My Beautiful bride Karen

Just thought I would share with you all, pictures of my beautiful bride Karen.

Karen was married over in the Wairarapa where we got her ready for her big day at a lovely wee cottage in Martinborough.  She was an absolute gem and a good giggle.

Karen's photographer Penny, is another gem and has also become to be a lovely friend through the wedding circuit.  Penny from Inspire photography captured stunning pics of Karen's big day and her attention to detail is faultless. Check the pics below and I am sure you agree.

Hi Hil !

My makeup and hair were awesome and still looked flawless at 5am when I was sitting up in bed scoffing a bacon sandwich! 

We had an amazing day right from the preparations all the way to the drunken bus ride home. I had so many lovely comments about my hair & makeup – they said I looked very “natural” (little do they know how hard it is to achieve the “natural” look and how unnatural I actually was! haha!)  and everyone loved the wee flowers. 

Hope all is well with you, and thank you again for doing such an amazing job and being a fun addition to our preparations (i think you owe me a bag of marshmallows by the way ;-)!)

Cheers Karen J

Thanks for sending through pics Karen, your a star!  Your right , I fess, I scoffed all the marshmallows  but man they were good ( frozen Karen styles)
Hils x

How to choose the right eyeshadow

Eyeshadows add depth to a woman's eyes. With the right colour and application, your eyes can look smaller, bigger, set closely together or set apart. However, many women are unsure which eyeshadow colours are best for them. Your best eyeshadow colours depend on the colour of your eyes and skin tone. In general, contrast colours will make your eyes stand out more.

What Is the Best Eyeshadow Color to Use?

People with brown eyes can wear any eyeshadow colour.

Light or dark eyeshadow colours are flattering. Shades that are lighter than your eye colour gives a natural look while darker shades creates a dramatic look.

Choose brown, bronze, copper, beige, champagne, pinks, pale purples or forest-green eyeshadows.

For blue eyes, go with warm browns and soft peaches.

Taupe, gray, violet, purple, lilac, pink, silver or gold would be the best choice for blue eyes as these colors will bring out the blue in your eyes. Avoid blue eyeshadow.

If you have hazel eyes or green eyes, choose golden browns, apricot, deep purples, soft peaches and soft violets to brighten up your green eyes.

Taupe or gold is a good color for highlighting and works well for evening makeup. Avoid shades of blue, some tones of pink, white and silvers.

Your skin color needs to be considered when choosing eyeshadow colours. If you have a fair complexion, it is best to pick light colours.

For dark skinned women, you should look for deep-coloured eyeshadows.

Choosing the right eyeshadow colour to enhance your eyes is easy. Use the colour wheel as a guide.

A colour that is opposite on the colour wheel to your eye colour will contrast perfectly to make your eyes really stand out. Try out different color combinations to see what looks best on you.

Tip: If you are really struggling, pick out the fleck tones from your Iris, this way you can never go wrong.
 Below is a perfect example of using fleck colours to enhance and pop your eye tone.

By picking out the bronzy gold flecks in the eye and using this tone as an eyeshadow, you cant go wrong!

Have a play and see what you come with.


Good luck Hils x

OMG... WE HAVE JUST HAD 10,000 NEW VIEWERS SINCE AUGUST LAST YEAR.

WOOP WOOP !!!! PARY TIME :)  HILS X

Masterpet shoot

Ange and I did the Masterpet shoot on Friday and talk about fun.  It was shot in the most amazing multi million dollar home with a multi million dollar view I have ever seen!
Gorgeous model Rosie from Kirsty bunny model management, was the lucky lady whom got to play the life of luxe for the day but not only that, she got to snuggle with the real super star... Pier, a tiny fluff ball puppy that was the cutest thing in the world and the most behaved dog I have ever met!
The talented Nick Servian was the photographer of choice for the day and the savvy stylist was Sally-Ann Moffit.

Ange and I managed to get a few pics of the view and the inside of the house too, ... Check out below

Several Looks for the day- 60's inspired for this one

Gorgeous Rosie- hair and makeup- Hil Cook

How the other half live ...NICE!

View from one of the many balconies

The door opposite is inside the house!

Ange and pier snuggling

How cute is this dog!

The popular Hollywood glow tricks

Perhaps, nothing says Oscar glamour more than the increasingly popular Hollywood "glow" -- that dewy luminescence made famous by stars such as J-Lo, Demi, Cameron, Julia, Drew, Charlize, and countless others. The good news is you don't need a 5-carat pink diamond to get the sparkle. What can do the trick? Products called "skin illuminators". These are pearlized shimmer creams that reflect light onto the skin.

These products were a great breakthrough in makeup technology, by reflecting the light they make the skin look smoother and younger. When making up faces, I always start with a primer, then add a cream or lotion with a small amount of pearl essence, which I blend over the entire face or, better still, mix it into foundation or even moisturizer (my favorite is Becca's Pearl shimmering skin perfecter). The result is the fresh-faced look frequently seen on the younger stars. However, skin illuminators should not be confused with "sparkle powder" -- products with large chunks of metallic that should never be used on the whole face.

These are Becca models with the amazing results from skin shimmering perfector

Hils x

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Anges hard day at the office! Beautiful Wellington!

For those of you that don't know Ange, she is my amazing side kick with an abundance of energy at helping our small business continue to grow. She is also one heck of a savvy hair and makeup artist, and often goes on awesome jobs like the one below.

Ange had a fab day for a fab shoot!
On days like this it makes everyone smile :)

 Makeup by Ange Duncan.  Photos by Tim Watson

Long hair creative course for our team.

Our gorgeous Pin-up wedding party

We just did the most amazing pin-up wedding party in the weekend so I just wanted to share with all, what they looked like.  Check out these beauties that Ange and I worked on.

I water waved Jess's to create finger waves
How cute is the bub!

Ange did a Hot roller set on our dark haired bridesmaid to create this Pin up stye
Jen, the bride has very short hair so I added extensions so she too could have a Pin-up style.

Hils x

A gorgeous vintage wedding party By The Hil Cook team

We had a gorgeous wedding party to makeup on Sunday, they looked just like they had stepped out of the 30's.  We loved them so much we wanted to share.

Happy honeymoon Anna, you look sooooo red carpet.

Makeup by Hil Cook and Ange Duncan


Hils x

Our Nat's hair and makeup for pin up calendar. Raising money for Special Care Baby Unit and Christchurch quake victims

 Pre Order Your Calendar

There are 2000 Calendars being produced in New Zealand to support the Special Care Baby Unit as well as the victims of the Christchurch Earth Quake.

The Calendars are anniversary calendars so they have no shelf life just places where you can put up special dates like birthdays, and well, your anniversary etc

Support this great cause by clicking on the link below.  Each calendar costing $20 will make $20,000 for the Special Care Baby unit and another $20,000 to those who need it most in Christchurch, so get your order in now!

http://pinup4prems.blogspot.com/p/pre-order-your-calendar_09.html

Mandy Lynn who was the wonderful photographer from A la mode photographic boutique in Petone, together with Georgina Write, set up this wonderful idea to help all those families in need.

Nat, our youngest 'Hil Cook makeup and hair artist', worked tirelessly on this shoot over several days giving her time and energy.   We thought it was time to show you some behind the scenes of Nat in action and what beautiful work she produced.  We are very proud of you Nat! :)

Our Lovely Nat :)

AMAZING WORK NAT!!   Hil's x

Tricks of the trade ... Shhhh

Its one of those days that you want to just snuggle in bed all day, unfortunately even on Sundays brides get married so I am heading out the door in a mo but I thought I would post some things you could do on your day off as the day isn't much good for anything else today!

Enjoy your day
Hil X

Prime time
If you have dry skin, use almond oil as a makeup primer;  its readily absorbed and will give you a smooth canvas on which to apply your foundation

Lovely lashes
Here's as oldie but a goodie...  For long, luscious lashes apply pure Castor oil; try it on scant eyebrows too.

Spice it up
Try this little trick: apply balm, shake out about a teaspoon of ground cinnamon and use your finger to apply it to lips.  This will exfoliate and plump your pout, at the same time the cinnamon brings more blood to the surface and makes your mouth look fuller and redder.

Nats lovely latest bride

Just had the pictures back from Natalie's latest bride who is drop dead gorgeous and fresh looking on her big day.  We think Nat has made her look completely stunning as I am sure you will agree.

We are still waiting for some fantastic pics of Natalies 40's pin up girls.  Nat did all these amazing makeups for a charity calendar raising for Neo Natal's and the Christchurch earthquake victims.  We are very proud of our youngest team member and will post up the pictures of her work in the very near future.  I will also attach a link so that any of our fans out there can contribute by purchasing one of the amazing 40s pin up calenders. Watch this space...
 In the mean time check out this gorgeous bride!

Hils x

Lea telling her tale of her bride in Wanaka

HIL'S WORD...
I know that some of you may have thought I have disappeared off the planet but this isn't the case, I have just been filling in huge hours ( like 16-17 hours per day filming) but finally there is a light at the end of the tunnel and I will be back blogging really soon.  In the mean time one of our team, the lovely Lea, flew to Wanaka to do a fabulous wedding and has been kind enough to tell us the story. Enjoy!

Lea's bride Dina in Wanaka

MY BEAUTIFUL WANAKA BRIDE!

I flew into beautiful Queenstown, then we drove the stunning drive to

Wanaka. I was lucky enough to have my husband along for the weekend at the Wanaka Wyndham vaction resort.

I met my lovely bride Dina and her family on the Friday where we

had a trial. This is when we try out a few different looks for the

wedding day.

This is always an important step to establish the "perfect" look for each

bride.

As Dina normally wears very minimal makeup (mascara and gloss), it gave

both of us (bride and artist) a feel for

the look and vibe of the day.

Saturday came, the day of the wedding, and it was an early morning start of

7.15am to prepare this gorgeous family for the day ahead.

It was such a relaxed and fun-filled environment. Dina's family had

rented an amazing

house to hang out in. It was a jaw dropping huge villa with lake views, a

tennis court, spa and pool.Wow!

My day started with hair and makeup for the two sisters, MOB (mother

of the bride) and Bride.

While Dina (bride) had her heated rollers in I raced downstairs to

where the groom (Phil) was hanging with his mates (sharing a few laughs

and

a couple of beers) Nice!

I styled Phil's hair to look like a classic 1940's gangster dude.

He looked very slick and polished and his "look" was complimented his

fabulous suit.

Back upstairs, I ran, to finish the brides hair and onto the sister

in-laws makeup.

Next all of the bridal party got dressed in their beautiful clothes. The

look was "European Elegance" and they certainly achieved this ....they

were stunning!

The photographer arrived just in time to get a few traditional "getting

ready"

shots. He was very happy, but who wouldn't be with such a stunning bridal

party, great light, Lake Wanaka and amazing mountains as a backdrop.

On with Dina's veil and final checks of shimmer powder ( to give

everybody's skin a lovely glow) and a lick of gloss for all.

I wished them all well around 3pm and took myself off to the hotel for

a well earned ice cold beer and a swim in the pool.

Such a wonderful location to get married in.

All of the preparations went as well as expectedm, due to the "Hil Cook

bridal formula" that we all

adhere too. This is simply to gather as much information about the

bridal party and wedding as possible, listen to our clients

expectations and performing our work to the highest standards in our

industry.

Truly, I feel blessed to have been apart of Dina and Phil's amazing day

and a

huge bonus to be in such a spectacular part of New Zealand as well.

Cheers, Lea :) xx

Our Lovely Lea

P.S - They all loved the "Solution Buds" and are taking them to Canada

and Melbourne where they call home.

P.P.S - Sorry about the photos, they were taken on my Iphone and it

has to be said I might just be the worst photographer ever!!

Hopefully we can grab some professional pics soon.

PPPS... Lea has just been asked to do Brooke Frazor's hair for her latest  international music video so we are very very proud of her :) Hils x