face on, face off

some of you have asked for more posts on make-up and beauty. i think the best way to start with these kinds of posts is to tell you about the products i use on daily basis. these are pretty much the essentials that i have in my make-up bag at all times (when i do in fact have my make-up bag with me). having modelled for the past 10 years (yes it has been THAT long) i picked up a couple of pointers from artists as well as other models. this is not to say that i am some kind of authority on this, because i don’t think i will ever stop learning, all products work differently for everyone so by the time that i find the ones that work perfectly for me a lot of time may pass. i also don’t use make-up as a regular routine, having loads of it caked on for jobs i try to stay away from it on daily basis and let my skin breathe as much as i can. i don’t, however, ever leave the house without pink cheeks….

there was a time where i would actually apply every and any kind of makeup on my face with my fingers. i was 17 and i was too cheap to buy brushes. since discovering what a brush can do (and how clean my hands can be throughout the whole make-up application ordeal) i have not used my fingers again. my 4 favourites are the angled brow brush (alicja told me that polish people have sparse eye brows and i really started noticing that mine are not as full as i used to think them to be, so the best way to fill them in is with some dark brown eye shadow, rob makes fun of me for looking like oscar the grouch when i fill them in but i can’t help it, it has become an insecurity of mine),  the blending brush, the fibre brush (that’s the one with the white tip) for cream blush from mac, which is also on my list of favourite things and the short stubby kabuki brush (for bronzer). i am obsessed with eyeliner on the water line, no matter what anyone tells you, the ONLY way to wear eyeliner is on the inside, the outside eyeliner makes your eyes look smaller and rounder and is reserved for those who simply don’t know how to do it otherwise. trust me i’ve had some hideous make-up applied to my face in the past. a really good trick to make your eyes look bigger too is to wear white eyeliner, it may sound weird but it looks really great (i learned that one from hilary duff of all people). mascara? to me they are all the same, i usually opt out for the cheap drugstore kind just because rumour has it that you have to replace your mascara every six months, and i have never used up a whole mascara, ever, so, being the packaging whore that i am i reserve the pleasure of testing out different mascaras every time, so far maybelline and cover girl have been my favourites. red lips of course (my new found obsession is the coco rouge by chanel but the nars lip pencil is AMAZING, it’s perfectly matte and it lasts forever). of course i never leave the house without lip balm of one sort or another. i love the rosebud packaging but lip medex will do just fine. as you may have noticed i didn’t include foundation in any of this. i am a big proponent of no foundation. i feel that is one of the primary reasons girls get oily skin, that leads to zits. i think women use foundation just because they feel it has to be part of a make-up routine, celebrities do it right? news flash! celebrities are surrounded by lights and camera flashes most of their professional careers. but if you don’t have anything to cover up why bother? foundation does nothing good for your skin, and the older you get it even increases the appearance of wrinkles, who knew you could actually look older when wearing makeup (and not in a good way).

as far as hair care, i can most definitely not be held responsible for giving you any kind of advice here. i have put my poor hair under so much stress it hated me till the day i finally cut off 3 inches of dead ends (which was about a week ago). i experimented with hair colour for the first time in high school, then i let my hair be coloured purple, blond, red and everything in between. it has been dyed, fried and burnt. what a mess i’ve made.  i hope to one day return it to it’s original, healthy state but i’m afraid this is a vicious cycle that will be hard to break. i heard all kinds of wives tales about putting egg in your hair to make it stronger or to shave it off to make it thicker, but who is going to go to those extremes? not me. i am not a huge fan of salon products. before i bleached my hair to the bone i liked using drug store brands (my favourite was the 2 in 1 shampoo/conditioner kind, and i never EVER had to blow dry it to make it look like anything). all of a sudden my hair routine became an ordeal of epic proportions. shampoo, condition for 10 minutes, rinse, towel dry, apply mending formula, blow dry, straighten, brush, spray… urgh. bumble and bumble is my favourite salon brand, they are cool and smell delicious so i don’t mind splurging from time to time. my must have hair product=the b&b surf spray. it’s basically amazingly packaged salt water, but it makes your hair look like you just came from the beach (for those who like the look of their hair fresh from the beach). my most important tool? the mason pearson popular hair brush. it will never fall apart, and it’s perfect for a self served head massage. 

setting aside all beauty routines, you will look terrible no matter what you do if you treat your skin poorly. the secret of a good model (or so they say) is her flawless skin. i learned early on, and under no pleasant circumstances, all about blackheads. yuck! solution=st. ives apricot scrub. no matter who you ask in the modelling world, they are bound to own it, the best part is that it may actually be the cheapest product on this list to buy. you should exfoliate your face every 2nd day and blackheads should never be a problem, forget all those strips or 3 step cleansers, they will all irritate, rub and pull your skin, only aging it faster. i own but not always use the nivea day and night cream, only because i have opted out just recently for a much more reliable source of moisturizing-VASELINE! they don’t lie when they say it is the ultimate. the trick is to go to sleep with vaseline on your face and your hands (here it’s best to wear latex gloves so it doesn’t rub off during the night and has it’s full effect), and from time to time even feet… not the most attractive option, but your skin really cries for help when living in an arctic tundra 10 months of the year. another great line of products is the ‘say yes to carrots’ line, which is parabeam free (i didn’t know what they were until i found out they were found in most creams and moisturizers, and have been supposedly linked to cancer) so like aspartame i check and try to avoid them, trouble is they hide under many scientific names. i’m led to believe even good old trusty nivea puts them in and that is just inconceivable). i am notorious for nail biting, it took me forever to find a way to stop (turns out graduating school and never going there again really helped out) but to make them stronger i put 2 coats of nail envy by opi on my nails once a week. and the most important of all! never go to sleep with your makeup on. be gentle about it too, use moist make-up wipes or oil based makeup removers. girls have told me horror stories about how eyelashes break off because of too much mascara etc. it’s all chemicals, so treat your skin well. just like sex, the best form of protection is abstinence. so don’t wear it if you don’t have to. what are your beauty secrets? i’d love to hear all about them.