Not long ago, on our way home from a night out in NYC, my boyfriend and I found a wallet in the backseat of a cab. 

Nearly 10 years ago, I lost my own wallet in the back of a cab (at the end of a very fun night that turned not-so-fun with the realization that my wallet was gone). A few weeks later, though, my wallet – completely intact, not a thing missing – was sent to me. I wouldn’t say it restored my faith in humanity. But it was pretty awesome. And it stuck with me.

So back to a month or so ago (I know I know, all this time travel) and I found my self in the position to do the same.

We sent the wallet to the address on Shayn’s license after first trying to message her on Facebook (she apparently doesn’t talk to strangers… good girl!).

My boyfriend shipped it out from work with no return address.

Apparently his office mailing room stamps everything anyway because a few days later his company got a very thoughtful hand-written note addressed to Dear Kind Stranger with an offer to take said kind stranger to lunch or coffee to say thank you in person. Shayn also gave us her email address and we wrote back basically saying no thanks needed, pay it forward, blah blah. But we did mention we tried to contact her via The Book. A little bit of correspondance later, and we soon become FB friends. And then I’m looking at her profile picture and thinking to myself how lately I’ve really wanted to showcase a broader range of skin tones, eye colors, eye shapes, hair color, etc for the blog and she could be a great makeup model… (just envision wheels turning in my mind)… 

So I ask her if she’d like to come over for a lesson and a makeover. Turns out she’s interning in the city all sorts of crazy finance hours and doesn’t wear much makeup and doesn’t really know how to properly apply it but is definitely interested. So we make a weekend date and THAT, my friends, is the very long setup for this amazing transformation…

Talk about beauty potential!!! Shayn came over barefaced and wanted to learn how to add dimension to her face and her eyes. So I gave her a highlighting and contouring tutorial to start so she could see how using dark and light products could create depth and shadow in a subtle way (making the face less “flat”, as per her request).

This alone wowed her so I knew she was in for an afternoon of finding it hard to not check herself out in mirrors and reflective surfaces everywhere once we were done.

Next we played with Shayn’s eyes… I showed her two different ways to create depth without a prominent crease.

The left side (above) uses the browbone as the guide for placement — so rather than seeing a crease and placing the darkest shade there, feeling with a finger over the lid where the eyeball stops and the browbone begins and using that as the guide. The right side (above) uses graduated color around the eye — so the darker shade closest to the lashline and then the middle tone and then lightest tone, all softly blended into one another.

Shayn picked her favorite of the two and I finished the look by matching (and intensifying) her eyes, adding mascara, and swiping on a creamy coat of nude lipstick. Shayn had also never done a “nude lip” – you can imagine my shock!! – so we had to throw that into the mix. And viola!

A diva is born ;)

And from Shayn’s own lacquered lips…

“I met Lauren through losing my wallet in the back of a Manhattan cab. She found it, mailed it to me, and on top of that invited me into her home/studio where she showed me what a truly beautiful person she is inside AND out. With great patience and passion, she taught me how to contour my face and add dimension to my Asian eyes. She didn’t just give me a new look: she taught me how to bring out my features and use colors to display my personality using make up. In addition, with her great taste and talent as can be seen in her blogposts, it’s easy to want to mimic her style and techniques, but after knowing her as a person I have found that her greatest asset is that she uses her blog posts to inspire you so that you strive to be beautiful in your own way and to be your own unique best. That is a mark of a true artist, and I’m so happy to have met Lauren! I’m her fan for life.”

Awwww!!!!!!!!!

XOLC