My time at DFMA

It was quite a tough decision deciding on which make-up school I wanted to attend as I wanted to make sure I got the most out of my time there as well as the location and the price - as you can imagine these courses don't come cheap!

I regret not going on to do a beauty course after I finished school at 16 as this would have been funded for free by the government and I wouldn't have had to worry about making a living for myself at this age. I could have fitted a part time job around my full time college course. Oh well! You live and you learn :)

I researched "make-up academies" and a lot of them came up. I finally narrowed it down between DFMA (Davina Fermi Make-up Academy) and another. The other course was offering the same course as DFMA but it was split over 10 weekends. Now for me, I found this to be a much bigger commitment as it would mean travelling to London every Saturday and back again probably costing me between £15-£25 a week. I know this doesn't seem much but when you average it up to over 10 weeks, it does get quite costly. This course also didn't offer me a make-up and brush kit. This was an additional price which for me, was quite off putting.
So in the end I decided to go with DFMA. At the point I didn't know how much it would cost me so I had to call their bookings team to find out availability and cost. I managed to grab the last place on the course in their Brighton location from Monday 22nd September to Friday 26th September (their other courses are held in London and Bournemouth. See http://www.makeupacademy.co.uk/ for more details). Fortunately for me, my parents had a place in Chichester which I stayed in for a week making my travel time around 50 minutes. I was very happy with this :)
The cost of the actual course was around £1300.

The course I chose to go on was a foundation course in fashion make-up. It was a Monday to Friday course from 11:30am till 4:30pm. Each day had a different learning task in which the aim was for you to feel confident to do at the end of the lesson.

Day 1.
I really enjoyed Day 1. We were instructed to walk to the top of the house to the brown sofas where I was greeted by 4 other girls who were already there. We all got chatting and all instantly bonded. It was really nice. The rest of the girls turned up ready for our first class to take place at 11:30am. There was only 12 of us on the course which was really nice as it made the class a lot more 1-to-1 and the learning a lot more intimate.
We had a brief introduction and we were given our make-up and brush kits, and then went straight into it. The aim for this day was to create a "barely there/natural make-up/flawless face" look. For me, this is what I wear mostly on a day to day basis so I really enjoyed brushing up on my techniques.

Our tutor performed a quick demonstration on one of the girls and then we paired up and got started. The eye look was very minimal with just a light dust of eye shadow on the lid and a slightly darker colour to contour the crease. We then lined the eyes with a thin line of liquid liner and then lined the water line with a white eye pencil. The face was then all about application in order to create flawless skin. We applied foundation, concealer and then set it all with a translucent powder only to then flush the cheeks with a light, natural blusher.

Day 2.
This day was all about the perfect smokey eye. For me, this has always been the hardest look to perfect as it can get quite messy with all the dark colours. I HAD to start with eyes first as there was no way I was going to create a flawless face to then have to take half of it off due to fall out.

As before, our tutor did a demonstration on one of the girls and we then paired up and went off. The way we were taught to do a perfect smokey eye was to smudge a black eyeliner onto the back of our hand and then use a brush to manipulate this onto the eyelid. We then used a black eyeshadow to bring this up higher onto the lid and into the crease. I was really pleased with the way mine came out. I paired this with a flawless face and nude lips just to try and make the eye look pop even more!

Day 3.
The lesson for day 3 was contouring/highlighting and time-period make-up.
We were taken through different time periods and we looked at how the women wore their make-up and how it had evolved. Finally it was told that we were recreating a look from the 60's time period. For me, this was the day I enjoyed the least as I felt that I wouldn't use this type of looking going forward, however I suppose it was good experience. The idea was to create big eyes by using bright colours and lots of liner.

Firstly I dusted the eye lids with a natural colour and followed the natural crease line with a blue eyeshadow, extending this out onto the face a little. I followed this line a couple of times going higher each time and taking it in turns with a black eyeshadow and the blue eyeshadow. Apparently the girls in the 60's thought this was a good look - for me, not so much!
We then had to pull the blue and black underneath the bottom lash line and flick it out. Lashes were applied to both top and bottoms lashes to make the eyes look even wider. The flawless face was applied and lips were a bright pinky colour just to make the look pop even more!
It was fun, just not something I see myself recreating in the future.

We also learnt the basics about contouring - the do's and don'ts. I found this to be very beneficial and its something that I've gone on to teach others since the course as I sometimes used to overdo it.

Day 4.
Day 4 was all about bridal although we didn't actually end up doing any application which was slightly disappointing for me. Our tutor for this day was from a fashion based background who didn't really do weddings or bridal anymore and for me this is one of the key reasons why I wanted to go on the course because as much fun as weddings are, there is also quite a bit of money with bridal.

She did however, go through how much we should charge for trials, bridesmaids, mother of the brides and the actual bride which was very helpful as I will definitely use that info going forward. She also told us the best products to use - some not being so cheap as you can imagine - and her go to products. It was almost like a Q&A. She has done Lady GaGa's make-up though so we did all trust what she was saying!

We fnished the session off with what she considered to be the most important things to perfect in make-up; eyebrows, face, lips and eyeliner which I agree with. She did a demonstation of each on a different girl so we could see the effect with different eye shapes/lip shapes/face shapes. It was a very informative lesson but like I said I wish we could have done some bridal make-up with her supervision and expertise.

Day 5.
And finally day 5 - its surprising how quickly the week goes by and how much you wish it could be Monday again! We were all assigned a model in which we had to recreate a look on and then she would be photographed by a professional photographer. It was told that we would get 4 pictures to keep which I was pleased with.

My model was called Geneva and she was beaaautiful :) I was so happy when I saw her even with her blue hair! Yes that's right - she had blue hair. Very mermaid like!

I ended up recreating a bridal look with soft yet smokey-ish brown eyeshadows and a soft pink lip. I won't go into too much detail as to what I actually used as you will get a better effect from the pictures.
Once this was over and my lovely model had been snapped, we were then presented with a certificate to say we had attended and completed the course which was a great feeling. I had had a great week but I was ready to get home!

So, all in all I had a really great week and I would recommend it to anyone who is a beginner or who is looking to enhance their techniques and skills. I have made some really great friends and I have some work opportunities arise already despite it only being around 1 month since we graduated.
You only live once and if you think its something you would love to do, then do it! 

Thanks for reading,

Jess x