Wedding: Makeup artist research

Think I'll share generally my research based on my own requirements and preference. All the references to bridal makeup in this post includes hairdo too.

Makeup artist (MUA) ranges from the freelance, established, attached to bridal shops and students. Depending on your requirement, then only look around or google search for ideas and reviews to get a feel of what to ask. Reading up in wedding forums does help to give you contacts to get quotations and also reviews of other bride's own personal experiences.

Steps to be taken:

1. Total event/ makeup needed

- Determine if you need day makeup for the actual day i.e. for the typical Chinese "picking up" the bride or for a morning church wedding. Each "event" will cost differently. These days, some do not even opt to follow this tradition and jump straight to a simply dinner.

- Determine if you need makeup for only your dinner or you need them to stay back to touch up or even additional makeup/hairdo for a change of gown. Additional charges range from RM150-300 is added for staying back for the second gown. 

- Determine if you need MUA for your mother, sisters, relatives, bridesmaid, etc. Sometimes, you need to engage an additional MUA to cover these additional makeup.

2.  Budget

- As mentioned earlier, the price ranges depending on the skill of makeup artist, popularity and their own self-value. No rule of thumb as generally no bargaining but perhaps they will give you the option of 50% - 100% refund of trial makeup fees after confirmation of servics.

- Makeup trial: Obviously you need to have a makeup trial to make sure the MUA knows your preference and mainly, can make you prettier. ;) Some MUA charge extra for hairdo trial too. Generally, my one and only experience for a trial at a discounted rate, they ask what preference you like and colour of gown you will wear. (Quotation I've obtained range from RM100-200 plus). I decided not to go and try one by one... so I stuck with one and pray for the best!

- I've obtained quotation for RM300 - RM600 per session to date. I think I've gotten higher quotation but I disregard them totally because my budget for 2 sessions is below RM1,000.

- A thing to note, after I've engaged my makeup artist, sometimes is cheaper because they do not include accessories. My friend engaged a makeup artist for RM1,000 who included loan of accessories e.g. veil, necklaces, earrings, hair accessories. Some might request you pay a deposit to ensure you return their items. Ironically, I saved a few hundred which I ended up spending in buying the accessories.

- Don't forget to budget for the deposit payment. Usually you can pay the remaining on the day itself.

3. Type of Makeup and Hairdo

- For this, you have to find what you like yourself. I literally went through a few MUA's profile and galleries to get some ideas on what I would like. Many have also opted to sharing their sample work in Facebook.

- Makeup style: For day time, most people would opt for something more natural and neutral and then night time, you can go a bit more extreme if you dare. ;)

- Think carefully what is your concerns too e.g. mine is on my pores. So I did tell my MUA to pay extra effort to conceal this.

- Hairdos: I looked through from exaggerated with colour spray to demure bun. In the end, I opted for a tied-up hairdo with a veil and hopefully small tiara for my day hairdo. Night, I'm hoping for a side or back long hairdo without those fancy large "flower" hair accessories on my head - looks very peacock-ish to me even though it does look nice on many other brides.

 4. Location of MUA

My friend chose a MUA that is in the same town she is in. Most Klang Valley based MUA provides quotation without transportation or included. But if it is further where they are located, MUA will charge RM50-RM100 for transportation charges. Do consider that when you select one.

5. Location of event

For example, I'm having my wedding dinner in a restaurant. My MUA asked me the following:

a) Location of wedding dinner

b) Any room provided for the makeup/changing

c) Large mirror and sufficient lighting to makeup

d) Time the venue is open to determine the duration of makeup/hairdo

 Ideal makeup room

I know those smaller restaurants might only have a store room for you to makeup.. but do note bad lighting is not your MUA fault. So if you're hoping to look like a beautiful princess on your BIG day, do remember to ask this.

6. Sex of MUA

I know some might wonder why I wrote this specifically but there are good male MUA around too which I almost considered. But, what stopped me? I'm told MUA will also help you change into your gown. If you're shy like me, you would prefer a female MUA to help you out instead.

That is all roughly that I thought through and learned during my search for my bridal makeup artist.. while searching images for this post, I found another MUA with a decent package/pricing... *cries*... Oh well, no regrets. Push on and prepare to tick of the next to-do-item in the wedding preparation list. Wish me luck! :)

"Spring cleaning" my makeup brushes

After a hiatus of not attending wedding dinners and function, I sort of neglect my full set of makeup. Was rushing to makeup for a dinner last night and to my horror, all my mascara dried up except one. Lol

Then, when I came back, I realised my makeup eye remover is about to finish. Sigh... Too busy to work to take the time to doll myself up except the basics. I guess it "spring cleaning" my makeup will be the next task ahead.

Anyway, I felt bad for neglecting my poor brushes which will unintentionally harm my skin! I quickly gave them their bath this morning... ;) Here are my dear brushes being left out to dry like the laundry.

I love it that I've already found tools and the right "washing solution" for my brushes. I remembered previously reading about the synthetic brush bristle vs, natural brush bristle, what solutions to use, the best review for makeup brushes review, etc. Honestly, Bobbi Brown makeup remover was raved about then and when I decided to buy it - out of stock! Hmphh!

So in the end, I bought Make Up Forever Brush Cleanser and Johnson's baby conditioning shampoo as my HG cleaning tools.

Why 2 types?

The Make Up Forever Brush Cleanser is alchohol-based which I generally don't like the smell and avoid especially for skincare products. I only use this for hard-to-wash makeup eg my eye liner gel. I spray onto a tissue and use it to wipe my brushes. Sometimes, I spray into the white containers and dip the brushes longer to remove the remaining residue.

The rest gets treated like baby hair with Johnson's baby conditioning shampoo! ;) Obviously, the method is different: I pour a little baby shampoo into the container and fill it with water. Then I swirl my brush inside until it cleanses all the makeup as shown below. The water will change according to your makeup colour.

I swirl it the second time in clean water to make sure everything is out. The water should still be clear like this:

Notice how ideal the containers are for cleaning my brushes. The white containers were cover for some spray can or something which I kept.

A towel is important to wipe dry the brushes and to let it dry. Notice that I lay the brushes with the handles higher than the bristle to avoid the water to flow back to the handle just by rolling one end of the towel. The water can run down in to the ferrule and loosen the glue holding the brush together over time.

From left to right: Daily brushes: Elf powder brush as my daily blusher/powder brush, the Bobbi Brown eye brow brush, Events: Stila eye liner brush, BeautiControl powder brush (when I don't want to use same brush earlier), my portable brushes: small blusher brush (bought online), the faceshop eye brow brush, Elf professional eye shadow brush, eye shadow brush (I bought somewhere.. can't recall) and BeautiControl eye shadow brush.

Soon, my brushes will be fresh and clean; making my skin happy too!

And a final note, how often do we have to wash the makeup brushes? I think it varies with the usage. Makeup artist have to wash after every usage to avoid passing bacteria from one person to another. Some blogs and sites recommend once in 2 weeks. Some say they wipe clean it with bacteria-wipe then deep cleanse washing (like what I've just done) once a week or so. What about you?

Since I don't make up that often... I wash once in a month except for those I use all the time. Lol

Wedding Blues

Seriously, who said planning a wedding is simple?

Especially when you're on no budget... or more like, tight budget - saving enough to spend on the spot. No thanks to credit card; retailers love to allow you to charge to your card and pay in installments. Do you know anything that relates to the word "wedding" is a like a goldmine for you to make?!? After all, it's supposed to be once a lifetime.

So far, thank God, I only really felt the stress at one moment - selecting the makeup artist. You'll think it is simple but suddenly when you look at the price, you look at your budget, you look at the sample, you look at the trial make-up, you look into your heart to look prettiest on your wedding day... you get a headache.

Do you know how much it cost for one session of makeup and hairdo? Gosh.. when I heard RM1.2k for 2 sessions, I was stunned. True, it is for the makeup artist to earn but.. but.. with so much more to pay for.. weird enough, I got stingy.

I started googling and reading wedding forums for names. I e-mailed at least a dozen makeup artists to get quotations... nah only 6? Lol.. then I saw a promotion in one of those website to have a trial makeup for below RM50 to get half price promotion for the real day. I even went through websites and wedding pictures to get ideas on the type of hairdo or makeup I wanted to try out.

My mind was like "Yeah right... nothing comes cheap" then when I went, I found out it was because they send their junior makeup artist/ students to do it for you...

So in the end, how? I chose one and I wondered if I did the right one. It was in the middle range and I guess slightly lower than the market because no accessories will be loaned to you. :(

I might end up spending more to find my own accessories.. argh.. another item to do on the list.

In the meantime, I pray God will give me strength to slowly plan the little things to make me happy and hope the marriage grows stronger instead of disintegrating with the wedding blues.. :p

Or even worse.. Bridezilla? Nahh..

Pretty Sexy Beautiful Eyes Blogging Contest

I know I've not been blogging lately - my work is like a vampire! Sucking out my ideas and interest in touching a keyboard.

However, something has sparked my interest as I'm one of the lucky 30 who got chosen to enter Pretty Sexy Beautiful Eyes blogging contest!  Yay! Thank you MrLens Malaysia and Plusizekitten for organizing this contest!

What is this contest about?

Step 1:  Get chosen to review 2 boxes of Freshlook Colorblends Color Contact Lenses from MrLens.com.my (the sponsor of this contest)

- Wowweee! It's going to be my 2nd time using coloured contact lenses! ;) I was torn between getting grey coloured or amethyest... which did I choose? Stay tune!

Step 2: Order from the website: MrLens.com.my to get the trial lenses.

- So far, it's been easy-peasy as you have to create an account and select the items you want. Typically, check out the cart and payment. Then hope to get the lenses soon! ;) Will update next on the duration of delivery.

Step 3: Try out the lenses and blog a review about them. The best bloggers wins a Nikon Coolpix P300 worth over RM1k.... *oggless* Wish me luck!

Coincidentally, I have a dinner this weekend... best time to try out the lenses to match my dress? ;)

 ***
MrLens.com.my claims to deliver to you cheaply - fast - reliably! There seems to be lots of slashes on the prices. Best of all - free delivery to Klang Valley. There is a map which shows the area to qualify for free delivery. Variety seems there too... it'll be good to have such a convenient online retail selling contact lens. (that is if you already know the right prescription for your eyes) Will share my review in the next post.

Another thing to note, since MrLens.com.my is newly launched, it might be worth checking out their facebook for more promos e.g. sharing their wall to get RM50 shopping voucher at MrLens Malaysia!

Meanwhile, stay tune to see me try to cam-whore with my eyes. I know my eyes are not like those Bambi-doe eyes.. .but never know, you might get mesmerised by them after seeing them in another colour? Lol... wishful thinking...