How To: Create A Valentine's Day Kissproof Lip

I am not generally a fan of Valentine's Day. Call me a cynic, but I prefer to refer to it as VD Day, as in the day that people are most likely to contract some communicable disease in their efforts to not be so alone on the 14th.

Don't get me wrong - it's not that I'm single and bitter. In fact, shockingly, I am neither. I do enjoy roses and chocolate, and despite what you might think am not completely unromantic. I just have a problem with the grand gestures and one day aspect of Valentine's Day. Wouldn't it be far better if your hunny-bunny sent you roses at work on some completely random day like April 27th or brought home a box with lavender ribbon from MoRoCo Chocolat on September 19th just because they felt like it, and not because a bunch of greeting cards and store displays told them that they must?

Okay so before I go off on yet another one of my rants about society as a whole let's get back on topic, shall we? You came here to learn how to make your carefully applied lipstick withstand the full-on assault of a chocolate-and-roses fueled makeout session.

This particular how-to comes from my experience as a salon makeup artist working in Bridal Makeup Hell. One summer, I think I counted about 80 brides that had come though my chair? I say Hell because that's what it can be, but mercifully I did not have many Bridezillas. All of mine were rather sweet and very nice, if slightly frazzled and neurotic.

The first thing you need to know is that loose powder is your key to success. If you do not have loose powder, you can fake it with a large powder or blush brush and a compact of pressed or powder foundation. It also works better if you're using a more neutral lipstick colour, so you may want to forego that hot red shade that matches your shoes perfectly if you thinking about getting lucky. Beauty is sacrifice, you know.


1. Apply a light lip balm before you start with the rest of your makeup so that when it comes time to do your lips - which should always be at the end as you would the icing on a cake - they will be perfectly moisturized and ready to receive colour. Trust me, there is nothing worse than trying to put lipstick on dry, chapped lips.

2. Carefully apply your chosen shade of lipstick to the surface of your lips. This works best if done with a brush, which allows for a far more precise application than straight from the bullet. But sometimes you just have to work with what you have.

3. Blot your lips with tissue, then lightly dust powder over your lips with the brush. The powder, in addition to that lipbalm you had so ingeniously remembered to apply earlier, will help to better fuse the colour into your lips so that it won't wear off or smudge all over the place.

4. Repeat the apply then blot and powder sequence from steps two and three at least two more times - more if you've decided to throw caution to the wind and go with that red lipstick after all - until you have built up the colour to the desired intensity.

5. Finish with a final application of lip colour, smushing your lips to blend. Blow your reflection a quick kiss before you head out the door.

Sadly, this will not be your end result. Lip gloss is not conducive to kissing.

Now go forth and conquer, my friends, secure in the knowledge that your lips will not let you down.

Do you have beauty questions? The quest for the perfect smokey eye or that elusive shade of red that will work with your skin tone? Feel free to pass them along to beautyapothekerri@gmail.com and I will do my best to provide the answers that you seek.

Survey Says... A Little Help Please?

I had my final small business class last night. It was a makeup class for the one I had missed when I was busy with the stomach flu earlier in January. I was so pissed I had to miss it since it was probably the most important of the four classes: Market Research.

The stats aren't pretty: apparently 80% of all new businesses fail within the first year. But it's not for the reasons you might think, the obvious ones like lack of money or a poor choice of idea. It's because the proper market research hasn't been conducted. If it had, the business owners would have known in the first place that their idea wasn't going to work in that specific area and make adjustments accordingly. They would have avoided becoming a part of that grim statistic. And that's exactly what I'm hoping to do, starting things off first with this blog, and now with this particular post.

But I can't do it all by myself. I need a little help from my friends.And your friends. And their friends' friends. Well, you get the idea.

Fortunately, it's fairly quick and painless. Just go to the Survey Monkey link below and answer ten questions. Oh, and remember to hit 'Done' to submit your responses or you'll have to start all over again. If you could kindly pass it on to any of your friends or colleagues who might be interested or just likes doing these kinds of things, then please do. I need all the help I can get at this point.

But enough of me prattling on. If you could take a few minutes of your time, preferably while avoiding doing actual work, I would be grateful. And it would for sure snag you an invite for the grand opening party later this year.

Just sayin'...Click!  http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/TDTSG8N

The Pain Passes, but the Beauty Remains

It seems remarkably appropriate to begin with this quote from French Impressionist Renoir, considering that I'm wincing as I type this. I pushed through and got my elaborate tattoo cover-up finished after having been a work in progress (officially) since the end of October. And while it has nothing to do with any of Renoir's work, it is based the work of another late 19th century artist - William Morris, English textile artist and father of the Arts and Crafts movements. I say 'officially' only because it's actually been something I'd been trying to do for almost ten years, but whenever the time came around I couldn't bring myself to let it go. It was a part of me, maybe one that no longer held the meaning it once did but still represented an important part of who I was that I wasn't ready to let go of. 

You see, like many people, I was somewhat stupid in the 90's myself. I had just turned twenty-one and discovered the subculture of the then-subversive Queen West scene, so naturally I thought I knew everything there was to know about myself. And so, completely entranced by the ultimate physical badge of rebellion, I quickly got myself inked up with things that - at that point time - were incredibly important to me. Most of them are still quite applicable to the person I am today, who fundamentally isn't that different to the person I was when I got my first batch of tattoos. The main point of difference is that I no longer feel the need to proclaim my sense of 'individuality' in such an obvious manner. And with so many people having done exactly the same thing, doesn't that make it less of an individualist statement and therefore almost conformist in nature? Can you spot the person who studied sociology in school?

But in my own defense, I didn't just suddenly wake up one day in my twenties and decide that I needed tattoos. I had been fascinated with body art since I was a child. Whenever my much-older brother's biker-type friends would come over, I was in awe of their long hair, their reckless motorcycling habits, and their arms full of tattoos. My brother's baby mama had a rather large piece on her forearm - it was a scorpion, I think. To my fifteen year old self, she was the ultimate in cool. I was also heavily into Eighties hair bands and as such spent my days crafting doodle hearts that entwined my name with the likes of Sebastian Bach, Nikki Sixx and Axl Rose - rock gods who also happened to be heavily tattooed.

Psychologists would call these 'indicators' - I prefer to think of them as the building blocks to my soul.

History lesson aside, my point is that really I should be thankful that government regulations and the general lack of babysitting funds prevented me from getting what my fifteen year old self desperately wanted immortalized in ink. I can't imagine, even with as gifted a tattoo artist as Glennie from Pearl Harbor Gift Shop in Kensington Market is, that she would be able to cover up that Motley Crue logo I wanted scrolled down my left leg. No, thankfully for both of us, she only had to cover a band of thorns encircling my upper arm framing a quote from my favourite novel in heavy black Gothic lettering. But given the linear nature and general blackness of the piece, it might as well have been that tribute to the Crue. However, Glennie is not one to give up so easily. And after a few drafts and consult visits and two hours of trying to strategically place the stencil, she did what had previously been thought of as impossible. She had successfully covered my quote from a novel written in 1897 with a floral print that had been designed in 1875. To me, tattoos have always been not only a form of self-expression but, when done well, a living work of art that you can keep with you forever. Cover-ups are more like second chances - an opportunity to right what went wrong the first time around. Or maybe tattoos are more evolutionary than that, and cover-ups exist to build or expand upon what was there before as that person changes and evolves themselves. Yes, that's a nicer way of looking at it.

All right, enough typing about it. Why not let the pictures speak for themselves?

Closeup of what we did today. On the inside of my arm.

Side view, outside of my arm.

The Bunnies are Coming! The Bunnies are Coming!!

I love it when a plan comes together.

Sorry... I don't mean to be so vague, but I simply cannot contain myself any longer. I have placed my first official apotheKerri order, this one for jewelry from a young jewelry artist based in Waterloo, and it's on its way!

It should arrive next week, at which point I will be sending out pics of the goodies for anyone who might be interested in being among the first of my customers. I'm also in the process of putting the finishing touches on my online shop and planning my first makeup order. And with that, the Beauty Revolution will be well and fully underway.

Now I don't want to ruin it for anyone - although some of you know exactly what I'm talking about - but let's just say I that think the Chinese New Year might be bang-on this year.

It really is going to be the Year of the Rabbit.