Hi everyone,
I’ve been asked so many times where I’ve learned to do makeup and how I started here, so here is a short piece of CCee history.
I was born in the eighties, which is really the best time to have been born if you ask me. Music was amazing, there were amazing movies and makeup was also roaring. Many people look back on the eighties and cringe, I was too young for the whole cringing thing, but my mum was in her 30s when it was the eighties which meant she was wearing more makeup. My sister is seven years older then me so she was in her teens which meant more makeup still. If you look up eighties makeup you find coloured, contoured and apparent makeup (next to blown up hair on women and mustaches on men 
). I was a little girl who played with my mum’s blue and green eye makeup. Also her lipstick was a favourite of mine and I loved watching her and my sister putting on makeup.
In the nineties the supermodel became a big thing 
. This meant beautiful models on magazines and my first ELLE UK magazine was bought in 1996. Before that I bought the local ELLE but it wasn’t up to date, and the British one was, so I switched. When I was 12 I was allowed to wear grey eyeliner and mascara to school and do whatever I wanted in the weekends. When I turned 16 my mum learned to just let me do my thing, I did do the cream silver shadow and liner thing when it was hip. I loved makeup but wasn’t wearing as much as you’d think a makeup addict like me would. I was ill a lot of the time in my youth and that also meant that makeup was used to make me look better when I was pale and looking sick when I didn’t want to.
I loved models like Christy Turlington: 
,
Helena Christensen: 
Linda Evangelista: 
I bought books by photographers like Sante D’Orazio, Arthur Elgort and Peter Lindbergh, which made me see that a model can look very different depending on lighting, clothing and MAKEUP. The many faces of Kate Moss 
and Mila Jovovich 
inspired me just like the strong woman that Gucci was showing at that time (under leadership of Tom Ford). I got a boyfriend that liked me looking natural so I went for the more natural look, but I also wanted to be strong, so I got higher heels and shiny black skinny trousers and leather jackets. Someone I didn’t know stopped me on the streets of Luxembourg city and told me my boyfriend must be so lucky because I was radiating love. That was the biggest compliment I was ever given.
The millennium brought us the bronzed age, with models like Gisele 
, Fernanda 
, Adriana 
and singers like Jennifer Lopez 
and Christina Aguilera 
.
I did get a huge compliment from a woman in a makeup store in Amsterdam who told me I had an amazingly beautiful face and skin. I remembered how kids always said my hands were so soft and I loved being told I had a good face, I loved my hair already, so everything above neck was good, hurting from headaches, but at least it looked good
I loved Angelina Jolie 
as an actress as well as who she was as a person just like I was hooked to Alias 
and Jennifer Garner 
because of the many looks she has in this show. I was searching between what was considered beautiful (bronzed, “normal”, apparent beauty) and what was different but to me more interesting (remember, around the millennium Angelina was still the “freak” of the business).
My early twenties were me finding makeup more as a tool to make me look healthy and “normal”. I was taking pictures of my friends and did the makeup on my girlfriends as well. I was very into the photography side of things to hide from my life and who I was becoming. When I left my first college (I wasn’t happy there) I went on to start anew, I went to another city for my education and I decided to go as who I was and who I wanted to be. A fresh start, I was proud when people called me different. I used to change my penmanship every week, now I started with clothes (I had a period of wearing skirts, a period of baggy, a period of sporty) and slowly more with the hair and makeup. Still never going over the top, but trying to elongate my eyeshape, or making my hair very curly one day and without curls the next. I came in a class one day and the teacher (who was seeing me for the third time) introduced herself as if I was new. I was never going to extremes, don’t think I was ever in your face different, but subtle changes to keep people on their toes. I loved trying to find out who I was and slowly feeling more comfortable in my skin.
It was 2007 that my mum got very sick, and I had to figure things out at home. I wanted to show everyone I knew what was important and that was family. I was now living on my own and really wasn’t happy not being able to be where I felt I could do more and I was very unhappy with life in general. School was annoyingly not going the way I wanted it to go and I kinda fell apart. I got some more makeup books because they make me see beauty all around me. I’d been an admin on a blog that was showing people new beauty and photography for a while now and I was trying to get everyone out of the staple of pretty pictures. I went to help a friend with her graduation and found time I had for just me. I had done a look simply for the fun of it in April 2008 and thought I’d gotten good responses and was wondering if I could get more out of this then I originally thought when I did a post just out of a whim. I went to see who I found were different models, I kept coming back to my trusting “old” models who were and are still around. New were Natalia Vodianova 
, Daria Werbowy 
and Sasha Pivovarova 
. I missed my Allure magazine since they didn’t sell it here anymore and I found a way to get it shipped to me
. Soon thereafter I got a subscription to the US version of Glamour and In Style. From the UK I get my monthly Glamour and ELLE. Soon after this the blog I was on disappeared from one day to the next, suddenly I couldn’t email the owner anymore because the email was closed and he never responded to mail to his personal address or contacting him via Skype or MSN wasn’t working either. I started doing more and more makeup and trying to find typs and tricks online. Quickly thereafter YouTube was going big and I was following the people everyone was, Petrilude, Pursbuzz, Enkore, Eve Pearl and Panacea81. I stopped following a couple of these people simply because I hate it when people only use their own product or talk about what they’ve bought now.I still have periods of certain colours I use a lot, or clothing I wear a lot. Last year I was hooked on shoes, right now it’s hats. Who knows, maybe this winter it will be fake tattoos
Right now I’m doing my final internship and I’m hoping to finish very soon. I think I can safely say I know who I am right now. I have friends who support me and know me and disagree with me and I love working as a teacher with my “kids” (they’re all 17 to 23 so they’re not really kids). I have makeup to do pretty looks and different looks. Pretty is all fun and great, but I find beauty in the flaws and someone who’s happy and smiling and has a crooked nose, well, that’s amazing!!! I started this blog really hoping people would stop being afraid of colour, I think you aren’t afraid anymore by now, or at least I hope you’re not.
I know that I live in the now. Now all I need is a love in my life
If you kept on reading until here, I praise you!! For updates on my current life, follow my Twitter: http://twitter.com/BogusCee
If you’re wondering who I think are amazing to follow on YouTube, try these amazing people:
filthygorgeousmakeup
kandeejohnson
kuuipo1207
lisaeldridgedotcom
MakeupByRisa
MakeupGeekTV
MissChievous
nymphette415
petrilude
pixi2woo
pixiwoo
xsparkage
Also for you who might be curious about the makeup books I own and love, I took a picture for you.
Starting from the top left you see:
Makeup: The Ultimate Guide by Rae Morris
Kevyn Aucoin a beautiful life
Kevyn Aucoin Making Faces
Kevyn Aucoin Face Forward
Bobbi Brown Makeup Manual
Makeup Your Mind by Fancois Nars
Makeup is Art (Creative Makeup by AOFM)
Jemma Kidd Make-up Masterclass
Scott Barnes About Face
From top left:
In Style Weddings
In Style Getting Gorgeous
In Style Wedding Style
Makeup with Marie Claire
Allure Confessions of a Beauty Editor
Sephora’s makeup book.
Any books you think I should add to my collection?
so I need a new one….
