My first tattoo

About half a year ago, during a full day meeting at work about corporate culture, we were asked a lot of personal questions about ourselves. In order to understand what was maybe holding us back from success, we needed to find out what held us back in our personal lives as well. (nb: Perhaps strange in a traditional workplace but not so much for a fashion/tech start-up.) This session was emotionally difficult but at the same time it was cathartic and there were a lot of revelations.

At the start of the day, we began with a question that was tough to answer, "What do you want to achieve in your life but haven't yet?" What was on my list?
- pay off my student debt
- get a dog
- get a tattoo

As inane as that list sounds-- those were my honest expectations of my life (I'm baring my soul here ok?) And then the question that followed was, "And what's your excuse?... Money or time are not allowed to be your answers." So I had no excuses. With my 30th birthday just months away, it seemed like the perfect timeline to just do it. Shit, I was finally going to be decisive about at least one of the above goals.

work it, move that bitch crazy

So I've been keeping this under wraps a bit but Samantha and I are attempting to restructure our online business. This year has been our first year working 100% fulltime as "Lipgloss and Black" and it's been a bit of an adventure of trial and error. Online selling has always been amazing for us, and we decided to branch out into selling locally (which for some reason seems impressive to people online) and as we begun to stretch ourselves out in Toronto, we found from other vendors that it's REALLY HARD to make it big online (so our online presence is impressive to those we meet in stores, HMPH, FANCY THAT.)

It's been tough spreading ourselves out a bit thin, so we're trying to slow down a bit and think about what's best for our future. Even though being 'all over the place' and having a presence in multiple stores and online is impressive, we needed to figure out where it's actually beneficial for us to be. Basically, our year of expanding locally has really slowed down our online business & we're realizing that online is really where we belong, so we wanna come back BIGGER.

We've been quietly (and tediously) working on our own standalone e-shop at www.lipglossandblack.com and are hoping that our customers come along even though we are branching away from etsy. We are hoping for a mid-september launch and have been working on getting product photos ready. I've been fiddling around with my home made lightbox and we've been setting up photoshoots.

So this past Sunday we had a big shoot in a warehouse studio with photographer Lasally, makeup artists Dera & Claire and Models Amber & Alejandra and assistant Caitlyn! We were originally hoping to have 2 more models with us but things got a bit messy with that & even though we had no intention to, Sam & I had to model :[

We were hoping to have a shoot finally where Sam & I were NOT the photographer, mua, model & stylists... but hey-- we got to just take a break from SOME of the roles at the shoot :). It was really great spending a whole day with really creative and fun girls. we're still a bit amateur at running photoshoots but things seemed to have went well! I think for next time we will HAVE TO remember to bring ipod docks just so that it's a bit more fun-infused AND I should remember to bring food appropriate for all food restrictions! (Sorry about the non-vegan choices Amber ♥)!

Anyway, we are working really hard to have our site ready for the launch in a few weeks. for now, here are just a few behind the scenes looks at how our day at the shoot was:


accessory table all ready!


my request: find a perfect red lipstick for me.
ughhh i just don't think i like red on me... i'm a lipgloss kinda gal.


assistant Caitlyn (me & Sam's lil sis... not that little though cause she's taller than both of us)
steaming the clothes so everything is wrinkle-free!


claire's setup. *DROOLS*


Dera's piles of palettes. we instantly bonded because A) we went to engineering school together B) we have stretched ears C) WE LOVE URBAN DECAY


I like your tool belt Dera.


Claire working her magic on Amber.
Claire is a seriously hard working MUA! Loved how she went to help Amber with posing and even helped with styling so much. Amazing. <3


ahahahah Dera's 6' tall & Sam is such a little mini with a short upper body...
so she had to sit on FIVE STACKED CHAIRS. NBD.


sam. workin it.


good job on DEM LIPS Dera.


creative team:
sam (designer & model), alejandra (model), dera (mua), amber (model), syl (designer, model), claire (mua)
all super sweaty and messy at this point cause of our mad-dash to finish before take-down time!


and then these two magically got e-harmonized together cause they both are muas, have the same iron maiden shoes, love silent hill & have matching tattoos! weird right?


see? dera's giant cupcake & alex's little mini one! totally matching :)

So yeah, it was a fantastic day of shooting & uber-tiring but I think we all had a ton of fun. We had an amazing team of gals who were all so easy to get along with :) THANKS to all of you ladies!! Can't wait to see the resulting pics-- & you know I'll share as soon as I get some!

xoxo

mehandi

I just recently found my old tubes of pre-mixed henna that I had bought in India a few years ago. My family hails from Kolkata so I always remember my mother tinting her hair with it when I was younger & letting me use the rest to give myself "tattoos". She used to have to mix it from boxes of the dry powder and tell us how when she was younger, they actually could just find the leaves & crush them themselves. Now, we've got it in tubes & all you have to do is snip the bottom off to pipe it on :)


my mehandi book & the tubes of pre-mixed henna


multilingual instructions!
good points include: adding lemon to keep the henna moist, NOT washing off the crusties with water & if it's convenient, covering it with some plastic wrap helps too!


the book is filled with dozens of ridiculously intricate designs


I loosely followed the flower design here


applied & left it on for about 2 or 3 hours & flaked it off (without washing it in water, with hopes that it'll darken later)


the result right after picking off the dry henna. i love the organic look of it-- i don't have any tattoos (yet) but i always juggle with the idea of getting ones in all one colour since i'm not much of a colourful person.

Anyways, I just received some awesome nail stamping stuff in the mail & hope to blog about that soon! (Thanks to Mai for exposing me to it, it's soooo cool.)

xox