Hello beauties!

In May I was spend a couple of days in beautiful France with L'Oréal to attend a workshop with Val Garland and explore a world of new products from the 'Wake up and Glow' collection.

When I saw they organised a workshop with Val Garland, I was delighted! She is one of my favourite make up artists. Meeting her was definitely one of my highlights of that weekend.


After we arrived in Antibes, Karin and I went out to get some lunch. We found a lovely Lebanese restaurant. On our way back to our hotel, we found an ice cream shop. Both of us are great fans of the mint chocolate chip. We enjoyed our ice cream while looking at the sea. It's the little things that make me happy. Ice cream any time of the day!

Time to freshen up a bit and go out with Johanna and Meggy for cocktails and a little spontaneous photoshoot. The majority of these pictures are already up on the blog. I am still glad that I put on that dress and posed for the camera.




Fun fact, I have never slept in the Martinez Hotel, I only used the restroom once a couple years back.
Shortly after this photo was taken, we ran in to Aishwarya Rai who was on her way to the L'Oréal studios. She is drop dead gorgeous!



Val Garland in action.


Val showing off her head banging skills. She nailed it!


Meeting Val was a dream come true. She is an icon in the make up industry and very down to earth.
She created a beautiful make up look on a lovely model, using new products that are not on the market yet.

At the end of the demonstration there was still time to ask her some questions. One of my questions was how she applies mascara and uses the eyelash curler. Something I still find rather challenging when I am applying make up on clients.
Her answer was: just get in there and do it. Be confident and just do it.

She gave two helpful tips:

1- Apply lavender perfume (or any perfume of your choice) on your wrist.
This will 'distract' the client and put them at ease. This is something that I always do when I apply make up on clients. I myself don't like lavender, but I know that it does have calming effect.

2- Put your hand on the model/client's shoulder.
When you are applying make up, you are very much in each others space. If you don't know the client, it immediately creates a sort of trust and takes away the 'awkwardness' of being literally in someones face.


From left to right: Olesja, Johanna and Nadine




After my bath with lipstick photo session it was time to go to the L'Oréal Villa for more workshops.
The first workshop was at the Glow Station with make up artist Philipp Verheyen. He told us how to achieve the best glow for the skin and his favourite way to do make up.
After his workshop I had to go online to purchase an item from Net a Porter. What this item is, I will show in another future blogpost.

Time for the second workshop. This time with photographer Philipp von Rohr. We had the chance to play around with a cool gadget that would turn your the camera lens on your phone into an instant macro lens. I own a couple of these at home, but these are very tricky to work with. I prefer to use my  dslr when I have to take product pictures.

This little face chart is what I came up with in the end. Nothing special, but I liked the idea of using the highlighting drops to create the hair.





A big thanks to the L'Oréal family for inviting me again! I got to know some new lovely people and got to meet Val Garland!!!