Make Up Novice

Mac paint pot and eyeshadow

2011-01-05T09:18:00.000-08:00

So. I haven't blogged since August. I went to New York and totally got out of the habit of blogging, and then I went back to uni and just never got around to it. But my new year's resolution is to blog more. So here I am!

Now, on to this post. The lovely Charlotte over at Lipglossiping (whose site is down at the moment, so I can't link to it right now.) posted about a Laura Mercier cream eyeshadow in a bronze colour. Ever since then I have been on the hunt for my perfect bronze cream eyeshadow.

Enter Mac's Indianwood paint pot and Antiquated shadow. And so begins my love affair.

Indianwood, the paintpot is a lovely bronzy-goldy colour. Antiquated is a Veluxe Pearl which is beautiful, with browny-bronzy tones.

Individually I like them both a lot. The paint pot is a really great shade, and it blends easily and I can just put it on and go. These are quite new purchases so I haven't tried it yet, but I bet it would look great as an eyeliner.

Antiquated is a gorgeous shade but on its own it lacks depth. When you put these two together, however, they look gorgeous!

On the right is Indianwood by itself, in the middle is Antiquated by itself, and on the left is them blended together.

As much as I love these two together, it's not quite perfect enough for me. I suspect the perfect bronze cream eyeshadow is the Laura Mercier one that Lipglossiping originally posted about!

Five Minute Face

2010-08-16T09:06:00.000-07:00

Picture this, it's one of those mornings. You've over slept, and you're running really late, but you need to put something on your face, otherwise you might scare small children. This situation happens to me more times a week than I'd like, mostly because I like sleep a lot and I'm terrible at time-keeping.

These are the products I reach for. My Five Minute Face. I've gotten this down to an art. I know where everything is, and I know how to apply it. I don't have to faff around with new or difficult techniques. I just put this on and go. It looks good, and it mostly stays on all day.

My Five Minute Face products.

Firstly, foundation. I either use Bobbi Brown Skin Foundation SPF 15 (in Porcelain) or Mac Studio Fix Fluid (in NC15). I use the Bobbi Brown foundation to layer it on, and then the Mac 187 to buff it out and make it look less streaky.

I then use Bobbi Brown's Face Touch Up Stick and the Benefit concealer brush. On my cheeks I use Bobbi Brown Pot Rouge in Powder Pink. Recently I've been using my Bobbi Brown highlighter pen (in Opal) on my cheek, but it's new and I've not gotten in the habit of using it yet.

On my eyes I use Bobbi Brown (are we sensing a pattern here?) Tinted Eye Brightener (in Light Bisque). I'm going to do a review of this one day, because it sounds like one of those "pfft, who really needs that" products, but I find it essential!

Then I use the tried and tested Urban Decay Primer Potion. For eyeshadow I reach for Bobbi Brown's Shimmer Wash (in Champagne) and then I use the gel liner in either black or brown.

Mascara wise, I use Urban Decay's Skyscraper mascara. This is a mini size I got with my Primer Potion. I love love love this mascara. It's a great 'base' mascara. It separates my lashes, which are long and usually really clumpy. And then to add definition and volume I use Bobbi Brown's Lash Glamour mascara.

And that's pretty much it. I usually leave my lips bare, or shove on whatever gloss is closest. I'm not really much of a lip person.

Do you have products that you always reach for when you're in a rush?

Denim and Rose

2010-08-08T04:08:00.000-07:00

So, if you follow me on twitter you'll know that last weekend I finally got my hands on the Bobbi Brown Denim and Rose collection. I've been lusting after it for ages. I also picked up a few other things from the collection.

As always, the service at Bobbi Brown was brilliant (although filled with drama, a woman had collapsed by the Clinique counter and there were paramedics everywhere!) and thorough. I spoke to my usual make up artist, Lauren, who is just brilliant. She remembers my name and what I've bought previously. She talked about how I could use the pallet with my surf cream shadow from their Beach collection. She's just generally lovely and excellent at her job. I fear she's spoiled me for any future sales assistants!

Anyway, onto the photos.

I love those little black boxes.

This is the Denim and Rose pallet. I love the outside packaging, it's actual denim. It's so cute. It's pretty small, it would fit in my handbag with no problem.

The Pink Rose blush.

Navajo (the lighter colour) and Grey Denim.

Pink Granite Sparkle Eyeshadow.

Dark Rinse Shimmer Wash Eyeshadow.

They can be paired differently for different looks. I really like Grey Denim and Pink Granite. The Dark Rinse isn't quite as blue as I was hoping, but then Bobbi doesn't really do bold colours which is what I was expecting it to be.

There are lip colours in the pallet too, which I know has the potential to turn into a disaster. Powder in your lip colour is not nice, but I guess I'll just have to be careful.

Iced Lilac and Hot Rose

Indie Rose

Cool Rose

I also bought the Denim gel liner. I love the gel liners. I now have three. This is a gorgeous colour. It's very obviously blue, not just black with a hint of blue.

I bought the Extreme Party mascara as well, which I wasn't planning on doing. Lauren put it on me and it actually looks blue on my lashes. I have quite dark lashes so most coloured mascaras don't show up at all (Benefit Bad Gal Blue, I'm looking at you). So this was a nice surprise. It gives me great lash definition too. A definite favourite, and I might get the black too.

What do you think of the pallet? I'm not convinced about the lip colours. I hate applying lip colours with my fingers, and these are quite sticky. Especially if you've been applying the shadows with your fingers too.

Model's Own Magenta Pearl

2010-07-30T10:04:00.000-07:00

This nail polish is my most recent purchase from Model's Own. It's called Magenta Pearl and it's SO pretty.

Here it is, with a base coat and a top coat. I applied this on Sunday. As usual, no problems applying. This was, I think, three coats.

Now, I work with children. Right now I'm working in a créche. As I'm sure you can imagine this isn't really a nail polish friendly environment. What with the heavy lifting, form filling in, play-dough, ball pond, giant connect four, etc etc.

This is what it looks like today.

I'm really impressed. Normally nail polishes chip loads more than this, this is all on my dominant hand and I've got virtually no chipping on my left hand.

So, Model's Own seems to stand up to the '6 hours in a sweaty, no air conditioning, busy créche' test very well!

Front Cover Rainbow Eyes

2010-07-29T11:34:00.000-07:00

A little while ago in Boots I spotted a book of lovely looking eyeshadows in a whole range of colours.

It was the Rainbow Eyes book by Front Cover Cosmetics. Now, I'd never heard of this brand before, and the Rainbow Eyes book was quite expensive, so I decided to get one of the much smaller pallets to test it out. I got the Easy On The Eye Hot pallet.

It's a really cute little pallet, with a mirror and a brush. It has four colours. They're bright and vibrant, but not quite so garish on your skin. My favourite is 'River Blue' but 'Ultra Pink' is also really nice.

So, after deciding that I liked the little pallet I went back and bought the big one. (It was thrifty, really. £30 for 25 shadows! That's £1.20 each!)

I love it! I use it nearly every day. It's so versatile, you can create loads of different looks with it. The shadows look okay applied dry, and they don't crease or anything when used with Urban Decay's Primer Potion. I prefer to use the brighter colours, from the 'Jewel' and 'Wow' lines (the two up from the bottom) wet as they go on much much brighter.

20 of the shadows are shimmery, which may not be everyone's cup of tea, but I really like them. The other 5, the bottom line, are matte and flat. The rest of them are domed.

Here are some of my favourites.

Bluebird.

Fern.

Chocolate Truffle.

Cerulean.

The Rainbow eyes pallet comes with two double ended brushes and 'Shadowline'. This turns any of the eyeshadows into a liner. I find I usually need to go over the liner with a small angled brush to build up the colour, but that's just personal preference. But I love this product! I don't know if you can buy it individually, I really hope so! It makes the whole pallet much more versatile. You can use Shadowline to just add a line of colour to a more neutral look (one of my favourite tricks).

My one problem with this pallet? It's HUGE. It's about the size of an A4 piece of paper. Definitely not travel friendly, which is a shame as I'd LOVE to take it to New York with me in August. But since I need to save as much space as possible for all the stuff I'm going to bring back from New York I can't take it.

So to sum up this very long post. Rainbow Eyes Pallet is gorgeous, but huge. Any tips on how to make it a bit more travel friendly?

Here's a look I wore the other day to meet some friends for lunch. I used 'Bluebird' 'Fern' and 'Moonshine'.

Model's Own

2010-07-22T11:17:00.000-07:00

One day, not so long ago, I was in my local (quite large) Boots and I nearly had a heart attack. Where had the Urban Decay counter gone?! Fortunately, it had just been moved, and to my delight there were loads of new counters of stuff for me to play with. One of these was a Model's Own counter. I'd seen loads of stuff written about them on various beauty blogs, so I decided to pick up a few things. I got a free 6 way buffer too, which was cool.

The lovely Bicky over at Tastes Like Glitter did a post on the brand today, which prompted me to get all of my stuff out of my drawer and look at it.

Here's my, admittedly quite small, but well loved Model's Own collection.

I have just realised I do, in fact, own another polish that isn't shown. It's called 'Snow White', which is a pretty accurate description. So that one isn't pictured.

What is pictured is five polishes, one lipgloss and one lipstick.

From left to right there is 'Magenta Pearl', '25 Carat Gold', 'Top Turquoise', 'Coral Reef' and 'Golden Peach'. These are great polishes, and there are loads more colours. The only ones I haven't tried yet are 'Magenta Pearl' and '25 Carat Gold' because they're new and I'm still in love with the yellow Barry M polish I'm sporting at the moment.

Like I said, these are great. They take about two coats to get good coverage. And I use a base coat and a top coat. They usually last for about three days before they start to chip. But I do an extremely physical job (with 5 year olds) so nail polishes always chip for me.

The 'Top Turquoise' looks a bit funny in the bottle though. A little unmixed. It doesn't seem to go away when you shake it either, which is annoying. It doesn't seem to have any affect on the polish on the nails though.

Here are some macro shots. 'Coral Reef' looks really pink in the pictures, it is in fact more of an orangy red than a pink.

Next up is the lipstick. I bought this because I have lipstick phobia and I didn't want to invest loads in a lipstick I wasn't going to wear. I LOVE the packaging. It's funky and I think it's perfect for their target demographic (assuming that's younger people, which I am). It's also great if you have more than one. You don't have to take the lids off to see what colour it is.

I haven't worn this out in public yet (I'm not 100% sure it suits me, and I'm still a lipstick phobe) but it stays on for a while in my bedroom and it goes on nicely. I've also just noticed in the photos it has a slight gold shimmer. You can't see this AT ALL when you look at the product. This colour is called 'Coral Pink'.

The swatch picture is out of focus but I'm too lazy to go and take another one.

The last product I have is my least favourite. The lipgloss I have is called 'Ballet Pink' as none of the other colours really appealed to me. It looks like a very pale pink, but I don't see any trace of the colour on my lips. It looks like a clear gloss with a bit of shimmer. It smells weird and doesn't taste very nice either. You can really feel the glitter on your lips and it doesn't stay on very long. It's quite sticky too.

So overall, I rate the nail polishes quite highly, and I'll definitely be buying some more of them. I might invest in some more wearable shades of the lipsticks too, because I like the packaging so much. I won't be going back for any glosses though.

Bobbi Brown Basics Eye Pallet

2010-07-16T10:07:00.000-07:00

The star of today's post is the Bobbi Brown Basics Eye Pallet.

The website describes it as "the ideal starter set for a makeup novice". That's me in a nutshell, so I bought it. I have a hard time resisting anything with Bobbi Brown's name on it.

It contains four great colours for a neutral, every day look. It also comes with a dual ended brush. One end is a fluffy shadow brush and the other end is a liner brush. I am in love with the liner brush. I intend to buy a full size one eventually.

The colours are 'Navajo' the lightest, 'Cement'a lighter brownish grey colour (as the name would suggest), 'Heather Mauve' which is a shimmery glittery colour that I like to put in the crease and then 'Mahogany' which is the darkest brown and I use it as an eyeliner.

I would definitely recommend this pallet. It's great for beginners and people who generally have no idea what they're doing (like me!). It's pretty hard to screw this up, and it looks very pretty and natural. It can be adapted to be a little more glamorous by adding more liner or more shimmer.

Here's what I look like wearing it.

Summer Flutter Minis

2010-07-09T14:17:00.000-07:00

I saw, on one of the many many blogs I read, a beautiful nail polish colour. It's called 'Catch Me In Your Net' and it's by OPI. It was a beautiful glittery blue and I had to have it!! I went looking for it in ebay and found these instead.

This is the OPI Summer Flutter Minis set. It contains all four of the Summer Flutter colours. From left to right they are 'Wing It', 'Flower-to-Flower' 'Catch Me In Your Net' and 'Flit A Bit'.

This shows their size in comparison to a normal sized OPI bottle. ('Coronation', my favourite nail polish I have ever owned.) They are so adorably tiny and cute!! I knew they were mini, but not quite that mini. But I don't think I've ever finished a bottle of nail polish, so I'm not too fussed about the size.

I couldn't decide which colour to wear first, so I went for all four with OPI's 'Lucky Lucky Lavender'(to continue the floral theme) on my thumbs. The wear is really great, as per usual with OPI polishes. No chipping or flaking. I used a base and a top coat as well.

'Catch Me In Your Net' is the colour I bought the set for, and still my favourite. I really like the pink and the orange as well though. The pink has little sparkles in it which I really like. The orange is matte and kind of boring, but orange so automatically love it.

Mac Mineralize eyeshadow duos.

2010-07-06T11:52:00.000-07:00

Okay, so, my first real post. Today I'm going to talk a little about the Mac Mineralize eyeshadow duos, not the new trios that have just come out.

These are the bad boys I'm talking about.

My local Mac counter is right by the door of the Debenhams. It's lethal. I will sometimes walk the long way to TopShop just so I don't walk past and go in and spend money I don't have.

So, I walked past, head held high, not intending to buy anything. But then I got sucked in and spotted these, not with the other eyeshadows, but with some foundations.

They're so pretty! I couldn't resist. And I couldn't decide which colour I wanted, so I bought two.

First up is 'Odd Couple'. One side is a solid purple colour, and the other is a swirled mix of lilac, gold and bronze.

'Odd Couple'

It's quite sheer, but I like it like that. It can be quite subtle, but built up for a more dramatic effect. I like to use it with my Urban Decay deluxe shadows in 'Honey' and 'Underground'.

The other one I bought is 'Sea and Sky'. This one is a dark navy blue, with the other side of lighter blues and purple. It goes really well with silver eyeliner, and my Urban Decay silver glitter liner.

This one is more pigmented, but again it the colour builds up really well, especially over a primer. I really like these shadows, I wear them a lot, especially 'Sea and Sky'.

Thanks for reading!

Perhaps 'novice' is the wrong word.

2010-07-04T05:58:00.000-07:00

The dictionary definition for 'novice' is "a person who is new to the circumstances, work, etc., in which he or she is placed; beginner; tyro:" (from www.dictionary.com).

I'm certainly not a beginner when it comes to make up. I've been using some kind of make up since I was about 13 and bought my first cheapy powder from some stand in Boots. I've bought a lot of make up over the years.

It wasn't until January this year when I decided that I'd had enough of spending money on cheap products that don't work. I discussed it with my best friend and fellow shopaholic and we came to the conclusion that, as with most things in life, when it comes to make up you get what you pay for.

So I followed in the footsteps of my mother, and headed to my local Bobbi Brown counter. It was this decision that changed my make up life quite dramatically.

The girl at the Bobbi Brown counter, Lauren, was incredible (Lauren seems to have the incredible talent of making me buy things that I find I really do need). She found me my foundation shade (Porcelain) and found me a foundation that suited my (very bad) skin type. She then set me up with their skincare line, which I am in love with.

It was all downhill from there. And I now boast quite a full make up drawer.

So perhaps 'novice' is the wrong word, but I'm far far from an expert. I'm just a girl experimenting and trying things out.