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So yesterday was a day that every girl dreams of. No, not my wedding day. Although that was pretty dreamy. LMA and I should do a post about our wedding days. We looked so young! No, I was not alone in a clean house all day with nothing to do but nap, eat and read. That might be a slice of Heaven were it true. No, I did not step on the scale and finally lose those ten pounds that have been following me around.

I just went back and read that last paragraph and it made me laugh. Maybe those ten pounds have been following me around because my idea of Heaven is having nothing to do all day but eat? Would Oprah call that a light bulb moment? Or is that just sad (and funny at the same time!)?

Anna Valle

Yesterday was a day that every girl dreams of because I had make up artist Anna Valle all to myself for a couple of hours. Anna was so generous and came over to my house and gave me a makeover. What girl wouldn’t love to have her makeup done, get to pick the brain of an expert regarding all things make up, and all in the comfort and privacy of her own home? I even had my mom here with me to help take pictures and video. That’s right, I said video.

Don’t get too excited though. I had grand plans of making a video of Anna doing my make up (check) and then editing it on my computer. You know, speeding it up so you can see the transformation in about 60 seconds. Wouldn’t that be cool! Just one problem. I really only know how to check my email. It’s amazing that I’ve figured out how to do the little I can do on our site. Jen, our web master, will attest to that! So, I will continue to work on that video, but for now you get to enjoy before and after pictures.

Here I am with no make up at all.

You can see that I have redness in my cheeks and some shadows around my eyes. The first thing Anna did was color match me. She tested some foundation on the inside of my wrist and one seemed to disappear. That means it’s the right color. She also tested it along my jawline. After finding the right color it was time to put on some concealer. The concealer went under my eyes to cover some of the darkness there. The older you get, the more important concealer will become. Anna suggests putting the concealer under the eye, up to the inside corner of your eye near your nose and even down to very top of your cheeks. The skin at the inside corner of our eyes tends to get dark as well so you want to cover that up. If you have redness in your cheeks like I do, putting the concealer right at the top of your cheekbone will help the makeup stay longer and cover that redness. Anna says the concealer gives the make up something to grab on to.

Remember when putting anything on or around your eyes that you NEVER want to pull the skin there. You want to dot the concealer on and then just glide your finger over your skin and tap it into place. You always want to use your ring finger as it is the weakest finger on your hand and will therefore apply the least pressure. The skin under our eyes is very delicate and pulling on it or rubbing it vigorously will only cause us to form wrinkles faster. Who needs that?

Anna then started with my foundation. She used my own foundation which is the Clinique pressed powder. I usually put it on with a big powder brush. However Anna used one of those wedge sponges. She likes using those as they give her more control over where the make up goes and she can get more even coverage that way. She put the foundation on in layers. A light layer first and then you can go back and add a little more where you think you need it. She does suggest blending the make up down over your jawline so you don’t get that “mask” look. She also put the foundation on my eyelids. It is skin after all. That way your eye shadow will stay longer and go on more evenly. Anna also reminded me that when you are blending your makeup you should always blend with upward motions. Gravity pulls our skin down, so we want to remind it to stay up where it belongs!

One HUGE point here. Make sure that your concealer is very close in color to your make up base. You do not want white circles around your eyes. After you have your foundation on you might want to dust some translucent powder over the top. It will help keep your foundation in place, and it will also help keep the shine down on your face. Here in TX we tend to sweat in the summer. So anything that helps with shine is a good thing!

Next were the eyes. I wish I had some detail pictures of this. That is what the video was for. Hopefully I’ll figure out how to come back and add it. Just for the record, my video camera and my computer aren’t getting along. It’s not that I don’t know how to insert the video. OK, back to eyes. You want to start with a lighter highlight color right up under your eyebrows. For a daytime look you don’t want to add too much color. Since I have dark eyes and tan skin Anna decided to use golds and browns.

She started with the brown at the outside corner of my eye and dusted it into the natural crease of my eye. The older you get the higher up you will want to go with the darker color. As we age and our skin droops we lose that natrual crease, so you want to help it along and create that crease with the darker color. Anna then used a gold color blended with the lighter shell highlight color to fill below the crease down to my lash line.

Next was eyeliner. You want to start at the outside of your eye, from your natural line and carry it straight across the eye. Anna prefers a thin line for a daytime look. We used my personal eyeliner which is a pot of creme liner from MAC. I apply it with a small pointy brush that I bought with it from MAC. I really like the brush and eyeliner. Clinique also sells the pot of creme liner and I really like theirs as well. It lasts forever, doesn’t smudge and is much easier to apply than liquid eyeliner.

Right before apllying my blush Anna used my new favorite product! It’s called Magic from Perscriptives. She used it to highlight the top of my cheekbones. It is a loose powder with no color but just a litlte bit of shimmer. The cool part about this stuff is that it makes your skin feel cool right when you put it on. I thought that the brush was a little damp at first but it was actually the cool feeling from the powder. It’s a great thing for those of us with ruddy skin as it will cool that redness down.

Next was blush. We used my own blush, which is a Bare Minerals loose powder. I usually use a contour blush brush to apply it. Anna used my powder brush instead.

You can see that my powder brush has a big head on it but the bristles are flat on the top. Anna prefers this to the contour brush that I normally use.

The powder brush will allow you to cover the area much faster. When I use the contour brush I sometimes feel as if I have a streak of blush along my cheekbone and I have to go back and blend in out. The powder brush allows you to cover the apple of your cheek up along your cheekbone much faster and smoother. Great tip!

The last thing we did was lips. Anna always uses a lip liner. I don’t always use one as it reminded me of an older look. I think that was because I visualized someone in the ’80s with a really dark liner and lighter lipstick. Remember that? The lipstick would wear off and then you would just see this dark red liner.

Anna uses a more natural color of liner. It helps you keep the lipstick within the confines of your lips. It also prevents the color of the lipstick from bleeding out into the lines (wrinkles) that we get around our lips as we get older. Most people’s lips are asymmetrical. You can use the lip liner ot even them out. If you have thin lips you can line them on the outside edge of your lip line. If you have very full lips you can line them on the inside edge of your lip line. For my lips Anna lined them right on the natural lip line.

We used a pinkish lip color that Anna brought with her. You want to cover the lip liner with the lipstick. Again, we don’t want that old lady look of two different colors of liner and lipstick.

Before applying mascara Anna used a lash lengthener from Perscriptives. It really made my lashes look longer without the added clump of mascara. She only used the lengthener on my lashes from the center of my eye to the outside edge. By highlighting those lashes it made my eyes look larger. Think Bambi doe eyed look. You can then apply just one coat of mascara and get all the length without the extra clump.

Here I am all done with a daytime look.

Didn’t she do a great job?! I then asked Anna how she would change this into more of an evening look. The first thing she did was highlight my cheekbones. She used the contour blush brush pictured above. With a darker blush or even brown eyeshadow, which is what Anna used on me, she highlighted the hollow of my cheek to make my cheekbones look even higher.

Anna then intensified my eye color a little bit. She added a darker brown to the contour of my eyes. Another thing she did to my eyes was use black liquid liner to make the line on my top lid a little bit thicker and darker. She then used a black pencil to lightly add some eyeliner under my eyes.

The final step to take my look from day to night was to intensify my lip color. Anna added some more of the same color of lipstick just to make it more intense and then went over it with a darker gloss. Here I am! Ready for a night out on the town. Or at the ballfields, whatever works for you.

I learned so much from Anna! She spent about an hour working with me and she talked about what she was doing the entire time. It was great! I could ask her questions about products, techniques etc. I mentioned earlier that my mom was here with me, and Mom got to ask her questions as well. My daughter came home from school during our time together and Grace was thrilled to watch an expert in action!

Here are some more of Anna’s tips and favorite products that I didn’t mention above.

• Always wash off your makeup at night.
• Always use eye cream. You do not want an eye cream that contains petroleum jelly. You want soothing ingredients like aloe and chamomile.
• You need to be consistent with your skin care. It is hard for your skin to reap the benefits of products if you do not use them consistently.
• Anna uses the Ahava line of skin care products from Dead Sea Cosmetics. I am going to try some of them. Anna’s skin looks amazing! I would have guessed she was ten years younger than she is.
• After you put on your moisturizer in the morning you should wait a few minutes before applying your makeup. This allows the moisturizer to absorb into your skin first and your makeup will stay on longer.
• Perscriptives is Anna’s favorite brand of makeup. They have lots of options for foundations with varying levels of coverage. She has never had anyone have any kind of reaction to it.
• Perscriptives has a good concealer. It is in a pen like tube with a brush on the end. You twist the tube and the concealer will fill up the brush. It goes on smoothly without pulling at the skin under your eyes.
• Perscriptives has really great makeup brushes.
• Ben Nye is a company known for their stage makeup. The translucent powder she uses is from them. It really helped with my shine problem.
• Ben Nye also has a product called Set that you can dust over your makeup that does just what it says. It sets everything into place and allows it to wear much longer.
• Anna really likes the wedge sponges. They smell funny when you buy them so pull them out of the package and put them in the sink to wash them with anti-bacterial soap or shampoo. Once they are completely dry they are ready to use. You can wash them over and over.
• You should have two different pencil sharpeners. One for your eye liners and one for lip liners. The products are different and you don’t want the oils of one getting into the other. You also need to keep your pencils very sharp.
• Anna currently likes the L’oreal lip color Nature’s Blush.

One more time ladies…..Before and After. Just a quick sidenote. My face did not look as light as it appears in the after photo. It really looked like my natural color, just without all the redness you see in the before photo. I think that the flash didn’t go off on the first picture, and did on the second.

Before

After

I think that’s all I have. Was that enough information for you? Are you on overload? I really enjoyed my time with Anna and learned so much from her! I am planning on picking up some of the L’oreal lipstick, the Ahava face care products, Perscriptives Magic, and some translucent powder. I hope you learned something too!

Thank you so much Anna! It was a lovely afternoon and your personality is just as beautiful as you are!

Don’t forget Lazy Moms to pick up our Mother’s Day Madness button. We want to hear all about your Mother’s Day on Monday May 11th!!