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.