Vie and Vault Makeup For Ronnie and Alex

Another makeup challenge faced my way when I collaborated with two of my Pole Tiger friends when they competed for this year's Vie and Vault Asian Pole Championship. Last year, I was one of the finalists. I took backstage work this year doing two of my friend's makeup when they competed. Unlike beauty and bridal, this one is a bit more challenging. since it involved character makeup and conceptual makeup.

Alex and Ronnie are two of my Pole Tiger friends who do awesomely at pole. Alex gives out very soulful performances in our pole flow class solos (I got teary-eyed in his version of Hiram) and he's also super strong and flexible. Ronnie has awesome endurance, strength, and has no fear when it comes to all buwis-buhay tricks. I was excited for them and even on the eve of the competition, I was feeling all jittery and nervous as if I was one of the contestants.

For Alex, he would be dancing to the song Baliw by Kuh Ledesma. He wanted just clean makeup with emphasis on the eyes, enhancement with intensity. The peg was the look of the tomcats in Stellar 3. After usual clean guy makeup, I lined his eyes with kohl and extended them with gel liner and contoured his eyes for a tad of smokiness. 

Ronnie danced to a song he's been wanting to dance to : Magical Mr. Mistoffelees from the Broadway musical, Cats. His makeup would be more challenging since it would literally involve face-erasing techniques. I did my research in tutorials, watched the video like probably more than twenty times, and asked around MUA friends for makeup to withstand tricks, flips, and stage lights. Thanks to Oliver who lent me his Ben Nye Clown White palette and eyebrow-erasing techniques and Jinky who tipped me on Ben Nye color wheels, I was able to come up with his Mr. Mistoffelees look.

I did a bit of tweaking by adding a bit of blue to the eyes to match the hat, enhancing the jawline with more stripes (a suggestion by Oliver, which made the look more mischievous) and dusting glitter on the face for sparkle, since Mr. Mistoffelees is a magical kitty. Im glad it turned out almost like the one in Broadway (we had to do our own version to fit pole dance competitions) and Ronnie was practically unrecognizable the next day when he arrived at the Adam Tan workshop without his magical sparkly cat makeup. 

They did amazingly and I was super proud of them. For me they already all are winners. :) Added bonus for this day too, was when the winners were called out: Ronnie won best costume and styling as well as the champion title for the Amateur division!

I told them that my goal is that they would have to curse me when it comes to makeup removal or still have a bit of eyeliner up to the next day. My brushes also had white makeup on them even after three rounds of brush cleanser. Well, that's stage makeup.

A photo op with the two! Hugs from this kitty to you! Look, I even wore a tiger shirt to support! I believe that they both started pole just barely a year ago, I think, and they've grown so much stronger, with the grace to match. You both made me laugh and cry at the same time, but I still give you lots of hugs and love.  This was already pushing past 10 pm. Glad makeup stayed put with performances, cheering, and all that.  Happy to live the Vie and Vault experience once more, even if it was just lending a hand in makeup or cheering backstage. Would I be back onstage next year? Let's see. Congratulations to everyone - winners, competitors, and organizers. Loves and purrs to all!