Work: Folio Shoot

A few days ago, I was contacted by my friend, Chinx Nunag, to do the makeup for her friend, Jeruel's, portfolio shoot. Since I didn't have anything to do and always enjoy the atmosphere of a shoot, no matter how simple or elaborate, I instantly agreed.

The peg was a dark smokey eye to accompany an androgynous wardrobe. Accompanied by the brilliant stylist and men's wear designer, Enzo Montano, we arrived at The Bulb Studios in Pasong Tamo at 1:00 in the afternoon.

Since Jeruel wanted all of the photos to be in black and white, I concentrated on contouring for Mafia's makeup. After applying a primer and foundation, I used a dark brown pigment to enhance Mafia's cheekbones and temples. I also used the same pigment to go around her jaw and contour her nose. To match the theme of androgyny, I used an angled brush and brow powder to shape her brow. By decreasing the arch of the eyebrow, it gives Mafia a more masculine appearance. 

For Mafia's eyes, I used  some gel liner and then smudged that all over the lid. I then went over it with a very dark shadow, took some of it under the eye as well, and then blended outwards while slowly building on the color. I left Mafia's lips alone in terms of color, but I did give them a nice coating of clear gloss. 

I don't have access to all of the photos yet, in fact the photo you see above was edited by Enzo, so when Jeruel releases them, I'll be sure to post them all on here.

Model: Mafia
Photographer: Jeruel Pingol
Hair: Adam Seth Teh
Styling: Enzo Montano
Makeup: Meg Mendoza

PS.

It hasn't been long since I started this blog so it kind of blows my mind that the blog has been viewed by 300 Filipinos, 190 Americans, 6 Russians, 1 Spaniard, 1 German and 1 Slovakian (is that the right way to say it?). Thank you so much for those that have taken the time to read and even more so to those that continue to check the blog.

KONY 2012 - Make Him Visible

Who are you to end a war? Well, who are you not to?

Hi guys,

Today's post isn't going to be anything about makeup, but I hope that you take the time to read and just be informed (if you aren't already) anyways.

I just watched a video on youtube a little earlier and couldn't help but be affected by what I watched. There is so many things that have gone wrong in the history of our world and, maybe I'm being idealistic here but I don't care, I just can't help but believe that if enough people cared to try and make a difference, we can prevent history from repeating itself. 

If you have heard anything about Uganda or the L.R.A. you may know that a lot of children are being taken from their homes with the girls forced to become sex slaves and the boys forced to kill and join an army. And all for what? For no other reason than to ensure Joseph Kony's retaining power in the African continent. I have to believe that if enough people can spread the word about this, that the government, and not just the American government, will take notice and assist in the bringing of Joseph Kony to justice. 

Please, just take thirty minutes to watch this video. I know it's long, but it's worth it.

By the way, I know there's a lot of controversy in terms of whether or not the Invisible Children organization is actually using all of the donated money for the cause. Let me just share how I feel about all this controversy:

Honestly, it's not about the money for me. It's about being able to get the word out, to bring attention to it, to make people want to make a change and make the world a (uh oh cliche here) better place. I like to believe that they do use the money for the cause. It costs money to make fliers, produce documentaries, to get the word out there. I like to think that the money is going towards the cause and just because you can't see all of it in the work done in Uganda, doesn't mean it isn't  being used properly to spread the word elsewhere.

Work: COSA's Limelight Event

Remember that fashion show I told you guys about? Well, it's over and boy was it an exciting, tiring and fulfilling experience. 

The gnarly truck bar at the events hall.

The Ateneo CoSA's Limelight was held at the Ford Autohaus in Fort Bonifacio last Saturday evening. I've never worked a show that was held in a car dealership before so it was a bit of a surprise walking in and out of the venue and seeing all these gorgeous cars. I have to admit, I wondered once or twice if it was smart to have the party there. People could get drunk and damage could have been done to the cars. Lucky, there were no problems.

Perhaps the only photo of me that evening since I was too busy to talk to anyone else.

This was actually a show that I did pro-bono as a favor to a good friend of mine, Martha Ignacio. Originally, the deal was that I, along with two other makeup artists, would work on nine models meaning three models per makeup artist. Josh Orbeta, I've mentioned him a fair amount of times now, also came to the event as the hair stylist. In the beginning, I felt bad for Josh because he would be working on nine girls and I only had to worry about three.

The modest kit I took with me. Didn't want to bring the whole thing and didn't think I would need to.

The tables were turned when the organizers informed me that the one of the makeup artists had backed out and the other makeup artist didn't have anything with her, only her hairstyling kit. Imagine my panic when it was past 6:00 call time, there were no models and I was the only one around to get nine of them made up by  9:30. To top it all off, I made the stupid mistake of wearing heeled boots thinking I would only be on my feet for a short while since I only had to worry about three girls.

Luckily, the number of models I had to worry about was cut down to seven since one girl didn't show up and the other already had her makeup done. However, I was asked by the host to do her makeup (I didn't have the heart to say no despite the pain in my feet) and Martha did ask me to fix her eyeliner (haha, thanks for the extra hassle dude).  I didn't have my camera with me and everything was so rushed that I didn't get a chance to take the kind of close up photos that I wanted to, but the event organizers were kind enough to provide me with photos of some of the girls.

Gai Pardilla

Gai was one of my favorite girls of the night. Gorgeous personality, gorgeous skin, gorgeous face, gorgeous hair, gorgeous everything. I also finally got to use the lightest shade of foundation I had in the kit I brought for her (that was really what got me excited over her actually because I hadn't had the chance to use that shade on ANYONE yet - I've had delusions of using it on my own skin but it doesn't turn out pretty...at all.)

Andrea Wong

Andrea Wong was another sweetheart in the bunch. She even went to my facebook page to thank me the day after the event which I really appreciated. I had worked with Andrea before when I asked her to model for the Ateneo Women's Week (AWW) culminating event: The V-Show. I wasn't doing makeup back then because I was too busy running the whole event, but I did wish I did makeup instead because the makeup team we had then trashed the ready rooms and totally overcharged for their poor quality services (never AGAIN!).

Alayne Maxino

Alayne was the first girl to show up at the venue and possibly the sweetest. I enjoyed talking to her while I treated her as my guinea pig since I didn't have a clear peg for the event other than bright lips. Perhaps the most stand-out thing about her was the way she ate awkwardly (poor girl was starving) just to avoid messing her lipstick up.

Kolleen Feria

I have to admit, when I first saw Kolleen walk through the curtain and into the room, I was a little worried because I knew for a fact that I didn't have a foundation for her skin tone in my kit. I was fresh out of the shade for her skin. Luckily, she told me she was anticipating the problem and brought her own foundation (Laura Mercier no less!), so thank you Kolleen, for being the most prepared girl in the room. We even used her lipstick from MAC.

I didn't stick around for the actual fashion show because I was dead tired, but I was happy with what I saw when the pictures from the event came out.

Model Maiqui Pineda

Model Leonora Virata

Model Patty Lloren

Model Andrea Wong

Hosts JJ Kaufman and Panjee Summer Lim

Thanks again to the Ateneo de Manila CoSA for having me at the event and to Martha Ignacio for inviting me to do the makeup. Thanks also to Matthew Lee for providing the photos and to the girls for being so nice and fun to talk to. 

Updates!

Hello everybody!

A lot of exciting things have been happening recently and it feels like life has spun into overdrive all of a sudden. Thank God I've got a seatbelt to harness me into place while this all goes down. I just wanted to let you all know that there are a few things for you to look forward to if you're a reader of the blog.

First, and I've talked about this before, the photos from Josh Orbeta's lookbook shoot are almost done! I can post photos from the shoot soon and let you all get a glimpse at the makeup that was done for that.

Second is another shoot. I was asked to be the makeup artist for a small editorial shoot just yesterday. The team was great and I made some new friends that I'll introduce to you guys when the photos come out.

And lastly, I was invited to be a makeup artist for a fashion show on Saturday hosted by COSA of the Ateneo de Manila University. Apparently there will be several makeup artists around to get the monumental job of fixing dozens of girls up for the show and I'm humbled to have been asked to be a part of what I'm sure will be a stellar team.


Now, just a thing I wanted to suggest you guys check out...

If you guys are into fashion, menswear in particular, I would definitely recommend that you visit the tumblr of my good friend, Enzo Montano. Enzo has taken part in the fashion shows for Lee during Philippine Fashion Week in 2010 and 2011 first as a designer and then as a mentor.  He has a lot of thoughts to share from his Gemini mind and I've gone to him many a time for fashion advice. 

Being a girl doesn't mean you can't be interested in menswear fashion! And remember, lots of women's wear is actually inspired by the looks found on the runways of mens wear fashion shows. 

Actually one more thing,  I added a flag counter to the page because in the stats page of blogspot I've just seen that I actually got some page views from Russia and Slovakia of all places (in addition to readers from the US and Philippines) of all places. Then I realized that the flag counter doesn't count visits from before it was put on the site so now it just looks kind of sad with two counts from the Philippines. Haha! Oh well, I hope that'll improve soon. :)