If you follow me on Instagram (@laura_peruchi) or Snapchat (lauraperuchiny), you probably saw that last week I was attending a course at Make Up For Ever Academy. For those who don’t know, besides being a super renowned brand in the beauty market, Make Up For Ever has a professional makeup school here in New York (and other cities around the world too). In fact, its founder, Dany Sanz, first created the school, and then the products.
The course I attended was Beauty & Fashion Intermediate Course, that lasts one week. This was a special class because we had simultaneous translation into Portuguese, so, my 17 colleagues were Brazilian, all working as makeup artists in Brazil. I’m not a makeup artist – and I don’t intend to become one. But you know that I am a beauty fascinated, then, this course was an opportunity to expand my knowledge in the makeup area, knowing more about products and techniques. In the end, it was a very enriching experience!
The content was well diversified – and super intense. Our classes beginning every day at 10 am and ended 5 pm, with 1 hour lunch break. Our teacher was Floriane David, French, personal friend of Dany Sanz. Floriane has 20 years of experience in makeup, and has worked in schools of Make Up For Ever in Paris and London and she was a main contributor in establishing the Make Up For Ever Academy in New York City. She also taught in countries like Dubai, Lebanon, Thailand, Singapore, South Korea and Australia. It was an honor to learn from a professional with so much experience, that dominates a lot of techniques and understands a lot of products.
Among the topics, we learned about skin correction and camouflage, contour and highlighting, makeup for eyes following the morphology of each individual, eyeliner, applying false eyelashes and symmetry to make eye makeup – everything with unique techniques taught by Make up For Ever Academy. Each class, the teacher talked a about the topic of the day, answered questions and made a different makeup demo. A camera is positioned in front of the model and we we could follow every step of the makeup in a large TV.
The idea is showing the most diverse techniques. We saw a lot of different looks – from bride to 70’s, from eye contour to natural makeup. In the afternoon, our task was to recreate one of the looks shown by the teacher in 1 hour and 15 minutes. We always worked in pairs and the teacher was always around, guiding and giving tips, correcting and talking about what could be improved. At the end of the week, we had an assignment: a natural skin makeup in 45 minutes. Oh, we also got a Make Up For Ever kit with brushes, eyeshadows, eye pencil, powder and gel eyeliner. Moreover: he had special discounts on the purchase of products in the brand’s store – This is not mandatory, the discount may be different for each class.
As my experience in makeup is practically zero – I only know the basics! – It was very good to learn things that were completely new to me. I was very excited about every little thing that I could do. And I know that the general conclusion of my colleagues, who are already working in the area, was also very good, everybody liked and learned a lot. After all, you can not know everything right? And, in any profession, we must always seek more knowledge and learning. One thing that was clear to me is that there are not ready-made formulas: not everyone needs contour, not everyone looks good with some kind of eyeliner, and so on. Beyond choosing a product and technique, you need to know to evaluate face shape, eyes, skin type, color … After all, makeup is to enhance face, right?
Remember that Make Up For Ever Academy offers other courses with different duration times. In this post, I talked a bit about some of the courses offered. If you want more information about the courses, just contact them by email academy@makeupforeverusa.com
You can check more information on the website too.
PS: I didn’t record a video because it is not allowed to film the classes, but you can get an idea of the structure of school watching the video below. Also, I’m thinking about recording a video to talk more about my experience at school, what do you think?
Laura Peruchi is a Brazilian blogger, author, and entrepreneur. She has lived in Manhattan with her husband since 2014. Since then, she has shared on her blog varied content about the Big Apple. From travel tips, including unusual things to do, shopping tips, etiquette, restaurants, and a lot more, her blog has become a reference in Portuguese (also available in English) for anyone planning a trip to New York City.
