Bridal and editorial makeup

Nadine Fortuin — a studio in Harfield Village, and a bag that travels to the venue.

Nadine Fortuin

I did my media-makeup diploma in Cape Town in 2013 and spent the four years after it assisting on catalogue shoots — long days, hot lights, and faces that had to hold from seven in the morning to the last frame. That is where I learned to work fast without it looking rushed. Kwas has been my own studio since 2018: one room above a framer's shop in Harfield Village, north-facing window, a proper chair and a kettle. Trials happen here. Wedding mornings almost never do — I come to you. Travel inside Cape Town is included. Most Saturdays from October to March I am somewhere in the Winelands, usually Stellenbosch, Franschhoek or Paarl, and I also work the Overberg, the West Coast as far as Paternoster, and the Garden Route when it is a two-night booking.

What it costs

Skin prep and lashes are in the price. Travel inside Cape Town is included; beyond it I charge R5 a kilometre both ways and put the figure in the quote before any deposit.

Bridal, on the day

R2 950

At your venue from first light. Skin prep, makeup, lashes, and a touch-up tin you keep.

Trial, at the studio

R850

Ninety minutes in Harfield Village. Two looks, both photographed in daylight. Decide later.

Bridal party

R650 per face

Mothers, sisters, bridesmaids, booked as one block on the morning. Forty minutes a face.

Everything else

R750 per face

Matric dances, engagements, portraits. Editorial day rates on request — send the call sheet.

A November morning at Boschendal — 05:40 to 09:15, five faces, one plug point. Filmed by Anele Mbatha.

Afterwards

She was there at ten to six, made my mother coffee, and had five of us done by half past nine. I cried twice and none of it moved.

Michaela Steyn · Married at Vrede en Lust, March

I sweat when I am nervous. My matric dance photographs say otherwise.

Lisakhanya Mpofu · Matric dance, Rondebosch

Nine hours in the Atlantis wind and fourteen looks that still matched at the end of it. She never once held up the camera.

Rowan de Villiers · Photographer, catalogue shoot

The trial alone is worth the R850. I walked in with a Pinterest board and walked out with my own face.

Zintle Mahlangu · Married at Nooitgedacht, December

Send me the date and the venue

If the day is free I will say so before the evening. If it is not, I will send you two artists I trust.