HOOKER TO LOOKER BY JENTRY KELLEY

Hooker to looker is a "makeup guide for the not so easily offended" by Makeup artist Jentry Kelley. I stumbled on this book while watching this video by the lovely Dominique Sachse (which I highly recommend watching as well) and had to have it! It sounded just like something I would enjoy. So, from hooker to looker? Let´s check it out, shall we?

And I absolutely loved the cover! Not only brings it the title to life- but also to see Jentry's real face. Yes, we can see Jentry's skin! I am so over the crazy filters everybody is using these days! Nobody seems to have skin and pores and wrinkles anymore. This is not right. 

Jentry shows her "hooker side" (obviously) on the left and the "looker side" on the right. While the hooker side shows an impeccable makeup application technique- it seems so unreal and just too much- but this is exactly how our millenniums these days seem to apply makeup. Much of it is really coming from the drag-queen scene. Each to their own and whatever pleases you- but in bare day light, this comes off as too much for sure. I agree very much on Jentry and keep it with the "looker side" (at least that is what I am aiming for) instead! ;-) 

But maybe I am also just too old to walk around like a hooker (though I remember wearing too much makeup for sure in my teenage years). It´s probably cause in our younger years we don´t have enough confidence?

Instagram is full of photoshopped girls and yes- even our Beauty Gurus on YouTube use filters, like Wayne Goss demonstrated brilliantly in this video:

Who to trust still these days?  Jentry Kelley that is!

So I ordered my own copy of this makeup guide that starts off with a little life story of Jentry. And a true and honest story that is! Jentry started with 18 to work at a Clinique´s counter, later she freelanced at Mac, she also worked at the Bobbi Brown counter- all the while studying at college. 5 years later she graduated with a Bachelors degree in Business Management- so Jentry is a true business women: not only does she know how to apply makeup, but she also understands the business side of it. No wonder that her business plan: becoming a makeup artist including selling her own makeup line succeeded.

With pure honesty and self humor she describes, how at one point she realized, that her face was "lily white like a porcelain doll" but her body "was the color of a Brazilian beach babe" (picture below on the left). She never claimed to "know it all", but to be in a constant learning phase- she seems so down- to earth and so approachable to me! 

I watched all of her Youtube videos which I can highly recommend - even though they are a couple years old- the techniques are still all very up to date- no! no drag queen looks here. And that is just exactly what I adore on Jentry: nothing fake and she knows just simply how to enhance your face! 

The book contains also a bit of self advertisement for her own skin care and makeup line- but which smart business women would not do that, right? Anyhow: I found the tutorials definitely were missing more pictures to show the makeup application techniques she is talking about. A makeup tutorial just in words? That is just not good. 

The part I was most excited for when buying the book, was the one for "the not so easily offended" and I felt it fell a bit short- much more at the very end of the book, I got what I actually was out for: the witty, humorous side of Jentry (p. 105-113). 

I was really hoping to get much more of this kind of language. The title "a makeup guide for the not so easily offended" sounded for me more of a "fun book" than of an actual guide. But I couldn´t agree more on her opinion about "extreme contouring": please stay away cause that is just aging! Baking and extreme highlighting is in her opinion for drag queens- which I also highly agree. The problem is that it might look great on YouTube and Instagram, but in real life this ain´t flattering at all (at least not if you have fine lines and pores- or let´s say if you are above 25 lol!)

I love how she makes fun out of new trends such as grey ashy lips or even frosted lips or overly tweezed brows (which thank god is actually more of an "older trend" I think)! I am guilty myself of over tweezing- happened many times and then I need forever to grow them back (I have a tutorial here) - but right she is! And the "quotation or comma brow" just made me smile, as I have seen it too many times (don´t know what I am talking about? Scroll down this post and see the last photo!) 

This part of the book is finished off by an amusing, but very true list of "Top 20 items to toss out of your makeup bag". I am currently in an active decluttering and de-stashing phase, I feel like it feels so freeing to toss stuff I am an not using and this list definitely helps!

Jentry also notices in the book that your pencil sharpener (the blade) has got to be "Made in Germany". So true and I wrote about this also a year ago. Yes, best blades are simply from Germany (the same one Urban Decay uses). (I am so un-biased as a German lad lmao).

I disagree on her take on washing makeup brushes once a month- but maybe I am overly OCD. My personal take is once a week! ;-) 

OVERALL VERDICT:

This is a short entertaining read and great coffee table book- I especially liked Chapter 1 "How it all began" where she tells her life story and Chapter 11 "What not to do". 

If you are a complete makeup beginner and have no clue of skin care, this book might also be insightful for you, however as mentioned earlier: the tutorials are lacking in descriptive photos. Someone that has a bunch experience with makeup will  not really profit from the tutorials.

Hooker to Looker by Jentry Kelley, available on Amazon ($39.99)

I bought this. Contains Affiliate link. Read my full disclosure.