a sneak peek of

what I did with photographer Ryan Chua and Brazilian Beauty(Look (SF)Next(LA)Elite (Miami)) Paula Newlands yesterday in SF and then later on I rushed down to the South bay area to hold another shoot with mr. Rummy M and Chinese beauty (Ford model) Ying Fu~~ We did two looks in each shoot, as Ryan had another shoot in the morning so we only had a few short hours before I had to drive back to the south bay to my second shoot. Sadly it was super rushed (esp since the hairstylist had thought it was a night shoot X_X so we had to scramble and quickly curl her hair as well) and I wasn't really sure exactly what was expected of me so I just did one natural-esque commercial style shoot (but the stylist had provided all "BEBE" clothings for the shoot that day so I felt like anything TOO "commercial" (natural) wasn't going to fit it the clothes very well.

Here are some BTS photos I took of the boys (Ryan and his friends Mike and Phillip) snapping away~



and two pics of Paula posing in her crazy arched boots on a steep slope X_X on a cold windy day in SF at Golden Gate Park : the boys even had to help her down coz it was so steep...




~~ *(she even walked into two huge spider webs as she was posing X_X ) I salute to the models



I tried editing them a bit so they look a bit better than something that just rolled out of my little camera

oh yah she brought her doggy Lexi as well! such a cute little poochie


was rushing back so forgot to take a pic of the 2nd look~ Oh well~

haha and then here are the two looks we did for Ying ~ (one simple beauty with a twist or should I say "braid" of fashion) Her agency wants her to build her beauty/fashion book now (previously they had only categorized her as a commercial model due to her sweet smile and friendly look)


so this was the first look we did for her :(i edited it to make the darkground darker so it doesnt look like..ugh.. my dining room/kitchen LMAO!)




the photographer saw me wearing OCC's "grandma" and loved it so told me to do it on Ying hehe since we wanted something just to show her lips ~ the inspiration photo was a bronzed girl with a piece of beautiful jewelry across her face ~ just showing her lips so to make things interesting I braided her hair with a piece extension across her face as a "mask" hahaha, the pink matched her sundress as well~ (unintentional) not like the photos will have the pink since it's a beauty shot~ more like this:



the second look we wanted to do blue bling lips from some other inspirational photos ^_^ and somehow it ended up looking like this:



lol Ying is so cute haha she really liked the bling lips just like me ! (haha I think girls are just easily amused by shiny things... LMAO~~* She reminded me of "Dorthy" from Finding Nemo LMAO


hahahaha she's tan so we thought we might turn her "pale" in post ...hopefully the photographer does a better job than me LMAO!:



who knows, either way I look forward to the final edited shots ~~ <3

[peace]

Rukus Magazine ft. Carissa Rosario

While I was back in LA for a week, I had the chance to work with photographer Andrew Gates and the beautiful Carissa Rosario on a spread for this month's Rukus Magazine :)

It was funny as I had originally booked for a makeup trial with my model on Tuesday but she happened to have a music video shoot till 4 am in the morning so I told her we could push it back to Thurs~ and Andrew's regular makeup artist canceled last minute so it was super coincidental that we both had some free time to collaborate during my short trip to LA! (we had been talking over facebook and he had told me he wanted to work together if I was ever down in SoCal again! :)

Anyhow, Carissa is an absolute babe and superrr nice and cute ~ very funny as well ^__^

*go Vote for her as Maxim's Hometown Hotties: HERE*

It was going to be a maxim-sexy-glamor-style shoot so makeup wise I had designed an accented eye with full liner and glossy lips~Carissa was pretty easy going with her "look" except that she wanted a light lips without it being too pink. I had seen her previous photos from her photoshoots and I am NOT a huge fan of a pure black smokey look~ I guess it works sometimes but I almost always prefer to add different colors to give more dimension to the eyes, especially since Carissa was already a gorgeous girl with huge eyes!! A bit of eyeliner should already make her eyes pop~ plus we're doing a bikini shot here not night time club scene :P (Okay I admit I just prefer more natural looking looks) Anyhow she was happy with the look in the end which made me happy too :) It's always good when your talent feels pretty in the makeup so she can comfortably do her job of being sexy in front of the camera!

Hair wise, she had showed us her recent runway show where the hair stylist curled her hair with an 1'' iron all the way to the top~this free flowing curly, voluptuous hairstyle which she absolutely loved so I tried recreating it for her~~haha too bad half way it starts dying because her extensions have been rubbing around on the baby oiled body

After I had finished we headed out to downtown Burbank to shoot around some places with industrial looking backgrounds coz that's the RUKUS Style: hot girl in industrial playground lol


here's us going at it, Carissa was doing a great job despite all the random men honking at her and there was this creepy man who stared and waved at her from afar from under the bridge X_X he was on the phone staring the WHOLLEE time

*Models are SO brave* haha I could never do that. LOL


As per usual I had the wonderful job of oiling the talents up (hah! to which my Special f/x teacher had told me he wanted to be my assistant!!) It's all good when it's sexy hairless girls, sometimes my talents are hairy men ^_^|| haha It feels very interesting oiling carpets of hair haha~*

a few more behind the scene shots of us working from yours truly~





















Carissa all seductive in her 2nd outfit



candid shot hehe I think she looks cute here with her super happy smile ~




















the third bikini was my FAVE :) she looks SOOO hawt in that metallic red!! She said she had it customized at Turtle Beach :)
















yes we enjoy goofing around hehe ^_^














one last pic with Carissa and Nathan our Videographer for the day!




















:) Thank you Andrew for setting up the shoot ~ it was SO fun working with the team ^_^ don't forget to support Rukus Magazine if you like hot girls and fast cars LOL!

[peace]

Circle Lens

There has been some controversy as to the safety of wearing circle lens lately :

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/fashion/04lenses.html

It's definitely not a new concern in Asia since I've been sporting circle lens myself for over 5 years...

As a person who's been wearing her glasses since 1996 (wow. saying that just made me feel REALLY OLD)~ I do enjoy, at times, being able to look without my nerdy glasses ^_^

Since I only wear contacts on special occasions (i.e. when I wear makeup..which is. not often) I prefer NOT to purchase monthly/weekly contacts which I view as relatively wasteful for my usage and the brand that I've been stuck with for the past few years are the Johnson and Johnson Acuvue Define 1-day contacts. I love how they are relatively affordable (I get them in Taiwan for around $600-800 NTD (~$25 USD) for a pack of 30 contacts!

They come in individual packages like such:













and the contacts look like this:


































*There are different versions and I've tried both the black and the brown one but I prefer the black one because I like my eyes darker and I feel like the brown ones don't give as much effect as the black ones)*

Some people do not really like these because they're really "Natural looking" when you wear them. Most people cannot really tell that I wear circle lens since "Defines" are quite "transparent" compared to other circle lens like these:


















I feel like most other circle lenses are a bit more opaque in their coloring ~ and to me they just look a bit too obvious and even remind me a little of those Japanese horror eyes


as Per:


























LMAO okay maybe not quite but You get the gist HEHE

About 3 years ago I also tried these gray contacts from CibaVision (Again dailies)

and I'm not sure whether they were any bigger than my normal iris size but they were interesting~ but since my bro said I looked like a blind person X_X I only tried them once HAHAHA................ they look very different under sunlight and with flash I must say:





















As I am used to the Acuvue ones which are pretty breathable for their 3 layer design, the CibaVision ones did appear to dry out my eyes much faster and I had to take them out after a few hours because my eyes became quite uncomfortable.

Anyways, I've been told that the quality of lens out there DO vary lots (especially when you're buying online so I've just always stuck with the Acuvue ones that are sold in legit stores with my prescription and because when you are wearing any form of colored contacts, they are adding 2 additional layers of contacts (2 clear layers and one colored layer sandwiched in between) they are extra "un-breathable" for your eyes, if you MUST wear them, do try to take them off within 6- 8 hours if possible or else you do risk damaging your eyes like when you sleep with your contacts on~(as an optometrist has told me)

Anyways, keep your cornea safe and Happy eye-altering :)
[peace]

Temptu S/B Hi-Def Brilliant Color Supreme Versatility

Since I got a request from fellow makeup artist Nikkischipper to try out my new purchase from Temptu, I decided to test out the "imitate this" makeup that was on "BLUSH : the Search for the Next makeup artist" (since I just watched the show yesterday).


I thought since it had such strong colors I could probably test out the opacity of the S/B blue, pink and yellow on my face.
















I started out with a fresh face- I did not put on the S/B primer but I used the



Embryolisse Lait-Creme as a base since Temptu trainer Kristina Duff had said in her workshop that it works as both a primer and a moisturizer under any of the S/B line product.

I've already gone through 2 huge tubes of these and I LOVVEE it to death, too bad I could only buy the last small one at IMATS since I went too late!

Anyhow, I have the before and after pictures:



I ran it through my Temptu Air compressor/airbrush kit and I did not wear any foundation before spraying myself with color :)



















here's the after with the more dim bathroom lighting:




As ridiculous as I look I think it's quite interesting hehe and fun nonetheless (minus the cleaning of the airbrush gun, that's the part I hate most about using the airbrush! Especially since S/B solutions dry super quickly and the cup is non-detachable making it harder to clean the insides)









I tried to color correct it in photoshop so it's not as yellow:


Hopefully you can see the colors more true in their form. I did not use flash. The consistency is fairly similar to the S/B foundations I feel like it might be a little bit more viscous (OR it might be my imagination HAHA!<-- highly likely)

Anyways, I look forward to trying them out more and with stencils as well during photoshoots! *can't wait!*

[peace]

p.s. sorry bout the fail attempt to imitate the "look" hehe It's actually rather hard spraying your own eyelids... I wonder how Kristina Duff manages to draw her eyeliner with the airbrush paint! X_X ~~

p.p.s. I didn't prime my eyes before I put the paint on my eyelids so they feel a bit tight~ but otherwise the face feels fine~