When it comes to special makeup effects, the fantastic must meld with the realistic, creating fantastical worlds that have all the edge of reality. Whether your doing special makeup effects for a movie, a theater production or a Hollywood-theme party, you want the result to not only look like it’s leaped from a horror movie or a comic book, but to maintain a hint of realism that keeps us believing in the make-believe.

Learning how to do special effects with makeup can be both an exciting and a fulfilling career. It’s a job that thrives on creativity, turning imaginations into real assets that create magical worlds of fantasy. Like any craft, it relies on several standard techniques that once mastered can turn anyone you’d like, from your friends to your production cast, into realistic images of your imagination.

Creating realistic bruises are a great way to begin to hone a talent for special effects. Clean the area with rubbing alcohol, patting it dry. Take nose or scar wax, being careful to touch it as little as possible as oils from your skin will gum up its quality, and apply to the “bruised” area, blending it to form the shape of a bruise with possible scar tissue. Add makeup to conceal the presence of the putty, and then coloration to make the wound realistic.

Age can be added to someone’s face by simply drawing lines with a makeup pencil or brush. A sponge can be used to create stubble or liver spots, and extra lines should be added around the mouth and the eyes to enhance the technique. This is a great trick to try on your friends just for fun, getting good practice and a good laugh when you see how old everyone can look.

Prosthetics can be created from foam or latex into any kind of creature or facial shape. They can be applied with adhesive which is then covered up with makeup. Practice on your friends, as the more you work to form prosthetics, the better you’ll be. Learning to make your own parts from foam and latex is an important skill in the special effects business, as it allows you to virtually make just about anything, and you are only truly limited by your imagination.

Learn to play with special  makeup and have fun. The more experience you get, the more apt you will be to solve creative dilemmas that may take place on a set. The key is creating a world of fantasy that still has a realistic feel. With all the various tools and techniques available in the field, the creativity is limitless.

We use makeup to take care of our face, but if we don’t care for our make up brushes chances are,we’re not taking care of our faces: Most women don’t realize how important it is to take proper care of their make up brushes. Every time you use makeup, you are adding a new layer onto your brush, layers of oil, dirt and old makeup that builds up over time. Dirty brushes only return the dirt to our face, blemishing our pores that result in needless acne, outbreaks and discoloration.

Frequent washing of your makeup brush keeps them clean and healthy, which in return keeps your face clean and healthy. A makeup brush is not unlike a toothbrush.. It removes layers of gunk and secretions from our skin, which build up over time. Even if the dirt is invisible to the naked eye, it will clog your pores and add extra oil to your complexion, yuck! Keeping the cosmetic brush clean keeps the dirt from being continually recycled, constantly added to your skin and blemishing your pores.

Cleaning is fairly easy and should be done often: Always wash your brushes with warm water, as it kills germs and better removes the gunk and the oil. Apply a small amount of shampoo, and work it into a nice, luscious lather. Rinse the bristles thoroughly under the water. Notice how the water leaving the brush is contaminated with old makeup, as well as layers of oil that wouldn’t normally be making contact with the face. Although it’s invisible, the material can have serious conflicts with your skin.

Continue rinsing until no color leaves the brush. Once the brush is its natural color again, it should be free of the layers of makeup, body oils and other dirt.

Quality brushes are often made of real hair, which only maintains its quality when washed frequently. If the brush isn’t clean, you are only coating oils and old makeup on your face, which defeats the purpose of fresh makeup in the first place, so start fresh each time you apply makeup with a clean brush. Otherwise, the beauty optimizing quality of the makeup is limited as it becomes mixed with the older product and residue.

Cosmetic treatments are only as clean as the brushes we use to apply makeup to our faces. The brush is the essential introducing tool of the makeup, and proper care is vital to any beauty treatment. Just as we ensure that our pores are oil and blemish- free, we need to be careful that our brushes are kept clean as well. Clean brushes help us to optimize the beauty of our cosmetics.

Are your cosmetics safe? Don’t compromise health for beauty: When we use cosmetics, we do so to become beautiful. Makeup should essentially enhance our health, not compromise our bodies.

Sadly, 90 percent of the cosmetics on the market have never been evaluated for safety. An average cosmetics consumer uses a combination of products that contain over 200 different chemicals each day, some of which have been found to cause skin cancer, birth defects, and may even have a harmful effect on your memory. Do you know what’s in your makeup bag? Are you using safe cosmetics?

We shouldn’t have to compromise our health to be beautiful. Real beauty comes from a healthy appearance, a invigorating lifestyle and a healthy feeling of well being. What we put in and on our bodies contributes to our well-being, and makeup is a big part of that.

If we want to look and feel good, we need to use makeup that’s healthy, cosmetics that not only make us look good but enhance the health of our body as well. Makeup needs to be free of dangerous and harmful chemicals. It needs to be safe and natural.

Many makeup brands contain known carcinogens or suspected carcinogens, including acrylamide, diethanolamine, formaldehyde, and coal-tar colors. Some contain substances that disrupt your endocrine, such as parabens and nonoxynol.

Some contain phthalates, a group of industrial chemicals that have been linked to early puberty, asthma, birth defects and decreased sperm counts. Nail polishes, for instance, frequently contain phthalates to prevent chipping or flaking. Often, the harmful phthalates are simply listed under the catch-all of fragrances, and can be difficult to spot.

Other cosmetics even contain metals such as lead or mercury that can poison your skin and seriously compromise your health. Luckily, safe cosmetics can be a reality. As public awareness continues to grow, more and more consumers are demanding makeup that’s safe to use, free of carcinogens and phthalates.

As the market for natural and organic makeup grows, consumers find more options for healthy, safe makeup. More and more cosmetic brands are signing pledges that the ingredients of their products are safe and chemical free. From Bare Beauty Mineral Makeup to RJ Mineral Cosmetics to Nature’s Paradise, many makeup companies are realizing that the best markets lie in blends that don’t compromise the health of their consumers.

]]> https://www.mycosmeticreview.com/did-you-know/stage-make-up-2/ Mon, 29 Dec 2008 14:08:24 +0000 http://www.mycosmeticreview.com/?p=265 When an actress steps out onto a stage, she walks into the middle of the audience’s imagination.
Any stage makeup artist needs to keep this in mind.

Unlike using cosmetics at home, makeup for the theater is designed to make us something we’re not. On stage, we are pretending, we are becoming somebody else. Theatrical makeup transforms us into the audience’s imagination.

Which makes it vital to mask what an actor or actress looks like in real life. When working with stage makeup, a cosmetic artist blends creativity and imagination to transform the theatrical player into the character, so that we can live, breathe and taste the new personification in all the splendor of theatrical imagination.

Whether working for the stage or the movie screen, theatrical makeup artists must first cover or remove any negative features of the actor or actress, angles or blemishes that may distract or portray the character in an unsatisfactory light.

By the same stroke of the makeup brush, however, some negative features can be highlighted or enhanced in order to make a villain look especially evil, or to add character. Just be sure that the makeup does not distract or subtract from the visual flow of the performance.

The most obvious distraction is a tattoo, since body art generally marks the individuality of the actor or actress and not the character. Most people wouldn’t realize it, but many famous performers like Johnny Depp are covered in tattoos, which have to be meticulously covered anytime he is on camera.

Even if new tattoos need to be added in the case of a pirate character, musician or maybe a villain, those shouldn’t be the original tattoos of the performer. Tattoos indicate individuality. A performer’s tattoos are their own.

When they are portraying a character in the audience’s imagination, any visible tattoos should be created purposefully to suit the character, not the personality of the actor or actress.

Generally, using less makeup is preferable, depending on the size of the theater, the lighting and the type of production. Unlike personal cosmetics, theatrical makeup can often be harsh on a performer’s skin and can have allergic reactions.

Too thick a foundation can cause a fair-skinned actress’s face to turn an unsightly orange, adding an unnatural element to the production that harms believability. Practice and experiment before opening night to get the amount just right.

But above all, blend stage makeup to bring out character. Theater is about imagination, and the best theatrical makeup is creative and adds the personality the director hones and the audience looks for. Make the audience believe. Make them forget there’s a stage in the first place.

With the advent of the green movement, you hear terms like all natural cosmetics, organic cosmetics and spa cosmetics tossed about freely. But, what do they mean. Here we will define spa cosmetics, and assess some of their benefits.

What Are Spa Cosmetics?

There is no official definition for spa cosmetics. But they definitely exist. It’s one of the things that everybody knows what you’re referring to, but it’s hard to explain. So, for simplicity sake, let’s define spa cosmetics here.

Spa cosmetics are those products you find in a spa or relaxation retreat to nourish and rejuvenate the hair, skin and body.  Following are some common spa cosmetics.

Common Spa Cosmetics & Their Health Benefits

Mud Packs: Mud packs are natural fit when you think of spa cosmetics. They have been used for centuries to do more than just cleanse the skin. One of the benefits of mud packs that many may not be aware of is that they’re used to treat chronic inflammation caused by internal diseases, for example.

Bath Salts: These are natural spa cosmetics because they do what you think of when you think of a spa – they help you to relax. For example, did you know that salts from the Dead Sea contain over 20 different minerals? minerals that are rich in therapeutic properties… and, all you have to do to get the benefits is add them to a nice warm bath.

Sea Algae: This is one of the most beneficial spa cosmetics you can use, for it provides a wide spectrum of enzymes, fiber and amino acids the body desperately needs.

The reason sea algae is so beneficial to our bodies is because the makeup of our body’s organic structure fluids are the same as the chemical makeup of deep-sea water. This means sea kelp is extremely similar humanlike plasma. In the ocean, sea kelp acts as a purifier. And, it does the same thing, in many respects, for human bodies.

As you can ascertain from the spa cosmetics listed here, beauty is more than skin deep. Spa cosmetics highlight this fact.