Meet Mika!

A couple of weeks ago, I was called upon by stylist Sherah to do an editorial shoot for the Spring issue of Creative Sugar Magazine. I was lucky to have worked on the cover of their second issue a few months back (see it here!). So when Sherah called me back with this idea of using neon colors and crazy prints all I could think to say was "when do you want me?!"


The magazine just came out, and guess what? You can view the high-resolution online magazine for FREE here. I'm in pages 30-37!

This is also the first printed credit debut of my editorial team, Hey Slick! Collective. We're still getting our resources together, but it's gonna be good and I'll be sure to tell you all about us soon!

Do you love the REX design on the cap on top?! I do! 

Photographer Joshua Scott and his assistant Ted were a dream to work with, and Mika of Agency Model Management was as sweet as can be. Her agency was so happy with the spread that they are using the photos in her portfolio! High-five, team!

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I'm still trying to catch up on recaps from earlier this year. It's really exciting stuff for me, so hopefully I'll be sharing them with you sooner than later!

BELATED 2012 Recap!

Hey-o! I'm back! After having been neglectful for almost a year (in true Te$$ Money form, naturally!) here I am, back at it again. I really want to try and get better at this "being consistent" thing - it is forever a foreign idea that seems so good but is so hard in practice for an ultra impatient spass like me. But I've got so many things coming my way (ie. emergence of my superhero league of beauty makers, projects for big time production companies, the never ending stream of knock-your-socks-off editorials, and collaborations with foxy darlings galore - like, what?!) that I really want to have this in place so that I can have a vessel in which to gibber gabber at my heart's content! So okay, attempt number six hundred and forty two at TE$$ MONEY BLOGS DOT COM, alright?! Lets do this! Huzzah!

It has been eight months. Eight months is a long time; in New York, it's like half a lifetime! There is no good way to share with you ALL of the inspiring, tear jerking, frustrating, beautiful and for a lack of a better word, crazy things that happened in 2012. So I'm gonna let a series of instagrabs from my instastash do the instatelling (wanna instafriend me? tessxmoney!) for me! Enjoy the mini recap and do something spectacular today!

Twiggy Inspired Makeup

I love Twiggy. Wait, let me correct myself. I love the idea of Twiggy. I honestly don't know much about her, besides the fact that she was an iconic english model from the 60's with memorable makeup. Do I need to know more about her? Oh, I should know that she hosts some sort of reality show nowadays, you say. I should also know she has a singing career, you say. 

Cool. Awesome. Either way, I think she was fucking adorable in her prime, and that's about all  I know. And since I've kind of been on a "I love 60's & 70's fashion" kick, I wanted to do a Twiggy inspired look for a day. I tweaked it a bit to work for me, since I have Asian, flat, almost monolid-ed eyes, and I think it turned out a-okay! I normally don't wear pastels on my eyes, especially in the cold hued family because they can tend to look grey and muddy with my yellow toned skin, but I actually love the way the color came out this time around!

The trick is to cover your entire eye area with a white base. I used NYX white eyeshadow base, and it did the trick perfectly. I kept my eyebrows consistent with the color of my hair, because that's what I like. 

I went in and added black eyeshadow above my fake crease line because I wanted to fake the depth she has on my own flat eyelids. The illusion is pretty believable when my eyes are open!

Makeup role call time!

Face: MUFE HD Foundation // MUFE Full Cover Concealer // Clinique Bashful Blush // Urban Decay Toasted Bronzer

Eyes: Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion // NYX Eyeshadow Base in White // MUFE Star Powder in White Gold // Bobbi Brown Gel Liner in Black // Sugarpill Eyeshadow in Paperdoll, Bulletproof, Tako // Combination of Red Cherry/Daiso/Chinatown lashes (4 pairs in total) applied with DUO Lash Glue

Eyebrows: Sugarpill Eyeshadow in Poison Plum, Dollipop and Bulletproof

Lips: Cargo Lip gloss

An outtake for you because I look super dopey! And me wearing the best Twiggy-ish dress I could find in 3 minutes from French Connection. 

Okay, later dudes!

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TE$$MONEY

Good News! My work to be published in Sessions Magazine!

I recently did a photoshoot with photographer Betania Sikora, Schimmy the wardrobe stylist & model Tracy from Agency Model Management. I've been really excited to share these photos with you guys & I was thinking about posting them Sunday morning when I woke up, when I got a text from her saying that Sessions Magazine decided to run our shoot as an editorial in their next issue! Shut up!

The makeup I used was mostly Sugarpill Cosmetics (surprise!) which lent itself so amazingly to the saturated, high contrast photos. Here's a role call of all the colors I used on the eyes:

[[of course, all from Sugarpill]]
Flamepoint (star of the show!)
Goldilux
Asylum
Love+
Bulletproof

I end up doing this a lot on photoshoots, where I start with minimal, simple makeup and as the looks evolve I slap on more and more makeup. Here, we started with a simple Flamepoint eyeliner with some mascara. I love the bright, urgent, alarming orange contrasting with the grey background and black wardrobe.

I'll share with you the editorial once they come out! Ta ta for now!

xxxxxx
TE$$MONEY

Retrospective: SF in April 2012

I woke up feeling rather pensive and melancholy. Maybe it's the sound of money draining out of my bank account, or maybe it's the very humbling dinner I had last night with Debbi, Io Waters and Dylan Monroe. I'm in my dream city, the weather's beautiful and all I can think about is how much I miss my friends back home. Not to say that I want to move back to California. I'd just like to put all my friends in a cardboard box, tape it up tightly and ship them all here so I can be in the city of my dreams AND have all the love, too! 

But, short of having that, I guess a reflective photo blog post will have to be good enough. April was a month filled with lots of farewell dinners, lots and lots of farewell parties, a hundred thousand hugs and a million kisses. My friends are so great and no matter where they are, I'm lucky to have them! 

I love that I've accepted Matt as being Matt but Twinkie is still Twinkie!

Amy ordered food that is bigger *gasp* than her SAS (Standard Asian Size) head.

No one was ready. Except me, because I'm always photo-ready! *~DIVA~*

At least I have this guy with me in New York. <3

I hear boob punching is the new planking.

Still working on building a family out here. You know what they say: you can't build entire families in a month and a half at a new city. What, you've never heard that one before? 

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TE$$MONEY

Party time in NYC! Le Bain at The Standard

When I moved across the country to New York, I made a little promise to myself. I said "Self, there will be NO MORE half-assery. This is your new lease on life. Dress like it." After all, if you're going to look crazy, there's no better place to do it than New York! I love and hate that you get rewarded on your ability to stand out out here. Opportunities open to you, and people give you special treatment when you look a certain way. It is much of a gift and a curse. 

Point being: Look awesome, get money. THE POINT IS ALWAYS TO GET MONEY. Fact! If you don't know, now you know. (Yes, that was a Notorious B.I.G. reference. Get with it, I'm East Coastin' now!) 

This was my first such chance to exercise my renewed quest to play dress-up as much as possible. 

Make up donned in the best Female Drag Queen fashion I could, I paired up with the fabulous Stella Rose Saint Claire and attended Le Bain at The Standard Hotel to a party hosted by Sharon Needles. Was it crazy? YES. Did I meet Sharon Needles? Yes. Was it awesome? HELL YES. 

Stella was trying out sequin eyebrows for a write-up she did for Beautylish and asked me to join. What? Sequins on my face? You don't gotta twist my arm for that one, I'll gladly glue on anything shiny and sparkly on most any part of my body! 

I also took my new Sugarpill Cosmetics false lashes for a test drive - aren't these amazing?! These are not yet released, but they're like the better, more flattering versions of MAC's Flight Lashes for Gareth Pugh. Coming soon!

Make-up role call!

Face: MUFE Powder Foundation // MUFE Full Cover Concealer // Too Faced Candelight Highlight // Urban Decay Toasted Bronzer // Sugarpill Cosmetics Flamepoint // MUFE HD  Powder

Eyes: Urban Decay Primer Potion // Sugarpill Cosmetics Afterparty, Flamepoint, Tako, Bulletproof // Bobbi Brown Gel Liner

Brows: Sugarpill Cosmetics Hysteric, Love+ // Shit ton of sequins!

Lips: Sugarpill Cosmetics Starling+Stella mixed with clear gloss

Outfit mirror picture!

Stella & I before we took off!

Whoa, hello swimming pool at the top floor of the Hotel!

It'll be better without the flash he said. This will be a great picture he said. Yeah, anyway.

And finally, a club photo of me being strangled by Sharon Needles! 

Fun! Alright, the boyfriend is asleep in bed, and I want to be there more than anywhere else in the whole world right now, so I'm going to have to cut this short. 

<3 Lots of love! 

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TE$$MONEY

Back to life, 2012 style!

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Hello, friends! Hello!

I must start off by apologizing for my absence. I have completely neglected this blog for a good year and a half. Oh my! Where did the time go?! So much has transpired in the time I was gone and there is no good way to recap my time away, so let's just say... I've been busy. The last time I wrote in here, I was back at my parents'. Since then, I've moved to San Francisco, become homeless, found a home, became a barista, got lots of new tattoos, got an amazing boyfriend, quit my job, moved to New York... et cetera et cetera.

The point is, I'm back! And here for good (I hope), with a new purpose. I'll be focusing a lot more on what's going on in my life, what new things I'll be freaking out over (mostly shoes probably), and most importantly, showing you guys the work I'm doing in New York as a makeup artist.

Before I delve into my new life though, I feel that I owe you a photographic recap of the past year. So here I present to you, my poor excuse of a flashback: A look at 2011 through a series of some Grade-A iPhone photos.

Here's to looking back and starting anew! See you again soon!

Ciao!
xxxxx
te$$