As part of a media training that I just completed, the last lesson was on make up and how it is important to look natural but yet neat in front of the camera.  As the class is small, each of us had to go under the mini 'make-over' by the professional make up artist, who was also our trainer for the day.  She was really funny as she mentioned to one of my colleagues that his shade of foundation is the same shade as the one she used on Steven Tyler when he performed the previous week!

Anyway, we were told to go to the session sans make up so this is me before...

This photo is quite forgiving but my T-zone is rather oily so under any other lighting/ camera, my face will shine bright like a mirror.  LOL. Ok, I'm exaggerating but you get the idea.

And post make up...Tada!!


No shine whatsoever!! We were introduced to the wonderful mattifying gel by Bodyshop ($26.90) which you can use under your foundation or on top of your make up.  It really helped to take off the shine and it lasted quite long. My face was still oily after 4 hours but it was two-thirds less shiny than it would've been without the mattifying gel.  MAC has a version but it's aboiut 3x more expensive while I've used Anna Sui's primer and it no longer absorbs that much shine.

She used a very light make up which pros used and she also used eyebrow powder/gel to help fill in my brows.  Touch of blusher and natural lip colour plus super fine powder and I'm done!  No eyeshadow, no mascara.  I did have a bit of hairspray to get rid of fly-away hair.  It was so natural, nobody mentioned that I was wearing make up or anything like that.

Ladies or Gentlemen who have long fringes like myself, trick to the hairspray is to tilt your head back slightly, spray the hairspray, wait for it to dry and then flip your head front.  It will be a bit stiff but you can then use your hand to scrunge and loosen it up so that it doesn't look like you plastered your fringe to your scalp.

Another useful tip that I learnt that day was about hairloss! Apparently, drinking 4 cups of stinging nettle tea everyday continuously will help hair growth!! Ever since that day, I've bought the nettle tea bags as well as the capsules.  Will faithfully take it everyday and report the effects month-on-month.  Always excited to have natural remedies to hair growth! Only another colleague and I were so excited with this news and I shared with him about the tea bags in Holland & Barrett.  LOL.  Another exciting thing was the Body Shop's matt primer which I bought after the workshop.  Terrible me ended up spending enough at Body Shop to become a member.  Gah. I must stop shopping!!