Earlier this Spring, we were inspired by Dove’s newest video as part of their campaign for real beauty. It showed how hard it is for women to see, express and embrace their beauty; we saw an opportunity to give at least one woman the chance to celebrate her beauty!

We ran a contest and asked women to tell us what makes them feel beautiful. We got some fantastic responses from, “the wind blown hair, and rosy cheeks from playing outside with my little girl” to “putting on makeup, a dress and heels.”

By random draw, we chose Kirston to win a makeup application and lesson and a photo shoot from the gilded lily, and we were so excited to be able to give this to such a deserving person! Kirston is a busy mom (with another one on the way in less than a month!) and  she runs a home daycare, so she doesn’t get a whole lot of time to focus just on herself.

Here are some of our favourite photos from the day!

Makeup artistry by Kate McIntosh, Photos by Crystal Mackay

Congratulations Kirston!

We were recently inspired by Dove’s newest video showing how differently we view our own beauty than those around us do.   We thought because our namesake means to unnecessarily adorn something already beautiful, and because we firmly believe that every woman should embrace her own beauty (and even shout from the roof tops about it!), we wanted to give you the chance to do just that!

We will be randomly drawing for the opportunity to have  a professional makeup lesson  and application focusing on highlighting your natural beauty and then a half an hour photo shoot to show off your gorgeous self!

All you have to do to enter is “like” the gilded lily on facebook and leave a note on our wall telling us what makes you feel beautiful.

Contest Closes May 12, 2013 so head on over there. . . right now!