18 year old student Ruby from East Surrey College is studying L3 Hair and Media Makeup and was runner up in the L3 Media Makeup competition. Ruby was motivated to enter by a strong desire to challenge herself beyond her usual programme requirements and gain exposure to industry-level standards. She was keen to showcase her talent, build confidence, and take advantage of an opportunity to represent her course and college in a competitive environment. She was keen to develop both technical and transferable skills through the experience including:
- Advanced practical and creative techniques
- Time management and the ability to work under pressure
- Professionalism and attention to detail
Through participating, Ruby felt she developed her technical skills in alignment to industry practice including improving precision, speed, and creativity within her specialist area. She felt she gained experience in adapting her work to meet competition briefs and judging criteria, strengthening their ability to produce commercially viable and professional outcomes.
Ruby felt that participation provided a valuable insight into real-world industry expectations and exposure to judging criteria, feedback, and benchmarking against peers helped her recognise industry standards and identify areas for further development to support their future employability.
Ruby said, “I had a lot of fun competing and showing my skills. I liked seeing the variety of makeup looks and characters everyone else in the competition chose and how different they all were from each other. I chose to inspire my makeup look off of Emily from Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride as I love the gothic aesthetic. I handmade a costume and wig, and applied prosthetics to the face during the makeup look.”
The competition tasks built on curriculum content by providing an opportunity to apply core knowledge and skills in a more demanding, performance-based context. Activities mirrored key learning outcomes within the programme but required a higher level of precision, creativity, and independence. This ensured Ruby could transfer classroom learning into a realistic, high-standard environment aligned with assessment and industry expectations.
