Throw A Party!

Need an excuse to have a ladies night? Would you like a free service? Than throw a party of your choice. I'll have a cocktail and a brow wax please! Get all your girlfriends together and enjoy getting the treatments you were going to get anyway, in the comforts of your own home! It's up to you how you want to combine treatments. You can do a spray tan party, a waxing or skin care party or combine all 3 services in one!

Have a pre-teen or teen that needs some make-up guidance? Do you need a couple make-up tips too? Throw a make over party and get your daughter's friends together for a professional make-up lesson! Or simply throw a make over party for her, while my hair stylist friend accompanies me, and we'll get everyone dolled up for a night out! This would be a great birthday idea!

Talk to me about pricing, free hosting incentives and lets book something fantastic!

Prom...A Night To Remember

Last weekend I had the opportunity to do some make up on some very sweet, young girls for their prom. Prom is such a big deal for girls their age and you really want to look and feel your best. Each girl had their own unique personality and their own idea of what they wanted their end result to look like, so I tried to bring that out the best I could in their make up. With each client it's so important to consider their age, the event and the dress and tying it all in together. Thank you to Rachel, Camille and Mallory for letting me be a part of your special night! Hair by Melissa

Instant Facelift

Here is a before and after of a recent eyebrow shaping I did. It's remarkable what a difference clean, shaped brows can make on a face. It really opens and lifts the eyes and frames the whole face. With this particular client, I not only waxed the unwanted hair, but I also used a brow powder to fill in her eyebrows. I'd say about 85% of my clients need to fill in their brows and they never knew it. Not many of us have enough hair to completely fill in each bald or sparse spot on the brow. With a good matching brown, and a small angled brush, all you have to do is lightly "color" in your brows. It's important that you don't buy any powder that has red undertones. Even if it matches your hair color!!! This looks pink against your skin. I'd recommend getting a good, professional wax every 4 weeks to maintain your beautiful, clean brows!

Bridal Collection 2010

Bridal make-up by Marci De Leon

Hair by Melissa Smith

Photography by Glenn Singley

Enhance Your Natural Beauty

This is Wendy. She is one of my dearest, oldest friends. She has such a gorgeous, beautiful complexion, as you can see in her before picture. I really wanted to enhance her natural glow, rather than cover it up. With african american skin, it's easy to mismatch the foundation to the skin and end up with an ashy look. And it's important to note that color shows up very differently on darker skin. For example, on Wendy I was able to do a very vibrant, pink blush that on someone like me would be too bright. On Wendy, however, it's the perfect shade of subtle pink. I also used a lot of gold pigment on her cheekbones, brow line and top of her nose to give her skin a glow and create dimension. On caucasian skin, I would have used a bronzer to achieve this. And finally, I really wanted to bring out and enlarge her beautiful eyes. They felt as though they were lost. So, I curled and coated her natural lash and added a full, thick strip lash. She's ready for her night out with the girls!

Take It Or Leave It?

With all of the many skincare products out there, it can be a bit overwhelming. Deciding what your skin needs and creating an individual skincare regimen can be frustrating and costly. If you can't find time or money in your budget to book a professional facial, feel free to write me and ask me any questions you have. I'd be happy to give you a brief online consultation and give you some great recommendations for how to achieve a better complexion. Just leave me a comment and if you'd like, leave your email address as well. With just a few changes and a couple of professional tips, younger, brighter skin can be yours!

Top 3 Reasons to Fake It

We all know that a tan can do many great things for the way we look and feel. It makes us look healthier, slimmer, and more confident. But how we achieve that golden tan is up to us. Do we bake in the hot sun? Or do we spray tan? Here are a few reasons to choose to fake it this summer....

1.) Skin cancer is running rampant in men and women around the world. The cause of skin cancer? Sun bathing and tanning beds. Although we may be doing it here and there and we don't think we are over doing it, we are all affected differently by the sun and it can show up at different times in our lives.

2.) Early signs of aging. Why speed up the aging process? We are constantly battling with our skin. We bake in the sun and break down our collagen and elastin, then we go home and gobb on eye cream to rid our wrinkles. Bottom line, you are kidding yourself if you think there is a miracle cream to balance the damage you're doing to your skin when you tan in the sun.

3.) Skin discoloration....lack of a better word, age spots!!! As an esthetician, I'd say this is one of the most common concerns among women. They complain of blotchy, brown or white spots on their face, chest, arms and hands. This, along with wrinkles is the hardest thing to reverse. I've worked with women doing microdermabrasions, chemical peels, & bleaching creams to try and reverse these spots and let me tell you, it's a process and it's costly!

These affects of the sun may showing up later in life, when the damage was actually done in our childhood or teen years. So it's extremely important to sunscreen and avoid tanning! Now a days, with spray tan that's so quick, natural looking, and most importantly, safe, why would you spend all of those hours cooking yourself under the suns harmful rays?