Erika's Eyes

Last Wednesday, I had another shoot and when Mike showed me a peg, he specifically told me (while I was at MAC on duty last Tuesday hahaha), "I want defined eyes, not smoky eyes. Keep the eyeshadow neutral but make the eyes pop".

So I'll share the look,who else is the model but Erika! Here she is before makeup, post-hair straightening with my flat iron and pre-skin prep:

As is, she's naturally pretty and she has a childlike innocence about her and since she'll be totally transformed in the shoot to be a little more sophisticated. After a few shots with her with the soft curls (I straightened her hair then curled it), I went for wild and crimped her hair

Girls like to have fun with makeup. We're glad to have guy friends to consent it too (Hi Ivan!) So there's her makeup and we see a bit more definition on her features (facial structure, eyes, lashes, eyebrows,), eyes intense, and in contrast, neutral lips.

The dork who didn't bother to define brows but managed to put a four-layer coat of red lipstick is me (duuuh!)

On my lips: MAC lipliner in Beet, MAC Russan Red, MAC Ruby Woo, and M.A.C. Red. Color stayed on even up to dinner @ Lutong Macau.

Detail on Erika's Eyes and Makeup:

The pictures shown are just portions of the actual picture taken since I wanted to focus on her makeup. All photos are taken by Mike Yu.

To get the makeup, here's how:

• Even out the face (after skin prep of course) with foundation, concealer, and powder. Since I want pillowy lips, I prepped her lips with yummy, strawberry-flavored lipbalm.
• I applied bronzer slightly below the cheekbones in an angular motion and applied highlighter on top and blended the two well so I get a subtle shadow instead of a clownish line. I wanted to bring out her cheekbones here and make her face more angular. The bronzer also warms her skin
• To frame her face, I defined her brows with brown eyebrow pencil and set with brow powder. To make her brows 3d and soften her features, I added a blond eyebrow gel.
• For her eyes, I tightlined her eyes with brown pencil. Then, I applied creme eyeshadow from lid to browbone so that the eyshadow would hold. I used a warm neutral beige eyeshadow on her browbone and stopped at the crease before applying the lid color: a warm brown eyeshadow then contoured the crease with darker brown. I blended the colors before adding a pop of highlighter on the browbone.
• For the subtle smoky effect, I lined her eyes with soft, smudgy black eyeliner and set the eyeliner with black eyeshadow. to clean-up the edges, I brushed the edges with pressed powder to avoid the black smudgy lines/powder fallout.
• For fluttery lashes, I curled her lashes and brushed three coats of mascara. I added false eyelashes too for total pop quality.
• Lips were kept neutral by lining the lips with nude lipliner and filling in. I used a nude lip color for her lips, blotted, reapplied, and topped with neutral pink lipgloss for a bit of shine. I applied the gloss center-out for more shine.

For the sexy big hair, I used a crimper on the hair in small sections and teased it for big, big, big volume. :)