Tag going gray | UniqueMonique

June 28, 2016 by Monique Parent

Playing Dress Up on YouTube and Earning A Living As An Artist

I decided to make a living as an artist. We all have to have day jobs though and I decided to try to make YouTube my day job. I had the wonderful benefit of Unemployment Insurance to cover my expenses while I learned to shoot and edit my own videos. I quickly discovered that having a good youtube channel is just not enough to gain attention, so used help from The Marketing Heaven to build a following. Being a youtuber is so much more than a job though! Making these videos showing all I have learned in my 25 years in the movie business has been so emotional

how to earn money on youtube and cathartic for me! But the question remains, can I earn a living from it? I don’t know the answer to that yet. This is my first month with no safety net. This is why I paired my overhead down as low as I can – so that I can make it through these lean times. SHAMELESS PLUG SINCE IT’S THE END OF THE MONTH: See that little “i” in the upper right hand corner? I have Fan Funding enabled. If you like my videos and the message of positivity I am trying to spread to women my age, you can contribute! One dollar once a month…..Thank you!!!!!

April 25, 2016 by Monique Parent

The Hottest Trend Right Now

The absolute hottest, most on-trend thing you can be right now is… yourself.

unique |yo͞oˈnēk| adjective – being the only one of its kind; unlike anything else

Week number three of my RutBusting and I started out strong! The beautiful spring weather had me all excited to bust out those pretty, girly spring looks – I’ve been pairing Keds with dresses my whole life and it’s exciting for me that a look I have always done is in right now! Talk about the mountain coming to Mohammed…..

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April 8, 2016 by Monique Parent

Body Positivity, Aging Gracefully, and Making Changes

Getting Naked, Going Gray, and How To Get Out of a Rut

I recently did an fun interview with comedian Jason Hadley. I was super pleased with the interview because it was a spur of the moment thing so Jason didn’t have time to do research on me. Inevitably, when I have some sort of an interview, the interviewer does research, discovers that I did nudity 20 years ago and that’s all we talk about for the entire interview. And it gets really boring for me. I’ve been having the same conversation for two decades. Yes, I am comfortable with my body. I am so comfortable with my body, so accepting of what is, flaws and all – that I am willing to appear nude on film while performing as an actor. But I like to think that’s not the most interesting thing about me. I like to think I offer the world a whole lot more than just the fact that I’m comfortable with my body. We all have bodies. It’s our minds and hearts that make us interesting.

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March 21, 2016 by Monique Parent

Actor’s Tricks of the Trade – Wigs!

ilmasita pelitActor’s Tricks of the Trade – Wigs! I’ve worn wigs, extensions and hairpieces in many of my movies. I was a dark brunette – almost black (bad color for me, too extreme for everyday) in 1994 and the director of Sunset After Dark wanted me to be a platinum blonde. There was no way I could do that and keep hair on my head so we wigged me up. We bleached the section of hair that went over the wig to camouflage the edge and the bangs took care of the rest. (Wigs with bangs always “sell” the look the best. But simply combing over the seam with some natural hair can really help sell it.) I was shooting The Perfect Gift simultaneously and sporting an odd look of black hair with a bleached out stripe that I would just do so much better now and it haunts me to this day. Now you know why.

Here are a few of my favorite wigs:

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March 18, 2016 by Monique Parent

My First Day as a Model for Keranique Hair

-My First Day as a Model for Keranique Hair. I’ve worked as an actress for 25 years but I’ve never really worked as a model. Oh sure, I have gotten together with friends and cameras and played dress-up for years, it’s one of my favorite ways to keep creative in between gigs. I didn’t start booking professional modeling jobs until after I turned 50 and allowed my hair to go gray!

Yesterday, I got to work as a hair model for Keranique Hair. Specifically, the senior model… Gulp. Still getting used to that. I was lucky enough to get someone to shoot behind-the-scenes footage on my cell phone (The autofocus went too little crazy, sorry about that). You can definitely tell I’m a little uncomfortable right at the beginning of the shoot but eventually I found my rhythm! I’m accustomed, as an actor, to having a script in advance to memorize, rehearse, create – when I walk onto a movie set, I usually know what I am doing that day! Models are not hired for their brains and are told what they need to do on a “need to know” basis 😉

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March 14, 2016 by Monique Parent

Crimson Vixen to Silver Fox: Going Gray

It’s been a long time since I’ve had a post for you and I apologize for that. Life has been full of a lot of interesting changes! I just turned 50 which is (yikes!) a huge milestone. I made the decision to move back to California and follow my dream of being an actress. Hollywood is not known for being kind to 50-year-old women and I moved back to LA to pursue an acting career at an age when most women run screaming from it. Along that vein, I decided to embrace my age and not fight it. Most of the women that I know who are 50 years old are trying very hard to look 35. But if a movie or a TV commercial wants a 35-year-old there are plenty of real 35-year-olds so I decided to stop trying to look younger and to embrace my age. There is a shortage of 50 year old women who look 50 years old. Crimson Vixen to Silver Fox. Going gray is a business decision. I think it will lead to more work and that’s what I made the move for. To do the work that I love!

Photo by Jeffrey Byron

Society takes it’s cues from what is seen on our TV screens and movie screens. When the only gray hair seen on TV is on senior citizens, we automatically view gray hair as “old”. The only way to change that is to get people on TV and into movies that are young and vibrant with gray hair. That’s what I am here to do. I’m here to represent. Hopefully, to implement a change in how society views those of us with sexy, silver locks!

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