Last Friday, I had a shoot with the pole and aerial teachers from Footworks Dance Studio. Footworks Dance Studio is located in Katipunan Avenue. It's located on the Southbound lane of Katipunan, right before Tokyo Bubble Tea. If you're coming from Capitol Hills or Balara, just go down the road of Katipunan, take the flyover, and start keeping right. It's located after the small restos and the Quirino Memorial Center. The building is sort of yellow, and the same building as Elorde. If you're coming from Eastwood/Taguig, just take C5 and go to Katipunan, make a U-turn under the flyover and you will see the building on the right.
Footworks Dance Studio holds aerial silk, aerial hoop, pole dance, TRX, and aerial yoga classes taught by Polecats Manila teachers. This is for people who live in the QC/Libis/Marikina area who find the Ortigas studio too far.
A photo posted by Bambi De la Cruz 🐱🐯 (@bambikitty) on
I have to give myself a pat on the back for my set-up and pack-up skills. That light source there comes from my light table, which is a smaller one that I use if I need to save space on my workstation. I use a mix of yellow and white lights for my station. When people ask me why, I say if it were an all-white station they would hate me for it because it would be too bright for their eyes. I also personally like a mix of yellow and white so I get the right daylight mix and warmth for photo purposes.
Aside from pole, hoop, and silk, Footworks also has other classes which can compliment your choice of aerial workout. There's aerial yoga, which helps you stretch tight muscles, destress, and create balance.
Flexibility increases your range of motion safer as you work towards your backbends, splits, and all those flexi tricks. It also helps with active flexibility and balances your strength with bendiness. Because pole dancing is still a dance, there's also pole dance classes to improve on floorwork. There would be a new class added, called Pole Flow, which helps with floorwork, transitions, and of course feelings (yes! feelings are important), for pretty, poetic pole dance numbers and concepts.
Our shoot had a total of six teachers. Let me show you the makeup I did on the 4 teachers.
Amaya
Amaya teaches Flexibility and Aerial Hoop. She loves her trademark winged eyeliner so I gave her winged eyeliner (If you look closely, I did some sort of graphic ombre cat eyeliner) with long lashes. The rest was kept neutral, although a bit on the warm side. The eyes I have to sort of smoke things up, just for pictorial purposes, for definition,
Bianca
Bianca teaches pole dance. She's a ballerina too! The look here is quite rosy, but even though I did use pinks and roses in this color, I didn't make it super pastel-y, girly pink, which is also not my style. It's an in-between of clean and glam but not all sweet.
Kit
Kit teaches Aerial Yoga. For male grooming, I always apply my male signature the "naturally flawless and defined" look, and updated the technique I have from my "Queen of Male Grooming" days circa 2008-2009 to the "Khaleesi of Male Grooming". Males do not really wear makeup on a regular basis so I should make the makeup look like flawless skin. I also defined brows and added a natural flush and contours for warmth, not for taga-level shaping.
Tippi
Tippi teaches pole dance and beginner's pole. She's one lucky girl who looks great in pinks and purples for eye makeup. This look reminded me of Emily Blunt in Devil Wears Prada. I used this for her second look, when she was doing her photos with pole (her headshot just had her in subtle brown smokey eyes). The lipstick coincidentally is her favorite lipstick shade, Revlon Matte Balm in Sultry.
Top Row: Amaya and Kiara Bottom Row: Bianca, Kayleen, Kit, and Tippi Photo from the Footworks Facebook page
Kiara also did makeup on Kayleen as well as herself (she's also a Footworks teacher, teaching pole and TRX). I haven't seen Kiara in ages and this was also a wonderful time to catch up with her and all.
It was a rainy day but inside the studio was almost like a sunshine-y summer with these group of people. I'll share the photos when they come out! Thank you to Team Footworks for a fantastic Friday.
Image Directory:
Graffiti photo and makeup documentation from the author
Photos of the studio, Flexibility photo, and group photo from Footworks Facebook Page
Marissa is also one who got me into doing these features. In fact, she organized this get - together in her awesome place with wonderful natural light. Like Cita, I met Marissa in pole dance class. She's the one who will also direct your pole photo of the day so it's picture-perfect. She will spot you until you get the pose, and once your are stable and can drink tea in your pose, she will run, get your phone (or her phone) and take several photos for Instagram. Gotta love these pole mommies!
Marissa is a mom of 2 who's already in her 40s, but I keep telling her she looks so much younger and better than her throwback photos 10 or so years ago.
doing pole doubles with teacher Duds
One thing I love about her is her love for the awesomest yet most basic necessity in life : Food! She is a real foodie (she's less picky than me) yet despite the #thisiswhyidonthaveabs hashtag, her photos betray that statement because she does have amazing abs which shows how strong she is. Krispy Kreme glazed donut? Yes please! Salad? Sure! Lechon belly? A family favorite!
A photo posted by marissa ampil mendoza (@marissaampilmendoza) on
She's also our go-to person to have custom-made clothes. Our weird pole dancer bodies have actually made us semi-give up on RTW and just run to Marissa to have outfits custom-made. This lady is the one behind Katricewear, which does made-to-measure outfits. She understands our broader backs and shoulders and cross-ankle legs and how off-shoulder outfits pop out of our shoulders and become weird boat-necks. I still have to muster enough confidence for the belly-low plunging top or jumpsuit she tells me to wear - bawal skintone net (one day, I will. bumubwelo lang) .
We were so engrossed with telling stories to each other we forgot to take a super before photo: So this is her photo with just base makeup, which is a somewhat before since I used foundation with medium-light coverage. The eyes are still subtle smokey brown, because I wanted this to be like a look you would wear going out, and a bit of "smoke" on the eyes looks amazing in photos and makes our eyes pop (yes in makeup whatever it is, there's this obsession on the eyes).
I usually see Marissa in bright pink lipstick. I still kept the pink but made it a lighter shade, not really the rose pink but the light fresh pink, She always wears her hair straight. I tried to add just some curl at the ends and gave the bangs some volume. When the curls straightened via a bit of finger-combing, it became just relaxed waves, like the not-super-straight hair trend from New York Fashion Week.
Doing her makeup has been fun. She's so funny she's making me eat as I do her makeup as there were sliced Fuji apples and potato chips on the table. She's an amazing host, a talented pole dancer and entrepreneur, and she's got a beautiful and well-balanced life.
It was a super fun makeup session! The looks were so much fun to do on the gorgeous ladies that I have put makeup on.
I mentioned in my update a new feature in my blog, which I called Bambikitty Moving Makeovers featuring makeovers that I have done on some of my friends. I chose ladies who are inspiring on their own and as they have given me positive energy and motivation, I hope they do to you too and spread wonderful vibes. I call it moving makeover because I'm like a mobile salon! :)
I start first with one of the ladies who got me doing this feature in the first place.
Cita is like a living Barbie doll. She's got the perfect hourglass figure, long legs, and long, flowy hair. This Barbie doll, however, is no limp noodle because she's super strong and athletic. She does pole, goes to the gym religiously, runs, and does Crossfit. She also takes wonderful care of her three children. Yes ladies, this sexy, strong lady with amazing muscle tone and rock-hard abs is actually a mom of three.
Doing a handspring in their pole dance recital last year
I decided to give her the favorite celebrity look during events and noontime variety shows: The smokey brown eye and used a nude brown lipstick to match because browns are super back right now and I'm quite obsessed with them myself. This makeover was done after her pole dance class, you guys. Cita sure does have a lot of energy.
Without makeup, Cita has excellent bone structure. Her skin is gorgeous and when I asked about her skincare, it's super low-maintenance. That's what I love so much about these fit girls - despite a super low-maintenance and simple skin care routine, their skin looks amazing, toned with a natural glow.
I used Shu Uemura Face Architect foundation, which feels super light on the face while delivering excellent, dewy skin finish. It's actually one of my personal favorite foundations. Contours were done to achieve warmth and dimension. I didn't really play up on the blush but kept it light with a slight, dewy shimmer since her skin is already naturally rosy. I really wanted to make her eyes pop with her smokey eye.
I didn't use falsies here and used lots of volumizing mascara for to really frame her eyes. A little drop of gloss on the center of her lip to for a highlight.
As for her hair, I smoothed it out before setting it in big curls with a large-barrel curling iron as I did her makeup. When I let her hair down, I curled sections of her hair with a conical curling iron used to make mermaid curls and separated it when it cooled. A bit of teasing on the crown and some hairspray to hold and she was good to go. I just didn't overdo the hairspray as she has very fine hair and a lot of product might weigh her hair down.
This is one way of showing how brown can look sexy and gorgeous and not too tita and ageing. Cita looks like a Barbie doll - ready to work out!
Thank you very much Cita for letting me do your makeup!
