Gretchen Rossi comes to Flawless!!! I am such a huge Real Housewives fan...you will see this in my next blog when you see our new team photos;) Anyway, this past Saturday was such a busy busy day for us and I was off site at weddings, Mothers Day events, among other things. I got a call from one of our fabulous tanning technicians (Mieka, you will meet her and her mom soon)...she said that a client called asking if we would be willing to use a tanning solution that they bring in with them??? Strange! But, of course our number one priority is to make sure our clients are happy and taken care of so, "of course we can" Mieka told the client. When we went to book the client and take her name she said Gretchen. Mieka is such a huge "Real Housewives" fan that she didnt even have to ask her last name she just put her in the books and said "thank you we will see you soon"!

I was super dissapointed that I was not going to be there when Gretchen came in for a tan, but I knew she would be in good hands! Gretchen came in our studio with Slade and decided to give our fabulous One Hour Tanning Solution a try. She had to shower and be ready for her event that night in just a few hours. She loved the color and the application!!! I saw her later that night and she looked gorgeous as always and was thrilled with her tan! While Slade chatted with our high school seniors getting their make-up done for Prom that day.

I got my chance to meet Gretchen and thank her in person later that night at the fabulous event, Firefighters Lifeline Charity! I have been to this fundraiser before, and actually a few years ago we agreed to airbrush tan all the firefighters who were in the calendar (that was a fun evening). Firefighter's Lifeline Foundation is a newly formed charitable organization established to raise funds for a large number of local and national charities as well as provide financial assistance to families in need within the State of Washington.

FLF has partnered with a local winery and they have agreed to produce a high quality wine and put photographs of local firefighters on each bottle. I love this idea!

I feel so lucky to have such an amazing team and we are thrilled to now have Gretchen Rossi as part of our Flawless Family! Gretchen normally travels with her own airbrush tanning system and solution (Slade carries it on the plane for them...note to Ryan my husband). She usually only trusts her own solution and Slade's application (we all know airbrush tanning can go terribly wrong if done poorly)... however this trip she had forgotten her gun and she trusted us and our team to apply it this time!

Thank you, Real Housewives...we are lifetime fans now!

Proper Way to Contour

Contouring the Face -

I have so many clients coming in to get their make-up done and all they want to know is how to give themselves more contoured or angled features. Popular features to contour are the Nose, Cheek bones, and Jaw line.


THIS IS NOT THE SAME AS BRONZING!!! (A post all about Bronzing will be coming in the near future) You should not use your bronzer to contour! You should also be very very careful with highlighters. We will discuss Highlighting in this blog post too!

There is a video up on our You Tube Chanel showing exactly what to do. Step by Step.

Step 1.) Moisturize the face any of your favorites...but I love Strobe Cream by MAC it gives my skin a fresh dewy look!

Step 2.) Prime the skin...my favorite I have talked about before is Smashbox Photo Finish Primer

Step 3.) Foundation, of course we use Temptu Airbrush Foundation...but there are a lot of amazing products out there...we recommend NO MINERAL make-up. It tends to reflect funny in light and on camera

Step 4.) Find the area below your cheek bone! This will be where you want to start the cheek contour. Start at the hairline and lay the angled brush (thick side at the hair line) and follow down to below where your cheek bone naturally ends....Blend and Blend and Blend

Step 5.) Contour the side of the nose if desired. Use the same medium color contour and pinch the brush together so that it has a very small thin surface. Start at the inner corner of the eye by they eye brow and follow the side of the nose down...then repeat on the other side...the Blend Blend Blend

Step 6.) Highlight...dust the shading color off your brush and start with the highlight color. Apply above the apples of the cheek blending from the apples up to the outer corner of the eye...below where you would do concealer but above where you would put blush.

Step 7.) Highlight the top of the nose using the same technique as the sides, pinch the brush so that it is narrow surface and trace right down the very top of the nose with the highlight color.

Step 8.) Continue to blend out the Shading and the Highlight...apply the rest of your make-up like normal

Everything about Highlight and Contour should be where there are natural shadows and natural light on the face...you are just enhancing those areas!


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Allure Magazine!

Flawless Beauty Bars will be featured in Allur Magazine this June!

And you are going to be the first to see what might be the photo chosen for the feature! We are thrilled to celebrate that Flawless Beauty Bars was chosen by a random secret shopper to be featured as the premiere place in Washington to get a Sunless Tan (airbrush tanning, spray tanning...whatever you want to call it these days).

I got an email from Allure, sort of suprised I didn't delete it right away because I though it was probably junk-mail. However, I read that we are going to be featured in the June edition and "please send us photos of you doing the tanning or your tanning room/equipment". Well....I did a little research and I realized that the photos they choose as the ones featured in the magazine are of really pretty girls getting the tan done (my favorite model, Shelby). I had less than 2 days to pull this together so I contacted one of my go-to photographers Jerry and Lois Photography (they do great work) and they came over the very next day. We waited for my lovely model to be out of high school...hahaha. And we got to work. It only took about 15 shots to get the right ones and we sent them off the next day. (Jerry and Lois edited and uploaded high resolution shots over night!) WOW!!!

I got an email about 2 weeks later that one of our images was chosen for the article. So coming this June along with our big Name Change and Re-Branding comes an amazing feature in Allure Magazine and our lovely model Shelby.

You get to see the photo here first! Make sure to pick up June edition of Allure Magazine to see the review!

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New Business Name and Logo

Our new name, logo, and branding!

I have had this business for 4 years now, and finally realized that I can't do all of this myself. Weird! To take my business to the next level I was going to have to hire a team to put together the plan and put it into!

How in the world am I going to pay for all of this?

Who am I going to hire and how do I know they will do a better job then I can on my own?

What if it doesn't work?

These were all questions that were keeping me up at night...but I have finally put my fears to rest and started down the path of rebranding my business using actual professionals who know what they are doing!!!



Step one bring on my SEO (Search Engine Optimizer), this is a person who knows what Google is thinking, how it works, and how to make it work for you! I of course thought that when I put up a website that all of a sudden my phone would start to ring...ummmmmmmmm Nope! The search engines are a confusing maze and require constant attention and manipulation. So you really need an expert working for you specifically to be able to keep up at the front of the pages. Nobody and I mean nobody goes past the first page of Google looking for beauty services or products in their area! It is crucial I am at least number 1 (I am now number 1, 2, 3, and probably more depending on the word choices). Thanks Rob!!! Find out more about how to make your business #1 on Google with Rob Walzer.


Step two bring on a Branding Expert. I choose a friend of mine of course. Not only do I want to support my friends and small businesses, but she is also amazing at her job! I had always chosen what I liked....not what my clients liked or wanted in terms of branding (that includes wording, names, logos, colors, and images). Great idea if I am the only client! Fae helped me hold a branding workshop with clients and friends to find out what people actually want to see. I will have an entire post about the branding workshop later next week as we roll out all the brand changes. Basically I found out a lot about my business and what people want to see. It was a fun event, very informative and I found out that my business fits in the Archetype of "Innocent" along with famous brands such as Coca-Cola and Dove! Crazy. Find out more about Fae and all her projects and then hire her! Facebook her!


Step three, hire a social media manager! She will make you do things like blog everyday!!! She will also help manage and teach you how to manage your Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, and Blog accounts. Making sure that all these sites are working together to drive internet traffic to your website or wherever you want people to go. Genius! I started out doing all of this myself just like my website, and quickly realized that if I was going to stay married and sane I was going to have to figure out another way! Queue, Devani Freeman...whenever I mention her name someone says "oh ya, I think I know her or I see her stuff on Facebook"...BINGO! That is what I want to hear when I mention my social marketing manager and coach. Bad sign if no one has ever heard of of your "social" media expert! Another posting later about Devani and how amazing she is and what she can do for you...if social media is taking over your life, you need to watch for that positing. Find Devani at Devani Freeman.




Last Step...Introduce the team and the new business name and logo to the world! We are so excited to actually get to the fun part. Introducing the logo and new name to our clients and then of course throwing parties to celebrate it!!! More posts about our upcoming parties and events soon too! Stay tuned!


Here is the new and improved "Flawless Beauty Bars"

New Makeup Obsession

My new obsession....Coral! I can not seem to get enough coral in my life right now. Maybe it is because we live in grey Seattle ad it is a pop of color or maybe it is because blonds look really good in coral when they have a tan. For whatever reason my favorite thing for summer is coral, in fashion as well as make-up and nail polish. So when you are trying new summer looks, try a coral/ peechy blush not the normal pinks for summer time. It tends to look best with a tan, so of course find you favorite sunless tanning studio...get a little glow and then use a beautiful coral blush and peech lip gloss. A few of my favorite products are...

MAC Blush - Style

Bronzer - Norvel Bronzz (it has it's own brush too!) I have used Nars Orgasm for years...but it was very shimmery and in my 30's (mid 30's now) and shimmer is not good! Especially when I have large pores oround my nose and cheeks and anywhere near wrinkles arond my eyes. Ladies...be very very careful with the shimmer. A much better option is dewy opalecent effect that something like

MAC Strobe Cream has on the face. It is so much softer and it can be used as a moisturizer as well.

Pop on some lovely peechy lip gloss, my favorite right now is Watermelon by Smashbox. Add a little mascara and you have an amazing summer look with flawless glowing skin!
You can get myy favorite make-up tips of the day by following me on Twitter. See some of my work and my "How to" videos on Flawless You Tube channel.

Pretty Vain Radio

As Heard on KKNW Alternative Talk Radio....

Why Get your Make-up Professionally Done for your Wedding?...

Why have a professional make-up artist for your wedding?





1.) "The photos last a lifetime"...everyone wants to look their best on their wedding day, but rarely think about how it will look in the photos they will treasure forever
2.) It is a less stressful day for everyone, and gives the bride and her bridal party a chance to relax and enjoy the day
3.) Everyone gets done on-time and all the looks are consistent
4.) The photographer has less touch-up work to do on the bride and bridal party if everyone starts out with flawless skin and bright eyes, blushing cheeks, and beautiful lips that makes every ones teeth look white

"Why not have a friend or one of the bridesmaids do make-up for everyone?"
This question comes up often and this is usually what I think about when I give advise to a bride...
You get to boss around someone who isn't your friend!!!
This allows you to get exactly what you want and not have a friend or bridesmaid stressed about getting everyone done on time as well as themselves.

Our team of airbrush make-up technicians are well trained and experienced in bridal make-up application to ensure that the look you want for the "Big Day" will be captured exactly the same and flawlessly on camera as well. Check out more photos and personal blogs for each of our staff members coming to My Flawless Make-up.

Make-up can look very different on camera...if you have ever taken a picture where you thought your foundation looked right but then in the photo it was a completely different color. Or you thought you had enough lip stick on but it gets completely lost when you see it in the pictures later.

Working with the photographers is part of the job of a professional make-up artist. Asking the questions...
Will you be taking photos outside?...
Is the photographer doing a lot of black and white photos?...
How long does the make-up need to last that day?

A professional make-up artist not only knows how to make you look your best, but also listens to what YOU want to look like and how YOU want to feel that day. Just applying make-up in the latest trends is not always the best approach for a look that should be timeless.