Loving every minute here! Some photos from the Desert section of the Huntington Botanical Gardens and a night in Santa Monica.
Natural Beauty for Photo/Video
A couple weekends ago I did makeup for a promotion for an independent film. The focus was natural, glowing skin and I really wanted the 7 actresses to look like themselves and really ethereal on camera.
I've picked up quite a few tips over the years on my own shoots and doing makeup for others', and I thought I'd share some thoughts on makeup for camera, specifically natural makeup! Warning: if you're not interested in makeup, this probably isn't the post for you!
SKIN
The first thing that is so, so important is prepping the skin. The makeup will never sit right or endure a long shoot if the skin isn't moisturized; moisturizer is the best primer out there. If your skin is oily, you'll really want to tone and moisturize with something light. But don't skip moisturizer! One of the life-changing things I've learned about skincare is if you think your skin is oily enough and doesn't need moisture, you're actually going to get much more oily throughout the day because your skin is producing more sebum to compensate for the lack of moisture. So, no matter what, moisturize! Same goes for dry skin, although you may want to go with a thicker cream in the winter months--I love Alba's day/night creams. Some of the girls showed up with a light base which I touched up, but for the majority of the actresses, I prepped the skin with a cleansing wipe or a little Clinique Take the Day Off makeup remover to tone and cleanse the skin. I then followed up with Clinique's Dramatically Different Moisturizing Gel. I really like Murad's balancing line as well, but nothing beats Clinique in my book! The gel is light and dewy, but is slightly tacky, acting as a primer in itself to help the makeup adhere to the skin. Any dry under-eyes got a little dab of Murad's Hydro-dynamic Ultimate Moisture for Eyes.
FOUNDATION & CONCEALER
For foundation, I really prefer a mineral one for long shooting days because it lasts longer and looks virtually undetectable on the skin, while still balancing everything out. I really like minerals as well because they add a touch of radiance to the complexion that's not shiny; it just looks like you're glowing from within! Laura Mercier's mineral foundation is the creme-de-la-creme, but you know what? I've tried a million mineral foundations and I actually prefer the finish and lasting power of e.l.f.'s Personal Blend Foundation. The neat thing about these guys is that there's 3 different ones to choose from--light, medium and dark--and each one has 4 shades that you can mix and match to create the perfect shade for each individual. If you have trouble finding your exact shade in stores or do makeup on other people, I can't recommend these foundations enough! Also, you can't beat that price.
Before applying mineral foundation, you want to conceal first. My golden rule is that powder goes over cream/liquid, and cream/liquid does not go over powder. Why? You get a streaky, smudgy, ruddy look to the skin that does not look natural or ethereal at all, kind of like when you cry after you've applied powder and it streaks your makeup. It's a very hard situation to remedy after the fact and sometimes the only cure is to take all the foundation off and start over again. Not fun! I custom-mixed a shade of concealer for each actress. Nothing to me will ever beat Nars Radiant Creamy Concealer! It is the holy grail: provides the most radiant glow, the best coverage and the most blend-able formula I've ever used. It is amazing! Equally good for beneath the eyes and on spots. It is not shiny or sparkly, so it's great on blemishes because the 'radiance' and formula just kind of air-brushes the area and doesn't call attention to imperfections. It will cover even the darkest under-eye circles and peskiest problem spots! For each girl I mixed Vanilla and Cacao to create their perfect shade, which for under eyes you want to be one shade lighter than the skin and for blemishes, the exact tone of the skin. I then buffed in the foundation on a buffing brush to create a flawless finish. Don't forget to buff around the eye area (carefully!) as well; it really brings a seamless look to the face and she won't have inverse raccoon eyes from the contrast of concealer around eyes and mineral foundation on the skin this way! Keep buffing and buffing until the foundation evens the skin and looks undetectable.
EYES
For eyes, for natural beauty and on camera, you don't really want any harsh, 'crisp' or defined lines, unless it's an intentional move for the character's personality they're portraying. Otherwise, stay away from harsh lines because it will only age the girl and distract people who are looking at the photos. There are no perfect, defined lines in nature on the face, so you don't really want to go there with makeup either. The best thing to do is to blend, smudge and create shadows in the upper part of the crease, while highlighting the inner eye and bringing radiance to the center of the lid. This makes you look awake, rested and brings focus to the eyes without being distracting. It also helps to bring attention to the eyes on camera because sometimes in the translation to photos/video, the eyes can get a bit lost and small. For every girl, I used the It's Judy Time palette (she's a beauty YouTuber; if you're interested in makeup reviews, you'll quickly become addicted to her channel). The color payoff is amazing and the range of shades is really beautiful. For the tear duct area, you really want to create light there, so use a shade 1-2 shades lighter than the natural skin tone. For all the girls I used a light shimmery bronze shade, but for fairer skin tones I would recommend something like Albatross from Nars. On the lid I used the shimmery brown shade to highlight the lid and bring some light there as well without being too light. In the crease, I blended a combination of that brown shade and the shimmery plum shade into the crease. Plum shades look amazing on brown and green eyes, and really looks amazing on darker skin tones. You want to blend the crease shade a bit above the socket and outward slightly to give an elongated look to the eye. I finished off the eyes with either a bit of the deep matte plum shade on an angled brush as a soft, subtle 'liner', or simply mascara (I used my current favorite: Tarte's Lights, Camera, Lashes). Some of the girls got 3 short individual false lashes in the outer corners of the eyes. Avoid a full strip of lashes for a natural look!
BROWS, BLUSH, HIGHLIGHT & CONTOUR
For brows in a natural look, you want to be as soft and light-handed as possible, otherwise you risk the drawn-on and aging effect of sharp brows. I used some of the darker matte powders from the NYX Nude on Nude palette on an angled brush to fill in any sparse areas and then combed the brows up and out with a spoolie brush for a youthful look.
For contour, blush and highlight, I used the same palette: Sephora's The Beauty of Giving Back Face Palette. For cheeks I really focused on the upper, outer part of the cheek to create a lifted and youthful effect. I used the deepest coral on all the girls. The peachy color in the palette would look amazing on fair skin tones! I then contoured the cheeks with the darkest bronze shade, really being light-handed and blending well into the hollows of the cheeks and around the temples to create a glowing look with subtly defined bone structure. I then used the lightest bronze shade on the cheek bones, the bridge of the nose and the brow bones, as well as cupid's bow and forehead to bring light to those areas. Blend really well!
LIPS
For lips on every girl I used the most universally-flattering color I've ever found, Mac's Lipglass in Lovechild. It really looks amazing on every skin tone out there and brings a dewiness and very subtle shimmer to the lips in the most natural way. For some of the girls, I toned down the color or even prepped their lips with Smith's Rosebud Salve. I then dusted the shoulders and collarbone with the highlight shade to really add a dewiness and radiance to the skin and tie the face in with the body.
I finished the look with a light spritz of Urban Decay's All Nighter to set makeup for the day.
And that's it! I had so much fun doing makeup on these beautiful, friendly, kind, smily girls and I can't wait to see where they go with their careers!
What it's like to start an independent magazine...
Starting an independent magazine is a pretty weird thing to do. In that same vein, it feels very weird to start an independent magazine. It has been a very strange and rewarding journey so far. I think there are a lot of things that it's made me think and feel that I never thought I would, and also come across some conundrums and 'hush-hush' topics of the 'art world' that I feel need to be aired out a bit. I think it helps people when someone speaks about things that are usually kept a trade secret (just ask Austin Kleon). It also helps us feel connected and like we're sharing a human experience, which of course we are. So this is a more personal post about what I went through emotionally and mentally in the first couple issues of the magazine. I think to anyone who's ever tried to start something, you'll understand where I'm coming from! We're all in this together.
When I started this project, I was sitting in bed, drinking my coffee, and I just thought, 'this will be a fun experiment!'. I think that's probably still the best way to describe my approach to each issue; it's an experiment for me, for my friends, for my family, and for the contributors. I'm usually pretty obsessed with perfection and putting things out that are 'ready' to go out. I think this comes from my work with clients and my strange high school experience to be honest. I like to work fast, I like to work hard and I like to exceed expectations. But this project has been so rewarding for me because I let all that go.
With Liner, I am a student constantly learning, adapting, changing, re-doing, and starting over. It's so freeing to just have something to test crazy ideas on and not put pressure on myself to be perfect. In the first volume, I spelled my own name wrong. Instead of beating myself up about it, I laughed about it. I left the mistake instead of re-uploading. It's like when you see an old person's wrinkles or scars, and those imperfections speak to who that person is and where they've been. I left a visible trace of all my errors and misjudgments in the magazine as a way for me to look back, remember and think how fun and far the journey has gone. I think in this way this magazine has been really, really good for me. It's a way to go back to a childhood sense of play and excitement. It's what I was like before I started to let the pressures of perfection and 'professionalism' creep in.
I think because I started to feel this way, the over-arching theme of the magazine began to crystallize for me: forget perfection. It's stupid. We're all human and it's time there were a magazine that acted like it. No Photoshop. Delve deeper into things that are hard to talk about to help people see they're not alone and that style is a way of being. My friend Chelsea Boyle, for example, wrote a beautiful essay that made me cry about her struggles with body image and self-worth. It is an amazing piece and she is an amazing person. She is brave for sharing such a personal story and we can all relate to her struggle in some way. It unites us. I began to see that this magazine could be a vehicle for this kind of thing. And I wanted it to be online, for free, for anyone with access to the internet to be able to read for this reason. I wanted the idea of the magazine to be accessibility.
I started to meet so many articulate, truly individual people who also shared a common way of thinking with me, but pushed me a bit further in my thoughts. I will be forever grateful for the experience of meeting all these amazing people who dress a certain way and talk a certain way because they think a certain way. There's a depth to style that is not often spoken about but I think it's worthwhile. It gets a bad rep. because people think it's superficial. Sure, it can be, but that's also the fun and joy of it. And also, there's deeper things going on beneath the surface of someone's style that speak to who they are and how they see and approach the world. As Ev told me when we were shooting his editorial for the first issue, he had been looking for a floral hat forever; like a year. Then he found it and he rocks it all the time. I think that says so much about who he is. He is not afraid to search for something that fits his style and flaunt it--especially when that something is not what most people would wear in the first place. But he looks amazing in it and exudes confidence in it. I think that says so much about who he is.
There are also some hard and tricky things that have come with this experience. There's something a lot of people won't talk about when they start a creative project. Money. It is essential to starting something. And I had none of it. The model most independent magazines follow: in order to get the readership to get to the money, they reach out to famous people (either IRL or on the internet) they know to get them aboard, which those people then promote through their channels, creating a tsunami of support and admiration, and, well, money. This is a genius business model and it works really well for a lot of amazing magazines.
But here's the thing that was confusing: I don't know many famous people who would be the right fit for the magazine, and also, the whole point of the magazine was that ordinary people have interesting stories, lives and adventures and they don't have to be 'famous' for that to mean something. I love to interview people who are well-known/have many followers, but not feature them just because of that fact. They have to have a story and be willing to be vulnerable about that story. So, I didn't really want to go that route. It also meant that for the first while, my magazine probably wouldn't get many reads and wouldn't be very 'popular'. Surprisingly, this did not bother me very much at all.
Yes, sometimes it is painful to see other magazines succeed and be admired and written about and people take Instagram photos with the magazine up on their laptop screens or on their coffee table. I am human and it's hard to see other people live off of their magazine and be super successful and admired for it. But, I am doing something different from them. We are doing something different from them. That was the whole point! To make something different, in a way that was different. So, those feelings if inadequacy I expected to have pretty much never showed up and what's left is a donations system and me using any extra money I have to buy clothes, pay contributors and buy gas for location shoots. It is hard. I'm not going to lie. But it also keeps it personal and driven by people who are truly passionate about the project. There's something really nice about that.
I think what's surprised me the most is a. I can make a magazine with no education on the subject other than loving magazines and b. that people would want to read my magazine and especially c. that people would want to submit such personal, amazing work to it. It blows me away every day. All the hard stuff, the questioning if I'm going in the right direction, sitting at my computer crying because a whole editorial layout has simply vanished, struggling to pay people, wondering if anyone would ever want to read what we're working on...it's all worth it because it amazes me every day that we did it, we're doing it, and people are reading and contributing to it.
It's an amazing thing. I've had so many failed ventures before, let me tell you. But I think maybe the mixture of my sheer naiveté, enthusiasm and gratitude for the people who have been a part of it keep me going and really make it worthwhile for me. And hopefully for other people too. I'm still learning, I'm still making mistakes and improving...but that's the whole point of an experiment, isn't it? I plan on being open about it, not hiding the process or giving off airs of casual success or perfection. We're all in this together.