Beauty Queen

I got together with my beautiful friends Jess and Piera last week for a makeup lesson and makeover, and Piera being the awesome photographer that she is, took some photos for me!

Face:

• Revlon Colorstay Foundation - Buff
• MAC Studio Finish Concealer - NC20
• MAC Careblend Powder Light Plus
• Chanel Soleil De Tan
• Sleek Contour Kit - Light

Eyes:

• Bobbi Brown Gel Liner - Black Ink
• Urban Decay Naked Basics - Crave
• Urban Decay Naked Palette - Half Baked, Smog + Creep
• GOSH Effect Powder - Pineapple
• Red Cherry Lashes - #113
• Miss Sporty Studio Lash Mascara - Black
• Brows - Shadows from 28 Neutral Palette

Lips:

• MAC Creme D'Nude + Myth

Jess is a bit of a beauty queen and will be competing in the Face of the Midlands very soon! She is also running her own pageant National Beauty Supreme Pageant where I will be doing the make up for some of the contestants!

And here are some behind the scenes pics-

Using Naked Decay Basics Palette and Crownbrush Pointed Crease Brush

All Photos Copyright Piera Catalano Photography

Next week I'm going to London to do the Bridal and Beyond course at Illamasqua, I'm sooo excited! Can't wait to learn some new skills and meet some amazing, talented creatives!

xxx

My MUA kit

Welcome to my kit tour! I'm still in the process of building my kit, adding and upgrading products all the time, it's an expensive business but a good kit is a very important part of being an MUA! This is nowhere near where I want it to be but it serves me well for now :)

So I used to use this Make-up box, but it quickly got far too full and WAY too heavy to lug around on shoots, so I now use clear plastic zipped bags which I then put in a suitcase.

All my bags are from Superdrug, you get a set of three for £5.99, one big one, a middle sized one and a smaller one. Clear bags are great because you can see exactly what's in each bag, saves so much time because you're not rooting through everything trying to find that one lipgloss!

So I'll go through each of the bags, starting with the three big ones.

First up I have my skincare and disposables. I have a bag of sponges and powder puffs in different shapes, cotton pads for cleansing the face, Simple face wipes, disposable mascara wands so there's no double dipping! Beauty So Clean sanitizing wipes for products, cotton buds, hand sanitizer, a spray bottle of alcohol for sanitizing make up, a spray bottle of water for when I want to use wet brushes/products, Lush lip scrub in Bubblegum (smells and tastes amazing and makes lips silky smooth ready for lip products), a face primer and eyelid primer, Bobbi Brown vitamin enriched face base, Micellar Water for cleansing, Nivea hydrating primer, RCMA Foundation Thinner, and finally my ELF Setting Spray.

Next up are my palettes. To save a lot of space I try to use palettes for most things, I have pre filled ones and ones I have depotted items into like my Z-Palette and my DIY lip palettes. Top left is an eyeshadow palette that I don't use too often but it's great for when I don't have a colour of eyeshadow that I want. The neutral eyeshadow palette next to that is a great mix of neutral shades in matte and shimmer, great for brides! Next to that is my Crownbrush blusher palette, a great mix of colours, I don't even tend to reach for any of my single ones anymore! The two small ones at the top right are by Sleek, the top one is a primer palette for making shadows really pop, and the lower one is a shimmer shadow palette. Below that is my RCMA VK #10 Foundation palette, a vital part of my kit so I can match everyone's skintone! Below that is a magnetic eyeshadow palette I've filled with all my favourite nude lipsticks. To the left of that, is my beloved Urban Decay Naked palette, a beautiful range of neutral colours. Left of that is my DIY lip palette. This is so handy, as rooting through lipsticks where you have to open every one to find the right colour is a pain in the bum! Next to that is my Z-Palette, which is an empty magnetic palette with a clear lid that you put depotted shadows in. And finally the little white empty palette is from ELF, which I can pop any of the small depotted pans into to make a custom palette!

So these are my foundations/face powders, concealers and blushes. My foundations are a mix of Revlon, MAC and Sleek, in a range of colours, which I can also custom mix in the mixing palette (bottom left). I also have two shades of Vichy Dermablend corrective foundation, which is an AMAZING foundation for anyone with any skin problems like acne or rosacea, really light on the skin but massively high coverage. I then have a range of face powders from MAC, ELF, Revlon and Max Factor. Third row is a corrective concealer palette from ELF, Studio Finish concealer from MAC, Revlon Photoready Primer, Urban Decay Mineral Fouantion and Chanel's Soleil De Tan bronzer. Bottom row I have a few random blushes, Sleek's Contour Kit in light, and a cream blush from MAC.

These are my lip products. Top row is a range of lip glosses mainly from MAC, and then some cheaper brands like Barry M, Gosh, 17 and MUA. Second row I have some more glosses and a lip stain, and Sleek's Pout Paints, which are amazing mixable lip paints, very highly pigmented, similar to OCC's lip tars I believe! Bottom row are three lipsticks I haven't yet depotted and then a good range of lip pencils, nude colours, pinks and reds.

Next up I have my Mascaras, clear brow gel for unruly brows, glitter eyeliners for creative shoots, pencil eyeliners in black, brown, white and a couple of other colours, black liquid eyeliner, black Bobbi Brown longwear gel eyeliner, Illamasqua Brow Cake and the Sleek Brow Kit in Dark.

Next up are loose pigments and shadows, most at the top are Barry M Dazzle Dusts, a couple by GOSH, one NYX one and two beautiful Pure Pigments by Illamasqua.

I then have two bags of lashes, a range of different strip lashes and a set of individual ones, and the ULTIMATE lash glue, DUO adhesive in dark. There isn't another lash glue that even compares to this! Normally I have a few more sets than this when I go to a job, but I'm putting in a bulk order soon so I'll be all stocked up for my upcoming beauty pageant and weddings :)

Sometimes I do hair on set, so I have a little hair kit with me (along with my heat styling tools). I use this little bag which is a handbag organiser from Primark! (Thanks to Katie Vallis for the idea ;)) This is what I have in it-

These are just the basic essentials, hairspray, dry shampoo for texture, styling gel, big rollers, a hair donut, sectioning clips, hairbrush/comb, heat protection spray, hair bobbles, and different sizes/colours of bobby pins.

And of course my brush belt! Mine's from Inglot, which I studded up myself. Most of my brushes are from Crownbrush, a few are MAC and I have the Core Collection by Real Techniques. I also have an eyelash curler, nail scissors and Hello Kitty tweezers in there.

 

And lastly I have a black hand towel which I lay out all my kit on to keep everything clean and tidy, straws for models on shoots so they don't mess up their lips! And not pictured I also take take tissues, chewing gum, a couple of bottles of water and my Galaxy Tablet, with my inspiration pictures for the shoot!

So that's it! Hopefully it'll give any MUA's starting out a little help on what basics to have in your kit. My kit is constantly changing and growing, replacing products with better ones and adding random bits in, but I have pretty much everything in it to create anything I want at the moment. Though of course, I still have a wishlist as long as my arm! Thanks for reading :) Feel free to ask any questions!

xxx

More shoot pics..

(click to enlarge)

 Photographer: Stoney Darkstone

Model: Gemma Lloyd

MUA: Me, Lynsey Mckenzie

Here are two more shots from my shoot with Stoney and the lovely Gemma. We wrapped all this black netting around her and pinned it in her hair, I just love the effect it gives. These are definitely strong additions to my portfolio!

xxx

Lilac

I'm in love with lilac at the moment and have been wearing Barry M's Gelly High Shine polish in GNP6 on my fingers AND toes for the past two weeks, and today decided to pop on a glitter gradient, Look Beauty Nail Pop in Dazzle, pretty pretty! The colour of the glitter didn't really show up in the above pictures so below is an old picture of it, it's a super sparkly lilac, purple and blue glitter.

xxx

Photoshoot: Stoney Darkstone

 

Photographer: Stoney Darkstone

Model: Gemma Lloyd

MUA + Hair: Me, Lynsey Mckenzie

Just got this image back from my last photoshoot, I love it! You can't really see much makeup detail in this but it's basically a really dark eye with Illamasqua lashes and a nude lip. I did the hair on this shoot aswell but some of it has been 'enhanced' a little ;) Can't wait to get some more shots back, we did a couple more interesting looks! Should be collaborating with Stoney again soon :)

If you want to see more behind the scenes shots etc, I post much more regularly on my Instagram @lynzmua, follow me!

xxx

Brushes: Real Techniques

I've always been a massive fan of Crownbrush's products, they have an awesome choice of brushes (and palettes!) with great quality and great prices, but, for Christmas I received the Real Techniques Core Collection set, and I have to say I am in LOVE with these brushes. Well, two of them, the Buffing brush and the Contour brush.

These brushes have incredibly soft bristles, with no shedding thus far and a lovely textured handle.

The buffing brush is now my 'Holy Grail' foundation brush. I have gone through so many foundation brushes and have never been perfectly happy with any of them, they either leave streaks, lose bristles, are too small, too hard, soak up too much product etc etc, ugh I just hated foundation brushes for a long time! But this is perfect, you can buff your foundation in in no time, no streaks or foundation-sucking powers, the bristles stay soft and non clumpy between washes and it's the perfect size to do your whole face in no time at all. LOVE IT.

I find the contour brush perfect to carve out my cheekbones, contour my nose and temples etc. The size is nice and small with an oval shape, so you can be precise with your contouring, and it's dense enough to lightly buff out any harsh lines as well. The bristles have all the great attributes I said above and yeah it's just awesome.

I haven't really used the other two brushes in the set much, not to say that they aren't great but I have other brushes I use more than these. The case they come in I'm sorry to say I really didn't like. The black part of the brush handles have a rubbery texture, because of this it's quite hard to just slip the brushes back in and so the whole 'using it as a brush stand' thing that it's supposed to be, sort of doesn't quite work for me but it was a good idea I suppose, plus I either keep my brushes in my makeup bag or my brush belt (which I got a brand new Inglot one for xmas, thanks bro!) so it was a slightly unneccesary part of kit for me.

Sooooo if you've been on the same horrible search as me for a foundation brush or small contouring brush I highly recommend these brushes, and best of all you can get them from Boots for £21.99, Boots points ahoy! Or if you're not near a Boots, you can buy them internationally here.

*Edited to say that these are completely synthetic brushes so totally cruelty free!!

xxx 

Naked Basics

For Christmas I was lucky enough to get something I have been lusting after since it was released, Urban Decay's new Naked Basics Palette!

I've had the original Naked palette since last year and I absolutely love it, but since it has mostly shimmery shades I used it more for night looks and the occasional sparkly day look, but as soon as I heard they were making a matte version I knew I had to have it.

I have used this every single day since I got it, I don't need any other eyeshadow to create my daily look, it's absolutely perfect. The shadows are incredibly highly pigmented, you only need the tiniest amount so hopefully it will last a long time.

I use either Foxy or W.O.S as a wash of colour on the lid, then Venus (the only non-matte colour) as a highlight on the inner corner, then Naked 2 on the outer corner, and Faint and Crave to darken my crease and extend the outer corners of my eye.

I BLOODY LOVE THIS PALETTE, BUY IT OK. It's £20 and available at Debenhams or House Of Fraser in the UK or online at www.urbandecay.com internationally :)

xxx