Necessary Beauty: Beauty School Diary

August 30th 2011

Yesterday was my first day at the Hair Design Centre where I will be basically following my dreams to become a certified makeup artist in the next 4 months which will in turn give me the tools to create my own makeup line one day soon. Some people think I am a little crazy for giving up my secure job as an Economist back home to move back to Halifax and pursue my dream. But I like being a little crazy, it makes you do things you never thought you would do. I also had a lot of people encouraging me to go ahead and do it, the most important one, my Mom. She is my biggest supporter and motivator and without her behind me I would not have done this. My close friends Mich, Kyla and J were also there for me and pushed me to do it. Kwame was also there telling me to do it and I need his artistic vision to help out. Mo will be my stylist for my photoshoots so I have a well rounded team :) The school seems to be the right place to be. The instruct
or seems very knowledge and down to earth and the class size is about 12 girls which I love cus its small. I get my kit on Saturday which I am excited to see and try all the products we get in it. I was told that of course the foundation selection for darker skin tones might not be the best but tha's why I am there to make it better for women of colour. I better go read this textbook. Yes there is a textbook, it's not just about practicing makeup its also about gaining knowledge about the profession I am about to enter into. Black Women- I am doing this for you!

August 31st 2011

Today I learnt we live in a world that is truly gross and depressing. I never really thought of how easy it is to get sick or spread germs till I learnt in bacteriology that 1500 bacteria can fit on a pin head or that you can get Hepatitis A once the drinking water is contaminated. I never thought how if I use a makeup brush and someone has a cold sore I can spread it to another person if I don't sanitize my brushes properly. Yes I learnt alot that made me think about germs lol. I think I am slowly becoming a germaphob now and will be carrying my hand sanitizer everywhere. I began feeling like I was coming down with something in class while the instructor was talking about the different types of bacteria lol The mind is a powerful thing because my throat started to get a bit scratchy but I know it was just in my head... hopefully. So now that I know how easy it is to contaminate everything I touch or put on someone's face as a makeup artist I am going to be so aware of how clean I keep my kit and my hands. On another note we get our kits on Saturday. Can't wait!

September 3rd 2011

Today we received our kits. There are so many goodies in it and I can't wait to use them all. We actually practiced a bit today about picking foundation shades and organizing our kits, cleaning and sanitizing our brushes using 99% alcohol. I think I got a little drunk just inhaling it today. lol . We applied foundation, concealer, powder and blush on our partners. I had Rebecca as my partner who in her normal life doesn't wear much makeup and was excited to learn about everything. She had great skin to work with, didn't need much foundation at all. So jealous. In class we would be putting on foundation first then concealer but I usually put my concealer on first then the foundation to set it so I will have to break my habit so I can do it properly in class. By the way these kits are huge and heavy. I am going to develop some muscles over the next 4 months in my arms. lol For the foundations, the darkest one had to be the one for me, there aren't many options for darker skin tones but my instructor already let us know and she is so on the ball that she even offered to find foundation for us to use in class. I mentioned to her that I would want to use black women as my models for the projects and she said that she would do what she could to help. I am looking forward to those projects. Already have tons of ideas. For our first assignment, we get to go shopping, we don't actually have to buy anything but its all about customer service. I think I picked the right school. lol . Next week Wednesday we get to get our eyebrows professionally waxed which means as of today I have to leave mine alone to get some growth, That is going to be hard! lol Here are some pics from today

Setting up my workstation

Rebecca after foundation

My school kit on the left and my regular personal kit on the right

September 8th 2011

Hey beauties, I am on my H&M high right now- got a few goodies on sale which is perfect for my student budget. I love H&M, other than Starbucks- its my other happy place :). So yesterday, which I thought was eyebrow shaping day turned out to be makeup application basics day. Eyebrow shaping day is on Saturday on which I also have a test on bacteriology. I have been officially growing out my brows for a week. Can you believe I have not tweezed in 7 days. I am having withdrawal symptoms but I hope the pro who comes to class to demonstrate does a good job for all of my hard work and dedication. Back to my day- I like Wednesdays cus it's the shortest day for classes. We did makeup on ourselves, we went for the natural look. The foundation and powder didn't look too bad when I tried it on and I did find a colour to do a neutral/ natural eye look on myelf but when it came to the lipsticks the closest thing to neutral for my lip colour was too pink or there was a gold. So I tried both and didnt really like any of them but it gives me the drive to want to create my own makeup line even more. On my way home I was thinking of how hard it is to find a nude lipstick for black women because we have so many variations in skin colour. I've found lipglosses that work well for the nude lip look but Ive never really found a lip colour that I loved. I decided to do some research on nude lipstick for black women. The women who I think rock this look the best are Nia Long, Gabrielle Union and Beyonce. Nia Long especially rocks the hell out of this look. I found two helpful blog posts that might help you find a nude lipstick if you are looking. I was also at MAC today and I tried Ruby Woo which is a really pretty red lipstick with a blue base but it is REALLY REALLY REALLY matte -almost too dry for me. Even tho I love matte lipsticks this one some how felt so dry on my lips but I love how it looks. I guess if I do get it I just have to get their lip primer also. On the upside its last really long and doesn't rub off easily like some other reds. Back to nudes so I saw their MAC me over posters where they did this black woman with a gorgeous chocolate complexion and she was rocking a nude lip which I loved. She was wearing Peachstock lipstick with Spite lipglass. I have to try it and see how it looks on me. So here are those blog posts on nude lips for black women. Check it out 1. http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Ffashionbombdaily.com%2F2010%2F04%2F27%2Fnude-lipstick-for-skin-of-color%2F&h=iAQDPHKYtAQBKxG4bzC_PzuGYLB0xfhUVADg4u2Iiz2y3NA

2. http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.afrobella.com%2F2009%2F04%2F21%2Fwhen-is-nude-not-nude%2F&h=qAQC82e1oAQDJWagulw51Z3z_fygGSMT5MIWKGWOy1QJwZA

September 10th 2011
Interesting part of the 8 hour day at school was watching most of the girls getting their eyebrows waxed. A few of them decided not to get theirs done as they only let one person do their brows EVA. I guess when you find a good esthetician, like a good hairdresser you hold on to them. Rebecca had never gotten her eyebrows waxed before so after watching everyone else do it, she decided to give it a try since everyone made it look so easy. I was sooo glad to get mine done, a week of growing out my brows was pretty hard- harder than I thought. LOL My instructor claims she is addicted to tweezing every day, well I think we might have the same addiction. I get obsessed with stray hairs even if they might not be that noticeable. I however do not mess with my shape, I have learnt valuable lessons from my teenage and early twenty that overtweezed brows don't look that great. I like the job Anna Marie did on my brows, although I think she ended up doing more tweezing than waxing. We also had to draw two identical brows on a piece of paper which was harder than I thought. I think it would be easier to do on someone I hope. We learnt the proper way an eyebrow should be shaped starting from the inner corner of the eye, the arch at the pupil and the tail/end at the furthest point of the outer corner. I remembered reading on one blog, where the blogger said eyebrows are sisters, not twins. This rings so true for my brows, my right one is bushier at the beginning and longer at the end than my left one but I try to make them look as even as possible when I am filling them in which we also did in class. Using our brow kits which I love, the tweezers are really good and the brow colour for my brow is really nice, a really good dark brown and it also comes with the wax which helps to tame those hairs that don't want to stay in place. I didn't get any pics of the waxing process because I forget my camera at home :( but I do have before and after shots of my brows.

September 12th

We spent the whole day doing makeup yay! Partnered up and did two looks on each other, a natural look and then we had to bump it up to evening with a smokey eye. I ended up doing a natural look on Kimmy and then an evening look on Lindsay. Smokey eyes are harder than I thought. I always do it on myself but its harder doing it on some one else.

Lindsay did both my natural and evening- I made her give me a red lip- lol of course.

September 14th

Perfecting Natural and Evening Makeup. I worked with Danielle who has the prettiest eyes. I decided to do a purple smokey eye to bring them out.