Cape Town’s “Southern Ink Xposure” tattoo convention brought an assortment of alternative inked models to the mother city, and we all know that there’s nothing quite so inspiring to photographers as a uniquely beautiful girl. Southern Ink Xposure was painfully timed to compete with the birthday weekend of yours truly, so alas there was not much model grabbing and photo taking on my behalf, but luckily one or two of the beauties stayed behind, and I was given the opportunity to work with a suicide girl and official suicide girl photographer. Lumo Suicide (the name of this particular Suicide Girl) asked me to curl her hair and make her look a mix of classically beautiful and interesting. The pink heart is obviously not present on the purchased set.

Photographer: TaLamia Photography

Model: Lumo Suicide

Hair and Make-up Artist: Samantha Laura Kaye

Pro Tip: To get the structure behind these curls I lightly finger-combed “Grip” Mousse  (from the OSIS range by Schwarzkopf ) through her hair, then slowly, section by section made tight GHD curls. While the curls were hot, as soon as I released them from the iron, I rolled them neatly into a tight curl and pinned them with a grip clip and some tissue (to prevent tension marks where the clips grip). I then added hairspray, left the curls for around 45 min, and then took them down and combed away any stray hairs. Finally I used the Loreal “Play Ball” shine serum (which is a spray!) to bring out the texture and colour.

Make-Up: Main Make-up Ingre­dients: MAC: Apply Strobe Cream — to give the skin radiance, the buff Stu­dio Fix Fluid -( in my expe­rience it’s the lon­gest wea­ring of MAC’s foun­da­tions which makes it ideal for bri­des) into the skin with a stip­pling brush (I like the #187). Apply “Shroom” to the inner cor­ners of the eye, “vani­lla” under the brow bone, “Cork” and “bronze” to the crease, “All that glit­ters” to the ball of the eye and “graphblack” technakohl liner along the lash­line with an angle brush. Fuzz the liner with a #219 pencil brush along the edge of the eye and into the outer edges of the crease. Gently exag­ge­rate the line of the eye with “black­track” fluid­line. Set the brows with clear brow gel, and then gently fill them in with an angle brush and an eyesha­dow like “brun”  or as I used here MAC’s eye-pencil in “strut”, gently dust some “strada” (matt) blush under the cheek­bone for con­tour, and dust a little “good as gold” over the top of the cheek for s fresh glow. Dust over the entire face with Prep+Prime trans­pa­rent finishing pow­der and then finish the lips with “Subculture” lipli­ner and “Kinda Sexy” (matt) lips­tick.

Hair: Spritz the hair with GHD “thermal protector” spray, section the hair and then create loose GHD curls, section by section. Holding the bottom of the curl, pull the remaining hair up towards the sky to create a messier, fuller and more “teased” curl. Braid two sections of hair and wrap around the forehead to create an element of “intentional control”. Spritz all over with a maximum hold hairspray, and then finish with a shine enhancing spray such as Loreal’s “Play Ball – Silky Sunrise”

Pho­to­grapher: Sally Mellish

Model:Caitlin Dow­nes

Bou­quet: The Flo­wer Market

Hair and Make-up Artist: Samantha Kaye

Cape Town

2009