The Artist Formerly Known As Noll

Last week, as you may have seen on our Twitter (and if you’re not following it yet, what are you waiting for?!), I was the makeup artist on set of our close friend’s film. We were filming in our old secondary school (terrifying for all concerned) and I also had to act (more terrifying for all concerned), as well as pretty up/ugly up the beautiful faces of our friends from the wonderful improv comedy group Giggle Loop.

I was not in charge of wardrobe.

The first look I created was on gorgeous Tash, who was dressed as a pizza. She needed a fancy-shmancy party look and, most importantly, a hard-wearing, flawless base as she was the STAR and spent the most time under the super unforgiving and incredibly hot lights.

I used the Revlon Photoready Primer all over Tash’s face to start, because I’m lazy and didn’t want to have to screw around with touch-ups throughout the day. The foundation I used was my own current favourite, L’Oreal Lumi Magique in the shade Rose Pearl. The rest of the base was achieved with Collection Lasting Perfection concealer in shade Fair, Benefit Hoola bronzer, Bourjois blush in Rose D’Or and Revlon Photoready powder (which I ran around all day with, alongside my Real Techniques Retractable Bronzer Brush). For a highlighter, I used the Heaven eyeshadow from the Too Faced Natural Eyes palette – I wanted to stay away from shimmer highlighters, because under the lights they would make everybody look like Christmas. That would have been brilliant, but director Ellie probably would have punched me in the face.

We flawless.

My favourite part of Tash’s look was the eyes – I used the Naked II palette to create a smoky eye with shades Verve, Snakebite and Busted, and then used a Real Techniques liner brush and Blackout to line her eyes. Tash has great eyelashes that fan out naturally at the corners, so I only used a little Max Factor Volume and Length Fusion mascara. Finally, I set her brows using the powder from the ELF Studio Eyebrow Kit in Dark and Benefit Speed Brow gel. Everyone made fun of my brow gel. They don’t understand me like you guys do.

Lovely Ed seemed a little bit wary of having makeup done. He was playing the part of a scary doctor, so much as I’d have liked to get him with the Naked palette and practise my cut creases, I was actually trying to make him look gaunt and scary.

I pinned his hair back. It was adorable.

I used the Revlon primer again and a little bit of the same foundation, just to have the rest of the makeup something to cling to (and to ease Ed into the process so that he didn’t run away when I started poking brushes at his eyes). Working around the beard was a learning experience – thankfully it’s not something I usually have to deal with – but most of his face was minimally made up so it worked out OK. I put a bit of bronzer in the hollows of his cheeks to make him look both gaunt and high-fashion (two for one!). Under the eyes, I used the ELF Corrective Concealer kit (say that five times fast) in Erase & Conceal.  I actually used this kit backwards – where you would normally be using the peach- and yellow-toned shades to combat dark circles, I used the blue and green tones to make them worse and make Ed look more murdery than usual. I applied the green shade in a triangle under his eye with blue around the edges for depth, and then blended over the top with the same Collection concealer and a Real Techniques foundation brush (guess my favourite makeup brush brand…).

Over the top of this I used the matte shades Nudie and Cashmere Bunny from the Too Faced Natural Eyes palette to blend shadows under his eyes and around the creases, for a super beautiful sunken look. What a stunner. 

Where's Ellie gone? THERE SHE IS!

Ellie has incredible skin (how dare she) and adorable freckles, so I kept her base light and dewy and used minimal foundation and just a little bit of bronzer and Benefit Rockateur blusher to define her cheeks. Her colouring in general is lighter than Tash’s (and mine; brunettes unite) so I went slightly golder and less dramatic with the colours I used for her eyes: Booty Call  on the lid, Foxy in the inner corners and Snakebite and YDK in the crease. I used Blackout as a liner again, but because her eyes are rounder than Tash’s and her eyelashes paler, I went underneath the outer third of her eye at the bottom as well. On her lips I used No7 BB Lips in Geranium, applying to the centre of her lips using the tube and blending it out with a Real Techniques detail brush. It matched her security pass for our school, which made me happy. But if your lips don’t match your security pass I wouldn’t worry.

I had an incredible time makeup-artisting (and running around in a dinosaur onesie, and bouncing on a trampoline, and, of course, falling down the stairs a lot) and I’d love to do it again – maybe next time I’ll even branch out to another eyeshadow palette. Watch this space.