Beauty School: wedding make-up

My second beauty school session was spent watching videos on bridal make-up. I recently took a class on bridal make-up while at IMATS. The make-up was beautiful but a bit too fashion forward for my brides. The women that I've done at Frenchy's sometimes want something a little more daring than the typical beauty make-up with with pin-up updos and hair dyed pink and blue to match the bridesmaid dresses. But most of them are happy with a subtle natural look.

One of the best things that I learned from the bridal make-up workshop at IMATS is to think of your bride as a character. Talk with her to see what type of character she wants to be for her wedding. And waterproof make-up is your friend.

I found a great Lauren Luke bridal tutorial on YouTube. This look is for a more adventurous bride, with purple in the crease and black eyeliner. I liked the drama of this look a little more than other videos I watched, plus it is a look that is easy to recreate if you have someone doing your make-up instead of doing it yourself.


My friend Reem from Esthetician School came over and we watched the videos together. It may sound silly but it was much more motivational to have someone watching and commenting on the videos with me than if I had been watching them myself. And the best part was when we got to practice on each other. I'd recommend that for everyone who wants to get better at doing make-up on other people not just watch the videos, but recreate the looks. Practice is such a big part of doing make-up, getting comfortable touching people's faces, knowing what to tell them when you need to apply mascara ("look over my shoulder" usually works the best), feeling okay to admit your mistakes and start over with a make-up wipe.

Here's a picture of Reem's work on me. She recreated the basic bridal look of Michelle Pham's with a little bit of the pop of Lauren Luke. I loved how beautiful the make-up looked on me but in the photograph it is a little washed out. That is mostly because I was using my iPhone's crappy camera to take the picture. But it's a good example of how when you are doing make-up for an event that will be photographed, it's better to have a heavy hand.