Category: Make up

Movie Make up Inspiration: The Love Witch (2016)

~ Emmie Reve ~ 1 Comment

I think almost everyone knows that I like horror movies quite a bit, but what I even like more are genre b movies mixed with art house, such as Anna Biller’s 2016 feature film The Love Witch that is half satire and half homage to the campy melodramas of the 60’s.  Visually, you almost can’t tell it was made a few years ago, with its rich popping colours that compete so much with the a sharp dialogue to tell the story of love, attraction, revenge, and “magick”.  The movie centers around a young woman named Elaine, who was jilted in love by her former lovers and husband. Elain is on a mission to take control of her life by means of joining a witches coven that teaches her to use potions, rituals and magick to get rid of her abusive husband.  After that, Elaine moves to a small idyllic town to get a fresh start, and to also find “love” by any means, including seducing and casting spells on the local men.

Spellwork and bold colours make this film a magical delight to look at.

I adore how the movie is so female centered and encourages that we sympathize and root for the femme fatale protagonist who is also over whelming her victims, um, I mean “dates” with her powerful magic–to the point to death sometimes…But is it her magick at work, or just the craziness of love in general?  Treat your senses to the richness of it’s look, and then decide for yourself.  Is it inherently feminist, since it is about a women deciding to control her love destiny, by any means? Or sexist since she uses her foxy looks to get what she wants?  It’s all up for debate, but one thing is for sure, The Love Witch can also stand alone for a piece of visual art.  And I am just digging the fashion and the make-up!  That retro/vixen/glam/goth look is soooo gorgeous.

Samantha Robinson plays a young witch, the love seeking Elaine. I have a crush on the hair, make-up and fashion she dons in this movie.

How to get this retro glam make-up:

Step 1: Prep the face:

This look requires smooth, creamy even pale skin.  Almost porcelain like.  I find bb creams to do the trick since they often lighten your skin tone and give you a really matte finish. (most do at least, don’t get the “dewy” kind).  Set bb/foundation with a light powder.

Step two: Define eyebrows:

They should be as dark as your hair, slightly defined, with medium thickness, softly blurred with a eyebrow comb. Draw them with a slight arch, to give a bit of retro drama!

After prepping face, I drew in my eyebrows with a soft brow pencil. make sure you comb it to get it even as possible.

Step three: Find a pretty turquoise eye pencil or high pigment eye colour

Powder eye shadows will not work, because they are too subtle.  You wont be able to see a turquoise coloured powder on your lids, since your skin tone also kills some of the blue/green colour. Instead of using heavy primers and shadow bases on your lid, simplify by finding a soft eye pencil in the right colour.

This is the pencil I found and it’s a gorgeous celedon colour, slightly lighter than the torquoise that the love witch uses…the shadow is to set it.

Fill in the upper lid in turquoise until almost to the brow bone,  then smudge the harsh edge lines of the colour with your finger, and set it with either translucent power, or a blue/green shadow on top.

See how pencil liners show up, even when it’s a light colour?
Because it is a pencil, you want to smooth the edges and pat with your fingers to make it less harsh. don’t forget to set lids with powder.

Step four: Black lining your eyes, Cat eye make-up:

You need three products for this!  I know, this is crazy, but the reason you need three is for colour intensity, precision, and setting of the black line. So first off to use is black pencil as close to the upper lash line as possible.  The second step is setting it with a thin layer of black eye shadow with a thin brush.  Third step to making the black line into the defined shape of a dramatice cat eye with liquid liner/pen.  Also fill in any light/uneven areas in the black line with pen for maximum drama.

This is before I put on fake lashes. Using 3 products: liner, shadow and liquid/pen gives the pigmentation and drama needed for a retro cat eye line.

Step Five: Mascara and False Lashes…

Mascara and fake lashes are key to the look.  Nothing says vampy witchy gal more than a cat eye with fake long lashes the reach for the skies!  I like to do two coats of mascara and then add some demi lashes, since my eyes are small, but if you can, go for full lashes to complete the look.

Let me read your future! Add anything victorian looking and glamourous to your outfit and now you are a love witch!

Okay, thoust ready to go out into the world casting spells on unsuspecting lovers wherever you go…Just be careful wielding that feminine power of yours and I hope no casualties are a result.  I cannot be held responsible. 🙂

Ways to feel better on sad days…

~ Emmie Reve ~ 1 Comment

When I was growing up as a teenager in the 90’s, a lot of the culture around me was sad, angry and depressed.  From Grunge music, to the death of my mother, to the uncertainty of generation X and being on the cusp of a new millenium–my youth was a depressing time.  I wrote a lot in journals, made poems, I also drew and sketched in my spare time.  I remember being sad and alone, but I didn’t suffer.  As an adult though, I find it gets harder and harder to handle negative emotions properly and healthily.  And since I’m all about natural ways of living, there are simple ways to deal with days where I feel crappy.  They take a bit of work…but are better than a day of crying in bed and not getting out.

Whether it’s about a job, a relationship, family…etc.  A lot of things can get us down…if it’s a chronic kind of thing, we may turn to drugs/medication, which is not the best.  And we sometimes even ignore our feelings until they implode on us and we get into even more trouble.  I physically have headaches when I ignore my sadness.

So let’s first understand that sadness stems from when we realize situations/problems are out of our control, and the despair grips the emotional core. But this is sort of a good thing, because once we recognize that whatever happened is not in our control we stop wasting energy fixing it or blaming ourselves.  We finally have time to heal, and not dwell.

Some ways I beat depression and avoid dwelling:

  • Take a hot bath and relax…this distraction not only de-stresses, but it cleanses and renews you, and reminds you that you need to take care of yourself.
  • Re-play all the sad songs that you know will help you.  I am a sap for Fiona Apple, since I grew up on her, and well, she made being pouty so cool! Sometimes skidding into sad emotions help more than avoiding feeling it.
  • Write a journal entry, expressing everything.  Be careful though, this is a double edged sword.  Sometimes purging helps, but it can also trigger past emotions of hurt that you also have to deal with.
  • Put on loads of make-up: after a night of crying, believe it or not, covering up and pretending nothing happened feels great! check out my article about make-up for puffy eyes! I wrote it for allergies, but it works in this case too!
  • Moisturize and pamper your skin.  When you are sad, and stressed, your skin seems to need extra moisture and pampering, so be sure to get a good lotion and slather generously
  • Work at a slower pace, take on less tasks: work is a great distraction, but if you take on too much, the stress will add to your already weakened state.
  • Understand sad days should be treated like a physical illness.  Allow yourself to feel sad, let it run its course and rest, have chicken soup!
  • Resist the urge to eat away emotions.  When I was sad a few years ago, I would go for sweets…they comforted me.  And I’d eat even when I wasn’t hungry.  Not only do you gain weight, but you’re using food to block emotions…and that’s unhealthy
  • Resist the urge to shop away emotions: I also used to buy things I didn’t need to cheer me up.  While the initial purchase lifts you, your credit card bill will not.
  • Hang out with a good girlfriend.  You don’t even have to talk about what’s got you down, just having someone around and going out for coffee is an amazing lift.
  • Sleep in and then some: make sure you get sleep.  For some reason, problems and conflicts look worse when you haven’t gotten a good night’s sleep so do yourself a favour and put your alarm on snooze.

↑My sad girl icon Fiona Apple.  A lot of her music is about being tortured, sad and misunderstood…obligatory listening for the moody.

What things do you do when you are really sad, and in pain?  Are your thoughts sometimes too much to handle?  Is life dragging you down in various ways, and you feel like you can’t cope?  Do you feel freakishly alone during your sad days?  Believe it or not, you are not alone.  I think we have to understand our sad days and let them have free run, or else they creep into our happy days, and make living ever much so harder.

 

Why Working at L’Occitane (or any cosmetic giant) is the worst

~ Emmie Reve ~ 4 Comments

I am not ever going to work for any corporate cosmetic giant again ever.  Why? That industry is just really, really fake.  From the fake smiles from management, to the fake unnatural ingredients and scents in products, I just never seem to like these corporate conglomerates that spew goo onto the masses and say that it’s skincare, that it’s beautifying.  What it is is actually taxing. To our minds, bodies and souls.  Not one of them is good. There is no difference between L’oreal, Body Shop, Bath and Body Works, and even the classy, upscale philanthropic L’Occitane En Provence. They are all about the bottom line, semi-decent products, and they don’t value their employees at all.  Most recently I gave L’Occitane a chance, and in the past I have also worked at Bath and Body Works, and you can hear about the gripes here in another article.

Okay, so I still have their sales apron...but I didn't snag it. It was actually because they were not clear when my last day would be, and I had optimistically taken it home thinking I'd be there again...
Okay, so I still have their sales apron…but I didn’t snag it. It was actually because they were not clear when my last day would be, and I had optimistically taken it home thinking I’d be there again…

When I got the seasonal position at the French cosmetic company L’Occitane last holiday season, I was optimistic about their business model.  I wanted to learn about the cosmetics industry on a corporate level, and compare it to what I did in my own cosmetic studios at dreamecosmetics, and well, my findings were just disillusioning.  Like I mentioned before, it doesn’t matter which corporation is running the show, but all of the cosmetics industry is about profit, and none of it is about self care, healing or learning. They all want to “seem” beautifying, but with a focus on profit, market shareholders, and too many corrupt people in management, it is impossible for them to fill that mission.

Things I learned at L’Occitane that is probably true of all Cosmetic Conglomerates:

  1. They only care about making sales, and it doesn’t matter how: When I was on the sales floor as a seasonal rep, management was always nervous about me helping customers.  Like I would negate a sale, and that their other permanent reps would do better.  Well, what about letting me learn, and earn my keep there?  No, they preferred that I defer customers to other staff rather than I learn how to sell their product. Short term gains over long term investment in educating me to be part of their team. Typical.
  2. The products were over priced, over hyped, and just idealized too much.  L’Occitane’s hair care, skin care, and perfumes were at least triple the price of most common name brands at the pharmacy, and they did little to justify the cost of them.  Instead we had to focus on the heritage of the company, how it was a beautiful region of France that it originated from, and how this magically meant that a hand cream could be $32 a tube.  Well, even if they were slightly better in quality, did we really have to believe that it was made of rainbows and centuries of heritage from the south of France?  No, obviously not.  But we had to pedal that image to customers, or face the wrath of being sent to the stock room. Which leads me to point 3…
  3. I got sent to the stockroom to do menial tasks more often than not. I was really good with customers and had knowledge about skincare and fashion, but instead of using this knowledge, they put me in the backroom to unload stock for most of the day, then sent me back to the sales floor, then sent me back to the stock.  I wasn’t treated like I was a valuable part of the team. Why hire seasonal sales staff if you are not willing to treat them well for the short time they are there? I cut my fingers deeply twice during the time that I worked there, because of the menial tasking they delegated to me…and I was not hired to be a backroom stock person, seasonal or not.
  4. Management fakery: This was the main reason of all my stress there.  Because head office only spoke with the managers and only looked at the bottom line, a crappy manager could get away with a lot, and even get a promotion (which she did during the time I was there to District Manager).  The manager for L’Occitane told me I had a good chance at getting a permanent position after serving my seasonal one, but also hired another seasonal staff that I felt I had to compete with.  Even though I felt I was the more qualified one (ie. years of retail experience) the other seasonal eventually became permanent.  In hindsight, I doubt that the manager ever wanted to put me as a permanent staff.  She just wanted to use me for the short period and then drop me the minute she could…which is what she did in the most unprofessional manner: She didn’t even tell me that they would not be renewing my contract.  I had to assume this when she sent me a staff schedule that didn’t have dates past my contract end.  That’s right…I was just supposed to shrivel away….and disappear.  As if!
  5. They had the laziest permanent staff: I never saw a more lazy sales team than that of the permanent staff at L’Occitane.  They complained about standing around with nothing to do.  They chatted and gossiped at large about nothing in particular, and the worst of their problems was who would get the early shift the next day.  Customers were annoying to them, and they often didn’t even like the products they sold and were dispassionate. They barely shared information with me about what they knew about the company, and often compensated for their professional distance with asking personal questions about my private life.  All in all, it was not cool, and I have never felt less useful as a worker in my life.  And this was at a posh store like L’Occitane.  It’s sad, really.
  6. Brand Image Hypocrisy: Because of the high prices/high end image L’Occitane held in the marketplace, they had to have a more “philanthropic” image to show to the public.  They often talked about how they donate to noble causes such as associations for the blind, and “Dress for Success”; an initiative that gave second hand clothes to marginalized women so that they can get jobs.  Now here is the irony: I’m sure L’occitane hires a lot of women in need during the holidays as seasonal sales.  And well, what would of been nice of them to do was not only to pay our temporary wages, but to instill management to treat the seasonal staff with more respect–it doesn’t cost the bottom line. If a company wants to support under-served women and community…why not start with their staff?  I am a long time retail worker, I could use a bit of respect on top of the meager wages any day.

After finding out the hard way that they didn’t renew my contract, I was obviously upset. The manager encouraged me to keep in contact with the company and the store, so that they can keep having a relationship with me as a worker.  But honestly, corporations that alienate the work force have little to no chance of a relationship with me. If I was a valuable member of their sales team last holiday, then ultimately it’s their loss, and not mine.