Friendship Friday – Genevieve

Friendship Friday returns with a very special guest – my lovely friend Genevieve!!

Let me start by saying that this was a very exciting glam session to get to do.  I’ve been friends with Genevieve for a while now, she went to law school with one of my other long time bestie best friends.  If I could sum up how cool and amazing Genevieve is, it would be with this one night:

Gen and myself and our other friend went to a comedy show.  The hosts of the show (it was a game show style live show) brought one audience member up on stage to compete against their two celebrity guests.  I am actually a comedian as well as a blogger, so I have seen this go not-very-well on many an occasion.

By the end, the audience usually hates the person from the audience that was brought up.  Hates.  Like, the whole audience turns on them because the person is usually really annoying and it’s just awful.  …But, by the end of this show, not only did Genevieve win the contest ($50!  That ain’t no chump change) but the ENTIRE AUDIENCE WAS CHANTING HER NAME.

Seriously, in adoration, chanting “Genevieve!  Genevieve!  Genevieve!”  I had/have never seen anything like it before or since.  Genevieve is that nice and cool and down-to-earth that an entire audience fell in love with her.

Gen looks like a porcelain doll, so I really wanted to play up her blonde hair and huge blue eyes.  She’s also really open to trying new colors and makeup trends, which is rad.  I’d been wanting to try the Pantone Color of the Year “Radiant Orchid” on somebody and Gen has the perfect coloring for it.  I asked her to bring her clip in hair extensions, so we could do really long rapunzel curls.

HAIR:

We started by spiraling her real hair.  I used a 1″ tapered curling iron from Hot Tools.  Gen came with Living Proof PHD cream in her hair and a little DryBar oil on her ends.  I sprayed a fine mist of Got2B heat protectant on her hair and extensions to protect them from the curling iron heat.

Gen’s real hair held curls like nothing I’ve ever seen before.  I almost didn’t even clip them to cool, but wanted to just to make sure the curls would last.  I curled them away from her face and flat ironed the top 4 inches, then spiraled below that so the curls would lay lower on her head.

Then I spiral curled Gen’s extensions, but set them to the side to cool while her real hair cooled in the clips.  We clipped them in after her makeup was finished, so that all the curls had time to set.  I finished Gen’s hair by braiding her bangs.  I had promised Gen a full braid but those curls were just too pretty, so we are saving the full braid for next time!

Braiding my bangs and tucking them under my hair is my go-to trick when I want to change things up or wear my hair out of my face.

MAKEUP:

I asked Gen to bring a foundation and concealer that match her skin perfectly.  She brought Tom Ford Traceless foundation and Cle de Peau concealer.  Umm, she fancy.

I prepped her skin for makeup with Mario Badescu “Kera” moisturizer all over and a drop of DHC Olive Oil (a face oil) gently tapped on top of her cheekbones.

With my fingers, I applied her Tom Ford foundation, which is a light-to-medium (but buildable) coverage foundation.  Then, using my It Cosmetics foundation brush, I blended the edges and lightly blended her face.

I highlighted her cheekbones with Benefit High Beam, blending it thoroughly into the tops of her cheekbones.

I used my Smashbox contour kit to contour and bronze.  The kit comes with a slanted brush, which I used for application, then blended with my Cargo Magic Brush.

I applied the Cle de Peau concealer in straight vertical lines from the inner corner of Gen’s eyes down the sides of her nose then feathered it out horizonatally into triangles.  I blended first with my fingers, then blended the edges with my concealer brush.  I set the concealer with E.L.F. HD undereye setting powder using a clean concealer brush.

I mixed two eyeshadows together from an E.L.F. palette to make a blush in Radiant Orchid.  I had wanted to use Benefit’s Lollitint, but I was nervous that it wouldn’t show up in photos because the coverage is very natural.  So I made my own blush.  (!)

We used the Naked 3 palette, which Gen owns too, so in hindsight I probably should have used a different one so it could more New!  Fun! and Exciting! for Genevieve, but this won’t be the last time I do her makeup, so we kewl.  I just loved how the rose tones coordinated with the orchid blush.

For her eyes:

“Nooner” in the crease and under her eyes.

“Strange” mixed with “Burnout” at the inner corners.

“Dust” under her browbone.

“Mugshot” as a liner above and below her eyes.

Blended all shades really well after applying!

Lined with Pixi eyeliner in Deep Plum.

For mascara we used Lancome Definicils and I applied three individual clusters of lashes on each side.

For her lips:

My plan was to used the Nars matte lip pencil in “Never Say Never” which is a gorgeous Radiant Orchid shade.  But when we finished the blush and eyes were so pretty that adding the bright lip just looked like Gen was wearing All. The Makeup.  So we took it off and used Maybelline Colorsensational lipstick in “Nude Lust” with a dap of nude lipgloss in the center.

And voila!  Gen looked like a fairy princess.  I couldn’t stop staring at her!

Thank you for reading and thank you to Gen for being an amazing model and friend!

Go Get Glam!