I was really, really disappointed in my experience at Eve Pearl. I had my makeup done for a black tie gala for my company. I have a history of showing up at company events looking a wreck and I wanted to look very nice for this particular one - so I booked a hair appointment and my Eve Pearl makeup appointment about two months in advance.
First problem - booking my appointment was not an easy, seamless process. It took several emails over a couple of weeks to get the appointment booked and then confirmed. It did not make sense that they just couldn't put this appointment into their calendar and consider it booked, especially since I was giving them plenty advance notice.
On the phone and then again over the course of the back and forth emailing, I explained that I do not wear make up often, and since I was treating myself to the luxury of a professional make-up artist, that I wanted a dramatic look, something unusual for me. I even found some examples of of looks that I liked on the internet and included those pictures in my emails. So the artist was very aware of what I was expecting when I walked in there.
The artist did not give me the look I had been asking for, or anything even remotely like it. When I asked her why, she told me that my eyes are "so beautiful," that the dark, dramatic look I want would only hide them. I have been living with these eyes for a good long time now, and they are perfectly nice, but they are not so extraordinarily beautiful that this answer makes any sense. I wanted dramatic makeup, not strange compliments.
Essentially, the eye makeup look she did on me was not dramatic at all, it was actually quite subtle. Considering the fact that I was going to be in a pitch dark room for the entire evening, and also that I just flat out did not want subtle, I found this to be extremely disappointing.
I did ask her to please refer to the pictures that I had provided and give me more of what I was asking for. What she did was just go over the makeup one more time, and it did not change a thing. Eventually I had to stop asking for what I wanted because I could feel myself becoming upset, and I did not want to snap and be rude, or start crying. So I let it go to the extent that I could.
In one of my emails, I asked if I should bring my own lipstick, or if I could buy one there, so I'd be able to touch up my lips over the course of the evening, and her response was, that they would take care of it. They did not take care of it. As I was leaving, I was fighting back tears of disappointment, and the artist could tell I was not happy. So she gave me a free lip gloss, in a neutral nude color that essentially matched my lips pretty exactly, as a freebie. This was not an acceptable option for doing touch ups in a dark room for hours, but I thanked her and left.
On top of this, the foundation and powder were very visible on the surface of my skin, and in several areas of my face gave me a very "crepy" appearance.
At the gala, I wound up being grateful for that pitch dark room, because as the evening wore on, the already problematic foundation and powder application began to crack. When I went to the ladies room and saw it in the light, the foundation looked almost like "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" It was very traumatizing for me.
This makeup application cost me $180 before the tip. I have a good job, but ny anybody's standards, that is a sh*t-ton of money for a makeup application. I tipped 15% on top of that, which may seem gauche, but I was not only extremely disappointed in the work she did, but I was also disappointed in the fact that as a customer, my wishes were not taken into consideration at all. I pointed out that it did not look like any of the photographs I had provided, and I said, "I really wanted a darker eye," but she just did not give me what I wanted, and did not provide me with a reasonable explanation as to why she could not. If she thought that the dramatic look I was asking for would just not look good on me, part of her job as a service provider is to be honest with me and find a tactful way to tell me that. So I have to think that maybe this particular artist was not skilled enough to give me what I was asking for.
Over $200 later, and I was not happy with one aspect of the way that makeup looked on such an important night - my experience with Eve Pearl was traumatic. I would not have batted an eyelash (no pun intended) about the cost if I had walked out of there feeling beautiful, or at least pretty. Instead I felt like a pale chump. In an attempt to say one positive thing - the shop was very clean. read more
