SALLY TOWNSEND. BEAUTY BLOG

My name is Sally, and I’m an addict. My substance of choice? Cosmetics. I’m a freelance makeup artist, and writer. So go on, enable me in my addiction – read my blog and spend some time with my portfolio. Get acquainted.

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Trash the Dress

I was recently fortunate enough to work with Emma Nayler Photographer as hair stylist and makeup artist on a Trash the Dress photo shoot in Caloundra.

“Trash the Dress” if you’re unaware, is a bit of a craze that’s tearing through our nation, and others, which involves having a photo shoot in your wedding dress where you just don’t care anymore and get it as dirty and messed up as you like! Fun!

So generally it involves lots of rolling around on the ground, in dirt, in water, what have you. Some couples will have the shoot together, while some brides prefer to go solo. The fun part for me is that the brides generally like to go for a much more “out there” look than the one they had on their wedding day.

So with Miss Elle here, for example, I was able to give her pink and purple hair a stack of messed-up waves, and a borderline out-of-control quiff, and for her makeup she was keen for an awesome purple smokey eye. Love it!

 

 

Browsers!

If there’s one thing you need to know right now, it’s this: you want browsers. Browsers are brows that have people saying, “wowsers” or, even – EVEN “browsers!”, but not even knowing why. They will be saying it and they don’t even know why. They don’t even know what browsers are, but they will know it when they see it. And they will exclaim, “Browsers!” in delight and disbelief.

Let’s backtrack, because it is far too exciting to move forward at this point in time.

You have a face, right? And on that face are two magical little munchkins, known to you now only as eyebrows. Pleasant as they are, they don’t have people exclaiming words they didn’t even know existed. And that’s not exciting, that’s not even worth reading about. Browsers on the other hand… well. Let me tell you how to get them.

  1. Shape them. Go to a brow bar, not, I repeat, a brow bar – NOT a hairdresser. If it is available in your area, have them THREADED. Threading is the most magical thing to ever happen to eyebrows (but that was before this blog post, so let’s just see after today, eh?). I have mine threaded here on the Sunshine Coast by Liz, founder of the Get Threaded franchises, and so much happiness has it brought to my life. Oh, so much.
  2. If required, have them tinted. Personally, I like a dark brow. As a wee lass, I looked a smidge like Gwen Stefani in the brow department – black brows and lashes, blond hair. I thought it was well strange, but I grew to accept and eventually love my clashing hairs. Now, I wouldn’t be without dark browsers (oh yeah, mine are browsers).
  3. Use your MAKEUP to create an instant BROWSERS! effect. Here is my professional makeup artist advice:
  • Choose a product that is suitable to your brow colour. You can use a matte eyeshadow with an angle brush or an eyebrow pencil. Starting at the end closest to your schnozz, draw a line at the top that reaches the upper-most point of your brow arch, or where you would like you brow arch to reside. Do the same at the bottom, at the underside of your brow line.

 

  • Then hold a straight pencil or brush at your nose on an angle leading up to your outer eye. Where the line sits in line with your brow is where your brow should end, so make a small mark here.

  • Then draw a straight line leading from either side of your second half of your brow to meet this point. All of the above mentioned lines should be light – not too sharp, unless, of course, sharp is the look you’re going for.

  • Shade in the areas you have drawn and voila!

Browsers!

AFTER (sultry)

BEFORE (sad)

Smoke and mirrors, baby

Once again, I am calling myself out as a walking contradiction. I work in the beauty industry. My job is to use many, many products to make women look “better”. And I love it. I have always, always loved the way I can start the day with my regular old mug looking back at me in the mirror, and in the space of five minutes or up to two hours, depending on the occasion and my inclination to spend the time, I can transform myself.

The  hours upon hours I dedicate to thinking up the ways I could physically improve myself, not only with makeup, but with dieting, exercise, hair dye, toying with the idea of botox or even breast augmentation is at the point of ridiculous. This attitude of not being good enough just the way we are is an appalling plague of our minds.

Where does it come from? Why, my bread and butter is a good place to start. The Beauty Industry (video):

Now, you can debate the possible hypocrisy of this advertisement till the cows come home with udder implants, and I probably won’t disagree with any sides of that argument (video):

However, Dove is not wrong. We really must get to our girls, make them realise not only that they are beautiful as they are, but most importantly, that there is much more to them than their appearance regardless. If we make that known in the first place, our job of keeping their innocence, their integrity and their self-esteem in tact will prevail.

Let me close by saying there is nothing wrong with wanting to look and feel beautiful. There are just a very many warped idea of what beautiful actually is, floating around out there like butterflies, but stinging like bees. And there is far too much emphasis placed on the importance of beauty for girls and women.

Read more of my nags here and here.