The last few years, the hair and make-up artists at Miss Universe have left quite a lot to be desired. Davina Bennett, Miss Jamaica and Second Runner-up in 2017, complained that she had wanted to change her do for the evening wear round but that there had been no time. We do believe that a change of hairdo, showing the versatility of Miss Bennett’s afro, would have worked to her advantage.
Other contestants at Miss Universe in the past couple of years have also been less than impressed with the way they had to look as a result of using the hair and make-up services provided.
Our most important recommendation to contestants on a national, and definitely on an international, level is to learn how to do your own hair and make-up. It is the best investment you can make in your pageant career.
The ideal hair and make-up situation is for every contestant to have her own. As this will never happen, you will probably have to get up really early in the morning to make it to the hair and make-up room, stand in line to wait your turn and deal with issues that may arise with the person working with you. That person may not like you, for whatever reason, or they may believe you are a serious threat to their favourite contestant. Do you sincerely believe that in those cases professionalism will prevail and you will get to look the very best you can? If you do, I have a used car from the Seventies to sell to you.
Another issue is when you have a hairstyle that is uncommon to the stylist assigned to you. That stylist make not have the required experience and skill level to style your hair properly in the allotted time.
Doing your own hair and make-up may seem like a daunting task, but is that not what you do every day of your life?
The first step is to find a hairstylist and a make-up artist that you trust and whose work you are satisfied with.
With your hairstylist develop around 5 hair styles that you like and learn how to do them on your own. After you have mastered each style, by practising one of them each day, start changing from one style to another and vice versa. Time yourself and see which changes are the quickest to execute. This is so you may have one style for daytime and then quickly change to another for evening activities.
For the actual competition, make sure you start out with at least one style, then change to another for evening wear. It is important to pick two styles where the change is easy and fast to make.
With make-up it is in fact much easier. You need to develop one style, in neutral colours, for daytime, one that will highlight your best features and draw attention away from anything you are unhappy with.
Once you have you your daytime look, your nighttime look is simply an intensification of the colours. Your stage look is just making the nighttime look stronger to withstand stage lights. The only major change would be lip colour.
Once you have defined your looks, have your make-up artist teach you how to do it yourself and then perfection at your local or international pageant is simply a matter of practice, practice, practice.
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The Pageant Consultancy 