Degrassi Party! February 16th, 2012

I had the amazing opportunity to work with the cast of Teen Nickelodeon Show: Degrassi!


Degrassi was doing a national tour to promote their new season and they made a pit stop in Chicago on February 16th, 2012. They flew in to Chicago around 11am, made it to the W hotel, tried deep dish pizza for their first time, and myself and makeup/hair stylist Joann Boznos went into hair & makeup right away.

The first cast member I worked on was Melinda but she's better known as 'Alli'


Melinda is so sassy on and off screen! I loved working on her, we were talking about makeup products, shoes, and girly stuff. I wanted to stay true to her character on screen, so I gave her a bronze, shimmery smokey eye using a bit of Illamasqua eye shadow. She mentioned she LOVED contoured cheeks so I used 'Sweet As Cocoa' Blush from MAC and a golden higlighter from Inglot on top. Melinda mentioned she was a little sensitive to some lip products so I used eco-friendly lip polish from Arbonne. AND those are her real lashes!!! Melinda has the LONGEST natural lashes I have ever seen in my life.



The next cast member I worked on was Jahmil, better known as "Dave"


I did basic male grooming, cleaned up his brows a bit, applied light coverage with Ben Nye concealer, and a little Olive Oil oil sheen for his naturally curly hair. He is such a sweetheart! He was so excited to be in Chicago and kept asking me, "What's the club scene like??" I was like, "You're a little too young to know!!"



After makeup & styling was done, we proceeded to "The Degrassi Party" in the Harris Theater. There was a loooooong line waiting for the event to start.


Crew Badge!



The cast started doing interviews with Time Out Chicago Kids, The Chicago Tribune, Teen Nick, and a few other local publications. These kids were on the ball!





The event was so colorful and bright!



The cast signed a lot of pictures for a few hours.


103.5 Kiss FM also did a behind the scenes video interview with them and also introduced them during the show. I was right behind the camera crew!


Here's more video footage of the crew. Jahmil mentioned how much he loved dancing and just started free-styling on stage :-)


Overall, it was fun and very exhausting. I've never seen so many fans crying and screaming so much, it was crazy to see! These Degrassi teens are so professional and so sweet! We wrapped up around 8pm, said our goodbyes and they were getting ready to head to New York the next day to complete their national tour.

Battle of The Blush: February 12th, 2012

So there was this crazy makeup & hair competition created by Clif Ellis of Lakrem' that happened this past Sunday at Estate Club in Chicago, IL. At the last minute, literally, a few days before the competition I decided to join it with hair/mua and friend Iris Guevara. I love to challenge myself, I love to work under pressure, I love to try new things, and I love to work with a strong team to create a beautiful project, so we proceeded.

After 10 minutes, we decided to call our team: Timeless
Battle of The Blush consisted of three categories to show our creativity.
Iris and myself went over what to do for each model and our ideas came along smoothly and beautifully.

Sunday comes; I'm SOOOOOOO excited and just a wee bit nervous. I was trying a few new techniques that I have never done before but I had faith that every thing would turn out well. Here are a few photos of the process from hour to hour. Photography by the always awesome and always nice Mr. Jon Recana, Dean Reid, and a few random camera phones.
Enjoy!

There were ten teams total participating in the competition. It felt like a reunion seeing so many familiar faces. There was a beautiful array of talented people in the room. I felt proud that myself and all the artists participating got to represent our ideas and our passion by bringing it to life.

Team Timeless with artist Kat DeJesus


Group Shot :-)


Close up shots of my kit.




First category was 'Naked Beauty.'


In the guidelines, it states 'less is more' and 'create a natural look that could be seen walking down a runway.' We chose model Savannah Thomas to be our 'natural beauty' model. We chose to stick with gold and bronze tones to create a 'golden goddess walking down the runway." I used Gold Leaf & Gold Pigment to create her eyebrows. Iris applied Gold pigment in Savannah's hair to give her a golden glow.














We were talking in code getting ready for the next category ;-)

Second Category was 'Texture.'

The judges wanted to have the feeling of touch from each model, so we chose Megan Graveline to fill this role. I was inspired by two amazing makeup artist's to create this face: Kabuki & Pat McGrath. I am in LOVE with the hairstyle Iris chose to create on our model. Megan ended up looking like an anime character! Megan was KILLIN' IT walking down the runway!










Third Category was 'Time Machine.'

The judges wanted to see how well we can move forward or go backward in time. We chose Alejandra Rodriguez to play the part. We went with a 1960's Barbie theme: pastel pink lips, bright pink cheeks, bright blue eyeshadow, twiggy lashes, and a bee hive bouffaint. With all the drama on her precious face, Alejandra pulled it off!








TEAM TIMELESS!




Congrats to The Winning Team! >>> Zee Planet


It was fun, really fun, the most fun I've had in a long time. :-)