Too Faced Rebel Yell

Yesterday I went to see Hamlet with Jude Law. It was extremely awesome and way more exciting than you'd think a Shakespearean play would be. Better than the movie (I speak of the one with Mel Gibson). I went after I finished work and so put on easy 'going-out' makeup. I had on UD Strip eyeshadow and Too Faced Glamour Gloss in Rebel Yell (now 'vintage' and $13.50 on their website). Too Faced described Rebel Yell as a raspberry sorbet: that translates to a very nice deep pink. I'm not extremely fond of the little sponge applicator, it reminds me of, y'know, Play-Doh? and you have little things that you push and the Play-Doh comes out at the other end in like, these long shapes?


I want to play with Play-Doh now.

The Glamour Gloss has a little sponge top with holes in it, and you twist the bottom and the gloss comes out through the holes. Sometimes it takes a while to come out.




The good news is, although quite a bit comes out at a time, the next few times you use the gloss you don't have to twist it as the sponge tip is full of gloss. I understand the logic - it's supposed to apply like a lipstick says the website - but hey surprise, a sponge tip doesn't equate to lipstick-like application and the twisty thing takes some time to push up the gloss. I'd have preferred a squeezy tube or one of the normal wand applicator things, especially since the applicator deposits more lipgloss than I'd like and I have to sheer it out with my fingers anyway.

The actual gloss bit I like. It's not the shiniest gloss, but it's thin and unsticky and comfortable to wear, and it lasts a good amount of time. It does rub off initially when you drink and such, but the colour sort of stains your mouth for some time after. I'm not sure if it's because I got a dark colour or that's just how the gloss is.

Too Faced doesn't nearly get enough love as it should. To be fair I do consider the line expensive, and only have this and the eyeshadow duo in Steel Magnolias (both 'vintage' now), but I find them to be of good quality and really like them a whole lot.


As mentioned, UD Strip eyeshadow, Too Faced Rebel Yell, and MAC blushcreme in Cheery.




Strip is like a straight-up silver without the glitter that Uzi has. When I bought it I somehow imagined that it was a darker slate-grey, I'm not sure why, but it's a shimmery blue-ish silver.

Swatches:

True Blood makeup

True Blood season 2 episode 8 - sweet Jesus. What's up with those cowboy vampires. What's up with TV Jesus Godric being so entirely different to book paedophile Godric? (I'm pretty sure he's going to blow up in the next episode, by the way.) And more importantly, what's up with Bon Temps? Is the rest of the country filled with Greek mythological figures and stock horror movie characters and fucked-up murders as well or is Bon Temps just some crazy supernatural hotspot?

Sookie had some kind of pretty pink lipstick on:



Jessica's lipstick was a corally light pink similar to her bra. I think they've used a colour like this on her before:

Yep, in episode five her lips are corally pink like her blouse.

She had cute little white wedges on this week.


I'll miss Sarah Newlin and her sweet little chirpy crazy pageant queen self.


They've put a shiny light eyeshadow and a shiny lipstick on for her to shoot paintballs at people. Clinique's Extreme Pink looks a bit like that on me, though you can never really tell with screencaps. She has a really really nice peachy blush on.

I like Lorena's locked-in-a-room look better than her glam catfight one:

Nude lips and black eyeliner.



I know she's a vampire and is supposed to be pale and all that, but her blush is too stark here for my liking. I like how matte, defined, and retro the lips are though.



Maryann cooked Daphne's HEART, which is pretty fucked up. What does she want from Tara? I can't figure it out. She's got some generic smokey purple eyeshadow look and a browney-pink lipstick.

Lafayette comes through with more interesting eyeshadow than the ladies. Last week he was seen applying makeup in the ladies' with what is possibly a Smashbox brush:



Sunday he had on like a light gold eyeshadow over a slatey grey/black colour. Lafayette is fly.

UD Asphyxia

Urban Decay's Asphyxia is one of the prettiest duochrome colours around - it's a shimmery lavender and light blue.
Today I used: Estee Lauder Ivory Box, UD Asphyxia and Goddess. Rimmel eyeliner, L'oreal Telescopic Explosion mascara.

Nails Inc Jermyn Street

I'm not a huge nail person. I have possibly about ten nail polishes max. Sometimes I wear the same colour on my fingers and toes, usually because I'm lazy, and I wear shoes. Apparently this is either tacky or outmoded, for reasons I haven't discerned or just don't have the good taste to grasp - these explanations seem to usually involve twinsets and pumps with sensible heels not being cool, and the holy eighties terror of wearing denim with denim. I know it's a major nail rule to just not match. I just flaunt this rule flagrantly.

I've never had acrylic wraps or little flowers or any of that fancy nail stuff, although sometimes I feel I'd like to. I just need short nails since I need to work with bacteria and things in my course (although I wear gloves), and I cook and scrub dishes etc. etc. and do many things that will either destroy my polish or will make me paranoid that strange things will get stuck under my long nails.

So Fabulous mag had a Nails Inc offer, where you pick from a choice of full-sized Nails Inc polishes and pay £1 or something for shipping. I picked Jermyn Street because I wanted a professional-looking colour for interviews and suchlike. They mailed it to me and I reckon I received it some time late last week.

Jermyn Street is a new colour for Fall and is described on their website as a soft taupe. It came out darker than expected and I reckon it's a bit purplish and just that little bit edgy (for a taupe) on me. You can buy it for £10.50 from nailsinc.com.

MAC Graphic Garden brush sets

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.

True Blood makeup.

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.

Sleek Original palette and cheapness

Sleek is a line of cosmetics for women of colour (it has a great range of foundation shades) and you can find it in Superdrug. They've got a few palettes out, there's a Storm palette that I might just get because of the wonderful neutrals, and there was a neon Acid palette out that was sold out really quicklyI think they've got a new one out but I haven't seen it in shops yet. From DvoraDivine's swatches it looks like it has some similar colours to the original palette. I have that one and today I've used some colours from it. I've read a lot of good reviews about this palette and I concur that it's amazing for £4.99. Depending on how posh you are that's about how much dinner costs.




I flipped the swatch pictures around to line up with the colours in the palette. The colours are pretty and pigmented though a few colours look the same on me: the second and third on the bottom row, and the fifth (bottom row) reminds me of MAC retrospeck in that it looked like gold glitter on me. When applied sheerly the third pink looks yellow on me when I use it on my lid, I have to apply more than one layer for the pink to show up and I really prefer sheerer eye makeup. It also looks like the copper colour doesn't really show up on me but it actually does show up copper and metallicky in real life, I'm just a similar colour to copper, but a bit less shiny and orange.

No I didn't use a primer, I don't have a primer. It's generally not a problem with me since the eyeshadows I have show up well without a primer, or with just a light-coloured base shadow, including these, so I'm pretty much cool with not using a primer. Maybe I'll get one in time, like when I get a proper job with some proper taxable disposable income, but I'm pretty sure lots of women don't use eyeshadow primers and use lipstick on their cheeks and all I say they're just fine the way they are. I also have a philosophy with more expensive eyeshadows (read: more expensive than, say, Rimmel - MAC is pretty much the top end of what I'm willing to spend): if I'm spending that much on a bit of makeup it'd better work well without extra effort and expense.

I heard that if you put concealer on your lid it also works, but I'm kind of paranoid about doing that often. I don't think concealer was formulated to go on your eyelids. I've got a white shimmery Miss Sporty cream eyeshadow though which I sometimes use and works pretty well for sticking eyeshadows. That's like £1.95. Bonus.

Another thing is that I personally feel that all the colours are quite glittery except the black which they had the good sense to make matte.



Sure it looks pretty but I'd apply just one of the colours on top of a more subdued base for more everyday makeup, if only because I'm just that bit more boring than your average Superdrug shopper. That said, this is a great I don't find the colours chalky and I'm especially fond of the purple, it's a great purple. I haven't got any mid-greens like the one in this palette either, which will come in useful. but I'm going to use this as a going-out palette since it has a huge mirror and all the different colours together and it's all shiny and glittery and pretty and most importantly fits in my handbag. I don't know how small your hand bag is though, some women have the very tiny wristlet-handbags that won't fit a chihuahua in.

What I used today:

Eyes:
Sleek eyeshadow palette bottom row: colours 1, 3, 5.
Rimmel twisty eyeliner.
L'oreal mascara with the little ball instead of a wand. This mascara, I'd like it better if it had a better, less wet formula. I like rolling the little ball around but the mascara clumps a bit, and is a bit wet.

Face:
Boots Natural Collection foundation in Walnut. This is the darkest colour in the Boots Natural Collection and it ain't really that dark - I use Bobbi Brown stick foundation in honey so it's probably equivalent to that except it's less yellow and sheerer, obviously. It's a shame there aren't more colours because it's only £1.95 and doesn't break me out. Sometimes I have terrible-looking skin but I don't want to use a massive heavy stick foundation. That's for special events like weddings and celebrations - things involving distant relatives and photography.
Superdrug MeMeMe Pussycat lip & cheek tint (Benetint knock-off).
MAC studiofinish concealer in NW35.

Lips:
C.O. Bigelow lip balm.
MAC Sandy B lipstick.