Portfolio : Kara Chung

Here are a few photos from a shoot I did for the very talented Kara Chung. I was lucky enough to be able to do the makeup of Sam Rodriguez!

Here's her before shot. As you can see, Sam already has such a pretty face even with nothing on.

So for the makeup, I had to keep in mind that Kara was going to take some black and white shots as well. This made me decide to do a sultry look for Sam's eyes that would still be able to stand out even in the black and white shots. I also focused on contouring but I used a liquid contouring method instead of my usual powder contouring to keep it super subtle. And lastly for the lips, I just went for a wine-stained look using MAC's Red Dwarf for a lip that's still pretty bold but not as intense as a full-on red lip. Here's the finished product:

And I super love how the other shots turned out!

Thank you Kara for the photos! 

Shupette

  Last Saturday, I was invited to a Shu Uemura Master Class featuring their Holiday Collection for this year called Shupette, which is a collaboration with Karl Lagerfeld. It was actually my mentor Ms. Claire Diokno, one of their master make up artists, that invited me to participate. And what better way to participate than to be the face that she gets to do the different looks on? Aka model yiheeee.

        So if you're wondering why the collection is called Shupette, it's because Karl Lagerfeld's inspiration for the collection was none other than his beautiful blue-eyed Birman cat named Choupette. Choupette isn't your ordinary cat for she holds the title of the world's most fashionable feline. Bow down.

        That being said, the Shupette collection is all about achieving a different take on the classic cat eye with the help of Karl Lagerfeld's Parisian chic influence. What you get is a really unique Tokyo-meets-Paris collection, with the usual super cute packaging that Shu Uemura is known for coming up with. And of course, they just had to include several shades of blue eyeshadow as a tribute to Choupette's striking blue eyes.

Here are some selfies Ms. Claire and I took after the Master Class featuring the store's perfect lighting hehehe. The Shu Team had me wear cat ears, a bow tie, and a pin of Choupette.

This is the entire collection, complete with a super cute Choupette pouch if you purchase everything.

I was lucky enough to take home some of the Shupette products, including the Eye-Need-Shu trio 01 which includes "Shupette Blue" and the Rouge Bonbon Fantasy Trio 01 - a lip palette of 3 luminous candy colors. I also got the Eye-Need-Shu liner in Midnight Black, which is a black pencil with deep blue glitter pigments.

 I couldn't wait to try the products out so I decided to do my own take on a cat eye.

Below is a close up of my eye. I just used the black liner to draw a winged tip then softened it using the darkest blue eye shadow with an angled liner brush. As expected, Shu Uemura's color payoff never disappoints. The shadow is highly pigmented while still being super easy to blend. No primer needed!

I then decided to play with the palette a bit more by using all 3 blue shades on my lower lash line, going from darkest to lightest as I approached the inner corners. I also lined just 1/3 of my outer lower lash line to make my eyes appear bigger. A great trick I learned from Ms. Claire is to wet your eye shadow brush when applying a shimmery eye shadow if you really want to intensify the shimmer even more. That's exactly what I did for my lower lash line to really make my eyes stand out. And of course I put some falsies on for more drama.

I was honestly so surprised at how wearable the blue eyeshadow turned out to be. Since I'm a guilty Naked Palette addict, I don't normally wear colored eye shadows anymore. But i'll definitely make an exception for Shupette.

For the lip palette, all 3 shades complemented the blue shadow really well. The lip shades feature an oil base lip 

formula developed by Shu for vivid color and luminosity. I took pictures with all 3 shades to show you all how they

can change up the look.

The first shade I tried was a very soft pastel pink which made the look quite girly and flirty.

If you want to be a bit more playful, then the hot pink shade/fuchsia shade would be a great option. 

And lastly, the palette comes with a deep red if you wanna make the look more vampy. This would be great as an

evening lip!

For all the products I used here as well as the rest of the collection, you guys should definitely check out the 

Shupette collection at any Shu Uemura branch!

The Comeback

        The last blog entry I ever posted was in November 2012. If you followed legenczari.blogspot.com, then you might remember me as an awkward 16-year-old fashion blogger-slash-beauty junkie. If you don't, then thank God. I was all over the place with my posts. Originally, Legenczari was a fashion blog, but later on I decided to add a few makeup tutorials here and there with everything I learned from my summer-long internship for Shu Uemura. But before I knew it, I was posting fewer entries on my outfits and more makeup tutorials. I have always enjoyed putting on makeup, but it was then that I truly realized that it would always be closer to my heart.

         At some point, I had to think about in which direction I wanted to take my blog. It felt like it would be such a waste to stop the outfit posts altogether, but I wasn't even sure if I wanted to go on with my overly girly looks or if I wanted to start unleashing my inner BadGalCzaRiri (spoiler alert: I did. Lol.) And more importantly, deep inside I knew that makeup tutorials were really what I loved doing more.

        I wasn't terrible at making them, but I had my doubts on whether or not they were good enough. Up to now I cringe whenever I look back on those Selena Gomez makeup tutorials I used to be sooo proud of. My eye shadow game wasn't so strong back then and OMG don't even get me started on my pre-Browhaused brows. To cut the story short, all the confusion and doubt made me lose the drive to post anything at all.

          Even if I thought my beauty blogger dreams were over, luckily my love affair with makeup didn't end there. During my 2-year hiatus, I was just as eager to learn. So I promised myself to improve through books, seminars, and of course, countless YouTube videos. I then took it to the next level by volunteering to do makeup for my friends and family -- which ended up being great practice for me. 

          Eventually, I gained a lot of confidence in my skills. I wasn't so scared to blend out eye shadow or apply false lashes or even draw the ever so time-consuming, perfect 45-degree winged eyeliner anymore. I started taking on real clients and began to expand my makeup collection. Once I entered college, more opportunities came for me to be able to make a name for myself as a makeup artist. And hence, #legenczaribeauty was born! Yaaay!

        Then a few months ago, I had this crazy thought that maybe that once awkward 17-year-old beauty junkie can actually become a self-proclaimed beauty guru just like I had always hoped for. It took up a lot of my time as well as a lot of help from my family and friends, but here we are now 2 years later, and I could not be more excited to launch the new and improved Legenczari.com, complete with tutorials, reviews, and more!

         My only hope for this blog is that it may get girls to appreciate makeup the way that I do. It shouldn't be worn as a mast to make people think you're someone you're not. For me, makeup should help you learn to love everything you were born with instead of hate all the things you were born without. And just because someone loves makeup, it doesn't necessarily mean she's insecure and doesn't feel beautiful without it.

        So ladies, I hope you wear makeup to express yourself, to have some fun and be creative by turning your face into your own work of art. But most of all, I hope you all wear makeup for yourself, because it makes YOU happy, not for anyone else. And that's exactly what I'll be here for: to make sure that any girl can feel, well, legendary.