I bought Illamasqua's Dixie cream blush from Selfridges. I was debating between that and Rude, and my mama decided that Dixie looks more natural on my skin.
I personally prefer cream blushes to powder. I have a harder time blending in powder to achieve a natural look (it seems to sit on my skin more), and cream blushes are more convenient to carry around with me since I don't need a brush.
Dixie is supposed to be a peachy-pink but looks much more pink on me. My skin seems to suck the warm tones out of colours.
The texture is a lot wetter and more slippery to apply than Nars cream blushes. Nars' is definitely less oily but Illamasqua's is sheerer and easier to blend due to its texture. I find that Nars lasts longer on my skin. I dislike the texture of MAC blushcremes which are hard yet kind of greasy, so Illamasqua outshines MAC.
The prices for MAC and Illamasqua cream blushes here are the same at £16, but for 6g vs 4g. Nars is also cheaper than Illamasqua at £18 for 5.5g.
MAC and Nars cream blushes are both cheaper than Illamasqua, at £16 for 6g and £18g for 5.5g, vs £16 for 4g. I like both, but prefer the drier texture of a Nars cream blush myself. I'd say it's a matter of personal preference.
I know about this from a twitter post by James McMurtry. He sings country songs and is really rather good but not that popular it seems. He does gigs in London from time to time, I meant to see him the last time he was here but haven't yet.
To celebrate this rediscovery of Jewel I'm doing a Jewel-inspired FOTD.
It's a bit much so I toned it down. I also don't have bright pink blush or that lipstick - I'm a bit afraid of bright colours, this makeup blog thing is kinda helping me with that.
What I used:
Eyes: Rimmel eyeliner and Benefit Bad Gal Lash, MAC Waternymph eyeshadow, the purple colour from the Sleek Originals palette, Bourjois Ombre Stretch in Violet Profond. Cheeks: MAC X-Rocks Lips: MAC Craving lipstick
I've been doing my dissertation etc. etc. and now I'm finally done with university and graduating on the 30th with an MSc in Pharmacognosy. Yes I chose a relatively specific and obscure course ("Sounds like alchemy," someone said to me) but I have an undergrad degree in biology and my dissertation project was on natural antimicrobials, so I hope I have a good chance of getting a job. So far I've applied to a microbiologist job and a job testing pee for drugs, I have a somewhat good feeling about the pee job. I feel that testing pee for drugs is within the range of my skillz.
Anyway. I did watch the final episode of True Blood but because of all the above dissertation etc. I haven't made any screencaps yet. The ending felt a bit anticlimactic, I'm not all thrilled and eagerly anticipating the next season like I did with Supernatural and Bones (Supernatural and Bones!) but it was alright. I did try to do a lipstick look like in the True Blood poster though, but failed desperately.
I have huge fucking teeth yall.
I used a Jordana lipliner in Silver Lilac but everything still bled desperately, I think I really do need a decent quality red lip liner. Like I'll pick up a Barry M one or something.
Looking at that picture, there's obviously a darker liner around the mouth. I tried to do that with an Urban Decay pleather pencil in Rubber, and put gloss over the top. I recommend a squeezy gloss or to put it on your fingers first. That red rubs off on the applicator. You can also see the pink 'the inside of my lips' bit on my bottom lip - I'm sure I'm not the only one with this problem. It's just a different type of cell or something I'm not quite sure, but it's wet and lipstick doesn't stick to it. And it's on the inside but it shows when you talk or open your mouth.
I used Urban Decay Pleather Pencil in Rubber as a base and as a kind of liner. This is old school stuff. You can probably find it on Ebay still or discount cosmetics outlets but I wouldn't bother. The main draw is that it's like a huge pencil and theoretically you could line your lips with it and colour them in, but it's slippery - I'd say more slippery than MAC Frost formula lipsticks so it slides everywhere. I used to be into gothness and, by association, pleather and Urban Decay (though they seem to have a way more cheerful and girly image now), so I still keep them around.
MAC Red lipstick over that. This is a new acquisition. I love this lipstick. It's less orange than Barry M Fire Engine Red but applies more of a true red on me than the other red lipsticks I have. It's also the first Satin formula lipstick I have, I've only tried Frost and Amplified finishes, and this feels 'wetter' than both of them.
I've compared it to the Prestige Velvet lipstick because I seem to have lost my So Scarlet lipstick. The last time I used it was when I went to a concert. I know I brought it back so it must be somewhere in the room, maybe under the bed or in a bag or something.
The gloss I used is something I bought when I went to Tokyo for my honeymoon. It's called 'Curvy Lip Silicone' and is made by Sony CP. I thought Sony made TVs and shit, but it seems in Japan they make makeup as well. There are a few colours available but I chose the clear one as the most versatile. It goes on shiny but feels really really sticky, stickier than Juicy Tubes.
This is one of my most treasured makeuppy things, because it is from Japan and applies with a LITTLE SPATULA! I'm a sucker for gimmicks.
I still have a few ideas about that True Blood red vampire poster opening sequence lipstick though. I possibly need a more burgundy/blood red colour, which I don't possess. Everything I have seems to be much darker or much pinker. I'll give it a go again.
One of my favourite makeuppy things is my MAC Rock It! palette. It's the prom palette from I think 2004, and is mostly pink glitter. I used it today, and I'm going to use it again tomorrow since I'm going on a sort of 'date' with my husband. I'd say this is a really sweet palette for a date, for prom (like it was meant for), or for raving/clubbing, or for school. I remember really really wanting it when i was 19 but didn't want to pay full retail price for it. I forgot all about it until I saw it on livejournal recently for much cheaper so I was like, yeah, that's cool, I want that. I still wouldn't pay full retail price for it even though I love it to bits, it's one of those things that's just all lovely and girly, kind of like My Little Pony and tutus and rainbows, but it's seriously more My First Makeup Kit than other palettes you could get for a comparable price.
Pink glitter case!
That said the shades are rather lovely. The glitter cream (Rock It) is apparently comparable to the Playmate Pink glitter cream. The pink shows up on me as a highlighty kind of sheen but the glitter is large. This is like rave glitter, people. Personally I don't think it's similar to a cream colour base, it's much much drier but in a way that's good since I find the ccbs pretty oily. I use it on my cheekbones though I don't advise it for your day job, but I've also used it on my eyelids without going blind and, y'know, it just shows up as chunky glitter. It reminds me of a stack of glitter creams I got when I was 18. They were like cheap drugstore schoolgirl makeup but were similar, except they were a bit creamier. Those were awesome.
The last gloss (Up The Beat) is pretty much just sheer on me though it looks peachish in the pan, but the first and second are rather good. The first is a cute shimmery baby pink (Pretty Fab), and the second is a light berry pink (Berry Rush). They're all pretty but standard glosses.
Today I used Pretty Fab, the glitter cream on my cheekbones and eyelids, and Stila All Over Shimmer liquid in #6, Barry M Candy dazzle dust (#58), MAC Beauty Marked, MAC Boot Black liquid eyeliner, and my new mascara for September, Benefit Bad Gal Lash on eyes.
I'm not sure if you can see the glitter on my cheeks. I think you can.
I wanted a light pink eyeshadow and at first wanted Ice Pink or Pale Pink dazzle dusts, but when I tried them on in the shop they showed up too white on me. Candy is a really good light pink for darker skintones. I haven't got another pink like it but it looks like it should be a fairly common shade. I'm extremely fond of it.
Yeah I do owe you all some True Blood screencaps. The True Blood makeup has just been so boring until the latest episode.
I swear that girl gets more and more like Dita Von Teese every time I see her.
It looks like she's got some blue-ish silvery eyeshadow on (Urban Decay Strip is very good) but I might just be making that shit up, and this fancy powder compact. I don't have a nice powder compact like that and have no clue what it is. YSL? It's a little gold box.
Nah I don't think it's that, but, y'know, it's pretty fancy all the same. Now I have perspective enough to know I don't need it since I'm not really into the whole powder thing and I've already got a powder, but, y'know. If I were the Queen of Louisiana I'd buy that shit. It's got a heart in it! Aww.
Now the obvious: retro-red lips. Yeah there'll be a MAC lipstick you can wear that'll look like that, MAC Red, Ruby Woo, or something, but red is a pretty common colour and I'm sure you'll be able to find an equivalent shade fairly easily. I've used one from Revlon to good effect, it just made me look like a transvestite hooker. This shade of red just ain't for me. Everyone's got a shade of red they think they look the hottest in, but if you're looking for a red like Sophie-Ann's don't get So Scarlet.
Of course I had to put on a red lipstick after the episode and I put on some So Scarlet - it's the red I've committed myself to and it's a kickin' red, but it's nothing like that. It's nothing like Hadley's red lipstick neither (see below). It's way pinker and more cool-toned. It's LE as well, but if you want it you shouldn't be like trawling the internet looking for it. I swatched my red lipsticks and found that my cheap li'l Prestige lipstick is extremely similar to So Scarlet. Prestige lipsticks are alright as well. I find the MAC creamier but So Scarlet is the Amplified formula. I'd say Prestige is just a bit drier than that, and I much prefer the Prestige lipstick over Barry M, which I find a bit powdery. I know Barry M is pretty popular but they don't have a great range of lipstick colours, and no lipstick should feel kind of dry and powdery. The Prestige lipstick colour is a bit sheerer and a tiny bit pinkier than So Scarlet, but when you layer it on your lips they look extremely similar. Hell, they look extremely similar in the tube.
That being said I still have both. I use the MAC for specialer events, like going somewhere kind of posh or a birthday. I guess I'm just attracted to the same colours, over and over again.
Hadley has a warmer brickier shade of red on. It reminds me of an old lipstick I had. It was Nars Spanish Red and was a wonderful self-treat that was way beyond my student budget, until it melted in my drawer into a pool of expensive wax and carmine. Alas. That lipstick was the bomb, I'll get it again when I'm making a good taxable salary. Employ me! Yes.
Nobody else had very noteworthy makeup, except Hoyt's Mama:
she's matched her lips to her earrings to her clothes,
and has gone and glued scary dead spiders on her eyes,
and the Fangtasia White Trash Daytime Guard lady,
who I swear to God is using MAC's Bare Truth lipglass,
but I'll run through their faces anyway from episodes 9 and 10 in a brief montage. They're pretty much all wearing what they've all been wearing most of the season.
Apparently there are only one or two more episodes until the end of the season? Bizarre happenings have occurred in Bon Temps that weren't in the books. Alan Ball has taken the characters and now they inhabit a strange, sexual, Spanish-Moss-draped world with liberal definitions of maenads.
It's a really hot day. I've been listening to the blues. The blues sound better when it's hot.
I did a pastel eye look today. Pastel is also good for hot days.
Not blended very well I'm afraid, but there you go.
I used MAC X-Rocks blush here. It's a shimmery mauve and is exceedingly pretty, except for the neon orange case. I tried to swatch it but it didn't show up well on camera.
Here's what one layer looks like on my skin. Subtle, yet shimmery and all kinds of wonderful. I don't use MAC foundation so don't know what shadeI am, now it's summer I'm guessing I'm NC45 or something, but if you're a brown girl around my colour, X-Rocks is definitely for you.
I also used MAC C-Thru lipglass. My husband says he likes my lipstick, it's very shiny. I've read some forum posts about how it might be too pale on darker skin, you need to use a lip liner, etc. etc. I do no such thing. It's lipgloss, it ain't that complicated. I just put it on The only thing is you have to remember to keep it sheer. Too much will look like - let's be honest and adult here - cum. I think that's the point of it. Anyhow,
The unpopular makeup I'm using is The Body Shop Shimmer Buds eyeshadow duo in Peach Blossom and Blue Iris from their Spring 2008 collection. It's a light peach and pastel blue duo with pictures of flowers embossed. I got it on sale. I also have the grey and green one.
For a highlight I used Bourjois Ombre Stretch eyeshadow in Maxi Blanc. It's not that popular either but it's good for a base and highlight. It's a yellowish white so it's not stark white against your skin. It's not chalky (see picture below). I have a few of these Ombre Stretches from when I interned at the magazine, and they all come in a case with a good-sized mirror and a soft, very useful eyeshadow brush.
LTR: Bourjois Maxi Blanc, The Body Shop Peach Blossom and Blue Iris.
I wouldn't buy it at RRP, or go out of my way to get one, but it's kind of nice now I've got it. It looks like a copper and pastel blue in the case but it goes on a much lighter shimmery blue and peach, as the names suggest. The blue is a very powdery blue, and while it looks fairly pretty and chilled on me it would probably look better on someone much fairer.
I've read terrible reviews of this eyeshadow and I can't say that I understand them. I concede that the texture is kind of odd, when you touch it it feels a bit strange and hard but the colour picks up easily and applies smoothly. I don't understand complaints that these aren't pigmented. Those swatches on my arm are one layer of eyeshadow and I'm brown. I can see that the colours are a peach and a light blue without packing it on. I can use it as a sheer wash on my eyelid, as I do today. Sure, it doesn't scream I AM PEACH! at you but that's kind of the point of it. It's a soft girly eyeshadow, I mean, hell, it's even got these little flowers embossed in it. It's more of a picnic eyeshadow, like something you'd wear with gingham and white sandals and things, rather than an eyeshadow for clubbing or sexiness. It's like church makeup.
I concur it's not the very best of eyeshadows, like, yeah, it fades after a while, and sure, it ain't the brightest colours as well, and it's got a lame name (shimmerbuds), but man, it's alright. I like having a little cute eyeshadow duo with sheer, pretty colours that work well together, that I can pop into my handbag.
Okay, Graphic Garden has come out in the UK and I do want something from it - haven't wanted anything in a while since Sugarsweet (I got Aquavert). I know this collection hasn't interested lots of people but I reckon it's a good one for the average person who doesn't really have lots of makeup. There's a neutral-pink everyday eyeshadow palette and a brighter going-out one, and there's a softer everyday lip bag and a darker lip bag for going-out as well. I haven't got any good brushes and I do want the 187 brush except I can't justify spending that kind of money on a single makeup tool, but a set - a set should be okay. It comes down to less than ten quid for a brush. I heard that the brushes in the sets are of lower quality than the full size ones but I'm not a professional makeup artist and it'll probably be all the same to me anyway.
I can't decide which brush set is better. The Shape-and-Define brush set with the 187SE duo-fibre brush, the 168SE contour brush, a concealer brush (194SE) and two eyeshadow brushes. I could presumably use the 212SE flat definer brush for eyeliner and the 275SE as a sort of all-purpose eyeshadow thing, but if I get this I mainly want it for the 187 brush. The Define-and-Blend set seems to be more basic - it has a blush brush (129SE), a foundation brush (190SE), an eyeliner brush (209SE), a 'pencil' brush (219SE) and an eyeshadow shader brush (252SE). At first glance the second set seems more useful since it has the multi-purpose 129 brush and I don't need a concealer brush at all, and I could use the pencil brush in the Define-and-Blend set for concealer anyway. The 187 and 168 brushes are supposed to be good for pigmented blushes though and I have difficulty applying blush lightly sometimes. I guess when all the brushes are considered the Define-and-Blend set seems to make more sense for beginners like me.
I love True Blood and Charlaine Harris's Southern Vampire Mysteries. Sure they're not Pulitzer Prize-winning novels and aren't Anne Rice neither (which is not necessarily a bad thing), but they're addictive little mysteries with a protagonist who's keepin' it real and worries about health insurance and Jesus while being mixed up in supernatural political conflicts and skirmishes.
In the tv show Sookie Stackhouse is way more annoying, Jason is a far more major character and they're straying further from the books but hey, I'm not complaining. I actually like the Maryann plot line though she ain't exactly the kind of maenad the ancient Greeks had in mind, and the main men characters are extremely hot, and often topless. I weirdly really like Sarah Newlin. Cute as a button.
She has cute little earrings and an awesome pink lipstick. It's bright but not obnoxious. I used to have a Bourjois lipgloss that was about that shade of pink (I think it was Rose Atomic, can't be sure) but it's gone now and they don't make it anymore.
Her bra is cute too.
It's white and lacy with a little pink bow in the centre. Why she always so cute and so crazy?
I love Jason's wtf face when she unleashes all her crazy love on him.
In Lorena's flashback she has odd Chola eyebrows. They kind of make her look like an evil clown. Maybe everyone had eyebrows like that in 30s though. She has a very matte face-base, kind of pinkish cheeks, orangey/coppery-red matte lips and she appears to have on a matte grey/black smoky eyeshadow? I haven't got a lip colour like hers though and I feel its loss, warm-red seems like a pretty essential shade.
Tara has a nice blush on here. She often has really good naturalish makeup on.
It's hard to tell from screencaps but Sookie does look like she has some lavender eyeshadow on. Screencap looks kind of orgasmic.
Arlene's has a strangely enchanting lipstick. It almost looks unreal in this screencap, kind of like MAC Pink Fish lip conditioner but cooler and shinier. Possibly MAC Snob with a gloss? Arlene's more endearing on the show than in the book, bless her.
I can't wait for the next episode. Orgies! Evangelical Christians! Vamp-ahrs!
EOTD: UD Sin as highlight and base, UD Gash on lid, MAC Beauty Marked for crease and the outer corner. Rimmel eyeliner, L'oreal Telescopic Explosion mascara.
Some makeup is overly glorified without being superfabulous, eg. Maybelline Great Lash, which is universally praised in beauty magazines yearly but is generally known to be mediocre. I mean, it's not terrible. It's not really wet, it doesn't glop or nothing. It's just okay. It doesn't really lengthen or volumise or anything, possibly it makes your lashes black for like blonde people or something, possibly it makes your lashes a tiny bit thicker by coating them. It gives a slightly nicer than natural look which is, you know, nice, I mean, it's okay. It's just not superfabulously amazing that it deserves to be plugged again and again.
I mean, It's not even like a Maybelline advertising scam or nothing because they make better mascaras. Almost every other mascara they make is better including the one where you have to put the white bit on and then the black bit and if you don't put in the effort to let the white bit dry and then coat it properly with the black bit, bits of your eyelashes will be white. I'll tell you what this Maybelline Great Lash thing is: it's a conspiracy. I bet it's some kind of hideous social experiment by behavioural psychologists in which they attempt to convince women to buy a product that they (the women, also the military-industrial-cosmetics-marketing complex) know is just mediocre, just to see if they can. I bet you Maybelline Great Lash isn't America's #1 mascara, and those Cosmopolitan magazine beauty editors don't actually really love it and buy it and use it daily. They're magazine beauty editors, they're using some freebie mascara they got to review - trust me, I interned at a beauty mag for a month after university. There's just all this fabulous press about it and, even though you've tried this mascara once, and you probably didn't hate it but you just didn't want to buy it again, when you read about how awesome Maybelline Great Lash is supposed to be it just kind of makes you want to give it another go doesn't it. You start thinking: maybe you used it wrong and you had to zigzag your brush, or comb your lashes before or after with a comb or something, and maybe you're right, but Maybelline also makes like ten other mascaras that don't require all that effort to look a whole lot better.
Maybelline Great Lash sure don't look like that on me.
Some MAC eyeshadow shades are totally overhyped as well, and I'm not really ashamed to say that I was swept up in the Parrot euphoria. I wasn't into bright makeup the first time Parrot came out (I'd just started earning my own spending money and was buying essentials...like lipgloss and suchlike) and I just kept hearing about this eyeshadow again and again and again for years: parrot parrot parrot parrot parrot. There were people getting all excited because this one eyeshadow kind of looked like Parrot and then someone swatched it and then it was like, oh no, it's not a real dupe! Parrot's that tiny bit more blue! People were layering eyeshadows on top of each other to try to recreate Parrot, people with far too much money and time were buying Parrot for like a million dollars on American Ebay, etc. etc. And then Parrot came out again and everyone went crazy before they realised Parrot was just, you know, a nice blue-green eyeshadow and in their quest for the perfect blue-green eyeshadow they'd actually found a better one some time ago. And that was the end of Parrot. I wanted to buy Parrot when it came out in the MAC Originals collection and it was sold out - I always underestimate the amount of initiative people will take to buy a MAC eyeshadow - but I recently bought Parrot cheaply on livejournal. It's actually a pretty nice teal, but kind of like Barack Obama, it's kinda sorta good, yeah, it just ain't the second coming of Martin Luther King.
It's next to Aquavert which I'm not that sure about.
