Storage Week! How A Makeup Pro Does It ...

Our final post of the Storage Week! series (which is actually going to ending up lasting a fortnight, we're nice like that here at Get Lippie) shows you how a real, working, makeup artist stores their stuff.  we have to tell you, it's not what we expected.

Anyhoo, here's Luke with the lowdown:

As interested as I am in being very organised with stuff, and making products and makeup all nice and neat, what with me being you know, male, it is rather difficult for me to pop anything away neatly as I am ALWAYS having to dredge it out again. Also, storage space is more valuable than the last sheet of toilet roll at my house, and so I have to put stuff wherever there is an available orifice.

It is probably worth mentioning that I do tend to divide my products into two categories:  professional and personal.  Sometimes there is a blur between the two and this causes all sorts of confusion, which results often in a rather stressed out search for a particular item. In a very small nutshell (Ha ha! - Ed), this is how it goes.

The makeup that I use for work is itself between two categories.  Special F/X/Prosthetics/Film & TV, and everything else.  There are some pretty hefty chemicals in the former category, so it’s important that that is stored separately from the “normal” makeup. Everything else pretty much gets sorted thus...

This is my professional kit that I use all the time. No matter what the job is, I know that in here is everything I need to do a half decent makeup.  If I am ever unable to do something out of this bag, I need to hang up my brushes and find something else to do.  It is also handy for running out the door on those last minute bookings that happen from time to time. The excellent Charles Fox bucket bag is a bleeding life saver, and is so well used that it broke last week, but has done a good 3 years of being lugged. Ahhhh, if it could only talk.

Prior to ANY job there is still a certain amount of juggling that goes on.  I need to double check everything, and then edit accordingly. This is often the case when there is a particular season to be considering, or if there are male models involved, if some of the models are darker skinned etc...

That is where these come in handy.  I am only showing ONE of the seventeen of these boxes that I have for brevity (and also I haven’t the time to pull them all out from under the bed, out of the cupboard, the shed, and god knows where else).  But for each job, I will pull all of these out, have a look and replace certain items that are needed, or that I think I may be needed.  It is a long and often very frustratingly tiring process, but my human strength will only allow me to carry so much at any one time.

It is a huge box where each individual item has been lovingly placed into a freezer zip-lock bag and labelled.  The boxes are divided into Face, Eyes, Lips, body and Misc.  On each bag a big red or blue sharpie has on it what is in there. Foundations, Bronzers, Eye Shadows, Cream eye shadows etc...
They are then divided into Spring/Summer then Autumn/Winter.  No actual reason for this, other than I know roughly what sort of colours we’ll be dealing with here. Ie SS is lights, pink, corals, greens etc... and the AW is the darker side of the colour spectrum.

My personal stuff, which is largely skin care is also divided similarly.  However, the stuff that I use every day is spread on my bedside table, and on my chest of drawers in my bedroom. Again, please note the lack of ability to edit.

To save dragging out the boxes again, I have selected a few fragrances that I want to be wearing. This also tends to be seasonally dependant.

The bathroom is a similar sort of affair.  I want to be able to reach for stuff easily, so....

Send help.

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