The first one that comes to mind is when the PR of MAC emailed me and invited me to a SF Fashion Week dinner event they were having for press. I think that was in 2008, and I still am really thankful to that person for being on the forefront of digital long before digital was a legitimate strategy.
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Back in the mid 80’s when I worked as a MUA /SA for a bit. Good times! There was just something about helping others hopefully find their best look or foundation match, or at the very least, even if they didn’t take my advice, seeing them happy with whatever they may have chosen instead. Although, I must admit there were also a few laughs at times, too! But only once we were closing up for the night and exchanging tales! ?
Wow, that was when you blog was still very young, must’ve been a great to be recognized so early 🙂 My fondest memory was when I was very young, maybe 7, swiping my mom’s frosty blue eye shadow, dragging a rickety chair to the sink, so I could climb on it, and look in the mirror while I swiped it all over my lids. I thought I looked quite fab LOL
I’m sure you looked absolutely fabulous! My fondest makeup memory also involves lavishly applying my Mom’s frosty blue shadow so that might make me a teeny bit biased LOL but I bet we were smashing! I even used a similar drag old chair to mirror application technique. Frosty Blue lidded child geniuses!
LOL ! My toddler seems to like blue eye shadow on me, so I can see the tradition continuing 😉
Having makeup and nails done on my wedding day with my mom, my mother-in-law, and 3 great friends. We booked a favourite Aveda salon, rotated through our appts, enjoyed hydrating snacks, and many funny moments. We looked beautiful, felt beautiful, and the makeup lasted all day. I treasure the time we had together at the very start of a special day.
Definitely my wedding! I. Barely used any makeup before that and when I did the makeup trial it was like WOW! ( that was 2003)
WowOwow Christine! I think I have an idea of how big of a moment that had to be! That says a lot. You’re so humble. Must have felt great. I don’t have a story that empowering. The first fond memory for me flattered me so much there is no way to explain how great I felt. Top Queens came up to me squealing in a Safeway when I was grocery shopping in an isle. They ran up to me and spoke in that fabulous way telling me I had Barbara Streisand eyes. They called friends to come look tossing the word ‘fabulous’ around while I felt my usual social awkward side hit me to wake up and enjoy it. Because of them I worked with many of them in too night spots and shows in the Castro and all over the coast. They were the best friends. So pretty. So wonderful to do their makeup. I felt like a queen myself. Being complimented by a striking queen is a gift! Getting to work with them and learn from them with them has given me many fond memories. It all started in a Safeway. ? Before I lost a good friend I have fond memories of the two of us pounding pigments playing experimenting and having a blast before we went out every night. Those girly moments are really fond to me. She introduced me to UD! Bathroom memories sharing a mirror and colors are the best.
None in particular? I mean, makeup makes me happy on a daily basis, but I can’t think of any ‘special’ situation lol I just remember I got into makeup because I wanted to be sexy like Effy from Skins (who’s makeup is super messy btw), which makes me laugh every time I think of it. (No, it didn’t work. Still not sexy, and my makeup is never messy because I’m too good at it lol).
Remember Glamour Shots in the ’90s? I had them done when I was about ten years old. They didn’t put much makeup on me, but I felt so, well, glamorous and cool!
OMG me too !!!! Glamour shots made me feel like a movie star and I saw how much better I looked in makeup !
I think mine is meeting Will Malherbe from Smashbox at a private event.
My mother never wears sparkly shadow or anything other than taupe, grey, and purple on her eyes. She plays it very safe when it comes to makeup, always has. One day for her job (she was a charter school teacher at the time), all the teachers dressed up like characters from Clue so she asked me to do her Mrs. Peacock makeup. She refused to look in a mirror the whole time, which just made me laugh because the first thing I did was use a turquoise eyeliner all over her lid as a base for a heck ton of shimmer. Her face when I finally handed her a mirror? Priceless.
I totally laughed like a hyena after reading your post!
Lol!!!
My mom bought me a make-up book when I was about 8 for Christmas. I couldn’t really understand what I was reading but I flipped through the pages and fantasized about makeup all Christmas break.
I’ve had so many wonderful “feel good” moments when sharing the magic of makeup with others, but on a personal note, the one makeup moment that is firmly fixed in my memory has to do with a Christmas gift from an aunt. I can vividly remember everything about that morning. The gift was a Max Factor set that had a compact with a matching lipstick case and two lipsticks. The compact and lipstick case were pearlized sky blue and gold confections that made my young heart sing 🙂 In those days, compacts and their matching lipstick cases were meant to be seen and not tossed in the bottom of a makeup bag. Receiving the set made me feel so mature and like I had been officially welcomed into the ladies club.
There’s two things I think of: one, the time I got to be a model for a class in a Make Up For Ever store — I was the model for corrective makeup, and my rosacea wasn’t bad enough, so they painted all kinds of birthmarks and stuff on my face to cover up during the class. It was really fun and I learned a lot. But maybe the best part? Once I got all the disfigurements painted on, before the correction got done, I went to use the restroom in the mall, and I din’t even think about how I looked until I got a couple of odd glances from people. That made me realize that I’m pretty confident in myself — I wasn’t self-conscious at all about all the stuff on my face (of course, if it wasn’t paint, I might have felt different).
The other time was when a 96-year-old gentleman I helped care for wanted to cover up a bruise on his forehead before going to an event with professionals he used to work with — he was going to use his wife’s several-years-old makeup he dug out of a bathroom drawer. I convinced him to let me try instead. I was lucky I had a sample of a good concealer (MUFE Full Cover) that matched his skintone exactly, and, once I’d applied it and set it with powder (MUFE HD Microfinish), you couldn’t see the bruise or the make-up. Perfect!
That is a sweet story. So nonserving. I loved it!
Thank you, Donya 🙂
Mine goes waaaay back! It was picture day back in the first grade (I’m 28 now). I remember they had put a frosty pink lipstick on me for the shoot. It was the first time I’d ever been allowed to wear lipstick in public, so I made sure to be super careful not to erase the lipstick! After the picture was taken, it was already lunch time. My lunch time meal was a bowl of instant noodles (the soupy kind) that my mom lovingly had prepared for me. I was so careful to eat only the noodles using just my teeth and not my lips! And I remember not eating the noodle soup as I knew that would erase my lipstick! 🙂
What a great memory! My fondest memory is when I bought my first Chanel Polish. I don’t wear polish a lot but Chanel Vamp was life changing.
I would say my most memorable makeup experience is doing my mom’s makeup. She passed away from cancer seven years ago.
LOVE THIS QUESTION! I have two fondest memories. First: In my 20s, my best friend and I would go to a lot of concerts and local band shows. Although I am a follower [of blogs], nowadays, back then, we were makeup pioneers. We would get ready together, in my room. My daddy had given me the master bedroom because, well, I was spoiled. We would both sit on the counter of the double sinks with our feet in the sink, bending forward to do our faces, sharing all of our stuff in the middle. The product choices in the early 80s were limited but even then, we only used drugstore eyeliner (maybeline red stick + lighter). We loved to experiment with unique eyes and hair (the back wall was vinyl wallpaper which was good because of all of the hairspray that got on it.
My second favorite makeup memory was in the mid-90s when a dear friend in Hollywood, started up a monthly pop-up club called “Club Makeup”. MAC semi-sponsored him, and gave him a ton of swag and he passed on a huge bag of product. (think handle-bag from Starbucks). It was full of their yet to be released pigments and all of the lipsticks that had risqué names. We felt so special!! I am still working on the “vanilla” pigment, though I gave many of the crazier ones away to younger friends as my eyes have become a little hooded. At 52, I do not mind how I have aged (especially with the quality of products available now) but I do wish I could do more with eyeshadow. I LOVE MAKEUP
I was in kindergarten & my moms birthday was coming up. so I told my dad i wanted to buy her some makeup because she loved it so much. I would watch her put on her makeup all the time but she never taught me to use it. Its funny thinking back but I remember she would always wear blue eye shadow almost up to the brow, guess that’s what was in style back then! So my dad took us to Longs drugs (now CVS) and i picked out a large eye shadow palette that had two rows of different colors. I liked it because instead of just blue she had a rainbow of colors to choose from. i was so happy she liked it and she hit pan on a lot of them which had made me feel so happy. I wish i remembered the brand name of that palette was! it would be funny to look it up now. But maybe that was an early indication of my obsession of eye shadow palettes hahahaha!
My fondest memories of makeup were the times my daughters came to me to do their makeup before a special event. They wouldn’t listen to my opinions any other time… but, when it really mattered, they secretly knew that mom could do their makeup better than anyone else they knew. =)
In the eighties, being transformed into Ziggy for a costume party. I was Bowie thin at the time, and the make up artist was a genius. He always remained my consummate fashion/make-up/music icon to me, beautiful, beautiful man!
I don’t have any in particular but I always enjoy the process of selection and wearing it.
My son’s therapeutic school was doing an activity day and it included one group planning a real-life game of CandlyLand that wound through the school building. When the teacher asked for a volunteer to play Princess Frostine, my son, being a smart ass said, “Me!” His teacher, being a bigger smart ass, said, “OK.”
We bought a thrift store pink princess dress, blonde wig, and tiara. I went to the school and gave him a full face of sparkly pink princess makeup. It was stunning with his beard. All the teachers wanted their picture taken with him. There was a new kid, and he was in shock. Poor thing. LOL
My fondest memory associated with makeup is the way Revlon Bamboo Bronze smells, oddly enough. My mom would let me come in and watch her put on make up to get ready for work or to go out. I was around 8 years old or so, it was back in the late 70s and I remember being fascinated by how much different she looked with so little (moisturizer, eyeliner, mascara, red lip liner, and Revlon Bamboo Bronze). I loved the transformation and remember vividly when I got a whiff of that lipstick. She doesn’t wear it anymore but I think Revlon still sells it. Still love the smell.
OMGGG Mine was back when I was 8 years old and my mother was an Avon rep. I would go with her selling Avon to neighbors,friends and family. When we got home she would let me try on all the makeup. I was in heaven. !!! As I got older my “Love” for makeup grew. I worked for Estee Lauder while I attended college. I loved trying new makeup on the customers and seeing how excited they got when they looked in the mirror and said “I will take all of it’. I knew then that makeup was my so called addiction and this is one addition that there is no rehab for. LOL. So hopefully when I retire,I would love to work the makeup counters again. Just think of all the samples you get.
Wow, what an honor, Christine.
The only thing I can think of is being approached by the manager of a new Ulta and asked if I was a make up artist and if I would like to work there. I’m not an MUA, I’m an RN, now retired.
When I was in Junior High, about 1973, and decided to get my first eyeshadows. At the time the basic eyeshadow colors would have been pastel blue, purple and green, because that was what the other girls wore, so I was looking for a little palette with those colors. I ended up finding one with blue, purple, gray and yellow, that I though would do, thinking that gray was almost green. I tried the gray and really liked it. When I wore that gray and that yellow, I felt really sophisticated. I have since developed a flair for finding and combining interesting colors and styling them in my own way, but I suppose that is when it started.
My first makeup was a clown makeup kit from one of the two nationally known circuses. The clowns held a lunch event which included a makeup class at Macy’s 34th Street. It was a way to see the power of transformation makeup has.
Can’t say that I have a particular memory. Maybe the first time my mom took me out to get my own makeup. That is a pretty fond memory.
My wedding makeup… It was done so beautifully, I hardly recognised myself. It did inspire me to get into makeup ( before that, I hardly applied any makeup at all). Another first was my first visit to Mac store and having my skin color matched.
When my mom **FINALLY** let me begin wearing it at 12 years old!! (even if only was crayon eyeshadow and lipstick, lol!!
When I was 18, and taking a theatrical makeup class in college, I had the pleasure of meeting Forrest J. Ackerman. He wasn’t a makeup artist, but he was one of the premier collectors of props & memorabilia of classic horror films. He came to give a talk to my class, and brought some things from his collection, including a ring worn by Lon Chaney (and reportedly, Bela Lugosi). Not only did I get to hold & touch the ring, I was allowed to actually wear it for a spell… Although Mr. Ackerman wasn’t a makeup artist, Mr. Chaney was known for his incredible skill with a brush & brilliant transformations.
my fondest memory is when I would sit on my parents bed and watch my mother put on her makeup to get ready to go out with my dad.
Taking out my first beauty book from the library. It was entitled A New You by Emily Wilkens. I read it from cover to cover about a hundred times at least, and I kept renewing it until I couldn’t find it anymore. It make a real impact on me to the point where I hunted down a copy of it and have since passed it down to my daughter.
I have always loved make up. My earliest memories include going through my mom’s make up bag, twisting up lipsticks and smelling the scents of them and being in my aunts bedrooms and bathrooms sampling lotions and colors. I could not wait to actually own my very own adult make up, most I had up until 12 was kiddy make up like tinted balms from avon and tinkerbell stuff. So one of my fondest memories is the day my Mom agreed to let me have an actual grown up make up Item and one Saturday she took me to a store and we went to the counters. It was a department store almost like a Target type, but this was late 90’s so it was probably a Caldor’s or something like that… So we looked over everything, I was mesmerized…I wanted lip color. She agreed to a pale pink sheer lip gloss as this would not be too obvious or adult. I was thrilled. That moment of asking the sales girl for it, seeing it being placed in the bag and then handed to me. It was by Revlon as I recall. Once in the car, I quickly took it out of the bag, opened it up, smelled the slightly sweet but makeuppy scent which thrilled me to no end, and I asked my Mom if I could put some on before we went to eat as we were stopping somewhere for a bite. I remember my Dad looking back over the seat all amused as I applied the gloss, but also he was a bit pensive looking as he looked at my Mom and asked, You got her lip gloss ? And my Mom explained it was light and sheer and it was ok for me to have at that age. I felt so grown up as we walked into the restaurant and I was wearing my gloss. My Mom passed several years ago. Memories like this are even more precious than ever, and every time I go to buy a lip color, the memory of that day comes back and I both smile and fight a tear.
My fondest memories were of my mom, watching her get all dolled up for special occasions or events, I used to watch her apply everything! But the mascara was my favorite to watch her apply. She had the most beautiful blue eyes and yes, she had blonde hair. How that mascara made her eyes just more beautiful and shine!! She passed away two years ago, and I miss her dearly.. I Will always have beautiful memories of her that run deep, but as far as makeup and those blue eyes.. undeniable and unforgettable!! Xo 🙂