Ekabo

Hello everyone.

Oya stop insulting me for disappearing. Ma binu!

I found myself working on the set of probably one of the amazing movies to be filmed this year in Nigeria, and that was"October 1".

 On every one of this posters from the movie, is my hardwork, sweat and tears. God is big.

I was hired to do makeup on the film. On that set, I ended up contributing to the following other departments.

• Set Building

• Prop making

At one point, when I did a small storyboard for the Director of Photography and someone noticed me helping out Wardrobe and Costume department, a cameraman came to meet me and said :

"Shey you know dat now you can do all this, you will never lack work."

The director (Kunle Afolayan) called me in front of everyone to commend me at the end of production. I learnt so much about human frailty (mine and others), makeup artistry, product knowledge; and I realise I have so many options and can do so much, I've also being identifying my weak spots and working on them. And I made friends and great business contacts.

I'm glad to be back.

Will the Real Slim Shady please stand up? Part One

I walked into a store in Adeniran Ogunsanya mall and asked for their cosmetic products. They showed me some MAC stuff, priced at N2,500 and upwards. I laughed and removed myself from the shop without making a purchase.

All the MAC they had was fake.

Welcome to buying fake cosmetics world. It is has become exhausting trying to find makeup that isn't fake: I've bought fake MAC, fake Iman, fake Mary Kay, it has become ridiculous. The fakes are so well-done you ca't spot the difference, in particular Mary Kay and Iman. Here are images to prove my point:

Left or right, which do you think is fake? Can you tell?

 

Here they are from the front.

In both pictures, the one on the right is original, the other is fake. It is easy to be deceived, unless you know what to look out for.

I'm not trying to be a snob, there's nothing wrong with affordable cosmetics. But I like knowing what ingredients are in the products I'm using on my face, and my clients' faces. I've seen fake cosmetics burn the skin (nasty stuff). And if I'm gonna pay for stuff, I'd like to know what I'm buying is the real deal, the real McCoy, the real Slim Shady. And I'm out of metaphors with that sentence.

In my next post, I will talk about how you can identify real from fake.

So You Wanna Be a Makeup Artist

5. Hello there.
   Have you decided, since you heard some makeup artists are doing well, and your friends always told you “your makeup looks nice”, you should go invest in some Mary Kay foundations, a few Sleek palettes, a cheap set of brushes, and a plan to buy a jeep on your makeup artist’s salary?
   
   Bet you didn’t realise, that this would take time, and skills which are quite hard to learn, that while your friends are sleeping a bank holiday away, you’re slogging off to a job; they’re in the cool air-conditioned office, while you’re on a beach somewhere, in the hot tropical sun (not the cute breezy weather, but the “OMG I’m gonna pass out without a cool drink of water” weather); that they’d be able to afford holidays while you wait for the phone to ring with a job; all those mornings of 6 a.m call-times to Set and constantly having to smooth everyone’s frayed nerves when a fight starts; the people who say “I love your work, I have N30,000, please do 9 hours of work on that, I’m too broke to pay you more”, whilst they handle their Ipads in front of your confused eyes (how can you afford an Ipad and be broke? How many bus conductors have Ipads, or are they cheap); those “makeup girls” who flood the market doing shoddy work and then copy your work and making your pay reduce.
   
   Please believe all the above. Now, think again, and answer the question:
   “So you wanna be a makeup artist?”
   
   
   
   

Welcome

E ka ro. Aluah. And in all other nigerian languages, Greetings!

I've decided to chronicle my rise to power as a Makeup Artist (caps, please) in Nigeria's nascent fashion industry. You're all encouraged to join in for the ride. It'll bumpy sometimes, weird, (because we roll like that in Naija land), the scenery will hopefully be pretty and not too littered with fashion's discards. I'll tell you more about myself, later on. But let's get this ball rolling in 3, 2, 1.....