Piper Nuelle

Once upon a time I had a real hankering for makeup, I had very, very low self-esteem and wanted for no better phrase of words ‘To look more beautiful’. I had done a Makeup Artist course just before the dreaded ‘Lockdown’ hit of Covid 19, and before the whole world came to a stop, I was invited to a launch event for ‘Milk Makeup’.

It took place up in London, not too far from Covent Garden, I had a ‘Makeup Blog’ and Youtube channel at the time and was invited with two free tickets to go to their ‘Pop up shop’, that was a pre-release before it landed in stores across the UK. I was so excited and decided to take my lovely Nanna with me. She had always been a wearer of makeup and was actually where my morning routine and mantra of never leaving the house without my face on came from. She always took care of herself and always had a fresh face for the day ahead of her and me being me, wanted to be just like her.

I remember us taking the train, I remember it so well because the train broke down on the way and we had to wait for another train to come and rescue us, which delayed us a little and did make us ten minutes late for the grand opening. Plus, when we arrived in London and had to use the tube, me and my nan didn’t want to use the lift to go up to the station because there were so many people. So instead, we nearly died walking up so many goddamn stairs!!! My nanna was in her 70’s at the time too!!!

When we arrived the line luckily had already gone in, so being late and nearly dying on the Covent Garden staircase from the Tube station had gone in our favour, we were able to just show our tickets and waltz right on in. I remember us being gifted a goody bag each with some makeup products inside, but then there was also a chance to buy some more. The room that housed the event itself looked like an old brick come factory set up, but with modern adaptions. There were huge tunnel like tubes that housed loads of the products, where you grabbed one and a gravity fed tube meant another one would fall in its place right after.

I remember buying some gorgeous products for my skin. Milk is known for its more ‘Dewy’ and skin loving makeup style, and one of my favourites was a Watermelon themed product.

Which panned out very nicely with my love of playing with objects for some photographs. Mix up the Watermelon face mask product and the red blush product with chopped up real Watermelon and a backlight and I was all set.

One cool aspect of the event was not just the photo opportunities with the cool backdrop and lit up ‘KUSH’ lettering for one of the products, but the wall hidden at the back with also sticker tattoo like designs on one wall and then a place where we could draw and write our names or a word we felt was right for the occasion.

I bet you are wondering how this post actually ties into writing, because obviously my blog is mainly a writing / author based blog and not a makeup blog… Well… In the photo above, is myself and another lady… She is a writer that I got to meet at the Milk Makeup Launch. She is Lottie Winter and is currently the beauty director for Marie Claire, but she used to write for Glamour UK Magazine, which was a magazine I used to love collecting and reading back in my makeup days. For a long time I wished my ‘Makeup’ journey had led to writing in a magazine of sorts… Especially as I loved writing and makeup, but my path didn’t go that way, no, no, I decided to take the author approach. And, although I haven’t done anything makeup related in my book/s thus far, I do have the knowledge of that niche, so I could essentially write a character for a story that knows the writing and makeup realm… so… Possibilities and ideas, you know. But it was so inspiring to meet a writer who got to write about makeup and beauty.

I remember at the event and seeing this colourful wall of Milk Makeup and feeling so happy, inspired and like my life was changing. Being invited to an event when you are an unknown person is amazing and weird. Obviously not too long after, I think about a year or so later the world was closed off, Covid 19 had ransacked the world and had caused chaos. It also meant that my dream of any form of makeup career took a back seat, and I eventually fell back into writing. But I think things happen for a reason, I was meant to experience these random things in my life, so if I needed to I could use them to my writing advantage.

I will always be grateful too for being invited to this event and being able to take my Nanna with me. It’s just such a nice memory to hold of me and her, being gals and tearing up the streets of London and going to makeup events. I will always treasure these moments.

Hope you enjoyed my throwback blog post. I guess these are just memories I don’t want to forget. And it’s nice to remember them and maybe be able to use them one day in my writing.

Take care, xo Piper xo