Staying Organized at Dance Competitions

Competitions are loud, fast-paced, unruly, and hectic. They are everything the typical Type A personality fears for their weekends. How can you ensure that competition mayhem doesn’t override your organizational skills? 

Two words: Label everything.

That’s right.

Label.

Everything.

This week's journey into the mind of the Obsessive Compulsive has been proudly fueled by 47 liters of Starbucks.

If you’re Elizabeth, this means you will label every brush, every hanger, every sequin, every box of goldfish, every goldfish within each aforementioned box of goldfish...

You will label your child until she looks like she has more NASCAR sponsors than Jeff Gordon…

This is slightly intimidating for those of us who are 24 hours pre-competition day and haven’t packed as much as an Altoid.

Brushes (Vol.1): How It All Begins

It was the summer of 2000. I had stumbled upon KevynAucoin’s book Face Forward while perusing the stacks at Barnes and Noble. I devoured it. I poured over every page. Soon after, bearing in mind Kevyn’s pronouncement that “no matter how artistic a person is, without quality tools and products, even a genius like Michelangelo would not have been able to paint the Sistine Chapel”, I walked into a department store and the first counter in front of me was TrishMcEvoy. I knew nothing about brush brands or which were considered good, but I felt the powder brush and knew I had found Nirvana.

I was working a summer internship and the $60 price tag was beyond steep, but I trusted the advice that good brushes were an investment that would last a lifetime. That brush was glorious. 14 years later, it still is.

Trish McEvoy Brush No. 5. The gold handle dates mine. Trish McEvoy switched to lucite handles around 2001. A new brush no. 5 costs $79 and can be purchased here.

From there, I carefully grew my collection. Based on the stellar performance of my first Trish brush, I stuck with the brand for a while.

From left to right, numbers 2B, 5, 28, 7, 29, 35, 11, 43 and 45. Note, only 5, 11, 29 and 45 are still available, though other brushes are available at trishmcevoy.com.

 And then, some would say, things got out of hand...

My entire collection. Well, almost. I didn’t include the brushes I keep in my small but exquisitely curated makeup bag.

In my defense, I use them all, and have had many of them for over a decade. How do I use them all you ask? That is a subject for another day...

But let’s talk brands and pricing for a bit. There is no doubt that some high performing brushes are worth serious money. Ever since Lisa Eldridge likened the Suqqu Cheek Brush to a stroke from a kitten’s paw (and used it in almost every video, which of course I have devotedly watched), I have wanted it and been prepared to purchase it. Unfortunately, so has every one else, and it is simply unavailable. The question is why am I so prepared to shell out the exorbitant sum? Because I don’t have a cheek brush I love. I’ve tried high, medium and low end, and nothing has thrilled me.  More than a few have downright disappointed me.

So what makes up that parade of brushes above? Clearly, Trish McEvoy. Kevyn Aucoin came out with his own range of brushes, and I have a few. M.A.C., of course. I already own two 217s and am constantly questioning whether I should own more. From the lower end of the spectrum, I am seriously impressed by Real Techniques and Sonia Kashuk.  I even made a point of collecting the little brushes Maybelline gives you with its gel eyeliner.  Those things are dreamy, and double as amazing lip brushes.

This is what I have learned through my brush odyssey. You won’t love everything from one particular brand. But many brands, even very cheap ones, can have something to offer.

Elizabeth's Brow Bible (Part I of 2000)

Eyebrows are the very first step of stage makeup. They frame the face and provide you with a guideline for your eye makeup, especially that all-important eyeliner wing. When we think of the most beautiful women (Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Sophia Loren, and Marilyn Monroe) all have beautifully thick, gorgeously groomed eyebrows.

However, we aren’t all born Cara Delevingne. Some of us have naturally thin brows. Some of us have transparent ones.  And even for those blessed with an abundance of brows, shape is important.

Here is what we don’t want to see: atrociously plucked brows. You know the ones: the tadpoles, the scouse brows, the thin semi-circle arcs, the ones that don’t begin until somewhere above the iris, etc. These disasters are completely man-made*.   

Nobody ever saw a toddler with weird crescent moons above their eyebrows. 

So what shape do we want to see? One of our dance fairies has sparse pale blond eyebrows, so we’ll use her to demonstrate.

Let’s start at the nose and work our way out. Firstly, the eyebrows should begin no further out than the beginning of the inner corner of the eye. Ideally, begin closer in, aligning with where the nostril begins its flare. 

From there, it is a mostly straight line (some ascend, some are horizontal, but the width generally remains stable) to the peak, which occurs at the outer edge of the iris. It is this line that controls how much of an arch you will have and depends entirely on face shape. Try to follow the natural line.  Most often, nature gets the basics right.

Finally comes the tail, which is where the eyebrow tapers to a point of sorts.  To find the end of the tail, imagine a straight line from the edge of your nostril to the outer corner of your eye.  You might even go beyond that line.  And voila: eyebrows!

*All deft and multi-dimensional illustrations have been provided by a totally spectacular individual who is not Elizabeth and should in no way reflect upon the eyebrowey musings of Elizabeth.

Contouring with Illamasqua Delirium

I mentioned in a previous post how unhappy I was with Mac Harmony as a contouring agent. Harmony is generally well reviewed on the web, but it's not a ballet stage product and it's also not highly tenable for infrequent Mac users. It just doesn't budge.

So, Elizabeth and I took a brief jaunt over to Bloomingdales to look at another well-reviewed product by Illamasqua: the Cream Pigments in Hollow and Delirium. She purchased Hollow, which will be featured in a subsequent review, and I took home Delirium. Both of us also bought the Illamasqua Blush up Brush and I absolutely love this brush. For me, it's the ideal tool for applying the Cream Pigment and it blends decently.

Here we are, working on the face of a five-year-old who actually seemed to enjoy the process. He has been primed with MAC Studio Fix Powder in NW20 and I applied Delirium with my super special brush to the classic contouring areas: the hollows of the cheeks, the jawline, the forehead (he moved about a lot during this part), the crease of the eyes, and along the nose.

I used a Sigma contouring brush for the nose and eyes because I needed a narrower tool.

I totally get that in some of these photos our protagonist looks like he's had too many popsicles...

Delirium is exactly what I wanted in a contour product. It has this mauvey brown-greyish hue that creates a nice vampiric stage effect. In fact, one of my childrens' little dance pals was over and, upon viewing my son's makeup job, commented, "He looks like a zombie!"

YES. EXACTLY.

I want this contour to be noticeable, and I don't want it to be acorn warm. I also want the product to be striking which is why Delirium is so perfect. It blends well enough for stage, but I could imagine that every day use might be an issue. Also, my Illamasqua B;ush up Brush distributes cream makeup in a nice stagey way, but this might not be the correct tool for individuals looking to contour their daytime makeup. It just doesn't blend things in seamlessly--not that I tried to blend it to that degree.

Would Delirium be a truly workable product for dancers? It's questionable because Illamasqua is not the easiest line to find off the web, and though it retails for about the same as Mac products, I'm not sure everyone likes to use their Visa with my recklessness. The way I feel when Bloomingdales authorizes my credit card is probably the same as the stereotypically awkward high school freshman who's been asked to the prom by the popular heart-throb quarterback. It's total validation.

Boys' Ballet Makeup

This is a pretty basic attempt at mens' and boys' ballet makeup. It's also being executed on a fidgety seven-year-old, so "attempt" will be the operative term here. Before I begin illustrating the ten trazillion steps necessary to achieve this certain level of (*cough*) ballet gorgeousness, I'll give you an idea of just how many tools, products, and pigments I used for this singular look.

Now, its more than possible to do this paint project without about one third of the products I've shown. But having this kind of an arsenal makes me feel better about myself and it also makes the project seem more difficult and professional...which means if I totally botch it up, it's less my fault and more the blame of the difficulty level.

The first thing I did is perfect the canvas of this seven-year-old's skin using MAC Studio Fix Powder in NW20. Some people firmly believe that you should go one shade darker with stage makeup because harsh stage lighting can wash the subject out. Okay, fair enough. But, I was at a ballet a few months ago and I can tell when the dancer has gone one shade darker, because frankly, their face looks like a pumpkin. And I would rather have my dancer look anemic than like a harvest vegetable. Ever seen Baryshnikov in photos or video? He always looks a little sickly and dying, which is somehow attractive for Russians. But never, never ever, did he look like a pumpkin.

I also used Kevyn Aucoin Sensual Skin Enhancer in 05 to conceal my son's dark circles. I could have skipped this step. Baryshnikov always had dark circles...

Now that the kid is primed and his bone structure has dissolved into a powdery snowfall, I'm going to add shape back into his face with contour powder. I used MAC blush in Harmony as a contour and roughly followed the outline in this video.

I'll stop right here to add that I am not happy with my contour color. MAC Harmony is great for every day use--if you're fair skinned with warm undertones--but it's lousy for stage contouring. The shade is warm and this pigment does not blend easily. One of the reasons I did not prime the skin with moisturizer is that many MAC products do not move when applied. Harmony is one of them. It sticks to moisture...becoming completely unblendable even with the use my spiffy Sigma contouring brush.

Having your subject suck in his squirrely baby cheeks helps to catch the right contour line. Regardless of this, I pretty much failed miserably to get the exact line this time around.

I primed his lids with a shade called MAC Malt. This is a really unnecessary step, but I wanted to justify the use of my new MAC palette. You could move straight on to the crease shade. I used a nice ash brown called Quarry by MAC, just in the crease. Someone was very antsy by this time, so my creasing didn't go as evenly as desired...I had just enough time to sneak MAC Vanilla shadow under the eyebrow as a highlight.

Next, the top line was done in a dark brown Mac shade called Brun and the bottom line was winged with Quarry. I filled in the space with white liner.

The mascara I used was Dior Iconic, which is great for lengthening, average for volumizing. Overall, I love this formula, but it dries out insanely fast.

His lips were finished off with MAC lipstick in Brave. Originally, I'd purchased Twig because it's a favorite amongst male dancers, but it was too dark and sensational for this particular look. 

And that's it, really. I'd recommend shading in the eyebrows and adding a powder highlighter such as Make Up Forever Star Powder in Pearl Gold. I would have done both myself, but my ballet bear pretty much hated me at this point and wanted to play with his trucks...which is why I don't have a flawless "finished" photo to conclude my post!