For almost 2 years now, I've been dying my hair red.  While it's been fun, it's definitely time for a change.  The thing is, while red is ridiculously hard to maintain, it's also ridiculously hard to completely remove!  Unless your stylist completely bleaches out your hair with super strong bleach, you'll most likely end up with some rusty orange when they apply a blonder color.

My stylist loves me, so she's not going to damage my hair just because I suddenly want to go light brown with blonde highlights.  So we're calling this a work in progress.  The base is a dark brown mixed with just a little red so it'll blend, and the blonde is still a tad on the orange side.  It'll fade eventually so that by the time my next hair appointment comes along, it'll be ready to go honey blonde!

Since I was there, my stylist taught me to curl my hair with my new flat iron.  I was complaining that I was able to get curls on  my left side, but always failed on my right, so she went through my whole head with me.  Don't know if I completely love the curls on me, but it's definitely an option I can play with!

I'm about to head to sleep, but I want to share the makeover I got today first before I remove it.  Colors and what not will be up later.  I actually have to figure out which base the MUA used.  I swear he said "Flamboyant" but I can't for the life of me find it on the MAC website!  Anyhow, it's a brick red Paint, so if you know which color it is, please let me know.  Basically all 8 eyeshadows from the 2 Hello Kitty palettes were used.

My sister's friend Manya has put herself on the online dating scene (e-harmony and JDate.com).  She enlisted my sister's photography skills and my sister enlisted my makeup skills.  I've only met Manya once, so I couldn't really remember exactly how she looked like.  Yet, I didn't want to haul around a huge box of makeup that I wouldn't be using.  To be on the safe side, I brought my Dior Gaucho Palette.  The Dior Gaucho Palette has to be the most wearable palette for everyone.

Anyhow.. what do you guys think of my dandy work?

For her face, I used:

• MAC Prep + Prime Skin
• Hanskin Premium Super Magic BB Cream
• YSL Touche Eclat for underneath her eyes
• Aveda Inner Light Loose Powder

Cheeks:

• NARS Orgasm
• NARS Ninotchka
• Hello Kitty for MAC Beauty Powder Blush in Fun & Games

Eyes:

• Dior Gaucho Palette - Rose (underneath eyebrows), Taupe Bronze (all over lid), Dark Wine (smudged along lash line and in crease), Bronze (her eyebrows)
• MAC Eye Kohl in Teddy along her upper and bottom lash line
• L'oreal Voluminous Mascara in Black

Lips:

• Laura Mercier Long Wear Lip Pencil in Plum Berry
• MAC Fafi Lipstick in Strawbaby
• MAC Fafi Lipglass in Squeeze it

So what do you guys think?

And hopefully the weight I've gained will go too!

Before coming home, my 2nd sister, W, told me that she wants to take a family picture after dinner, so I'll need to bring some makeup home to give her and my 3rd sister, P, a make over.  I happily said yes, since doing their makeup is more practice for me.  Also, my sisters and I have such similar facial features, doing their makeup is quite easy.

Here's the end result of what I did for W.

You'll probably never guess her real age in this photo!

W normally doesn't wear makeup, so I didn't want to do anything dramatic or over the top for her.  It freaks her out when I do.  Plus her eyes are so big and round, it's really easy for her to look like a cracked out doll.

I first used Sally Hansen Luminizing Face Primer to even out her skin texture.  Then I used her own liquid foundation, which is the Costco Borghese line, which I applied with my EcoTools synthetic powder brush.

For her eyes, I used my Dior Gaucho Palette to give it just a little definition.  I brushed the golden pink color all over her lids, focusing the color underneath her brow bones and the inner corners of her eyes.  I then brushed the warm dark nude/light brown color over her lids, up to where her crease is.  Since her eyes are spaced wider, applying a dark color on the outside corner in her crease would make her eyes look even wider apart.  To avoid that, I lightly padded a mix of the dark plum and taupe color near her lash line.  I finished by applying a cream liner from my Fresh palette in olive on both her top and bottom lash line.

To give her cheeks a light glow, I dusted Nars Sin from close to her hairline to the apples of her cheeks.  I finished her lips with the wine lip color from the Dior Gaucho Palette, and coated her lash with 1 coat of L'oreal Voluminous mascara in black.

Believe it or not, but she actually looks more "mature" with this light makeup on.  She loved it so much, she didn't want to take it off!  Sooo cute!!

What do you guys think?

I went to Sephora to do some Christmas shopping, as well as to stock up on some new things for myself, when Riley West, the MUA for Urban Decay, started chatting up with me as I was crouched in front of Lancome's Artliner's display case.  Ms. Riley is totally into funky color hair like me, so from where she was standing (and where I was crouching), she got really interested in mine.  After a while, her, being a pro, started talking about make up.  Me, being a make up whore, told her that if she's not busy, I'm up for a make over and she can do whatever she want with me.

Now I wish my camcorder was working, because I had made a small video showing the make up I had put on prior to going to Sephora, so I can show you guys what she was seeing.  I was playing around with 3 shades of pink eyeshadows from a Majolica Majorca palette (another Japanese brand that I love), so she took that as inspiration and a starting part for the looks you see up there.  She spent a LOT of time blending the colors out so it still looks sophisticated and finished.  To get the glitter line to be that thick, so actually used a tweezer to take off that ring on the top so more glitter can go on the brush.

She pretty much transformed my cutesy pink look into a super Urban, super punk fuschia/purple/black smokey look, complete with a super hot line of glitter on top of my lash line.  I don't think the pictures captured the intensity of the colors, and again, I wished my camcorder worked.  I think my camcorder records in a truer light where you can see how dynamic this look was.  I must figure this out!

Anyhow, I ended up buying the key items to re-create the look.  I ended up not getting any of the fuschia/pink colors she used since I have a LOT of pinks and fuschias already.  But I did up buy the rest of them.

• Heavy Metal Glitter Liner in Spandex
• Liquid Liner in Perversion (to line the top lash line underneath the glitter liner)
• Smoke Out Eye Pencil in Smoke (to line the bottom lash line)
• Eyeshadow in Oil Slick (outer crease), Sin (inner crease and brow bones), and Hot Pants (on top of Fishnet)
• Deluxe Eyeshadow in Fishnet (used as an all-over color AND my cheeks color)
• Big Fatty Mascara