Another MA's work on you

[BlahWah]

Just to be clear, this isn't a question of vanity, but of workmanship. And while I'm not an MA myself, I'd like to get the opinions of those who are in the industry.

I was part of a bridal party this weekend and wasn't happy with the look the artist gave me or the quality of her work. It wasn't horrible but I felt it was not as good as on the other girls'. She did an all-over wash of a light colour like Shroom and packed a bit more on the lids, then added a much darker colour like Shadowy Lady to the outer crease only and deepened the crease with something darker in the same family.

I had 3 issues with it: it didn't seem well-blended, it looked more like a splotch/patch on my lid, and plums didn't quite match the red dress I was wearing. It may have been a bit difficult working with my eyeshape, but it more looked unfinished than misplaced, as I've done the same shadow placement on myself before. The colour combo seemed also quite extreme, which may lend to my seeing the darker colours as a splotch. There didn't seem to be a smooth bridge between the lighter and darker colours, just.. light and dark. I could see the distinction between the colours used, even between the darker colours.

I asked her when she took a break between girls whether she could blend it a bit more since it looked like my oily lids could be creasing it (I think she used MAC's eye primer), so she blended a bit and said I looked amazing.

As she had more girls to work with I didn't want to bug her more, and tho I brought my own colours as a back-up in case I didn't like it I definitely couldn't do anything while she was there! So I left it for the rest of the day, figuring if no one else said anything then it's at least workable, if not the greatest.

My question is, What would you do if you weren't happy with another MA's quality of work on you? Nothing to do with preference, just the workmanship, because even if we have different styles of application we can still note when good work has been done.

 

[lara]

I just discreetly pop into the bathroom and fix it up myself as best I can with q-tips, tissue paper, and a good ol' quick smudge with a fingertip.

I've corrected bad foundation matches with powder (or on one memorable occasion, pastel green eyeshadow scraped into translucent powder to try and correct some seriously orange foundation - "Don't mind me, I can just feel myself getting a bit shiny!" *powder powder powder*) and fixed my own blush, etc etc etc. Fortunately it's never been anything major that I couldn't tweak myself, or at least bear it with as much grace as I can muster.

If I were you I would have pulled my mu bag out of my handbag, vanished into the nearest bathroom and blended on some mid-tone colour to ease off the harshness. As long as you're reasonably subtle about it, the MA shouldn't get all butthurt.

 

[VioletB]

Haha I have a funny story for this thread...
I was at an Estee Lauder update. (I know, Estee Lauder hasn't had the best of color, but it's getting better!!

)
PS this was a couple of years ago. I have learned my lesson on who I sit by. So if you have ever been to any kind of update you know that you always play in the new colors and put them on each other right? (Which sometimes can be a pain in the ass especially if you've spent a long time getting ready and then you just have to take it all off

) So this particular time when it came around to putting makeup on each other I got stuck with an older lady who had been with the company for YEARS. So. She starts pushing my hair out of my face really hard, not soft and gentle, and she also says "I'm sorry but I am not careful with eyebrows" (I carefully pencil mine in EVERY DAY) so she puts on this terrible weird green color on my eyes, does not blend, uses brown sparkly liquid eyeliner, even after I tell her our liquid eyeliner iritates my eyes (she felt compelled that since we were playing with new products she HAD to use them and couldn't go grab another eye pencil.) Finally when my eye started to get really watery and red because of the liner she went and got a pencil and pushed so hard I could feel the scratchy wood shards gouging out my eye I HAD to scream STOP!!! (Meanwhile I had half an eyebrow missing because I forgot to mention that we did moisturizer and foundation!!!) SO then she uses this new lip stain that was kind of purple. It looked like a grape popsicle - not cute. I felt like and absolute clown and thank the good lord I had my giant sunglasses because I was so embarrassed when the cute valet who had parked my car had to go get it I did not look like the same person AT ALL and I couldn't find a brow pencil in site so I was still missiong HALF AN EYEBROW!! Needless to say at future updates I tried to sit by a younger girl who had pretty makeup.

Ha ha I will never forget that.
PS sorry for all the run-on sentences. I got worked up

 

[Twinkle_Twinkle]

Quote:

Originally Posted by VioletB Haha I have a funny story for this thread... I was at an Estee Lauder update. (I know, Estee Lauder hasn't had the best of color, but it's getting better!! ) PS this was a couple of years ago. I have learned my lesson on who I sit by. So if you have ever been to any kind of update you know that you always play in the new colors and put them on each other right? (Which sometimes can be a pain in the ass especially if you've spent a long time getting ready and then you just have to take it all off ) So this particular time when it came around to putting makeup on each other I got stuck with an older lady who had been with the company for YEARS. So. She starts pushing my hair out of my face really hard, not soft and gentle, and she also says "I'm sorry but I am not careful with eyebrows" (I carefully pencil mine in EVERY DAY) so she puts on this terrible weird green color on my eyes, does not blend, uses brown sparkly liquid eyeliner, even after I tell her our liquid eyeliner iritates my eyes (she felt compelled that since we were playing with new products she HAD to use them and couldn't go grab another eye pencil.) Finally when my eye started to get really watery and red because of the liner she went and got a pencil and pushed so hard I could feel the scratchy wood shards gouging out my eye I HAD to scream STOP!!! (Meanwhile I had half an eyebrow missing because I forgot to mention that we did moisturizer and foundation!!!) SO then she uses this new lip stain that was kind of purple. It looked like a grape popsicle - not cute. I felt like and absolute clown and thank the good lord I had my giant sunglasses because I was so embarrassed when the cute valet who had parked my car had to go get it I did not look like the same person AT ALL and I couldn't find a brow pencil in site so I was still missiong HALF AN EYEBROW!! Needless to say at future updates I tried to sit by a younger girl who had pretty makeup. Ha ha I will never forget that. PS sorry for all the run-on sentences. I got worked up

LOL - poor you. I'm not a MA and I don't work for a company, but your story reminds me of one lady who works at the Prescriptives counter near me. She is forever trying to sell me something I don't want, and she is bad at application. I let her put a lip liner on me once, she kept going on and on about how "It is jazz, it's jazzy". I was thinking, whatever, just put it on so I can say no thank you. It was crooked and jagged, I have never seen lip liner look so wack, I thought lip liner was fairly fool-proof. I wiped it off with a quickness, bought the one thing I said I wanted in the first place, and left.

 

[BlahWah]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lara I just discreetly pop into the bathroom and fix it up myself as best I can with q-tips, tissue paper, and a good ol' quick smudge with a fingertip. I've corrected bad foundation matches with powder (or on one memorable occasion, pastel green eyeshadow scraped into translucent powder to try and correct some seriously orange foundation - "Don't mind me, I can just feel myself getting a bit shiny!" *powder powder powder*) and fixed my own blush, etc etc etc. Fortunately it's never been anything major that I couldn't tweak myself, or at least bear it with as much grace as I can muster. If I were you I would have pulled my mu bag out of my handbag, vanished into the nearest bathroom and blended on some mid-tone colour to ease off the harshness. As long as you're reasonably subtle about it, the MA shouldn't get all butthurt.

Thanks Lara! I never thought about that for foundation fixes. Duly noted to prepare for next time. =)

I would have blended in another colour but unfortunately I brought all warm colours thinking she'd do at least brown. I had some Moonbathe shadows, Rose Blanc, Woodwinked, Heat/Element Duo... I thought touching up with those would be too different from what she had already applied. I completely did not think about just blending what was there with a q-tip tho, or the mini 213 I brought. That would've helped!

I was tempted, actually, to reapply everything if I had a moment to spare... but thought about the possibility of some pictures being sent to her and her seeing a very different look on me than what she did, so I decided against it.

 

[BlahWah]

Quote:

Originally Posted by VioletB So this particular time when it came around to putting makeup on each other I got stuck with an older lady who had been with the company for YEARS. So. She starts pushing my hair out of my face really hard, not soft and gentle, and she also says "I'm sorry but I am not careful with eyebrows" (I carefully pencil mine in EVERY DAY) so she puts on this terrible weird green color on my eyes, does not blend, uses brown sparkly liquid eyeliner, even after I tell her our liquid eyeliner iritates my eyes (she felt compelled that since we were playing with new products she HAD to use them and couldn't go grab another eye pencil.) Finally when my eye started to get really watery and red because of the liner she went and got a pencil and pushed so hard I could feel the scratchy wood shards gouging out my eye I HAD to scream STOP!!!

That's horrible! I never thought makeup could be torture, but I was shuddering as I read this.

 

[VioletB]

Quote:

Originally Posted by BlahWah That's horrible! I never thought makeup could be torture, but I was shuddering as I read this.

Hehe I know it was terrible. Terrible terrible terrible. I am glad it's good for a laugh now though!!!!

 

[claresauntie]

At my last update, we did Smokey eyes on each other with new colors. The girl who did mine has been a MAC artist for 5 years, but I have no idea how.

She took forever to apply it, and kept backing up and looking and peering and adjusting. Our trainer came over once, and I could tell by her face that this was not good work (even though she tried to keep a neutral face).

When I looked at the mirror I was stunned. Luckily, the other artist had turned away, so she didn't see my reaction. The eyeshadow was splotchy, even though she used a Paint as a base. The color was applied unevenly, so one eye had color higher than the other. And there was a clump of something in the middle of the crease on my one eye. The liner was wobbly - c'mon, it's a smokey eye! blend that sucker!- and the mascara was so sparse it didn't look like I had any on.

Oh, and the "nude lips" were also gross. They were a really warm color (I'm an NW15) that looked chalky on me.

When I got home, I asked my husband how he liked it, and he said "um... it's interesting...". After I told him I didn't do it, that someone else did (he didn't want to hurt my feelings) he said "oh, thank god. it's terrible! i don't know anything about makeup, and i can tell that's terrible!"

 

[Twinkle_Twinkle]

Quote:

Originally Posted by claresauntie At my last update, we did Smokey eyes on each other with new colors. The girl who did mine has been a MAC artist for 5 years, but I have no idea how. She took forever to apply it, and kept backing up and looking and peering and adjusting. Our trainer came over once, and I could tell by her face that this was not good work (even though she tried to keep a neutral face). When I looked at the mirror I was stunned. Luckily, the other artist had turned away, so she didn't see my reaction. The eyeshadow was splotchy, even though she used a Paint as a base. The color was applied unevenly, so one eye had color higher than the other. And there was a clump of something in the middle of the crease on my one eye. The liner was wobbly - c'mon, it's a smokey eye! blend that sucker!- and the mascara was so sparse it didn't look like I had any on. Oh, and the "nude lips" were also gross. They were a really warm color (I'm an NW15) that looked chalky on me. When I got home, I asked my husband how he liked it, and he said "um... it's interesting...". After I told him I didn't do it, that someone else did (he didn't want to hurt my feelings) he said "oh, thank god. it's terrible! i don't know anything about makeup, and i can tell that's terrible!"

I'm guessing that was the update for Smoke Signals - did you like the products? Please say the quads and lip sticks are nice, don't dash my hopes!

 

[FacesbyNiki]

*biting my lip*

LOL

 

[VioletB]

Quote:

Originally Posted by claresauntie At my last update, we did Smokey eyes on each other with new colors. The girl who did mine has been a MAC artist for 5 years, but I have no idea how. She took forever to apply it, and kept backing up and looking and peering and adjusting. Our trainer came over once, and I could tell by her face that this was not good work (even though she tried to keep a neutral face). When I looked at the mirror I was stunned. Luckily, the other artist had turned away, so she didn't see my reaction. The eyeshadow was splotchy, even though she used a Paint as a base. The color was applied unevenly, so one eye had color higher than the other. And there was a clump of something in the middle of the crease on my one eye. The liner was wobbly - c'mon, it's a smokey eye! blend that sucker!- and the mascara was so sparse it didn't look like I had any on. Oh, and the "nude lips" were also gross. They were a really warm color (I'm an NW15) that looked chalky on me. When I got home, I asked my husband how he liked it, and he said "um... it's interesting...". After I told him I didn't do it, that someone else did (he didn't want to hurt my feelings) he said "oh, thank god. it's terrible! i don't know anything about makeup, and i can tell that's terrible!"

I'm glad it's not just me that wonders how some people get in this industry!!!

That's funny cause when I got home that day my husband looked at me and went "uhhhh.. not to be rude or anything but you look kind of clownish!" I said "I KNOW!!" My mom thought it was I was still pretty but she's my mom. She's supposed to say things like that.

 

[claresauntie]

It was for Smoke Signals, but honestly I can't speak for the products. Our challenge was to pair up and one person was to do a Smokey Eye/Nude lip on the other, while the 2nd person was to create a Nude eye/strong lip look. She got smokey eye, I got bright lip. So the only opinion I have about Smoke Signals is that I feel sorry for that girl's customers.

 

[BlahWah]

Quote:

Originally Posted by claresauntie It was for Smoke Signals, but honestly I can't speak for the products. Our challenge was to pair up and one person was to do a Smokey Eye/Nude lip on the other, while the 2nd person was to create a Nude eye/strong lip look. She got smokey eye, I got bright lip. So the only opinion I have about Smoke Signals is that I feel sorry for that girl's customers.

Thanks for my 2nd good laugh for the day!

I don't think I can look at the Smoke Signals display without giggling when it comes out.

I almost wish you had a picture to post of that, as well as VioletB's loner brow look, but that wouldn't be very nice to those MA's, even if they did do an awful job.

 

[VioletB]

Quote:

Originally Posted by BlahWah I almost wish you had a picture to post of that, as well as VioletB's loner brow look, but that wouldn't be very nice to those MA's, even if they did do an awful job.

You know what's funny about this whole thing? I actually have an update to go to tomorrow.

We could actually start a thread of pictures or something. We could call it "The horrible look hall of shame."

PS I have learned not to make plans after update days because there is no point (for me anyway) in doing my makeup again when I get home at 6 or 7. Wash my face and do laundry.

 

[GreekChick]

Ooh, I wouldn't do that. You'd be surprised at how many MA come on these boards just to lurk around. She might recognize you :S

 

[MelodyKat]

Quote:

Originally Posted by VioletB You know what's funny about this whole thing? I actually have an update to go to tomorrow. We could actually start a thread of pictures or something. We could call it "The horrible look hall of shame." PS I have learned not to make plans after update days because there is no point (for me anyway) in doing my makeup again when I get home at 6 or 7. Wash my face and do laundry.

we should totally do this. I don't know how many times I have left update feelin not so "hot". I think sometimes people get nervous at update and freak when it comes to makeup rotations. I get a kick out of it and let people know that if they dont like it take it off. My style isn't the same as everyones....lol.

 

[VioletB]

Quote:

Originally Posted by GreekChick Ooh, I wouldn't do that. You'd be surprised at how many MA come on these boards just to lurk around. She might recognize you :S

LOL I don't think so!! She retired!!

 

[claresauntie]

Prior to this update, I just wipe my face with a Cleansing Wipe and then put on some Studio Fix and a bit of gloss. I tell them "Gosh, I love that look you did, but I have somewhere to go right after this and that look won't be appropriate. It's really more appropriate for a toned-down look."

 

[VioletB]

Quote:

Originally Posted by claresauntie Prior to this update, I just wipe my face with a Cleansing Wipe and then put on some Studio Fix and a bit of gloss. I tell them "Gosh, I love that look you did, but I have somewhere to go right after this and that look won't be appropriate. It's really more appropriate for a toned-down look."

Ooooooh that is smooth!:bigpimp:

 

[CantAffordMAC]

is an update kind of like a color class is for hair?

like is that for the employees/artists to try out and get knowledge on new makeup coming out?