Celestine Sng is one of that rarefied group of MAC senior artists, of which there are only 42 in the world. Based in Singapore, Sng has worked with designers ranging from Vivienne Westwood to Vivienne Tam. She helped create the four avant-garde looks in Alexander McQueens famous chessboard show, and did "barefaced, beautiful skin" to match the clean, structured clothes of Balenciagas Nicolas Ghesquiere, the designer she most admires.
Celebrity-wise, shes put bronzer on Ricky Martin, made Mary J. Blige pretty for her Asian performances, and enhanced the features of Asias most beautiful women: Zhang Ziyi, Maggie Cheung, Michelle Yeoh, Joan Chen, and Karen Mok.
Sng was in Manila last weekend to conduct a master class for makeup artists and launch MACs latest collection for autumn-winter 2005, Naturally Eccentric.
"Naturally Eccentric is a trend very much inspired by nature, like trees, leaves, flowers, and the textures of living things," Sng says. "Coincidentally it ties in with one of the key looks of our autumn-winter trends. Its just clean, beautiful, very versatile, very wearable makeup."
For cool, edgy MAC, "natural" means muted, earthy tones that have a pretty almost pastel quality: frosty pink, pearly rose, smoky violet, dark plum, deep wine and beige in every possible incarnation lightly pinked, off-pink, smudged, caramel and naked. This is soft, ethereal makeup perfectly tailored to the demure, Victorian fashions of the season.
"I like to call it an idiot-proof palette," says Sng. "You just cant go wrong with the shades. Even the dark colors are not tricky. They can be used for the brows, they can be used as eyeliner. The light colors are your basic staples where theyre never out of fashion because theyre essentials."
Sng gave me a marvelous MAC-over using products from the Naturally Eccentric collection. While the shades are so versatile you can achieve stronger looks, like a smoky eye, she chose to do a softer, real-life look I could do myself every day.
Next, he used a foundation brush to apply Select SPF 15 liquid foundation in my shade, then set it with new Lightful Powder Foundation. These two products are amazing once they set, they give the appearance of real, flawless skin like you have no makeup on whatsoever.
"Asian women have beautiful skin but a lot of them like to wear too much foundation," notes Sng. "Youve got beautiful skin. Why do you need something so heavy? Modern makeup is about real, beautiful skin."
Tip: Pick a foundation that matches your overall skintone (not just your complexion, which tends to be lighter) because it looks more realistic. At the very least, foundation should match your neck.
For maximum definition, she lined the upper lid with dark brown MAC Fluidline in Dipdown, and put white Fluidline in Frostlite on the inner corners. After curling the lashes, she used another pair of remarkable products every woman should have in her makeup bag: white MAC Lash Primer to lengthen and thicken, and Zoom Lash in black to further boost volume. End result? Lashes that are so long and thick, its like getting fake lashes from a tube.
Before the makeover, I used to think that because of my warm skin, only warm colors looked good on me, but Sngs use of a predominantly cool palette proved me wrong.
"Im a firm believer that theres no such thing as this color suits a certain person," Sng says. "Its how you wear it. At the end of the day, you have to be comfortable and confident."