Create The Best Me

Game-changing Makeup Hacks for women over 50

• Neelam Kaur • Episode 109

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Join me and Neelam Kaur as we dive into the world of makeup artistry with tips and tricks that can transform your beauty routine. It's all about glowing skin, expertly selected shades, and making you feel fabulous. We’re cutting through the clutter and tackling common beauty challenges with easy solutions. Ever struggled with raccoon eyes or cakey concealer? Neelam’s got you covered. And if you've ever had a magnetic lashes mishap, you're not alone; we're here to share the lessons learned. Whether for a special occasion like a wedding or everyday glam, this episode is packed with advice to help you look and feel your best.

5 Key Lessons:

  1. Understanding Your Skin’s Needs: Neelam emphasizes the importance of identifying your undertones and how they can dictate your choices in foundation and concealer to avoid looking mismatched.
  2. Effective Use of Color Correctors: Learn how to combat dark circles and hyperpigmentation with the proper color-correcting techniques, using products that provide the coverage you need.
  3. The Art of Layering: Discover the magic of layering your makeup correctly to enhance longevity and achieve a natural, radiant finish.
  4. Smart Application Techniques: From brushes to sponges, Neelam shares the right tools and methods to apply makeup effortlessly for a flawless look.
  5. The Perfect Finishing Touches: Find out how to set your makeup for all-day wear and the best way to apply lipstick to enhance your natural lip shape.

Call to Action:

Want to learn more? Check out the full episode on YouTube and get access to Neelam’s exclusive beauty app for makeup artists:  https://youtu.be/YBR_G54xejo

If you find these tips helpful, don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe to our channel! Join us as we journey toward the beauty that celebrates our age while lifting our spirits. And be sure to return next week for an inspiring episode with Judy Henderson. She'll share her incredible story of spending 36 years in prison for a crime she did not commit and reveal how she changed our legal system from the inside. 

📕 Resources: 

https://createthebestme.com/ep109

https://neelamkaur.com/

https://www.facebook.com/RedCarpetGlamourInc/

https://www.instagram.com/thebridalbeautystudio/

https://www.amazon.ca/shop/love_neelu

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I have to ask you, have you ever tried those so-called magnetic miracle lashes and end up with a mini disaster on your eyelids? Yep, I've been there and let's just say ouch! But hang tight, because today's guest is about to save us from all future makeup fiascos. I'm chatting with the fabulous Neelam Kaur, a makeup artist who turned marketing wiz, who built not one, but two blooming beauty businesses. She's spilling every tip on how we midlife women can rock our best face, think glowing skin, perfectly chosen shades and insider tricks to help us love every feature we've got. By the end of this episode, you'll know exactly how to avoid raccoon eyes, ditch those cakey concealer woes, and maybe just maybe feel bold enough to try lashes again without turning into a joker. Ready? Let's jump on in. Neelam Kaur, welcome to Create the Best Me. This is an honor to have you on the show. Oh, it's an honor to be here. Thank you so much. And you are like, everyone's superhero because you make us look beautiful when we don't feel so beautiful. Oh my God, that's so sweet to say. I think everyone is beautiful, but we just have to get off Instagram and stop scrolling because that is what's really doing the damage. Exactly. Hey, Neelam, can you please tell the viewers and listeners a little bit about who you are and what you do? Oh my God, okay, all of it. Bits and pieces of it. I do a lot of things. I wear a lot of hats. I bounce around all the time. But, I've been a makeup artist since I was 18. I am now 37. So I've been doing it for quite a time. Bridal has been my go-to forever. It's a hustle. It's demanding, but I absolutely love it. It's such an honor to be in someone's home with their family alongside their loved ones on the most important day of their life. And it is not a job I take lightly. Being able to service the bride and the bridesmaids and the mother and the grandmother, like, it's such a beautiful time. I grew up watching a lot of Disney movies, so that whole fairytale love gives me all the butterflies. And being able to spend my weekends doing that is absolutely amazing. So I went from being a makeup artist to also being an educator, more so on the marketing side and helping other makeup artists grow and scale their business as well. And co-founded an app to help them do that too. Uh, well, I will say right now, girl, you look absolutely beautiful. I love your makeup right now. And I think what I like the most about your makeup is it looks very natural. You don't look overdone, you just look, I mean, it brings out your beautiful features. Thank you so much. I actually did my makeup at about seven o'clock this morning.

It is now almost 7:

30 PM here. So all I have to do before the show is touch up with like a little bit of powder, but when you're layering correctly, you can get away with a lot and make it last a lot longer. Well, you did mention that you do makeup for not just the bride, but for mom and grandma. And I'm pretty sure one of the challenges that you are faced with is that mom or grandma want to have beautiful pictures that they can display in their house or show off to everybody, but they want to look beautiful. They don't want to look like they're 20, but they don't want all the attention drawn toward those fine lines that we all tend to have as we get older. And being that we are approaching graduations coming up, so not just weddings, we have weddings, graduations, and so forth. That's why I invited you on the show so that you can teach older women how to show off their best features This is going to be so much fun. And not look over done, of course. And, and I'll just add right here, there are these two women right here, Salma Hayek and Halle Berry are women that I personally admire. And the reason why I admire these women is because, not only because they're awesome, but because they're 58 years old, both of them, I found that out I had no idea until you told me that. I was like, what? I know, and they look amazing. They're not overdone. They look very natural and very beautiful. And they are women of color. And being a woman of color as myself, I find it very difficult to find the right color to match my face, to not make me look like, like I'm an Oompa-Loompa from Willy Wonka, or, you know, look like a ghost. I totally understand that. So especially growing up, there wasn't a lot of selection when it comes to foundations, and I think a lot of the default was Mac NC42, and I think there's a range, a very big range that was used in that foundation. That foundation runs really yellow. So when you're a person of color, when, especially like myself being Indian, I have yellow tones in my skin, so I do need a yellow based foundation, but I also run neutral in the winter. So for me to use a yellow based foundation, I will go yellow or orange when it oxidizes. So we really going to work on balancing that out. I think trying to find a foundation that matches your skin tone really comes down to understanding your undertone. Like, are you going to be running warm? Are you going to be running cool? Are you going to be running neutral? I know it's a little bit complicated, but the easiest way to do that is just to find a couple of shades that you think are close and really just running them along your jawline and seeing how they set in rather than trying to figure out what color your veins are, rather than trying to figure out, and all of the other tricks that there are to it. Cause it's a lot to remember. It gets overwhelming. It's like sometimes it doesn't always work, especially when you don't have like a color theory background. Like color theory is not something that I learned in school as a makeup artist. It's something that I had to teach myself and I'm still learning every day. But really just knowing that usually foundation does oxidize and go a little bit deeper, starting a little bit lighter. And also not being afraid of it if it's the wrong color. Because a lot of the times your one color is not going to be the right color your whole year through. And there's things that you can do to offset that. In those summertime, you're going to be more bronzy, more tan. So if you have a foundation that matches you beautifully in the summertime, because it does run a little bit more orange, a little bit more yellow, then in the wintertime it's looking like you're fully disconnected from your neck and shoulders. All you're going to be doing is like not tossing that bottle, not even switching to another shade, either one, yes, you can use a color corrector, like maybe add some blue in there to kind of change the tone a little bit. But even easier is using a concealer, just using a lighter concealer through the center of your face, under your eyes to kind of balance it out and making it look like the outside of your area of your face is still nice and bronzy. And then the glow matches the center of your face, your shoulders, your chest, and then you naturally are contoured as well without actually doing the contour. Mm, I think I just threw a lot at you. You certainly did. I'm like, holy smokes. I told you that I didn't want to look like an Oompa Loompa orange and you just threw blue out here. And then you also talked about concealer. And I think that one of the challenges I have with concealer is that, around my eyes, under my eyes, and here into my cheekbones, I am very dry. No matter what I do. I'm very dry. I, I think I set my face up and we'll go into that after I'm done with this. But I put concealer and sometimes I look like a raccoon, you know, just like, whoa, white. It just, it doesn't go. So for the sake of education, could you please start off by saying, how could I prep my face? I am dry here, my nose tends to be a little oily, and I'm oily here in my chin. How would I prep my face before I even set up my makeup or begin to apply makeup? So to break that question down a little bit and, and to break down your issue with concealer, there's two things that you mentioned here. You're like, one, you look like a raccoon cause it's bright, right? And then they also, that it's dry. So when it's bright we're looking at is this a concealer that matches your color or is this a concealer that you bought to be lighter to do highlighting to make areas brighter? Cause if you're saying that it's bright, I'm assuming that the color's too light for you. And maybe you grab that to do highlighting. And is that, is that correct or, I completely off here? Well, I've, purchased two different concealers. Now I've gone a little bit of dark, but here's my issue. My issue, other than being dry around my eyes, I have, and this is just me naturally, and I know that Indian women also have this issue, is that I have dark circles around my eyes. I look like I haven't slept in days, even though I sleep 10 hours, and I'll still wake up with dark circles. Totally, a brown girl thing, yeah. And then also like around the chin area, we get that all the time. Okay. So we have, skin prep, the different types of skin, the different areas of your skin, and then the color correcting, and then the dryness. All right, let's break this down one by one. And I'm going to lose my train of thought here. So jump in please and keep me on track. Okay, so first off, let's start with skin prep. So obviously if you're dealing with dryness, any sort of fine lines, the best thing to do is hydrate the crap out of it. Like really let it soak in. Go do something else after you apply that cream. And if there's anything left before you start your makeup, just give it a wipe to get rid of any sort of excess and then go in with your concealer. But there's a certain way to do your concealer. I'm going to come back to that in just a second. Second, you have areas that are dry, areas that are oily. So the oily areas other than maybe a light serum, cause you still want to hydrate the oily areas. Otherwise you're going to get more, you're going to get more oil, right? Your body's going to be like, oh, I'm not having any hydration here. I have to compensate by creating more oils. So. You do want to use a moisturizer, but maybe if it's a big problem area for you, use it at nighttime. Like drench your skin at nighttime, and then the morning after you wash your face, skip over those areas with the moisturizer. Because when you're using a ton of products underneath your makeup, you're using lots of serums. You're using lots of moisturizers. Yes, you need them. They're beautiful for your skin. They're going to make your skin glow, but they're also going to affect your makeup, especially if you have oily areas. Your makeup is only going to last as good as your skincare underneath. So if we are doing makeup for a special event, this is different than everyday makeup. If we're doing makeup for a special event, I would go a lot lighter with my skincare products. All of your fancy serums, creams, things like that, do it the night before. Let it soak in so your skin is beautiful and plump the next morning. Then wash your face. Get off any of the oils that are already on there. Go in with a very light layering of moisturizer and let it seep into your skin before you even start going in with anything else. So we got our moisturizer. And if you're dry, then go in with all the moisturizer. Embryolisse."Lait-Crème Concentré'' is amazing, it work doubles as a primer. Go in with all of it. Let it soak. If you have flaky areas on your skin that are like patchy and you can really see the texture from the dryness, not the texture from pours the texture from dryness, same thing. Apply a thick layer, like a face mask or something. Let it soak while you're doing your hair and then wipe it away. And then you have your base for your makeup. Are we good on skin prep? Well, you mentioned primer and you said that there was this particular product that is a two in one, it was a moisturizer and a primer. Yes, Embryolisse Lait I, I hope I'm saying it right. I've been using it for years. Embryolisse Lait-Crème Concentré it's like a makeup artist, holy grail. I use it on almost everybody unless somebody has really, really oily skin. Cause it just, it has that slip to it, and it preps the skin really well for makeup to go down smoothly on it. But if you have an oily, like you have an oily T-zone and those oils bother you, sometimes a little bit of oil is okay. Like I have some glow going on on my cheeks right now, and I think if I didn't have that, my face would look too flat. So, if you have an oily T-zone where you have like a really like disco ball, shiny nose and you're like, I don't want to look like this. Then using a primer just in those areas that's going to combat that oil or help the foundation stick better to those areas. Unless you have larger pores in your nose or you produce more oils in your nose, sometimes the foundation doesn't stick. Or sometimes you're so dehydrated that the foundation goes on and then you just see spots on your nose cause your skin's absorbed it. So using a primer in those areas, like the Milk Hydro Grip, or something, the Poreless from hourglass. Something that is going to absorb oil or help your foundation like it's tacky and it's going to help your foundation stick better is great, just for those areas. Like you don't have to go all over your face. Cause we're still trying to make it look like it's life. Right. Mm-hmm. What about around the eyes? Would you put the primer around your eyes as well? Honestly, I don't know if you're supposed to or not. So I don't, because I have moisturizer there, I have skincare there. And I also don't know if the products in the primer are going to be safe enough around the eye area if they're fragrance or anything like that. So, as a precaution, I don't, um, I also like, I feel like I haven't had the need to. I have on occasion with clients with fine lines that were very, very self-conscious about it. I would take a little bit of like eyeshadow primer and put that on the fine lines and then go in with my concealer, very, very sparingly. Okay. And just, for education purpose, cause you just threw something, I don't know anything about What does eyeshadow primer do? Okay. so eyeshadow primer helps grab your eyeshadow. So there's a couple of things. There's lots of different ones out there, but the way that I like to use them is, one, I want to use an eyeshadow primer because I want my eyeshadow to show up better. I want it to grab that color. I don't want it to crease. But I only use an eyeshadow primer when I'm doing my makeup for special events. If I'm doing my makeup for work or like day to day, I'm not doing that extra step. So I will just use my concealer. I'll just use my concealer and I'll set it with powder, and then I'll just go back in with my bronzer, do my eyeshadow. But another easy way is when you're doing your concealer and if you have like an oilier eyelid and it creases, no matter what I do, and my eyeshadow always creases, or my foundation is always creasing, even if I'm setting it with powder, my, just, my foundation on my eyes is creasing. Just take a little bit of that eyeshadow primer, like a tiny little drop, mix it in with your concealer before you put it on your eyes. And that's just an easy way to keep it in place. Okay, so you talked about, setting your face by putting this two in one primer and hydration. How long would you let that set before you start doing your makeup or moving on to the next step? Five, 10 minutes, the longer the better. Mainly because I don't want to get too technical and complicated here and give you more stuff to think about, but your foundation and your moisturizer, or your foundation and your primer have to play well together. It's an ingredient thing. If you have a thick layer of moisturizer on your skin and it is like an oil-based moisturizer, and then you're going in with the silicone based foundation, and they mix, they're going to start pilling where you get those little flaky parts that come off. Like there's a lot of videos out there giving you a lot of information and really, like, we want to simplify things. So if we just use less of the moisturizer and we let it absorb into the skin so that it's not sitting on top of the skin when we go in with our foundation, it's not a problem. But then we don't have to worry about matching our foundation with our moisturizer. Cause who wants to think about that? I don't want to think about that. Do you want to think about that? I don't, but I tell you one I have stopped using primer for that reason because I guess I didn't let it sit long enough. Because then I apply my makeup and I'm like, oh my gosh, I have like all this like little silicone, feels like, you know, like little silicone bubble or not like peels or rolls on my face. Yeah. I actually just like dust them away sometimes. I'm like, it's fine. They'll go, go away on their own later. Um, but that's the other benefit to using a primer just in the areas that you need it. And also, I feel like if you're prepping your skin correctly and you're good with your skincare, you don't need a primer. I used to use "Smashbox Photo Finish" on everybody. That was my holy grail for a long time. Watching it on, the shopping channel, I remember when I was younger and I was like, this is magic. Like this is everything. I was obsessed with Smashbox seeing those commercials on the shopping channel. And I was using that on everybody for a long time. But I think I just got lucky. It was early in my makeup career and the foundation that I was using just played well with it. But when I started adding different foundations to my kit, it was not always playing well anymore, and it took a while to realize the culprit. So then, okay, we've let it set for five minutes, five, 10 minutes. What do we do next? Okay, so next we're going to go in with our color corrector. So day to day wear, I like Vasanti VO2. If you don't have like extreme dark circles. Like if it's just like a shading issue, you know, like there's just like a little bit of shade, you can see a little bit of darkness. Then the Vasanti V02 is so light, it is so creamy that I just like, I go in and I apply it to like the areas only on top of the areas that have darkness, cause we're trying to color correct. We're not trying to cover that whole area, and then spread onto the normal skin tone color because now you're color correcting the normal skin tone color and that area is going to go orange. So you want to keep it in that very concentrated area, very light dabs of that product, and then just press it in with your finger, and let it sit. And we're letting it sit, cause you want it to dry down before you go in with your foundation, otherwise you're just spreading that product around. And again, like if you're in a rush, what you can do is take like a makeup setting spray, not the hydration spray, the setting sprays that really lock in your makeup, like Urban Decay All Nighter or the Charlotte Tilbury Spray. Spray your fingers, spray your brush, and then tap it in. And that'll just lock it in a little bit stronger. And you can also build up your layers with that. But if you have deeper, darker, deeper, darker, if you have more darkness, darker circles, then you're going to need something a little bit more hardcore for color correcting. I'm saying orange, cause I'm assuming we're talking about brown girls, cause like, we're both like in, in like the middle range kind of area. But there's peach, there's salmon. What? There's peach, there's orange, there's salmon. That's probably not in the right order. But there's usually three. Most brands have three. So I'm saying, orange for like the middle range, but it doesn't have to be orange, orange. Like I don't even know what, color I have here. I have my whole kit here with me. Like the LA color corrector, pro conceal, this is like an orange. This is too dark, this is way too dark. Like I would use this very sparingly, mixed in with my eye cream maybe, and then letting it dry down if that's all I had. What does that look like when you put that on? Are you going to look like you got orange? Uh, it's pretty orange. Yeah, so that's like if, when you're using like orange, orange. Like you want to make sure you're going with the full coverage foundation afterward. Or cause like, this is hardcore. Somebody that has a lot of darkness whether it's hyperpigmentation along the chin or certain areas of their face, this actually looks less orange cause we're only putting it on top of those areas. But the NARS has really good creamy ones as well. Like this one is in light and this one is like really light. Like that's a very light, light, creamy, peachy color. And that one is a little bit less scary to work with. So we apply it and then we wait and go like do something else in the meantime. I have a question to ask you. Does that also help with, scars from zits? Sorry, I get zits. And because I am a brown girl, I end up with dark spots on my face that take forever to go away. Same product, same application. You want to just pad it in. And then again, after you're putting on your foundation, if you're putting it on that area, you want to make sure you're padding and that you're not like brushing back and forth and moving it around. You really want it to stay set. And then for someone else that has, breakouts from acne, if it's a red breakout, like it's fresh, then you're not going to go in with orange, you're going to go in with green because it's on the opposite side of the color wheel. The green is going to cancel out that redness. Where would the blue fit in? Because I know you mentioned blue. Blue. You know, I don't know why I do what I do sometimes. So in my mind, like I could be wrong and I'm going to get called up for this later, so do your research before you quote me on it. But I would put blue if something is too orange. That is making sense to me, is blue and orange against across the color wheel from each other. I need to look this up. Hold on. Color wheel blue, orange. Yeah, okay, perfect. That's exactly what it is. Had to make sure before I make anyone else into like an Oompa Loompa or Avatar. So if your foundation is getting too bronzy, getting too orange, mixing in a tiny bit of blue could help neutralize it. So then that could be like your winter foundation as well. Oh, so like for example, this is what I use because like I said, I'm drier than dry. I use IT foundation, and it has a CC Nude Glow. And it's supposed to be little, I don't know, the computer's not I see the bottle. I love IT cosmetics. I think they have done an amazing job with their line. And the foundation as well as the color corrector as well as the BB cream. Like they're all amazing. Even the green rescue cream phenomenal. Like I've had mothers, mothers in my chair. They're like, can I just use my foundation? Usually I'll say no, because like things don't play well, together. I don't know if it's been compromised bacteria, all of those things. But then they pull out like IT cosmetic CC cream or like the silver bottle even. I don't know if they changed their packaging, and I'm like, okay, yes, we can totally use this because it blends into the skin like butter. It does something to the texture of the skin. I don't know what the ingredient is. I don't know how they formulated it, but it literally just. It's going to be maybe silicone. Cause it really does smooth out the skin beautifully. And it's just, it's pillowy. I don't know how to describe it, but nice, it's pillowy. I, I like it because I can smile. I can move my face and not feel like it's going to break. You know, some products do that. I feel like it dries my face too much. And what I liked about this is that I can move my face without, you know, I think it's going to tear or anything like that. And it has SPF 40. And I think if you're worried about like, things seeping into fine lines or like texture, I love silicone based foundations for that because the molecules are a little bit bigger. They just sit on the skin rather than like a liquid where it's going to go into the pores and into stuff. I mean, if you're experienced, experienced with these bunny ears kind of thing, you can find a way to work it and make it work for you. But if you want something effortless, like Cinema Secrets has been in my kit forever, like literally 20 years. I keep replacing it. I think it's a professional brand though, but let me try to think of one that's mainstream. Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk is another one that is silicone base and then FACE Atelier is the pro version, but you can also buy it as a normal person, to the Giorgio Armani. Giorgio Armani runs for like, I think $68 a bottle Canadian, but the FACE Atelier, I think is less than half that price. And it's almost at a complete dupe. Again, like silicone based, so the molecules are a little bit bigger. If you have dry skin, normal skin, it's a beautiful foundation. It sits beautifully, sits on top of the skin beautifully. It's glowy, without being like overly wet or anything like that. But if you're oily, then silicone is a little bit tricky because it will slip and slide a little bit. So what about if you are on a fixed budget and you know, Giorgio Armani is a little bit out of that budget? Is there like a drug store brand that people can go to? I wish I had an answer to this. I haven't been to the drugstore to buy makeup in a really long time. Not because I'm bougie, but because I have a lot of pro discounts. I wait for the Sephora sale twice a year, so like April. Usually it's like around April and November, they always have the 20, 30% off. So whatever I need that I can't get from directly from a brand, I'll get it from there. Like those are the two times of the year I restock. I wouldn't be frugal unless I have to buy it otherwise. And then if you're buying a foundation at like 30% off or a high end foundation that you absolutely love, then you're buying it once a year. That's, it's not too bad. FACE Atelier though, is like a perfect dupe for the Giorgio Armani and it is at a fraction of the cost. Also, a lot of my clients have sworn by the Maybelline Fit Me foundations, and they absolutely are obsessed. So I, I, I think that would be a good dupe. I just haven't played with them myself. I mean, I use my eyeliners from there, but I just haven't foundations. I'm picky with my kit. Okay. So I've let the, I have orange eyes now because I've let this stuff sit in my face. How am I going to apply the foundation? Okay, so you're going to take foundation or concealer? Where am I going? We're going to go with foundation first because foundation, if we go, we could go in with concealer, but then you're adding coverage where you may not need coverage and we're adding too many layers. But if we can go in with foundation first, we can see what areas need to be concealed afterward. Cause concealer's a lot thicker too, right. So, I like to use like a dense kind of fluffy brush thing. If you can see the video, if you're watching on YouTube. Something like this, either side, something small, not too big. I'll put a couple of pumps onto the back of my hand so that my skin will also warm it up. And then I'll press down like this and I'll press my brush into my hand quite a few times so that all that product goes into the bristles. And then the same way I'm pushing onto my hand, maybe less aggressively, I'll take it to my face and I'll just push it onto my face. So like I'm not swirling, I'm not going, back and forth. I'm literally pushing it into my face. And because I've pushed a lot of that product into the brush, I also say for the people that are listening and not watching, when you're pushing the product, when you're pushing the brush into the product onto the back of your hand, take one dab into the product onto the back of your hand and then move it off to the side and keep pushing. What we're trying to do is get that product into the brush, so that you kind of have like a smooth effect, not a wet effect on your hand, and then push it onto your skin so you're not getting a heavy dose of foundation in one area. And then you're just going to go in all over your face, just pushing like kitty cat paws, they're waking you up in the morning. And do that all over your face. And then go back and repeat on your hand if you need more product and go back and push that all into your face. But we're going to skip right underneath the eye area here, cause we're going to do that with concealer. Concealer's going to sit better, it's going to last longer, and then we're going to use a different brush for that area. But if you have color corrector on your chin over any pimples, anything like that, you're going to do the same thing. You're just going to take this, you're going to push. Just keep covering and you might need to go back and do a second coat or a third coat. But because we're using such a small amount of product and we're working into the brush and we're pushing it onto the skin, it's a light layer that it's drying in between coats. So it's going to, you're not going to use the least amount of product that you need, and we're building up layers to get the coverage that you want without going in with a ton of product and having it s swish around and then it just be really heavy and you're like, how am I getting this to blend anywhere? I usually use a sponge. That's totally okay too. There's no wrong way to do makeup. You do what works for you. I like a beauty blender sponge, or what kind of sponge? It's a beauty, Or like a triangle. It's a like a teardrop almost. cause So how do you put your foundation on? I squirt a layer on my hand, and then I wet my beauty sponge, take out all the water out of it to make sure there's no water, and it's just nice and bouncy. And then I dab it into my hand and I dab it around. And then where I don't, where I didn't put makeup, I'll dab it over there so I'm not getting too much. And then I'll just like dab dab onto my face. Amazing. That's perfect too. Okay. Because I wasn't sure if maybe using the brush technique created more of a, feathered look or an airbrush type of look as opposed to the sponge. I, I think it's literally the same thing. I like using the brush because I have control of where I'm putting the product. Whereas like the beauty blender, like you can't see like if it's all along the bottom, if you're hitting it at the right angles. Also, I love a beauty blender. I use it afterward to finish my makeup. I just don't use it to apply my makeup because it's soaks up so much product cause it's a sponge, like you're using a lot of foundation in there as well. So sometimes on clients I will go in with like a flat foundation brush to apply foundation and then I'll go back afterward to use my beauty blender. I use my beauty blender for finishing. So most of the time, so I'll do like my foundation, my concealer, my highlight, all of the things and when everything's on and then I'll go back in. But instead of wetting my beauty blender because I want my makeup last, I'll spray it with like Urban Decay, All-Nighter. And then I'll go and I'll press it into my skin. So one, I'm making sure everything's smooth, flawless airbrush, but I'm also setting it with the All-Nighter spray to make sure it's going to last me all day as well. Okay, so if I did apply the orange around my eyes to take care of that dark circles, am I putting the makeup on that or am I still waiting for the concealer? No, you're going to rock it like that all day. That's it. That's your look! Okay, so now that your foundation is on, you skip the under eye area, you're going to get a concealer that is pretty much your actual color. This is to conceal, we're not brightening here. If you still find that you have a little bit of a darkness, you can go in with a concealer that's a little bit darker. I know it's the opposite of what we all want to do, but it'll just help get that coverage better. So I like having a wide range of concealers for a wide range of reasons. Like I'll have my one foundation that I absolutely love, or I'll have my daytime and my nighttime foundation, but I have a lot of concealers, which is kind of ridiculous, but there's method to the madness. So using a concealer that is the same color or tiny bit darker if you need extra coverage, but we're going to apply it the same way that we did our foundation. So I don't recommend, especially if you have any sort of fine lines that you don't want product to seep into, or you don't want it to look cakey or heavy, you're going to put the applicator onto the back of your hand, wipe off some product, and then using like a small dance brush, even like an eyeshadow crease brush. Like, you know, the round ones that we use for the crease of her eye, that same type of brush. We're going to take a little bit of product just on the tip of the brush. I don't want you to put it on the sides of all of the brush. So that's, that is a lot of product, just a tiny bit on the tip of the brush. And then same thing, pressing it into your hand, making sure that product is worked in there and that there's not like a whole ton of wet spots. When I say wet spots, I'm kind of talking about like peaks. Like you know how liquid makes peaks when you pick it up? It's those peaks that we don't want because if you're getting peaks on your hand, you're going to get peaks on your face. So just making sure it's all in there, you're not getting those peaks anymore. And then moving your hand to the back of the brush so we're not holding it all the way at the front of the brush like a pencil. We're going further back to loosen our pressure because we just want to go in here and just lightly tap onto that color corrector and that under eye area. And it might not cover it the first time, but that's okay. We use such a tiny amount of product that we can go back, do it again, and slowly build up in the areas that we need to get that coverage. And just very, very light layers and really making sure that that product has worked into the brush. Cause if that product's worked into the brush, it's so much less work that you have to do on your face to blend it into everything else after. Okay. And so by doing that, does that help eliminate from its setting into those fine lines? There is nothing that's going to completely erase those fine lines, but the less product that we use, the less setting in that it will do. And then the other thing is like, if you are worried about it setting in, there's a couple of things that we could do to help minimize it, not completely stop it altogether, because if there is texture, things are going to move, but we want to move a little bit less so we want to use less product. So it's moving less. We want to use a little bit of powder so that it's like sand, it kind of slows it down for moving a little bit of powder. And then the other option is like if I, you absolutely hate powder and like I'm against it. I don't want it. I don't care how little it is. Then skip the powder and then just be okay throughout the day just taking your finger, like your warm finger and just lightly pressing it under there. Who cares if you have to touch it up. Better to touch it up and be okay with the finish than having to cake it on or do all of these things and be unhappy with your look. Like I used to wear liquid lipstick because I hated touching up my lipstick. And like I would always do liquid lips. I'm like, and I hated the feeling of liquid lips, but I was just lazy that I didn't want to touch it up. And now I as after I turned like 35, I'm like, forget it. I love my Charlotte Tilbury lipsticks. They're creamy, they're hydrating. They don't last for shit. But I'm okay with that because the colors are beautiful, they feel amazing. And I just keep it in my purse. Now it's fine. I'll touch it up. I don't care. Okay, so, we lightly applied the concealer under our eyes. And we can either, you talked about you can put powder. Now would I be using my loose powder? cause I use the Mac Studio Pro Set+ Blur because I'm older, I want to blur everything. Or do I use like my Tarte, high performance press powder? Carmen, which one do you love? Which one do I love? Yeah, Well, I was always told, you want to do the press powder? I was told to do the press powder because if I don't like the fine lines, which I don't, this is the one I want to do. I like the blur. But what I don't like about this Mac blur is that, and I think we, I talked to you about this offline, is it creates a lot of, glow to my face. Oh, it's one of those It's one of those. Yeah, I bought a couple of those by accident. Okay, well you can return that. We don't need that. I don't know why they do this. They said it's because, I have certain areas where I'm dry, so it's supposed to give me the glows, supposed to give me the hydration, but I'm like, then it The glow is just too much. I'm like, put your sunglasses on cause I'm going to like throw your eyes out. Okay, so Hourglass makes these light finishing powders and they're amazing. Like you don't even notice them on the skin. If you do one side of your face and you don't do the other, you notice there's something different about your face. Like, but you don't notice like there's no shimmer or anything that really reflects a ton of light, even though it's light reflecting, it's not obvious. But it just, it, just gives the skin a really nice finish. Okay, going back to that compact loose powder question, you use what you want to use, it's all in the technique of how you want to use it. So that the tart powder, I'm not sure if that one is a, it's a probably a pressed compact, so probably has color to it as well, which makes things a little bit tricky. Cause like, oh are we adding another layer of foundation on top of foundation? Which is cool cause that is a look too. Sometimes you want to layer your foundation with foundation to get more coverage. But cause I'm not familiar with the tart, I'm going to talk about the airbrush, the Charlotte Tilbury Airbrush Flawless. And these come in minis, which is great. Charlotte Tilbury only has one line of the compact powders anyways, but the good thing about this one is that it doesn't have a ton of color to it and it's so finely milled. So I love using this. Okay, but we're not talking about how I would use it on myself. We're talking about how I would use it on other people. There's a difference. I like to cake my face sometimes. So I like to cake my face with this and I use it with a sponge, like, you know, those triangle sponges. So I'll like scrub the triangle sponge in here and try to get as much color payoff possible and press it onto my face. But when I'm doing it on other people that don't want it to set into their any fine lines, and they don't want it to be super powdery, I would take a flat brush or like a dense brush, even like the end of like a clean brush. And instead of like, swirling it and then swirling it onto my face, I would just go tap, tap, tap, tap on both sides to press the powder into the brush, and then I would very lightly not starting with the under eye area first, like probably along the sides of the nose or other shiny areas first. Cause wherever you put your brush down on your face right now is where you're going to get most of that powder. So I would literally just tap it onto my skin the same way we were tapping on the foundation. We're using the flat end of the brush to push it into the skin. Now we're going to use the side of the brush to just lightly tap those areas. And that's how we're going to apply our powder. And then whatever's left on the brush afterward, then we can take it and just tap it under the eye area. And that's going to give you the least amount of product. Cause again, we don't want product moving, but it's going to help keep things set and also help keeping things like not so shiny. So now we have our canvas together. Where do we go, do we do the eyes first or do we do cheeks, nose? Okay, I'm going to go back to this picture Salma and Halle. So in the picture, especially the one of Halle. She definitely has some contouring going on and she has some blush going on, but because it's so glowy and melted into her skin, I really think it's cream. So I think before we get to the powder, if we're going to go buy this example before you powder, we're going to go in with like a cream bronzer or a cream blush. And we're going to apply it the same way that we did our foundation. So remember we talked about putting it on the back of our hand, usually cream blushes, you need the tiniest little drop. And if you're worried that it's going to be too much when you're put it onto your skin, mix it in with whatever leftover concealer foundation you have on your hand to tone it down a little bit. And then apply that first before you do your powder. So we've done your foundation, so we've done your color correcting. We've done your foundation, we did your concealer, and now we're going to go in with a cream blush just on the apples of the cheek here. Cause we're going to be youthful. So most of the color is over here. Forget the TikTok videos, that are telling you to put it here, here, here, everywhere. Like focus it, on the apples of your cheek, just under your pupils. And then you could pull it back a little bit to get like that contoured effect. But most of the color needs to be on the apples of your cheek. And then you can go in with a cream bronzer if, or a deeper foundation that's only, you could skip these steps too. This is just going back to the example photo because she does have like this contouring going on, but it's not like a gray chiseled stone bone contour. It's very warm. So just going in on the outside of your face, kind of making a three is probably the easiest way to do it. The simplest way to remember, that's the way I do every single morning I take a cream contour and I'll go along the, my hairline, I'll go down my cheeks, like where my blush would go, and then I'll go along my jawline and just kind of warm up the perimeter of my face, making a three on both sides, like a three and an E. And then I would go in with my powder. Okay, because I found that, you know, because I do have the cream blush and the cream bronzer, it looks like a crayon, sort of like a big fat crayon. And I've seen like YouTube videos where, and I don't know how these women do it, they put, they like do a line on their face and then they rub it with the brush. And I'm like, I can't get that stuff to move. Once I put it on my face, it's not moving. I'm not blending. I'm irritating my skin. Especially when the product gets older too, right? It loses that slip too. But I feel like putting everything on the back of your hand first, working it into the brush, it's just so much less effort. Cause it's true, like once you get a straight line on your face, then you're working to blend it out. And I do do that sometimes, but again, like I do that when I have a lot of time. I don't do that in the morning. In the morning I'm putting it on the back of my hand and I'm working my brush, and my brush is blending it for me as I'm applying. It's just so much easier. The only reason I would do it differently is if I wanted like, nighttime, straight chisel. I really wanted darker lines, but we don't want that during the day because you're going to see it, it's going to look like road marks on your face, and we don't want that. We need it to look good in real life, not great under like all these studio lighting, right? Yeah, and what I enjoyed about like Halle Berry there is I could see the slight chisel. But I felt like that that slight chisel was only enhancing her beauty. I mean, it was like bringing out her cheeks so that you could see how beautiful her cheeks are and you know, and then how beautiful her eyes are. And I felt the same way Salma too. Yeah, both of them. And if you look really closely at their cheeks, like you see, like you see the blush on the apples of their cheeks, it may be pulled back a little bit, but then their contour is not really harsh, like it's more of a bronzer than it is a contour. And then even their blush is like a warm, like orangey, bronzy tone as well. Like everything's very monotone. Mm-hmm. And because those two women are, women of color, there are certain colors that we can't wear cause we just look like we got into a fight before we. You can wear whatever you want to wear. Literally, literally whatever you want to wear. But I get what you're saying. No, um that was hard because even women of color have different undertones and different seasons, and I'm not going to go down the season rabbit hole again. TikTok had me questioning my whole life for way too long with those color analysis and what season I am. I went from Autumn to Winter to bright Spring. I think I've settled on bright Spring with my own professional opinion, with my self-analysis and all these TikTok videos. But it, it's so hard and like that goes to show like it's, literally, it's more than just your color tone. Like there's all of these things that go into it. And if you want to wear pink, you can wear pink. You want to wear purple? You can wear purple, you want to wear blue? Go ahead. It's just going to be the right shade. That's all it is. The right undertone and the right shade. But I find when you match your lips, your blush, your eyeshadow, everything just looks very soft and like unified rather than going with like, that was a bad example. I was going to say red lip and pink cheeks. But I do that sometimes too, but it's a little bit trickier. Like it looks great on some people. Uh, but let's say like you want to do a look that everything just feels very soft pulled together, not overly played up. But you still feel really pretty and, and beautiful in. Then going in with like, okay, let's say we want to play up this bronzer look like going in with like an orangy, peachy or bronzey blush tone. And then sticking with those same type of peachy nudie tones on your lips. And then doing a wash of bronzer over your eyes and all of it together just comes together beautifully. I don't know if that made sense. I'm like, good at like physically doing it on people, but then having to explain it afterward, my thought process is just like, like a circus in my brain, you know? Well, I'm pretty sure you see this where when as we get older, our eyebrows start to drop. We start to get, there's less space, above our eyelids. So our eye shadow's a little different. You know, I'd love to be able to show my eyes off like you, but you still have more lift here and you can show off your eyes. But we tend to have a little bit of, of a droop. So how could we make our eyes look beautiful. But at the same time, you know, work our eyeshadow like Halle Berry or Salma Hayek, cause their eyes look beautiful in those pictures. And their eyes are so minimal. Like if you look, okay, so Salma has like this wicked, smokey eye, whole edgy look going on over here. But you notice like it's all to her eye shape. Like, but It also had an artist do this, right? Like it's very shaped and like you could do this. How do I explain this? Okay, cause it's, it's angled up. It looks like a what is it? Like a cat? What is It is, it's cat eye shape. So like it's angled up because I'm trying to think of how to explain this for like listeners as well. Like if they're not watching, because I can't just poke to my eye right now. It's a little bit tricky. Like it's lifted, it's angled up, and it's very sticking to the eye lid area. Like it's not going high up into the crease, high into the eyebrows. Cause you still want to make sure that you see that space and everything Is really shaped. And like, the easiest way to do this, honestly, like if you're looking for a hack and you want to do this with low effort, you go in with your colors, do your eyeshadow, forget trying to get this perfect cat eye. Like just blend everything out towards your temples, take a makeup wipe and then just pull it from like under your eye, towards your temples. And there you go. You have your cat eye. As long as you stay like on your lid and you're blending out towards your ears and towards your temples, if you just take a makeup wipe bef like so start with your eyes and start doing your foundation first. Do that take a, makeup wipe from under your eyes and just literally go like this. Clean up everything underneath that is the easiest way to do a cat eye? And like half the time, You know, I've seen people do, and I've never done it, scotch tape. Yes, scotch tape too. Okay, but, okay; if you are going to go the scotch tape route, make sure, please, please make sure that you de-tack it at least once on the back of your hand. I feel like I have to tell you a story. My mom, bless her heart, she has been my guinea pig growing up. Like anytime I had like new beauty services, new trainings, new waxing lashes, absolutely anything, like she's always first a model for me, like always putting her body parts at risk for me. Like she's down. So this one time when I first started lashing, I was using her as my model, but I had run out of under eye pads, right? The ones that we used to tape down the bottom lashes. My dad works for a label manufacturing company, so I'm like, this is amazing. Let me grab one of his labels. Did her whole lashes set. She must have sat there for like three hours. Tried to do a whole set. Looked like a half set. This is probably like my first or second person I've ever worked on. Probably my first went to go take off the tape from underneath the eye afterward. Totally ripped her skin complete. Yeah. Yeah. I, uh, never made that mistake again. She's a trooper. Uh, and I never charge her for services. I don't think I would've, even if that didn't happen, like till today. She always tips me though. She's so cute. She would not leave ever without tipping me. But point of the story being, well, you have to de-tack that tape at least once before you put it down on your skin. And then when you're removing it, like, please hold your skin down and peel very slowly, like, it's really important to hold your skin down for the part that's not peeling with the tape. And then slowly, slowly pull And that is exactly why I've never done the tape, because I'm like, you know, cause I already told you about my magnetic eyelash story. Oh my God that was horrific, Carmen. Horrific. I do not want to rip my skin off. And then I'll really have like a cat look with red. Oh my God. Oh, you just put that image of your lashes and your bare lash line back into my head. And for those people that have never heard this story, cause I've never really told it other than to Everyone needs to hear the story. Other to Public announcement. The other day. I got on this bandwagon where I wanted to wear fake eyelashes because everybody wears 'em and they look so cute. And so I decided to jump on the magnetic eyelash bandwagon. And so we went to Maui and I saw we were at poolside and I saw this one girl who had her beautiful false eyelashes on. And so the next day I thought, I want to look cute just like her. My husband rented a cabana. I'm going to be under this cabana. Why not? So I put on these be I put on my makeup. My husband's like, why are you putting on your makeup? We're going to go to the pool. And I said, because I'm not going to go in the pool. I'm just going to sit here and, you know, be the cabana queen. And I put my eyelashes on, put my eyelashes on. And there I was thinking, oh, I'm so cute, I'm so cute. Went out to dinner that night, you know, I left, 'em on all day at the pool, went out to dinner. And then that night when I was taking off my makeup, I'm like, oh, I going to take my eyelashes off first before I start removing stuff. And I went, I tugged to try to remove them. And I'm like, whoa, what the heck? Because it hurt. It hurt really bad. And so I'm like wondering what happened here? And as I, and I thought, I going to pull a little harder. So I pulled a little hard room. When I pulled a little harder, I ripped my skin off. Oh my God. And my eyelashes were, I mean, the skin on the top of my eyelids were just basically gone. And it was stuck on the magnetic eyelashes. So. I didn't even know that was possible. That's what I'm saying, everyone needs to know this story. Literally, it reminds me of that scene from Matilda, like the fibers are fused to the head. The fibers are fused to the head. Oh my God. So you just had like a bare raw lash line for the rest of your vacation. You were swimming like that in the sun like that, but in like, oh God. No makeup, the next day. I didn't look cute cause it burned so bad. It burned so bad to just wash my face, burned my face to take a shower. It was bad. Oh, it sounds, oh. Yeah. Yeah. No, I, I don't think, I know you said it was like, just for that trip that it happened and you still wear magnetics after that. I could never, I would never, like I have them in my drawer and I've always been like kind of iffy about them to begin with and like after hearing that, like, nah, nah, they could just sit there. Yeah. And in fact this afternoon I put them out and I thought, I'm going to wear 'em. And I thought, nah, I'm not going to wear 'em. What if same thing happens? Cause you know, my studio light's going to be pointing right at my eyes. And speaking of lashes, like that is such an easy way to just elevate a look. If you don't want to do a lot of eyeshadow and you don't like doing a lot of eyeshadow, just a false pair of lashes filling in your eyebrows a little bit, a pretty lip color, like you're done, you're done. It's all in the base. And everything else after that, it's just like a definition of details. And for those people that have never worn fake eyelashes and are going to steer away from the magnetic ones, which ones would you recommend? Ooh. I mean, I know you're biased, but. I know, I'm also old school like, cause I learned with the strip lashes. But I've recently started seeing these trends on TikTok where they have the cluster lashes And they put 'em from the bottom instead of the top. And the videos make it seem like you can do this in 30 seconds. It does not take 30 seconds, at least not the first couple of times. Because I tried this on vacation and my daughter was like, let's go to the pool, let's go to the pool. I'm like, okay, let me just get my lashes on. It took me almost like an hour. Like easily like 40 minutes, and I am a lash stylish, like I do lash extensions. I've been a makeup artist. I put lashes on people all the time. It was just a new technique like you literally, just going to have patience. But the second time I tried it, I got it down to like 15 minutes. I've only done it the two times so far, so I really think you can get this down to like five minutes easily. The thing is like when you're doing cluster lashes, you're doing it from underneath. It's a whole different look. They look so natural, they're so light, you don't feel them all day. They're not heavy. They use less glue. So all of the appeal is there. You just need to have a little bit of patience just watching those videos and just practicing just the placement. And if you know, the best thing to do is like instead of waiting for a special event to pull out the videos and pull out all your supplies and do it just like a day to day where you want, you want to feel a little fancier, you want to feel a little cute, you go to the grocery store, you're wearing a proper outfit instead of sweats today. Cause you're like, okay, let me get out, a little bit differently today. Just put on like two pieces, like two clusters on the outer corners of your eye. Use like a larger one and a medium one, or a medium and a small, so it blends and transitions. You'll get like this little cat eye effect. But that's the perfect way to practice so that when it does come to the event, you've had the practice of putting the glue on the lash, sticking them to there and just, I think the hardest part is just waiting for that glue to get tacky. And that might be a problem with my own patients, just waiting for it to get sticky enough to stick it on so that you don't have to keep playing with it. That might be the key. I think I might just crack the code. I think you just have to wait a little bit longer to put them on. And do you have to put mascara on when you do that? I you don't have to. Okay. No, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I take that back. If you're only putting on, one or two on the ends then definitely put mascara on the rest of your lashes so that they blend. Cause otherwise you're going to have like just two pieces sticking out on this side. You want, you need mascara, like curl them and put mascara on, especially focusing on that inner half so that they do transition really well. On all of my clients, when I am working on them, I always curl, I always put on mascara, like I just feel like it's just part of the service. On myself when I'm getting ready in the mornings, I don't always put on lash, I don't always put mascara on my lashes, but I also, I have dark hair so it blends a little bit better. If I'm going to be fancy, nighttime, yes, I'll put mascara on. But the reason I don't put mascara on my top lashes, I'll put it on my bottom still is, cause sometimes I want to reuse my lashes. So like when I take them off at the end of the day with like micellar water, I spray them down with alcohol. I only reuse mine once. I know people say you can reuse them, like, 20 times. I personally think that's disgusting. I think Carmen will think the fact that I reused mine even once is disgusting. Cause you wouldn't, even sleep with your magnetics that night. Right? I wouldn't. I'm glad I didn't. They probably would've been more, more stuck in my eyes. So I like to not put mascara on them so I can reuse them once. But if you're reusing your lashes, like please clean them, spray them with alcohol, 70% alcohol, making sure that they're saturated has time to evaporate and kill stuff. And if you constantly touch your eyes throughout the day, then just don't reuse your lashes. Just don't do it. It's not worth your eyesight. It's not worth getting anything. It's gross. But we all do gross things sometimes. So tell me what about lips? Because a lot of people say, oh, when you reach, over 40, over 50, you'll find this out when you get older. We start to lose a little bit of volume or a lot of volume in our lips. And so I've seen some TikTok videos that say when you put your lip liner, don't go this far because I don't know, I think someone said you look like the joker. Oh, when you go all the way to the corners. To corners. You know, shorten it up. I mean, I don't think we go to the corners that much anymore, period. Because yeah, it just smudges on these two little outer corners here. And kind of just go to here on everyone though. Yeah. I, man, how do they phrase these things look like they're joker. I'm picturing the joker now, um, lip liner. Okay, so I can't just put everyone in a box like that. Everyone's lip shape is different. This is not an age thing. This can't be an age thing because like some people have beautiful full lips until like they're 80. So this is just like, it might happen with age, but it's not for everybody. So if you have lips that are drooping on the outer edge, which is rare, it's not everyone just, Well, no, the volume, sweetie. The volume. They're not they're not as, you know, as like puckery as they used to be, but maybe I want to little puckery. If you want to look puckery, then you line your lips as usual, skip the outer corners, like these outer little indents here, just cause like they bleed, they have moisture there. It's just, it's just not a good look. Crusty build up, it's just a whole thing. Line your lips as usual, first saying, following the lip line as it is. Then go back and then you can just go at the bottom of your lip, just overline the bottom a little bit, overline the top a little bit and leave like the rest of it alone. But when you overline the top, you obviously have to connect the top to the rest of it over here. The thing, the whole thing is when you're over lining that you just don't want to overline the outer corners from the top and the bottom. So you're kind of mainly over lining the center area of your lips and making sure that it blends with the rest. And then that way it still looks really natural, but it also using like a highlighter in like the middle of the lip area is also going to reflect light and make them look fuller. If you are using a lip color, taking a tiny little bit of your lighter concealer and adding a dab dab of that to the center of the lip or gloss to the center of the lip, is also going to mimic the illusion of it looking lighter and brighter in the center of it as well. Would you use a dark lip liner, not a lighter lip color. Either or. I know everyone's by and everyone's always like, use the darker color to do your lip lining and to do your over lining. There's so many good lip colors out there. Like again, going back to Charlotte Tilbury, I can overline, like today I used the pillow talk lip liner and the pillow top lip pillow talk lipstick, and I overline, like I didn't go in with Mac World or any brown liner and it was, it's perfectly fine. They're creamy. They last long, they're pigmented, they're so smooth that like, I can get that over line at nighttime. If I want to be like bougie and like a little bit like a Kardashian. And I know I'm not going to be in daylight, like if I know like it's going to be dark outside cause there's stuff you can do at nighttime, you can't get away in the dark. Then I'll pull out like my brown liner. I will overline. I did this once for work and it was, it was not good. I got into work and I was like, what did I do? And this is like my first week at a new job. And like you could literally see like they were just looking way too big and it didn't look natural at all. But that at nighttime and taking a photo, especially with flash lighting would look amazing. But I, I would say if you're very comfortable with over lining and you want it to be more dramatic, sure go for the brown liner, like a medium brown liner. Otherwise, just choose something that's very creamy, very pigmented and just doing that over lining, like with the Charlotte Berry lip liner like that, it's called the Lip Cheat. That's probably why they probably made it specifically for that, considering it's called Lip Cheat. Um, that's perfectly enough like that. It'll do the job and then you don't have to worry about blending like different shades together, making sure the brown blends in with your lipstick. Like I'm all about not making things complicated, making it as simple as possible and yet getting the best result. Okay, so you just did my makeup for either the graduation or the wedding that I'm going to go to, and so, this is a big event. I want it to last all evening. I don't want to have to touch it up because I don't like touching up my makeup. So how am I going to ensure that that makeup stays on? Okay, so when we did your foundation and then we went over it with a beauty blender at the end, we sprayed it with the so that was one layer of like protection and now we're going to take that Urban Decay all-nighter. Or something hardcore. So not like the Mac Fixed Plus, cause that's going to give you hydration. If you're feeling powdery by this step, you can go in with a Fixed Plus, but we haven't used that much powder. So you shouldn't need the Fixed Plus. But you do need a setting spray because we have not used that much powder. We have like creams on our face, we have liquids going on. So we do need to set that and make sure it's not going to go anywhere. So now you've done like your makeup, you've done your blush, you've done your eyes, you've done your lashes. At this point, if you feel like you're getting shiny, you actually need, you need to go in with more powder, probably a lot more powder than we did the first time. So go a little ham with your powder. That's a step if you're getting shiny, because if you're shiny now you're going to be shiny later on? So before you hit it with setting spray, make sure your powder is in check. And then use a setting spray that is designed to make your makeup last. Not the ones for hydration, the ones that's going to make your makeup last. And go ham with that. And that's going to lock it in as well. And so what powder am I going to set my face before I do my, uh, spray setting So, because I'm not going for brightening, if I was going to go for brightening then I would go in with like the Huda Baking Powders or like the Kat Von D Powders or something like that. Because I'm going for the glow. I'm trying to get rid of some of that matte, I would just go in with my compact powder and it's, press it into those areas if you have a lighter powder. Cause usually when you get that glow it's again, like, it's usually this inner corner of the eye area right around the nostrils, a little bit above the lips and the sides of the mouth. It's usually the areas where the oils start peeking through. That's all the center of your face. And usually we like our center of your face to look brighter. Cause it just makes everything look nicer. So going in with the powder that's a little bit lighter is really helpful. That as well, if you want to use a translucent powder, you can, but we already have a pressed powder, so we just go back in with that pressed powder. Okay. And then we spray that, setting spray. And are we good to go? Yeah you spray that setting spray, you're good to go. If you're looking in the mirror, after you spray the setting spray, you're like, something's missing. You know, like everything doesn't feel as smooth as it should. It feels like it's missing that je ne sais quoi. Then the Hourglass Ambient Lighting Powders, like just take that on a big fluffy brush or any brush, literally any, any, any powder ish brush and do like a swish of that, like under the eyes through the T-One kind of thing. And that just does something to the skin as well without leaving it super shiny. Like it reflects light, but without like blinding you like the sun. So, if you want to look a little bougie. Yeah, you're like a little bougie. Then the Hourglass, Ambient Lighting Powders are amazing, Hmm. But you know what, before you go out and buy that, please test it on the back of your hand because it what it does, it's so minimal, but it's so beautiful and I don't want anyone to take it home and spend that money and be like, what did she recommend to me? Like, I can't see anything. So please test it out. Like I, I like, I think it's absolutely stunning, but to each their own, and I just don't want you to hate me later. Start sending you a bunch of hate emails. I know like, what is this? It didn't do anything because like I see stuff on reviews on Sephora where it's products that I love and people are hating it underneath, and I'm like, that's not my experience with it. And they start questioning your own experience. I'm like, what? I always think about that, perhaps it's a user error. Yeah. Yeah. That definitely makes sense. That definitely makes sense, especially the skincare ones. Like, this burned my skin. I'm like, who told you to use Paula's Choice BHA every single day? That is not something you use every single day. Saying, don't get all your advice on TikTok. There's some great advice out there, but you really like going to vet your choices. Um Mm-hmm. So, Neelam, what is the one thing that you would want a woman listening or watching this today to hold close to her heart. Oh my God, stop picking at yourself, you're absolutely freaking beautiful like everyone is in their own way. I know that's such a cheesy, cliche thing to say. But the thing that I cannot get over is that every time someone sits down in my chair, it doesn't matter if they're 20, it doesn't matter if they're 80, they're always just pointing out something or an insecurity or something that they hate, or something that they want. And I think that we all just have to get out into the real world a lot more often. Online, it's hard. Like we're seeing everyone's best selves, everyone's filtered selves, and we begin to think that that is real life and that's what we should be like. And that's what everyone should strive to be. Or if you're not, you're not enough. And I think that if we just got out into the real world a little bit more, spent a little bit more time appreciating what we have, where we are in each phase of our life, we'll spend less time looking back and being like, oh, I should have been happy I was so cute then. Or like, look at this, like look at my hair color here, my hair length, or like my eyes, like everything was beautiful. And then you spent so much time picking yourself apart instead. Like everyone, like literally everyone's just too hard on themselves and, there just needs to be more love and kindness to go around and just knowing that you're absolutely perfect the way that you are. And then also, like my best friend told me this when we started doing hair and makeup. Like literally anybody can look like a supermodel with the right hair, the right makeup, the right lighting, the right team, like absolutely everybody. But that's not an everyday thing. So for that one event. I don't know what I'm trying to say anymore. I keep going off on tangent, so like following my heart, and then all of a sudden my brain takes over. You're funny. So for the people that cannot get services from you, because they don't live in Canada, how can they use your app? Okay, so my app is actually for other makeup artists. So if you are booking another makeup artist and you want them to remember everything about your conversation, your email details, what you want for your look, your inspo pictures, it can all be loaded up into that app? And then they can just pull it up on either your wedding day, your daughter's wedding day, your special event, and all of their conversation, the pictures, your notes are all there to just recreate that look without having to like go through emails and all the back and forth of figuring out what we were supposed to do this day. Oh, so it's kind of like running notes of what the expectation was, what the bride, the everybody's expectation was. Yes. So you can just go in and get it done without having to ask questions when Exactly everyone is stressed out up to here. Literally. So before I, before this app, like my brain was all over the place. Like we, I would have so many bridals from so many different teams as well. And sometimes I didn't even have the bride's name in my calendar. It was just like, this team show up this time. And I'd walk into the house and the bride is so excited to see me. Cause we did a trial like a year before. And I'm standing there like, I recognize you but I don't know who you are. I don't know when we did your trial, I don't know where your notes are. I don't know if they were in a notebook. In my notes app, I emailed 'em to myself. Like everything was so scattered. So we just, just, me and my husband just designed this app where every time we do a trial, I put everything into the app, all the client's information, things like that. So when I show up on the house on the wedding day, I pull it up and all of the details from her trial are there. Placement photos, absolutely everything. And it's great cause it's any special moments from that day when I'm with the bride that I want to use in like a thank you card later or in a Instagram caption, I can write down those details before I leave and just open it up and have it to reference. But also like if I am doing a client for a special event or if the bride is not getting a trial, I can just send them a link and they can upload all of their inspo pictures and all of their notes straight into that app. So when I show up on their house on the wedding day, I'll open the app, open the date, everything's there for me. I know exactly what I'm doing and it saves so much time during the booking, especially when it's a bridal party of like eight people. That consultation can take like 10 minutes sometimes. So saving 10 minutes off of everyone's service, that's 80 minutes.

If you going to get ready for like 11:

00 AM that's like two hours, one hour. My math's not math thing today. It's like an hour of service time that we can reduce from the service as well, right. Mm-hmm. That's great. That is so good. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. I will make sure to include your links in the show notes so that any professional makeup artist can buy your app and start using that to just make their life so much easier. Thank you so much for having me. This was so much fun. It nice to have like a raw conversation and just do this one-on-one like this. It was. Alright. Thank you. All right, ladies and some gents. Now you are officially in the know all about things, no more eyelash disasters. No more tape, no more magnet, and definitely no more drama. Huge thanks to Neelam for sharing her inside tips on looking fabulous without all the fuss. By the way, if you are a professional makeup artist and want to scoop in on Neelam's amazing app, the one that keeps all your client's notes, photos, and inspo in one streamlined spot, head on over to createthebestme.com/ep109. And don't forget to hit subscribe and come back next week for another episode packed with inspiration just for you. Until then. Keep dreaming big. Take care of yourself. And remember, you are beautiful, strong, and capable of creating the best version of yourself. Thank you for watching. Catch you next week. Bye for now.