Having received much acclaim in her young fine art career, photographer Alison Brady is looking to get more into fashion.  She had an idea for a dark portrait-ish series using painted canvas backdrops. So, together with stylist Kim Johnson, set designer James Glayat, hair stylist Saya Hughes, and makeup artist me, we put together a shoot in Alison’s Brooklyn loft to make the vision happen.

While the shoot had absolutely nothing to do with Geisha style, I wanted to create small, petite, dark lips to enhance the still, old-time creepiness of the image and help pronounce the other features. So, here’s the process for a small theatrical lip great for lots of looks from anime to doll-like princess.

Start by using a non-greasy lip balm like Dr. Hauschka’s lip care stick.

Apply a foundation or lip base so that the lip color will adhere best and the color appear more intense. Then you can use a lip pencil or, as I prefer, a lip brush to paint on the desired lip shape. For a more subtle, cute version, use the natural cupids bow at the top to start and finish with the natural middle of the lower lip. Then, take a little concealer and use a flat synthetic brush to define the lines and pronounce the shape like so:

Blend the concealer delicately with another brush or your fingers into the surrounding skin. And voila, you’re done.

I kept the rest of the look simple because the idea was to focus on the beautiful oddities of the models like long, full eyebrows or large ears rather than any fashion-forward makeup look. Here’s Alison with the second model….