First practical lesson "Base's"

For our first practical lesson Branka showed us how to get the perfect base for two different looks the dewy look & natural look, as its important to have a perfect base as Branka quoted in the lesson "you could have the perfect eye, lip but if you don't have the perfect base it just doesn't work." So this lesson was important for us all to learn the techniques shown by Branka.

First Branka showed us the natural look, & to create this look she firstly cleansed the skin looking at the models undertones, after this she had a feel of the models face to see what skin type she was whether the model was dry, oily or combination. The model was combination this meaning the model has a mixture of skin type between oily and dry, some areas are dry and oily giving you combination skin. After finding the models skin type Branka applied lightly facial oil ( 1 drop of argan oil ) to the models face , & if dryness was still appearing on parts of the models face she would apply 1 more drop of oil, but would never use more than 2 drops as could cause the skin to be too oily. When applying the oil Branka took it down the face & then up on the neck.
After prepping of the skin, followed concealing areas of the skin with a light base you conceal first, with branka using warm undertone and yellow neutral starting to work the colours together into the back of her hand creating her concealer colour suitable for the models undertones.
She applied under the eyes getting the model to look down so you can see where concealer needs applying, when Branka could see where needed applying she buffed the product into the skin under the models eyes making sure was all blended into the skin as it should never be heavy under the eyes.
Then applied anywhere else she felt needed concealing making sure all buffed into the skin using circular motions with her brush, with then adding medium concealer to lift & give it a minute to then settle and buff out.

Moving on to now applying the foundation face and body mac (C3 base undertone & N9 pink tone ), starting to mix these off the back of hand creating the colour and looked at her model taking a look at the models skin tone, when Branka felt she mixed the right colour she tested this on her model by putting a sample on the jawline to see if matched to models neck, cause was a good match she applied to the models face with a synthetic blush brush to buff the product into the skin.
when the foundation was applied then was added strobe cream mac to bring elements of the face out (bridge of the nose, above the cheekbones), to finishing the perfect base she lightly powered the face with mac prep & prime to set the foundation in place.


Above I've inserted two pictures showing of the right side of the models face in a more natural coverage using face and body, I'm not a big lover of face and body as I don't feel it gives much coverage when I've used it before , but Branka gave us a tip if you keep mixing it up on the back of your hand it starts to thicken and not so runny and after Branka finished this base it gave full coverage, but as you can see in the top picture gives coverage but still looks natural and not heavy.

Dewey base (glowing)

For this look Branka started again with prepping the skin, adding some oil to the nose as she still found the models nose to still be quite dry. For this look it was a more heavier look using mac full coverage. Breaking down the models skin so she could skin match the right colour using the foundations, NC35 & NW45 mixing the colours on the back of the hand when done she applied to the forehead and chin to make sure was a correct colour match to the models skin tone, with the foundation being the right colour match she started to apply small amounts were need coverage and buffed out over the skin, for this look Branka concealed after applying the foundation then applying more strobe to areas (10 pence size) then to set the skin with prep and prime but hardly anything as this is a Dewey look (glowing) for camera. By finishing the whole look Branka applied give me sun bronzer (Mac) buffing into the back of her hand the applying where the sun would hit barely touching the face making a sun kissed look, adding illuminating bronzer lightly on top to make summer Dewey skin pop through. For the brows she groomed through them with a brow brush then applying clear brow gel, with the cheek adding peach to the apples of the cheek and buffing out, finishing the look with adding peach to the lip, adding some gloss on top.

Above I have inserted images that show the more Dewey side and also took a picture in natural light above and the image below in artificial light, in the final images I didn't think I would say this but I prefer the face and body as I'm not as keen on the Dewey heavier look as I feel the skin looks more oily/greasy but it does work great for fashion shoots wanting more of a glow look on camera!