M'dame Deux Chats Academy du gorgeux .. #1

I have comminsioned the world reknowned beauty guru Madame Deux Chats to write us some regular ' top tips '.

Here is her first piece of advice - you'd be MAD to ignore it..

" Who needs Botox dahlinks! Ive been travelling the Lancashire moors whilst on my vacacione en Ingleterre.. and I have discovered that if you stand for 15 minutes facing into a North wind , on the top of a high peak, such as Rivington Pike, the face lifting effects are amazing! and so natural! No need for needles sweedies! All that fresh air and G-Force will blow your skin back so tight it will not be able to re-sag for AT least 3 months , and the Lancastrian precipitation of fell water in the clouds will be like the words most expensive facial!! "

Wise words Madame! see you next month :)

taster course - One student!

Hahaha! so ONE whole student came to my taster course in media make up! better than none I suppose! He was a magician and he was quite happy for me to run through some basics of stage make up illusions ( ie thin face / fat face ) , but really he wants a bespoke lesson for his own magician make up at some point, and some help in buying products - so we are going to arrange a bespoke ' shopping trip ' lesson to help him spend some money on the make up counter! Abracadabra Alacazam ... and as if by magic he will have Intense David Blaine Eyebrows :) Shazzzaaaaaaaaam !!!!

animal testing and Estee Lauder

If anyone wants to read this email conversation that I had with the head office at Smashbox, please do! and feel free to get involved and send any Estee Lauder brands emails about this subject, if you feel as strongly about cosmetic testing as I do - ie - It should have been COMPLETELY stopped years ago - there seems to be a lot of grey areas and ' legal' loopholes that still keep this cruel practice gong, and all in the name of vanity and profit - its disgusting! and as a make up artist I dont want to think that he products I use have caused any suffering to any animals. There is really no need. My issue with Smashbox is that they print the cruelty free bunny logo on their products, but as they are now owned by E.L , this is quite contradictory.. if you read the email, you'll see why. RANT OVER!

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?created&&note_id=215870341790461

Illamasqua skin base

So this new wonder foundation has just been released on sale in the UK - I had to try it out because of its self proffesssed fantasticness, and also its HD quality and cruelty free-ness..and Im glad to say its fab! Well this is me testing my shade out on me in a normal daytime situation - I have yet to test it out 'on camera' but this week ill get a chance to do just that - I worked with one of the ordinary Illamasqua liquid foundations on a shoot at the weekend and found them to dry on the skin way too quickly under warm conditions, on certain dry / combination skin types, making blending difficult, but this one seems much more ' elastic ' and gives fantastic coverage, which is sheer and dewey, and can be made less heavy by blending out with a damp sponge after application. Quite pricey unless you can get industry discount, so go and get your perfect shade match at the counter, or find someone with ' contacts sweedie' to get you 40% off! If it stands up to HD camera action I will be getting a few more shades to blend. But Ive also got some VERY exciting OCC airbrush shades on their way to test out ( without an airbrush) ... so Ill report back on them soon - Agent Tukatski over and out.