Transcript
Speaker: Hi and welcome to Behind the Chair with me Lauren Garfort. Have you ever wondered what goes on in the mind of a makeup artist? Have you ever been sat having your makeup done and thought what are they thinking? Well I'm gonna tell you. I think the main thing that we feel is fear.
Speaker: No I'm joking. I actually do want to theme this podcast about the fears of a makeup artist and how we think because to be honest when I'm like in the zone I'm not thinking about that much because I'm in the zone doing when I'm doing someone's makeup I kind of go into a zone
Speaker: So I don't actually, my brain doesn't work. That's good to know, isn't it? Welcome to the podcast with me, Lauren, and no brain. So what I thought I'd do is ask other makeup artists and hairstylists what their biggest fears are, were, and then at the end, I'm gonna tell you my biggest fear or worry. And let me tell you as well, I was not expecting the level of detail
Speaker: and personal information that people were willing to tell me so i've changed everyone's names because i thought you know just in case they wanted to be anonymous i've changed everyone's names and also just a warning if you don't like talking about poo
Speaker: or periods, then I would stop listening now. Okay, let's get into it. I can't wait to talk about all these. This is the first story from Kelly. I used to always worry that I'd forgotten something. I do still pack my kit, check my kit, then I leave it open and unzip to check again before I leave. I sometimes worry I've forgotten something
Speaker: like one particular shade of brown eyeliner that wouldn't even matter anyway. Not so much now, but when I was newer to the industry, I would worry that a brief would say natural, glowy skin, neutral tones. Then they would completely change their mind on the day to something outrageous like clown face paint with bloody wounds and I wouldn't have the products to make it work. The clown face paint with bloody wounds absolutely cracks me up.
Speaker: Alice my most irrational fear is that I'll die and no one will know how to contact all my clients and they'll leave me one -star reviews on Google then I'll be dead and have shit Google rating oh it's quite a quite dark humor there but I find that quite funny. Charlie
Speaker: Aside from the fears like above, one of my other fears is falling ill. Just a side note here. What I found is a lot of the fears were quite similar, so that's why Charlie's the same above. Anyways, I once had horrible diarrhoea on the morning of a wedding.
Speaker: And I was late because I had to find a shop first which sells a modium plus. Even the anxiety of pooping myself made me want to poop.
Speaker: Just a warning, that's just one of the many poop stories, so here we go. Ashley had the same thing happen to her. So the poops kicked in about half an hour after I arrived to the bride's hotel room. Oh my god, she was in the hotel room with the bride. Honestly, that is awful. I could hear people peeing every time they use the bathroom, and the noise my butt made still haunts me.
Speaker: I couldn't get out the toilet for 10 minutes. I was so ill so you can bet they heard me too. Also it was a too flush process if you know what I mean. Dead. Thank you Ashley. Next one is from Emily. I had this once too. This is basically just the section of the stories which is all about the poop thread. This is the poop thread.
Speaker: I full -on stinky -farded whilst doing the bride's make -up almost followed through. Finally made it to the loo and it had the weakest flush on it ever. I thought I was going to have to chug it out the window. Safe to say I never heard from that bride again. Oh this is funny. This one's from Fran. I constantly have to poo at weddings as my bowel disease is more active in the morning. Oh that is awful.
Speaker: I also have fought in front of a client too and had sickness and diarrhea at a wedding too. I just came on and I had to finish the makeup in between throwing up and pooing. I probably, sorry it's not funny bless you, I probably looked like absolute shit and did not hear anything back from the bride at all.
Speaker: I had booked a wedding after that too, which I do on a very rare occasion and was absolutely fine at that one So I don't know what the F happened. Oh It's awful Okay, we're still going with the post stories. So, you know, it's safe to say that this is a this is a real a real problem. So yeah FYI not all makeup artists have this problem Just these bunch of makeup artists
Speaker: Just my friends. So this is from Sarah. I had another wedding and had similar symptoms. She thinks it's an illness. She turned up at the venue dying for a poo. No one could open any of the doors and I thought no one could open any of the doors and I thought I might poo myself. What does she mean by no one could open any of the doors? I don't know what she means by that.
Speaker: I ended up running around the back of the venue with the bride to get in a French door. Ah she couldn't get into the venue. She couldn't get into the venue so she thought she was going to poo herself. They ran around the back of the door, didn't even get to say hello properly. What a welcome for a bride on her wedding day. So all my fears are poo based. Sounds to me like most fears are based around
Speaker: poo, fart and forgetting something essentially. So this is the next one, this is probably one of my favourite ones, it's super juicy. This is from Abby. I had a client once cry and scream over her hair and makeup. I wasn't the lead artist, I was brought in by an agency to help with the bridal party
Speaker: as there were so many people to get ready. When I arrived the lead artist who I'd never met before or worked with before decided to dump the bride on me to do her hair. Oh my god literally that is already a nightmare situation. We hadn't done a trial or anything. She'd already had a fit over her makeup and I'd cried most of it off and then it was my turn to do her hair. She showed me the trial picture of what I can only describe as some sort of Victorian style updo.
Speaker: Thankfully, I trained in period styling and I actually pulled off almost exactly what she asked for. Jeez. That's lucky. But most of the way through there, most of the way through, she was sat there sobbing, screaming bloody murder at her sister and mum, who had then all abandoned me.
Speaker: How did they abandon her? And she promptly shouted at me and said she looked like an effing patsy. I don't know what an effing patsy is, but there we go. I'm guessing it's not a good thing. For anyone that knows me, does she mean like Patsy, Patsy M. from EastEnders? Maybe. That's probably not a good thing, actually.
Speaker: For anyone that knows me, I'm very chilled and it takes a lot to stress me. But this took me over the edge. I was shaking. She then had a meltdown over her dress and I swear I thought any minute she was going to rip her hair out and throw her vase it was that dramatic. Needless to say I was traumatised for the next few jobs.
Speaker: Yeah, I get it, hon. I would be as well. So her fear is ever having to relive that scenario ever again, ever again. But saying that, yeah, it's down the line with more experience. I never, ever would allow an artist to drop a bride on me like that again.
Speaker: such a valid point i would never ever ever ever ever let that happen either unless i like knew the bride somehow i don't know why but yeah in that situation absolutely not but we do learn we live and we learn and we move on from these things next one is zoe
Speaker: mine would be forgetting my brushes or farting in front of a client and it's not a silent one one time i actually that's my cat sorry one time i bent down behind her to get some grips in the underneath of my bag or something i don't know what she's trying to say underneath and then she and then a fart popped out it was so squeaky oh funny there's another fart one here we go i think it's from the same person and
Speaker: I don't know what's wrong because she keeps farting. One of the bridesmen said to one of the girls. Oh no hang on. I once farted, silent but deadly. One of the bridesmen said to one of the girls.
Speaker: that had her baby there. Oh, I think her nappy needs changing. Imagine my fart got blamed on that poor baby. That's actually quite a good way to get around it. Either blame it on the cat or the dog or the baby. Great way to get out of it. I'd say that's acceptable.
Speaker: There's a few comments, people saying they're panning in about forgetting their brushes. So yeah, that is a very common fear. This next one is from Holly. She says she regularly has irrational fears that she's forgotten the wrong date, that she's double booked the boogens, forgotten the brushes. I also most of the time throughout the makeup thinking, oh God, this is awful.
Speaker: What a lovely thing. It's true though. I get that as well sometimes. You're like, ooh, not sure, not sure about this. But I mean, I think that it comes with experience knowing like how it's gonna look, but sometimes you're not 100 % sure. Next one is from Christina. She says she has so many fears. They hate what I've done. I've forgotten something. They ask for a refund, leave a bad review, not being able to find a location, alarm not going off.
Speaker: And then at the end, I'm like, oh, this looks really pretty. Self -doubt.
Speaker: The sickness issues scare me a lot because we'd have to give all the money back and by that stage we would have spent hours on the booking and that would not be fun. I'm always scared of dropping a lipstick during touch ups. I normally put a gown on once they're dressed but when photographers ask for it to be removed it terrifies me. I did actually drop a lipstick once but it missed the dress by one millimeter.
Speaker: I don't know what I would have done if I'd have hit it. She says she could go on with the fears and the anxiety. That is honestly, I've never dropped a lipstick on anyone. Touch would. But I completely get that as a legit fear. And especially when it's a bride, because if she's got a white dress on, not all brides wear white, but most do. There's not a single lipstick that I could think of that wouldn't.
Speaker: like damage, a white dress, even like a clear lip gloss would come up as like a grease stain. Oh, the fear. These are the fears that people just don't realize that we lie awake at night thinking of. And this next one's from Kate. This is not a fear, but it did happen. I was doing a wedding in France and wearing a dress. I was on my period wearing a menstrual cup and felt the dreaded suction pop.
Speaker: and it started to pour out so I had to make an excuse and I ran to the bathroom in I ran to the old bathroom in a chateau which had no lock and there were about 15 people getting ready still got PTSD now why
Speaker: why would you have no lock on a bathroom door especially if it's in a shadow like where people are renting out sorry but that is just absolutely that infuriates me that's stupid anyway moving on you poor thing that's awful I'm sorry I'm just gonna say it if it was a woman building that place I bet you would have put a lock on the door anyways this is Amy
Speaker: I have a reoccurring nightmare that I'll turn up and forget that I've got bridesmaids to do as well. So I'll only have two hours to get the bride and three bridesmaids ready. Oh my God, imagine that would be like, countdown, like, boom, quickly do everything. I wonder how, like, in the world, I wonder how long people have had, like, there must have been a situation somewhere in this world when a makeup artist has had to do that, where they've had like, barely any time to do a gazillion people. That's really stressful.
Speaker: I think I could probably do 10 minutes on someone if it was desperate, but I would absolutely hate it because I would want to actually do a really good job, but I feel like 10 minutes just isn't enough to do skincare, prep, have a consultation, all of it from start to finish. I just don't think 10 minutes is enough. I know there's probably people out there screaming, being like, 10 minutes? That's how long I take to do my makeup. But listen, honey,
Speaker: I'm a professional, I do it properly. Do it properly, darling. Anyways, so this is the next one. Again, about brushes. This is from Steph. I forgot my brushes on a job once and did all the makeup using cotton buds, hands and fingers. Oh my God, this is actually really interesting. So now, as part of a makeup exercise at the makeup school I work at, I get all of my students to recreate a makeup using no brushes.
Speaker: they're bound to be in a situation at least once where they've forgotten their brushes. I actually think that's such an amazing idea. Well done. I think I could do a full makeup with no brushes. There's certain things that I wouldn't enjoy doing without brushes like lipstick because I'd want like my disposables but then if if I had my disposables I'd be okay.
Speaker: I've got all my disposables does it does it mean like you've forgotten your brush oh I don't know maybe I should challenge myself one day to do that okay next person Nikita says I always have the fear of breaking down on my way to the wedding or being stuck in traffic before any job one of my fears is being late
Speaker: It sets me into a pit of anxiety and any sight of traffic makes me want the world to swallow me up. I know it can be out of our hands but I feel like this is even worse. Let it be in my hands. That's hilarious. Well.
Speaker: have thoroughly enjoyed reading all them and it just makes me feel like a little bit less crazy and like more normal as a human being. I feel like everybody in their prospective jobs have these sort of reoccurring fears so I guess they'll all be different for different people but I mean these are relatively small matters in in terms of like in the world we live in so you know
Speaker: Please take this, it's all very light -hearted and I'm pretty sure that these makeup artists are still extremely professional. In fact, I know they are extremely professional, but you know, we're all human at the end of the day. It's just a good reminder, isn't it? That we all go to the toilet.
Speaker: And on that note, I'm just taking a moment here to interject this fantastic episode because I forgot to tell you my biggest fear, as promised, at the beginning of the episode. So my biggest fear is actually one of the fears, one of the stories that happened, which is actually really worrying because, you know, then I'm like, crap, it could happen. But I don't think it would. I think it's pretty rational. And also I've got the experience now to be able to deal with it. So my irrational fear
Speaker: that someone would like kick off scream cry and I have had like sort of similar scenarios but nothing like nothing like really really bad and people do tend to have like breakdowns and stuff and like I feel like we're used to dealing with these things as makeup artists you see people be quite
Speaker: Vulnerable on like one of the biggest days of their lives, especially in their wedding or like there's a lot of pressure on them So I'm kind of used to people being like oh my god and having a mental breakdown. So that's kind of it really and and Apart from that You just end up having nightmares quite regularly about your alarm not going off I think that's pretty really I would put that up there is number one number one thing of the panic of having to get up at 4 a .m. Or 5 a .m
Speaker: And we're going back to the podcast now. I mean back to the episode. Over to you Lauren. On that note I will bid you adieu. I don't even know what that means. Have a fabulous week. I'm sorry I haven't been on my podcasts for a while. Hopefully I'll be recording more this month and yeah let's get some more podcasts out because I love doing them and yeah please
Speaker: Like, subscribe, do all that thing, you know, where you make my podcasts more popular. Cause this would be great if I could do it more often and maybe, you know, get actually paid so that I could do more often. Anyways, I'm going now. So love you, bye.
