It's Friday morning, an entire week has gone by and I have not had a chance to write. So let's play catch-up. Let's see. Saturday April 4th was my birthday; the first anniversary of my 50th birthday. Can I say that? I don't think I look my age. Some days I may feel it but I think I still look pretty good. I just need to rid myself of a few unnecessary pounds. It's taking me longer than I thought. Oh well. Saturday was also my parent's 56th anniversary. Two celebrations in one.
OK, so how did my day start. I worked. I was actually excited to go to work. It was a great gig doing makeup on students who were competing for an $80,000 four-year scholarship to attend Johnson & Wales University Culinary School. These kids ranged between 16 and 18. They prepared some beautiful dishes. I had two student assistants from Cosmix, the makeup school that I teach for. We made up the students for they photo sessions after they were finished preparing their dishes. It was an easy fun gig. Oh, one of my assistants brought me a huge bouquet of beautiful flowers for my birthday. How sweet was that?
We did very clean beauty makeup, keeping them fresh and young. From an instructor's POV it was a great experience for my students because they had a chance to work with me and learn how to make a situation work for them. I knew we wouldn't have any mirrors in the room so I provided the mirrors; large ones that I keep in my storage unit. Talk about coming in handy? We worked in an area that seemed like a restaurant set so we moved tables and chairs around to create a comfortable working space. As we worked, I explained many little on-the-job tips. I also provided them with sample lip glosses to give the female students. I stressed the importance of how the team leader or the person who hires you should provide you with disposables, such as: puffs, sponges, mascara wands, alcohol, tissues, cotton swabs etc. I also explained the look that was needed. Then, I showed them how to correct the color on the only dark complected student in the competition. His skin need to be warmed up a little, so I combined the foundation that I used on him with MAC cream Red. I blended the products directly on his face instead of blending them on a palette first and then applying. I then used a powder that I love by Black Opal. This combination worked beautifully. He looked healthy and natural and not ashy. After the gig was over, we cleaned up, packed up, thanked everyone and was gone.
The rest of my day was beautiful. My long-time friend Sher picked me up and took me to a wonderful relaxing lunch followed by a trip to Loehman's. I found a couple of things there. We then went back to her house where I waited for Errol to pick me up. We got home just in time to meet my nephew and his mom. Then we went to a simple dinner at one of our favorite Chinese restaurants Pink Buddha. Sunday was Palm Sunday so we went to mass. I can't even remember what I did on Monday. Oh I did bake a pineapple upside down cake; recipe courtesy of my girl Stephanie. It came out perfect.
Tuesday evening, I attended a Cosmix staff meeting at this great Italian restaurant in Fort Lauderdale. Wednesday morning I met with Calvin Hughes at Channel 10. Since the station went HD many of the reporters are having a hard time with their makeup application. So Calvin invited me in to work with him again. He also introduced me to a couple of his fellow reporters. I am working with them on application technique for HD. Since the station does not provide a makeup artist, everyone is responsible for their own makeup. That was fine the old way but with HD, you are now asking these anchors and reporters to become makeup artists. It's like me thinking that I can go anchor the news. HD is all about makeup application techniques. It is so unforgiving that there is little or no room for error. I told them if they don't get it right, people are going to be listing to the news and not watching it. So, I worked a little bit with them on Wednesday but we need individual sessions to fine tune everything. I have to back track for a moment. On Sunday evening I watched Jaimie Foxx on the Country Music Awards , he looked flawless. Kudos to Lalette Littlejohn, his makeup artist; my client I called her and asked her what she was using and told her how great it looked. I then called Calvin and told him that this is how he should look. Then it clicked, so I immediately reached out to my friend Roger Halston, the owner of Classified Cosmetics who manufactures a spray foundation called ERA. Can I tell you how fabulous this product is. Well it is. So Roger is sending me out some samples to try on everyone. I am so excited. Yeah!!! As soon as this arrives, I will meet with everyone so that we can fine tune some looks. This is very exciting. I just put calls in to everyone to let them know that the product is coming and I will schedule times when it gets here. I hope this all works. Later, I will bring you up-to-date on my trip to the Redlands; a fun trip in my own back yard.
