I love working with Alfonso Vega. He’s a talented young photographer with a heart of gold. Mid-way through our shoot at Little River Studios for Future Claw magazine today with designer/stylist Romina Heighes  he expressed his desire to advocate for a more….. wholesome fashion industry. I wished him best of luck with that. 

I mean, when, in our heat exhaustion, we could mumble out full coherent sentences that is. The set Alfonso chose was great….. industrial but clean at the same time. It was, however, exposed to the elements of Miami in July. I stink like a Venetian whore, that about sums it up. 

For the makeup, it was requested of me that I do a coal-rimmed eye that’s fairly specific, meaning not super defused-out smoky-like. Honestly, I’m kind of tired of the black eye and asked if it was cool I throw a little blue in there. Overall, I think it came out smashingly. Here’s Tara, a lovely Canadian who made me smoke one of her cigarettes. 

For the look, I started with a Makeup Forever  Aqua Eyes pencil in black. I lined the inner rim, under-eye, and top lid. Then I used a square, flat shadow brush with Lorac black shadow and, placing the brush at the lash line and brushing upward with each stroke created a black base. Then I took an ancient (the line no longer exists) but awesome  blue loose pigment and blended it over the top, placing a firm blender brush on the center of the lid first,  and into the black. The blue effect was subtle, but effective. 

Sheenon, an amazing hair stylist who also works at the Oribe salon in Miami created sculptural masterpieces out of all natural hair. He informed that ‘Elnett‘ is now available at Target. Weeeeeee. I’m going tomorrow.  He also used Redkin texturizing mouse and a lotta style. His wealth of knowledge did not end there, however, he also referred me to his friend’s hilarious blog Pretending To Be Pretty. Here he is with the sweet 15-year-old Reed 

Romina’s mom brought us sandwiches made with love and, despite the heat, I think we had a really good shoot today. Couldn’t ask for a better team. Here’s Romina, Reed, and Alfonso having a pre-shoot huddle.