered him sunscreen was "I don't put that poison on my face. It gives you cancer." This was several weeks after I had just had a pre-cancerous freckle-gone-awry removed from my very un-tan lower back.

But I have been catching wind of research that calls out some nefarious ingredients in the vast majority of sunscreens on the market. Namely oxybenzone, a possible hormone disrupting compound that enters your bloodstream, and a form of Vitamin A called retinyl palmitate that the FDA is testing as a photocarcinogen. SCARY. Something to do with "they protect you from sun-burning UVB rays but allow or even aid UVA radiation".

There might also be some SPF # shenanigans going on as well. Specifically that companies are lulling us into a false sense of sun-protection with their uber-high SPF numbers but what they don't say is that you need to apply a quarter of the bottle to achieve SPF 100. The amount we are probably putting on is giving us an SPF of about 3.2. My rule of thumb is that nothing protects past 15 anyway if you are out in the sun.

So, as I am neither scientist nor doctor, I will not attest to the supreme legitimacy of this info. But CLICK HERE for the link to the Environmental Working Group website that scared the pants off me. There are also some very legitimate rebuttals from scientists at Memorial Sloan Kettering and reported in the Huffington Post. I say look at both sides of the story and decide for yourself.

Back to work: Full Time

Back to work!
So I'm back! SVU has started production back up for Season 12. I can't believe it. I started at this show as the temporary make-up assistant Season 7. It is such a gift in this business to have a job with a little steadiness but its also crazy to think that this'll be my 6th season!
So even though I have been doing these character makeups for years, as I've said before, its important not to get stuck in a rut. I am constantly changing products, techniques and strategies so that I don't become complacent and start to lose sight of what I am trying to achieve with their look.
That being said, here are the items that I have tried to switch up and have never been able to get away from when doing "Benson Makeup". Call them the Cher items in my makeup bag, because they will never go away:

YSL touche eclat #3 in combo with Cle du Peau concealer in ocher. If someone knows of a better concealer duo for olive skin, I'd like them to tell me. Its bright and radiant and covers anything. It is a combo established by my predecessors and is not to be forsaken.

La Mer Eye Concentrate. I once ran out of this for a day and tried to use something else with out admitting my delinquency. Oh no. Never again.

Benefit F.Y.Eye. My big fear right now is that I think they have discontinued this. I ran out of my last jar and tried another eyeshadow primer. My eye makeups have to last for 14 hours people! Through rain, sleet and snow! (Or in this month's case: Heat!) It was immediately apparent that the new primer wasn't up to the task. LUCKILY Mariska had a jar stashed away and I raided her supply. I am in a panic about running out. F.Y.Eye, please don't leave me! I can't do it without you!

So those are my immortal beloveds. Nothing else will do.

Impromtattoo

As any of my fellow makeup artists in TV will attest, sometimes we don't always get time to prepare as thoroughly as we'd like. For example, I often get the shooting script the day before we begin filming the episode. The lack of lead-time means we often have to be creative and crafty. Before the first episode of the season, I have to load my equipment into my camper, set up the makeup room, make sure our supplies are stocked and...oh yeah, the script calls for specialty contact lenses and extensive tattoos. And I have one day to get it all ready because they all play first thing on the first day!
For the lenses, I take the actor to Studio Optics at Rockefeller Center. They can make anything from a standard colored contact to a full eyeball burst capillary lens. And luckily, they make it snappy.
The tattoos, however, were trickier. There are several ways to go about tattoos and ideally you have the time and budget to plan, design and test an SFX makeup like that. If they play frequently or if the tattoo is just a single image, a transfer or a stencil is the easiest, fastest way to go. Slap it on, spend a minute or two refining the image, and you're done! But, as I mentioned, that takes time to find/buy or design the transfer or stencil. While I keep a stash of tattoo transfers around for emergencies, the director specifically requested sleeve-style tats - and those have to be custom designed. Because I didn't have lead-time for that, my options were limited to free-hand drawing if I wanted it to look legit. So off to Google I went to find inspirational designs. Free-hand drawing is not my gift, however, so this is a much more difficult option for me. And since it played on two separate days, I had to do it twice! In the end, I used a combination of K.D. 151 Tattoo Pens and Skin Illustrator palettes - both alcohol based paints which don't smudge once they dry, and it seems to have turned out well. After the first day, I mapped the design of the tattoos on her arms on tracing paper, aligning it with certain freckles and moles so I had landmarks for the next time. But I was sweating bullets before each time I had to do it. So hopefully next time I'll have more of a chance to prepare. But where's the fun in that?

Luggage

So the issue I am possibly most frequently confronted with has to do with the situation going on under our eyes. It's either darkness or puffiness. Sometimes both! What to do?
My mother-in-law recently asked me to write a blog about this and it made me nervous. It is an age old issue. "How do I get rid of my under eye bags?" It is trickier than dealing with under eye darkness because that is easily remedied with a good highlighter (YSL Touche Eclat, Armani Master Corrector). Bags are a whole different conundrum because the issue is more 3-D than color correction. And solving it often takes more than a swipe of eye cream and a sweep of concealer. The old cool cucumber trick does actually help reduce puffiness from crying/waking up too early/too much salt. But you have to sit there like a diva for minutes. Likewise, there are several patches on the market that you put on under your eyes and let the magic potions on them work their, um, magic. The one that Catherine Keener introduced me to is called Skyn Iceland Hydro Cool Firming Eye Gels. I don't know if its the hydrolyzed elastin, acetyl hexapeptide, or the ginko biloba, but it really does seem to help in the mornings when I have someone sitting in my chair that needs that help. (And if you think I know what any of those ingredients actually do, you are sweet and kind.) The patches, however, are $45 for 6 pairs so you have to really want those bags away sooner than later.
My sister-in-law asked me how I felt Preparation-H works, and I had to say "I dunno!". So that is something I am going to have to road test. Warning: she did mention that she HAD tried the Prep-H Gel and that most certainly did NOT decrease puffiness and only left a film of hemorrhoid cream under her eyes. The Glamour Quotient there is exactly O.O
The one thing I will say is that these treatments only help temporary puffiness. If you watched The Notebook and fell asleep crying or ate dinner at a certain fabulous sushi restaurant in TriBeCa and the next morning couldn't even get your engagement ring on let alone fully open your lids due to sodium intake (that might've been me), these methods will help.
But if you are permanently carrying around a piece of luggage under your eyeballs, then it might be fatty deposits that no cosmetic or skin care item will really solve. It IS solvable, however, and is something you can talk to your dermatologist about.
Now come on. Someone must have some hemorrhoid cream stories!

Back to work: Commercial Style

Two days last week I did a commercial with my friends Dina, a fellow makeup artist and my boss for those 2 days, and Sherry, a lovely and talented hair stylist. I hadn't woken up at 5am for work in 2 months! I also haven't worked on a commercial in about 4 years.
Commercials are a very different vibe from tv/film production. If movies sometimes feel like high school with money, commercials feel more like a corporate board meeting. I'm not sure why. What I like about the picture above is that all the guys are wearing the same exact thing! Like a corporate uniform of brim hats, plaid shirts and cargo shorts.
But it was fun to get back to doing faces! The look on this particular commercial is, as the director put it "Stealth Makeup". The makeup had to look so natural, it couldn't be detected. It can't just look good on camera, it had to look like nothing to the naked eye. So that was a fun challenge - do skin-perfecting makeup that looks like you didn't do anything.
After about an hour and a half of putting the actors through hair and makeup, the three of us from HMU (Hair & Makeup) sat in the sunshine on location in suburban Long Island for the next 10 hours. Occasionally we made sure that people's brows weren't sweaty and that they had enough sunscreen. (Sometimes, during the summer, that is what being a makeup artist becomes: professional sweat mopper/sunscreen applicator. It makes my dad feel very happy he spent a lot of money on my private liberal arts college degree.) It was rough, people. Rough and glamorous.

Lipstains Continued: Josie Maran & Returning to Work

Just an update after yesterday's blog on lip stains:
Full Disclosure...I am a lip-licker. I have been accused of this by my friend Liz who can put on lipstick and it is still on 4 hours later. That is never gonna happen for me. I bite and lick my lips on an unconciously regular basis. So that is another reason, in addition to being a bright, sheer summery look, why stains work for me. But my habits have been known to take down even the most sincere attempts at tinting my lips. If a lipcolor can last the length of a subway ride, it gets a C+. If it lasts the whole commute and an extra hour, B+. If it can last past a cocktail, A.
Yesterday, I wore Josie Maran's Magic Marker lip stain in Mambo to my sister in law's apartment. It indeed lasted the entire commute and after checking on it post-glass-of-wine, there was still a little bit left although much faded. So I give it an A- for effort. The color was beautiful and it wasn't sticky or drying.

On a completely different note, I am getting ready to head back into work at SVU. It seems that we will be moving stages from our 11-year home base in glamorous North Bergen, NJ to the old Mothership Law & Order stages at Chelsea Piers. It should be different and interesting to shake it up, so we'll see! And it will for sure save on bridge and tunnel tolls - for me at least!
It is interesting, however, how used to having down time I can get. When you do movies for a living, as opposed to TV, they tend to be shorter periods of work and then shorter periods of downtime. That downtime, however, is fraught with the anxiety of "finding the next job!". Our show crew works 10 months straight of 15 hour days and then we get a substantial break. Because we have the show to go back to (for now) it decreases the anxiety of losing one job and having to go find another every few months. Especially in this economy, that is a real gift. But going from being able to see family, friends, movies, and museums to work work work is an adjustment! So I am trying to get into a work frame of mind...I'm even doing a commercial with my friend Dina this week to get my head back in the game. I'll keep you posted.

Ok, anyone reading have some lip stain advice for the rest of us?

Summer Swelter

So I was asked recently what a girl is to do, makeup-wise, in this heat! It is humid and sticky and, while I personally believe that it gives you that dewey glow that we are always trying to achieve, sometimes I understand, you want glow and makeup to not melt off your face.
My main two ideas to beat this heat are:
1.) Use less! Instead of my winter routine of rich creme, sunblock and foundation, I put those on the shelf and bust out the tinted moisturizer with spf. I have praised the La Mer SPF 18 Fluid Tint
but if you want a less costly option, buy a squeeze tube from Duane Reade, put a little bit of whatever L'Oreal True Match base matches you, and mix it with Oil of Olay Complete Defense Daily UV Lotion with SPF 30. (Olay has some of the absolute best bang for your buck and this particular version is a light, daily summer style lotion.) By cutting back on your products, you will feel cleaner and the makeup has more room to absorb.

2.) Stains! Makeup does not mean foundation alone. If you want color but want it to stay where you put it, consider a stain. I am a big fan because it makes bright colors wearable but because they are sheer, they don't make your cheeks or lips look like they are SCREAMING for attention. I love love love love love the Tarte cheekstains, as I am sure I have written. The colors are great and they really do last on the cheeks. And I likewise love Benetint and Poseytint. Especially in combination. Now I am on the hunt for the best lip stains. While the colors in the new Covergirl Outlast Lipstains are fun (and those ads with Drew are gorgeous), they do not outlast anything. Soooooo, I recently invested in a slew of new lipstains and I will be reporting back to you about which do what best.
The ones I bought are:
Josie Maran Magic Marker in Mambo
Tokidoki Fantastico Lip Ink (I had never heard of it but love the silliness, so lets see!) in Cactus Friends
Tarte (I know, I know, why don't I just marry Tarte) Lipstain Pencil in Joy
Benetint PocketPal

So I will wear one every day this week and see how they do. Ill keep you posted. Stay Fresh!

Eyes First

So sometimes, when I am doing someone's makeup for the first time, I get about 10 minutes in and they nervously ask "Did you forget to put any foundation or concealer on me?"
No Silly! I always start with the eyes. Remember those beauty magazine articles that told us to put a heavy application of loose powder under the eyes to protect your perfectly applied concealer from any falling eyeshadow? Just sweep it, and any stray shadow, away! Yeah right, and why don't you just put an age-stipple under there too while you're at it.
Why have we been told to do our concealer BEFORE our eye makeup?? A lot of makeup artists I know do the same thing: EYES FIRST yes, its nice to have a clean canvas of perfectly primed skin to start from, but it won't stay that way once that new Burburry Khaki eyeshadow has fallen where you didn't mean it to. Eyes First allows me to really get in there and do what I need to do on the lid and underneath the eye, stick a swab in a bottle of Lancome eye makeup remover (yes, its the best), and sweep up where makeup is not meant to be.
Sometimes, when doing my own face, I will do whatever eye makeup I plan on wearing before I have even moisturized. In the sticky, hot humidity that is Summer in NYC, I have trouble pulling my eyelid taught in order to put on eyeliner if I already have sunscreen on my face and hands. Conversely, if doing makeup on a client, I moisturize first and the time it takes for me to do their eyes has allowed the moisturizer to soak in.
Voila! Perfectly perfect eyes and no concealer re-do.

Spritz!

In this weather, we could all use some refreshment. I know it might all seem like fancy, overpriced water, but I love a good spritz. After a long day in the sun, hours on a plane, or 14 hours in a sound stage in NJ, a refreshing spray of mist can wake up your makeup, open your eyes, soothe your skin, and relax your nerves. All that from a bottle of over-priced water!

The most ubiquitous in the biz that can be used from everything to wetting a cake eyeliner to applying fake sweat (when combined with glycerin) to cooling an actor down is the Evian spray. This is, literally, water in a can. But the genius behind the marketing ploy is that it disperses the mist in a fine, gentle spray - so different from a hose to the face.

Dermalogica has several toners in spritz form but I love the Soothing Protection Spray because it smells delicious and, as I mentioned in Double Duty, completely refreshes your makeup and gives a dewey glow.

Caudalie Beauty Elixer and Shu Uemura Depsea Water Facial Mist (I spelled it right, its Depsea) are another two favorites and during a heatwave, there is nothing better. They smell great, hydrate, and are also really helpful when an actor has unseasonal wardrobe to prevent them from passing out or to make an actor feel cared for after s/he has taken off their makeup.

Refreshing! Couldn't we all use a little bit of refreshment right now?

Continuing Education

So, last week I took an advanced airbrushing seminar at Kett Studios, and as they warned me, it kicked my butt. I do have an airbrush and I do know that it could be useful...did that mean I used it? Um, no, it did not. But SVU is on hiatus currently and so I used some of my free time to improve my skills with the airbrush. Let me tell you, it was harder than I thought it would be!

Airbrush makeup can be used to many results. For beauty, it is a technique to give a smooth, even and minimal application of foundation/contour/what have you. The micro-droplets of foundation float from the gun through the air and disperse themselves, settling gently and evenly on your skin. You know, that "airbrushed" look!
While I was there to learn that, I was particularly interested in learning some of the less pretty aspects of airbrushing: veining for corpse makeups, creation of freckles/sun damage/age spots, covering large surface areas with makeup quickly, and tattoo covering (Sheila, one of the artist/instructors/Kett founders, utterly vanished a tattoo, armed only with a knowledge of color theory, some amazing foundations and her airbrush).
Even the retail beauty industry is trying to market it for personal use at home as evidenced by this New York Times article.

The class began with a demo where Roque, my other artist/instructor/founder, did a full beauty makeup combining traditional makeup techniques with airbrush, all the while explaining how to control the gun and application. It seemed so easy!

Then onto learning the "dash and dot" technique - methods to control the dispersion of the makeup from the gun. You can't just hold that gun up and shoot! Once we had some control, it was on to face charts. Again, Roque demonstrated...piece of cake! Um, not so much: as evidenced by some of my earlier charts (see above), it is gonna take me a few more days (weeks? months??) to get those techniques down comfortably. Airbrushing skin tone makeup on skin is more forgiving than onto white paper. It really let me see when I was getting it right and when I had done that chart wrong.

Just when I was beginning to feel like a total hack, we moved onto doing actual makeup on one another. There was only one other makeup artist in the seminar with me and we both got a little more confident once we got going.

All and all, it is a skill that has a wide range of uses which I am very interested in continuing to develop and I really enjoyed the class. It also taught me that it is OK to not know everything - someone else might know it and might be willing to teach it to you!

Thanks Kett!

Fave Sunscreens!

I know, I know: it has been hot. If you are like me, you are basking in it. If you are like my Cleveland-bred husband, you are sweltering. But let me tell you how glowing your skin looks in the humidity! Who needs product when the air itself provides you with that dewy glow!

The glorious weather has gotten me thinking about something very specific: Sunscreen. I try to wear it every day now that I am no spring chicken anymore. And not just on my face. Dont neglect what my friends and I call "The Leather Bib" - you know, that area of your chest that is often exposed by an open collar or t-shirt? That gets as much sun as anything and I regret I wasn't more vigilant sooner.

But there are so many different types out there. There are the 80's style zinc based sunscreens which are still adorable on the tips of little kids noses but maybe not for the chic, sophisticated Pigment Reader. Sunscreens with Titanium Dioxide and Zinc Oxides, however, are great for sensitive skin even if it takes a little more effort to rub in. They are also the main sunblock in any foundation that has SPF. Dermalogica makes a great one called Super Sensitive Faceblock.

Then there are ingredients like Helioplex, Cell-OX Shield, which are in the new high SPF sunscreens like La Roche-Posay Anthelios and Neutrogena lines - two of my faves for their ease of application and high protection.

Then there are fabulous makeup sunscreens like La Mer's The SPF 18 Fluid Tint that my makeup artist friend Dina introduced me to. It gives sheer, but very effective, dewy coverage, and takes care of your sunscreen needs. Even on the leather bib! Or, if you love your foundation and want to SPF it up, add a little bit of Dermalogica's Solar Defense Booster and you are all set!

Word to the wise, however, no sunscreen gives the level of protection that you think you are getting because we generally don't put enough on. So don't necessarily count on that SPF 70+ to keep you protected for 3 days straight. I carry a little bottle around with me at all times - the sprays or the little sample bottles are great for this - just so I don't give my Dermatologist a reason to chastise me!

Have Safe Sun!

Weddings

Now I would not call myself a Wedding Makeup Artist, but chances are, if I like you and I am invited to your wedding, I am going to offer to do your makeup - like it or not. (And I won't take it personally if you say, "no thanks") When it is a friend or family member, its a great chance to spend time with the bride on her biggest day and (hopefully) help make her feel relaxed and beautiful.
Unless the bride has a specific idea in mind, I tend to go for the "You Only Better" look, as my sister coined it. The groom wants to recognize whoever is charging down the aisle at him so the look shouldn't be drastically different from everyday. I like to smooth out and polish up the skin, pop the lashline as much as possible and only use waterproof mascara. No matter how much the bride swears she isn't gonna cry. A stain under any non-sticky gloss helps keep lips tinted even after the groom ruins the shine. I particularly like the Tarte Rise and Shine plumping lip stain and gloss duo.
If the wedding has a particular aesthetic - for example a friend's recent wedding had a distinct 30's flavor - add something to tie the look in, like a distinct smudgy eyeline. But in general, if your bride wears little makeup regularly, you don't want to throw a dark lipstick and smoky eye on her.

Don't Be Nervous!

A Makeup Artist should not only be able to do makeup on a face like their own.

I am always surprised, as a white woman in her 20's, when a non-white or mature client responds with pleasant surprise that I was able to do a makeup on them that they felt comfortable in. I wouldn't be much of an artist if I only knew how to do makeup on white women in their 20's, would I?

That being said, there are some common mistakes that I've witnessed with doing deeper skin tones and more mature skin, which gives reason to aforementioned nervousness.

Not having the right base for a black/south asian/mediterranean complexion will throw off the whole face, possibly leaving you with an ashy or orange subject. NG.
Many cosmetics companies aren't jumping to include a diverse color range in their bases but RCMA has a shade for ANYONE. You can even mix a shade if need be. There is no excuse for a Makeup Artist to not have makeup that works on any potential client.
Another product in particular that my 2nd in command at SVU introduced me to and that works for anyone is the Kett Sett No-Color setting powder. I looked at her like she was insane when she took it out to set a particularly dark toned actress's face - the powder is as white as newly fallen snow. But it blends into nothingness and sets like nobody's business. From Karen Elson to Alec Wek.

With a more mature face, you want everything to look soft, smooth and lifted. (And bring those lashes back) You want everything to point up. And using products that are too sparkly will enhance crepe-y or wrinkled skin and only serves to highlight signs of age. Eyeshadow with a soft, subtle shimmer (Shu Uemura and Lorac are good for this) work well to blend and soften lids. Think Vaseline on the lens.

Two Tones?

I am not trying to get you to buy more products, I swear. But maybe consider 2 shades of base?
Observing people's natural pigment patterns has led me to adapt a technique for really highbeaming the features on a face. Many of my darker-hued actors have several different tones in their face: the hairline and periphery is noticeably darker than the center of their face. We love this. We want to keep this but scrub it up so it is shiny and gorg.
Subtly accentuating - or even creating - this feature, with highlights and contours, is a fabulous way to bring focus, warmth and brightness to a person. Its like shining a youthful spotlight in the middle of the face.
On a lighter skin tone, I might match the base to their skin and then use a highlighter (like YSL Touche Eclat) from the inner corner of the eye, down the side of the nose and blend it out to the apples of the cheeks.
On a darker complexion, I might use two bases - a lighter one for the center of the face and darker shade for the periphery, and then use a deep bronzer around the edge of the face and on the bridge of the nose.
It is such an easy but very effective way to make you look like YOU! Only Better!