my life and fera uma vez

Two posts in a row, to compensate for the lack there of! Hi. 

News from these last few months are, I am still working at MAC on and off, a month here, another week there, a couple of weeks in December. Mixed feelings of being excited and nervous about continuing my Illustration course at Ar.Co - focusing so much on makeup is making me rusty. I have made some new makeup tutorials on MERMADE - the last one of Manila Luzon in Rupaul's Drag Race All Stars (Drag Race is totally my favourite obsession, and Manila is the queen closest to my heart). I also have a new scar - back in September I somehow fainted in my bathroom. My boyfriend called an ambulance (first time in an ambulance, it was fun) and I got 5 stitches! Had a paralysed eyebrow for a while (like Justin Bieber did). Well, I still do, I have yet to recover completely but it's much better now. 

I have also worked twice with Baínha de Copas and Estúdio Fera for their love child "Fera Uma Vez". Baínha de Copas makes colourful exciting clothes, Estúdio Fera make awesome illustration work. So they came together and made beautiful dresses! And I did the makeup for the promotion photos. Eva Maria did the styling for these, too. Here are two of my favourites - my favourite dresses too! You can check out the whole thing here.

And then I was invited to work on their new line, which is yet to be released. And I happily accepted, because it's so much fun, and they're all so nice, and Graça from Baínha de Copas always feeds us all so well (and in case you don't know, the way to my heart is through my stomach). It's just really delightful.

I also went to the theatre a lot to see Brazilian plays, my favourite was Missa dos Quilombos and my least favourite was the last one we saw, which I don't remember the name of and it was so horrible we left during the break. And I'm planning to visit my friends in Berlin in April, and I'm very excited about it.

And yes, I guess that's everything. I will try to remember to post at least weekly - if I don't, what's the point of having a blog then? See you soon, hopefully.

review: mac prep+prime skin

So after going back to MAC for work, only a week this time, I've noticed a few things about products I haven't noticed before. The main thing being, one of the products that is most popular and gets sold the most, especially among our Brazilian clients, I absolutely detest. 

That would be, the Prep + Prime Skin. This is MAC's all-purpose primer. I actually used it often on clients when I worked there the first time, and I never noticed a lot of the things it claims to do, but since a lot of people that came in the store raved about it, I never really thought it was that bad. Now, on the website and the information we get as MAC MUAs, it claims to "calm and soothe the skin, blot away excess oil, even out skin redness, improve laydown and application of foundation or powder". I did notice people with sensitive skin seemed to prefer it to the coloured primers, the Prep + Prime Fortified Skin Enhancers (which I love). I also noticed it does feel smooth and makes the foundation go on just slightly more even - definitely not as much as my Smashbox Photo Finish primer. It does not however even out skin redness in the least. 

But my main point is, it says it "blots away excess oil". Considering most people looking for a primer suffer from oily or combination to oily skin, I'm not sure how something that is extremely glittery is supposed to help. It's not luminous, it's glittery. Bluish, purplish, pinkish glitter. If you have oily skin, and you buy something to blot away excess oil, you don't want it to add extra shine to your face. And I think most people don't want glitter all over their faces. And worse, I actually have combination to dry skin, and as the strong air conditioning at work makes my skin compensate with extra oil, I decided to put on some of this primer a couple of hours before I left. What happened? My skin never looked and felt more oily in my entire life. And I barely get oily. Also, as I was looking at myself in the mirror, with proper non-workplace lighting, wondering how I got so oily, all I saw was glitter. I even thought maybe I had gotten myself covered in some of those loose shimmer powders by accident. 

So, I suppose this is a negative review. I hate it. So yes, don't buy it unless you like glitter all over your face. You could use it on your body, as one of those glittery body lotions - a damn expensive one. I think the fact that so many of our Brazilian clients rave about it is a classic case of MAC OCD. When they blindly believe anything MAC is the absolute holy grail. 

hello there

Maybe some of you remember me being actually active on the internet and spreading the word about whatever it is I'm doing and whatever it is I'm into at the moment - besides facebook that is. Anyway, I'm doing that again. I used to have a livejournal for a million years and then I had a blog I barely updated called FISHTANK. Then I got discouraged to post because the software I used for it was updated and started going psycho on me - so now I'm going back to basics on this blogspot, going by the same name, and same header, too. For now.