Illamasqua Talk

During our Induction week we had the lovely ladies from the Illamasqua come and visit and were lucky enough to get a talk and a tutorial on a makeup look. Part of the team were Spob, the Head of Professional Development, Charlotte the International Brand Abassador and Josephine the Events Manager. We got to watch a demo where Charlotte talked us through the techniques and products that the Illamasqua team use.

Each step was explained from prep, to application, to what the products could be used for, as a lot of them were very versatile. Charlotte used products such as hydra veil, which is a gel primer that gives a even surface and keeps the makeup in place for longer. She also used the honour and navy pencil on the inner and outer corners, buffing at all times and layering, so  she wouldn’t over load the face with product. Next she used Embellish a metallic on the main lid, once again buffing so as not to over power on product. To blend out Charlotte used the light colours in the reflective palette. To finish off the eyes she brought the navy pencil under the eye and blended it out until soften.

She then moved onto the foundation, using a mixture of shades on a pastry steel so that she could darken and highlight areas of the face. The main shade used was in 18 and was applied with the highlighter brush. The inspiration was from Sorapol, as they had a collection where all the girls were dark skinned, and they highlighted down the face to create an amazing finished look. We learnt that when highlighting or shading we must consider the lights, for instance if the lights are about then a natural highlight down the face would be more effective.

To add highlight to Charlottes look she used Gleam in Supernatural down the centre of the face, rockabilly lipstick on the cheeks and set the face with Illamasqua loose powder. On the lips was a beautiful emerald shade, using apocalypse lip base and violate lip balm. The finished look was impeccable.

 

 After the tutorial, we got the opportunity to create our own looks in small groups with a limited selection of Illamasqua products. This was to help us experiment a little more, as not every shoot will have all the products you need/want so we need to learn to work with what we’ve got. We also had to create a pitch on what our look was about.  Although I was a model for this product we all discussed our ideas and merged the look as a group. Our theme was going through the seasons. 

We started by using Hydra Veil for a smooth surface to work on. Then going through the shades we tested the foundations and matched my skin to the right tone which was Skin Base Foundation in 4. Our initial idea was to make a dramatic brow as the main element to the look, which was inspired by a lot of high fashion shoots at the moment as big eyebrows are a current craze. Using the multi purpose cream pigment in Mould, and an angled brush we made individual hair spikes. The colours reminding us of the leaves in autumn, so this was our main inspiration for the eyes. We also used a red tinged colour to contour my forehead and cheeks, to represent summer, like a sunset. For the winter look we used pure pigment eye shadow in Beguile to highlight around my eyebrows, forehead, cheekbones, chin and cupids bow to create a icy look. Finally we used a bit of light moisture on the lips to create the dewy look. Over all I loved this task as I really felt like a team and I loved being so free with our ideas. 

Charles Fox Talk

During the Charles Fox talk we got to talk through their many products and even got to test some of them on our hands to see the pigmentation in the products. We got to learn all about the history of the company and it helped me realise how big this brand really is. This wasn’t another high street brand this was professional make up that was being used by the experts across Tv, Theatre, Film, Fashion etc. A large amount of our kit is Charles Fox so this talk really helped with understanding the products we’ve got.