It all started when I was 5 years old, in a not so sunny summer day. I was playing in my grand-grandmother’s house when I found this piece of thick paper, a cut off from some magazine. She was keeping it on top of an old radio, to protect her precious broadcasting machine from dust. From this faded piece of cardboard, a beautiful, blue-eyed and dark-haired woman was looking at me.

Jean-Shrimpton-Makeup- for-Vogue

Jean Shrimpton for Vogue in 1963 shot by Bert Stern

She was wearing a twiggy make-up (unfamiliar to a 5 years girl) and her doe-eyes (oh! her eyes) were so gorgeously contoured with liner, silky taupe in the crease and tons of mascara on both up and bottom lashes. I stared at the picture for a couple of minutes and wisely put it back on the radio, as a valuable thing that it was.

One can love it, hate it or…manipulate it!

Only years later that I have come to realize the value of that memory and the profound impression it made on me. Make-up is a tool and it should be treated as such!


Kevin Kline and Michelle Pfeiffer in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (1999)

It can transform a regular person into a donkey or a monster (theatre makeup), it can hide your vitiligo or your acne, it can make your nose look smaller (corrective makeup), it can transform a man into a woman and vice-versa, it can bring youth into your complexion, it makes you look more “constructed” and empowers you (beauty make-up). One can love it, hate it or…manipulate it!

Who am I?

My complete name is Sanda-Maria Sava-Alexe, and I’m a certified make-up artist. I am specialized in Beauty Make-up (Fancy Cosmetics School, 2010, Bucharest) and Fashion, Photo and TV Make-up (Académie de maquillage Annick Cayot, 2015-2016, Brussels).

I’m Romanian but I live in Brussels since 2014. I’m always curious, crazy honest, expansive, an idealist, a dreamer (but with a good sense of reality) and a perfectionist. I admire open-hearted people, passionate about what they do, with humor and without prejudices, those are able to love and respect everything that surrounds them. What I’m grateful for in the world? Freedom! And I had never taken my freedom for granted.

Looking for a make-up artist for editorials, events, fashion shows, film, theater, TV? Then let’s meet and talk over a coffee!