The annual Irish Beauty Show was held in the RDS in Dublin last Sunday and Monday. The show consists of lots of stands of different brands selling and advertising their stock for a reasonable price. There was also a competition being held at the beauty show for both professional and student makeup artists. The show is a great way of interacting with other fellow makeup artists and the competition is an amazing confidence booster and is also great practise for exams!

This year’s theme for professional and student was “Bridal Fantasy”. In my opinion, fantasy is such a broad theme on its own and you can do so many things under this category, but when they put “Bridal” in front of it I thought I would tone it down a bit but also add a twist. My interpretation of “Bridal Fantasy” kind of reminded me of “Little House on the Prairie”. I imagined Laura or Mary running through the fields with a lovely flowy dress with protruding innocence. I then went from that idea and imagined a young woman running through the fields collecting berries before she gets married to her prince. I know it sounds daft, Lol! But in order for me to come up with something I have to have a storyline or something! So, then I went dress shopping! I bought a slip in a charity shop for 10 euro and added some old lace window curtains at the end (I got some help with this! My model Sophie’s mam Jane helped me) and then made a head piece using some cardboard, a coat hanger, a hot glue gun and lots of old Christmas decorations! I actually had soooo much fun making all of this. Another student in my class, Vicki Pender, was also competing. Vicki chose a seashore look with coral colours as they would be associated with the sea and lots of sea shells. Vicki wanted to incorporate a smoky eye look and have it running down on to her face as if she was stepping out of the water. Vicki also added some sparkles onto the shoulders and face to create a wet appearance. She then took a stunning wedding dress and put her own twist on it by adding sparkles, pearls and sea shells on the dress and also added some beautiful chiffon fabric to the top part of the dress and to the waist part also. Her head piece was a mask with an elastic band that would normally go around the back of the head and the mask over the eyes and just turned upside down with sea shells, chiffon fabric and white feathers hot glued on to it. Such a fantastic idea!

                                                         The whole event really and truly left a big smile on my face. I had so much fun with not only Sophie, my model, but Vicki and her model and met so many other lovely and insanely talented people. The judges made me feel so at ease and were so nice with their comments. One of my highlights throughout the day was getting to meet @mmmmitchell, the KING of makeup. His work is just phenomenal and is a massive inspiration! And, the lovely Ellie Kelly Mua. I have been following Ellie for a long time now and I just absolutely adore her! She’s hilarious and is unreal at makeup. Was so happy to finally meet them both.

                                                        The main highlight to my day was receiving the results of the competition and I was so thrilled when they announced my name as winner of my category in the student section. I was surprised if anything as the talent was unbelievable! And to really send me into shock I was then announced as “Makeup Artist Student of the Year”. As I said this was my main highlight of the day. I could not believe it, I was so so happy. I have so much support around me between the college, Gorey Institute of Beauty, the girls in my class and from all my friends and family. It’s so nice to see people bringing each other up in a world that seems to be falling apart. I cannot thank everyone enough!

College will resume on Monday again and we will be doing makeup on mature skin, so I will fill you all in on that next week.

That’s all for this week.

Lisa xx