Jen is a party planner and she had quite a task the day of her wedding up in Rancho Del Cielo in Malibu. www.ranchodelcielomalibu.com If you ever need a planner, you definitely want her on your side. Beautiful place, but the weather wasn't looking to good. Being from the east coast I don't normally feel any humidy out here, but that day up in the Malibu hill I most definitely felt it so I had to make sure as best I could those curls would last.

Jen was in her bridesmaids (Cammy's) wedding and thought well enough of me to use me herself.

The first photo is from her trial and the rest from her wedding day.

Vanessa wanted to wear her hair up and then be able to bring it down. So the hairpins were put in so they could be taken out without disturbing the rest of the hair. No easy feet as her hair was really thick and heavy. I'm sorry to say though, I couldn't get a photo to show the after shot. Sarah took the first photo and you can check out more of her beautiful work from Vanessa's day on sarahkchen.com/blog/?p=238

I'm so excited, today I got my copies of July's Kewl Magazine in which I did hair and makeup on Anna Maria, Alyson and Meaghan. All very sweet girls and so much fun to work on, thank you girls.

So on saturday, some friends and I got together to do our yearly 48 hour film project. www.48hourfilm.com

This is the explanation: The 48 Hour Film Project is a wild and sleepless weekend in which you and a team make a movie—write, shoot, edit and score it—in just 48 hours. On Friday night, you get a character, a prop, a line of dialogue and a genre, all to include in your movie. 48 hours later, the movie must be complete. Then it will show at a local theater, usually in the next week.

The beautiful heroine of our 5 min short is case #18 of Deal or No Deal Marisa. I wanted to do a Lara Croft kind of feel and didn't want a lot of makeup for her. And basically, she doesn't need very much either.

Check out the short on youtube: Miss Liberty

One of the most important things that we could do in preparation for a special event is to take care of our face and get it in the best condition so that your makeup looks even better than it normally would. The first thing to do is to drink plenty of water and hydrate yourself. That's especially true for anyone that is flying in from out of town. You know how thirsty you are when you're on the plane and then get off. Imagine how your face will just drink in any moisture that's in your foundation or face lotion. It'll never be enough.

Okay, so you've been drinking enough water, but have you been exfoliating that face? Your makeup will thank you and so will you once you see how flawless your makeup can look when it's properly exfoliated and your makeup just glides on. Key areas to pay attention to is your T-zone and especially the NOSE. Exfoliation doesn't have to mean a scrub and my favorite product to use is the Alpha Hydrox line. www.neotericcosmetics.com/alpha-hydrox. It's difficult to find in stores, but it's one of the most affordable lines out there and even more affordable when you go to their website and see what they have on special. My absolute favorite is either the AHA Souffle from the New Generation or the AHA Enhanced Cream from the Original line. Just put it on your face at night along with your moisturizer and you wake up with your face exfoliated. How simple is that?! I've been using it for years when in my mid 20's I started to break out like a teenager. Well, maybe not that bad, but when I did breakout, it was usually one huge one in the most obvious of spots. But this really kept the breakouts under control, because my face wasn't clogging up. When I don't use it, boy do I see and feel a difference in my skin.



On to the next step. Moisturizing. There are many moisturizers out there and truthfully, many good ones. That will come down to preference and what works for you. What works for one person, doesn't necessarily work for another. I've used different ones and it's usually due to finances. But when I can afford it, I love my Dermalogica Active Moist. And when I feel my skin needs just a little more, I add a couple of drops of Stress Relief Treatment Oil. It's made of natural oils of Lavender, Sandalwood, Orange and more. Check out their website for more information www.dermalogica.com






Do you ever have those days that you just don't want to put makeup on but you feel you just can't do with out? Well try this trick. Take your favorite moisturizer and your favorite foundation and a little into your moisturizer. Just enough to add some color. I would say usually about 2-3 parts moisturizer to 1 part foundation. Also depends on whether your foundation is cream base or liquid. But now you have the best of both worlds without a lot of fuss. Then just put on your Masacara (and eyeliner if you like), a little blush or bronzer, lip gloss, lipstick or lipbalm and 5 minutes max and your out the door. If you want to play it up just a tiny bit more, take whatever you choose for your cheeks, blush or bronzer and just swipe along the contour of your eye. Really can't be any easier than this.

Hope you liked this bit of information and that it helped in some way.

: )

A few photos from a job done at the St. Regis hotel in Dana Point. Braids seem to be a big thing as of late. Photos by me.








My best friend Michelle who's also a makeup artist. Well she was getting headshots done and called upon her friend to do her hair and makeup. Gosh it was so hard to make her beautiful. (hope you hear the sarcasm in that)




This is Emmalou, one of my clients who is on her way to a fashion show where the look was to be the '60s. So it's all about the lashes, liner and red lips. Beautiful!




I wanted to show how this style can be done on short and long hair. You'll notice the longer version on one of my earlier posts and I had a request for it from someone with shorter hair, to be honest wasn't sure it could be done, but as you can see it worked with beautiful results.

This is Janora and I worked with her on an informercial I did a couple of weeks ago. I made sure to have someone take photos and put her in my portfolio. She's gorgeous and I love working on ethnic skin.

These photos came from www.tonyschreiber.com. He's based in Florida, but came to CA to especially photograph Esther's wedding. He's very innovative in his photographing. You can link up to Tony in my links section.

So I just found out that a film that I keyed hair and makeup on a couple of years back is finally making it's way to DVD release at the end of July. Here's the press release www.edbaran.com/mtihomevideo/pressreleases/2008/adventuresofjohnnytao.pdf. Below are set images along with the poster. I had a great time working on this with some awesome people both cast and crew alike. Thanks to Artie for recommending me for this project and thanks to Ken Scott for giving me the great experience of heading my own department and to my assistant Danielle, couldn't have done it without you.

See the trailer www.johnnytao.com/moviemedium.htm







I must say a bit intimidating to work on the great James Hong who's had the best of makeup artists out there.

Jen came for a preview and showed me her dress and I thought it was so adorable and different for a wedding. You know me, as I mentioned before, I love the personal touches that make every wedding unique. And this one was no exception. Thank you to Jen for putting up with a crazy Monroe during the preview. The day of Jen's wedding we met at Heidi's, her soon to be mother in law, which was a beautiful home on the beach in Venice with great big windows for wonderful light to do both hair and makeup. Heidi was wonderful and it was a pleasure to see that mother in laws can embrace the women who is lucky enough to win the heart of her son. A beautiful family in all.

Sherry and I had the absolute pleasure of working with Jane and her friends and producing our magic. Sherry worked her magic on Jane, not that she needed much magic and I mine on the girls hair. They were all so sweet and fun. I also love when I have new styles to work on and challenges. I especially loved having the fun short hair to work with. It's such a pleasure when you are laughing along with everyone while we work and that day was no exception. Having them practice how to walk to "Going to the Chapel" was wonderful. And the individual ideas that every bride brings to personalize their wedding, like the "Going to the Chapel" song, is such a joy to witness.





Photos by Jasmine Star Photography
www.jasminestarphotography.com

I've been working with Sherry from On Location Beauty now for about 3 years. We previously got to know each other with a different company and when I needed a new "home" I called Sherry and it's been so much fun working with her. Today I worked with her on Megan Casey's wedding. The first BM Katie mentioned she had been growing out her hair and wasn't quite sure what to do and she showed me the photo of a Marilyn Monroesqe hairstyle. I thought it would be fun to do and it fit so nicely with the dresses they were wearing. If the dresses were white, all she needed to do was find a train vent. Anyway, I also did her hair along with Sophie's hair and makeup. Megan had a beautiful color scheme of orange flowers with the cranbury dresses. She also had beautiful orange shoes to go with the dress. I would never have guessed how beautiful that actually looked. Everyone was a great joy to work with and the photographer they hired just happened to be one of the greatest photographers I know. Danielle from skybluphotography. You can check out her link and blog. These photos, by me : ).