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Monday 26 November 2012

Lip Maths

If someone can write a whole bunch of lip and/or maths based puns for me to use for this series, I will pay you in…er, love, because I am out. Done.

DSCF0992

Sleek Eau La La Liner in Melba + Fyrinnae Lip Lustre in Romantique =

Peach Lip Maths
Peach Lip Maths 2

Rather pretty, no? I’m rather scared of wearing pale, peachy shades despite owning a ton of them, and Romantique on it’s own has never really suited me. I think I could just about pull off this combo, though, even if I’m not ecstatic about how it makes my teeth look. Colour aside, I’m really enjoying pairing the Sleek Eau La La Liners in general with other items on the lips, they’re a really nice base and they actually have a lot of colours that work well on the lips!

Friday 23 November 2012

A Little Bittah Glittah

When I have managed to wear brights lately, my Sugarpill colours have featured a lot and Darling manages to sneak it’s way in quite often! I’d not used it with any of the Heartbreaker palette colours yet and it seemed perfect, so I  teamed ‘em up:

 

Darling
Darling 3
Darling 2
Darling 4
Darling 5

Eyes: Sugarpill Darling, 2am and Velocity, Sleek black, highlight from Wet N Wild Petal Pusher, Collection 2000 Glam Crystals liner in Va Va Voom and 24/7 Extreme Liner Pen in Black, Barry M Kohl in Navy.
Lips: Gosh Light N Shine Lip Glaze no 5
Cheeks: Sleek Suede


I’ve had so little time for cute, bright makeup recently that it feels like a treat to wear it! My fiancé said this was pretty and looked like a peacock but he says that whenever I wear blue of any description! I really liked this look but when I came to edit the photos I noticed I had mascara on both my lower lashlines from sneezing and I hadn’t noticed all day! Aargh!

Tuesday 20 November 2012

Rainbow In The Dark

No sign of the mornin’ coming
You’ve been left on your own
Like a rainbow in the dark
Just a rainbow in the dark



Rainbow In the Dark
Rainbow In the Dark 2
Rainbow In the Dark 4
Rainbow In the Dark 3



Sugarpill Love+, Poison Plum, Flamepoint, Buttercupcake, 2am, Mochi, Acidberry, Lumi. Sleek Black, LA Colours Jumbo Eye Pencil in Iridescent Light, Collection2000 Extreme 24/7 pen liner in black, Barry M Glitter Liner in 07 Gold.

Experimenting with mattes on a shimmery base (didn’t go so well, bro – check out that outside edge. Whoopsie. ) and few other things. Also, Dio. Hope you liked!

Monday 19 November 2012

Soft Autumnal Fyrinnae Look

I fancied something very soft and natural and also felt like using Fyrinnae Fire Opal, so that’s what I done did!

Autumnal Fyrinnae
Autumanl Fyrinnae 2
Autumnal Fyrinnae 3

I did my hair for you all especially, can you tell? :P

Eyes: Maybelline Color Tattoo in Pink Gold, Fyrinnae Moon Child, Fyrinnae Polar Bear, Fyrinnae STFU, Fyrinnae Fire Opal
Cheeks: Sleek Suede, Fyrinnae Polar Bear
Lips: Rimmel Airy Fairy

I’m really loving the Pink Gold Color Tattoo at the moment – I do wish it had more gold in it, but hey! It made a lovely base for Moon Child.


Even though I really do always prefer to wear winged liner and a stronger lip with a neutral eye, I kind of like how this turned out. Does anyone else automatically reach for the eyeliner with a certain combination of shades?

Saturday 17 November 2012

Depotting Sleek Blushes–I Wouldn’t Bother If I Were You

I’m well aware I’m quite often a moaning Minnie on my blog and I’m always going on about how I could have done something better and I’m sure it gets rather annoying. I hope this post goes someway to redeeming that because this time I’ve genuinely buggered something right up.

Earlier this week I was seized with a desire to make a palette of my brilliant yet under-used Sleek blushes. “Depot your Sleek blushes,” I said. “It’ll be fun,” I said. I did my research. I had some cash from a shoot, so I bought a Z-palette Pro. I looked at whether I could repress these particular blushes. I knew it would be a pain and I might crack the blushes a little round the edges, but stormed ahead anyway.

 

Don’t bother. Just... don’t.

 

When I depot MAC blushes, I simply pop out the insert, melt a hole in the remaining plastic which then in turn melts the glue and you can pop out the pan with an orange stick or the end of a brush. If it doesn’t give way straight away, you know you’ve not melted the glue and you melt another hole. I’ve never cracked a MAC blush and I’d read of a couple of bloggers cracking blushes using the alcohol method, so I thought, “I shall melt the Sleek blushes.”

depotting sleek blushes 3

 

DO YOU SEE A HOLE? I COULD NOT MELT A HOLE. IT WAS ON FIRE AND IT WOULD NOT MELT THROUGH. Although the heat melted the glue to the point I could prise the pan out easily, I was about to die from plastic fumes (and I had my kitchen extractor on!) so I had to stop. I’d heard of people heating plastic casing in pans over the stove, with flat irons or in the oven, but I didn’t see how that would work with the hefty plastic, plus I don’t have any kitchen utensils I’m willing to sacrifice for a blush that cost less than a fiver, let alone get combine my clumsiness, melting plastic and my GHDs. I also still managed to crack this first blush. Time to switch to the alcohol method, then! If you’re not down with the kids when it comes to depotting, you can drop rubbing alcohol down the gap between the pan and the casing which dissolves the glue, allowing you to pry the pan out.

depotting sleek blushes 5

Insert a knife into the gap and let the alcohol drip underneath the metal pan. Do this all the way around, give the pan a little tip to make sure the alcohol has spread everywhere and give it a few seconds to do it’s thing.  Run your knife carefully around the edge if you can and if all goes well, you can feel that the pan is ready to “move.” Then simply whip your knife underneath and prise the pan out. Easy, right?


depotting sleek blushes 7
depotting sleek blushes 4

NON.

I had SO much trouble doing this. These pans are stuck down with some kind of bloody glue that mere mortals were not meant to cope with, and worse, the pans are very long, so it’s nigh on impossible to get the blushes out without bending the pan and cracking the blush. Once the pan is bent, you can’t really un-bend it! I really don’t know what I could have done with this. The pink blush, Flamingo, was the first one I did as it’s the most dupable Sleek shade I had. Luckily it’s not cracked all the way to the bottom, so that’s fine. The one above, Aruba, I was actually very careful with as it’s such an unusual blush. I could feel it moving in the plastic case when I moved the knife as if the glue had dissolved, and yet it just exploded everywhere! Sad times, although I think I’ve saved it!


I had nine blushes to depot – the perfect amount to fit the palette – but I couldn’t bring myself to damage my favourite, Suede, so I only did eight. I managed two of eight with no cracks whatsoever (Rose Gold and Scandalous, you beauties!), two were badly smashed or cracked as above and the other four had tiny cracks in the edges. What a nightmare!

If all does go well, however, you’ll be rewarded with this:

depotting sleek blushes 6

As you can see, poor Mr Pan Tao is looking a little damp, but he will dry out eventually and be good as new. Then you can pop his sticker and a little magnet on and he can go and join his poor, battered friends:

depotting sleek blushes 8

I’m not faulting Sleek at all for the way this panned (hey!) out – their packaging is both lovely looking and very sturdy and it’s not their problem I want to depot them. In an ideal world, yes, they’d recognise that poor young makeup artists will buy the only good high street range for darker skintones and use it in their kit and put it in more expensive packaging and keep them the same price and and and, but hey ho ;)

If you were thinking of doing this – don’t. If you must do it with long rectangluar blushes, try your Sleek first and not your Nars! I hope this helped someone!

Wednesday 14 November 2012

Sorta Kinda Fail–Moschino Inspired

As the Stones said, you can’t always git what you want. Most of the time when my looks don’t go quite to plan, it’s because I’ve been a bloody not really thought about what I’m doing and its only afterwards when I’m staring at the photos on my laptop and thinking “Why the hell didn’t I do x, y, and z?” This is one of those cases. I was experimenting with a look using Darling Girl products,

DG Moschino Inspired
DG Moschino Inspired 2
dg moschino inspired 3

Eyes: Darling Girl Unicorn, Mr Ed, Black Arabian.
Cheeks: Darling Girl Aloha
Lips: Darling Girl Oh My Darling

The lashes were a last minute add on, and they were totally wrong for what I wanted, but I was an idiot and didn’t take any shots without them. Oh well.  Perhaps I’m being a bit harsh when I saw I really don’t like how this turned out overall, but I was going for something like this:



Except a little more wearable, naturally. I’ve been changing my knickers over this look ever since I first saw it – love the wide eyes, love the brows, love the lip. The whole modern 60’s thing is just gorgeous.  Eh, I think I translated the essence well but it’s certainly not tutorial worthy as it was meant to be. Strip lashes next time, and think about your colour choices rather than randomly grab pretty neutrals, Miss Robyn!

Monday 12 November 2012

Quickie Review: Barry M Ultra Moisturizing Lip Paints in 162 Cranberry Red and 158 Coral Blush

I recently started spotting cute pink tubes on the Barry M stand, and, never one to pass up on a 3-for-2 offer, I snapped up a couple of the new colours along with a lovely sparkly polish.

 

barry m

Barry M 162

162 “Cranberry Red”

An absolutely gorgeous blue-based red – perfect for those who want to dip their toes into the vampy trend that rears it’s head every fall but are perhaps a bit shy when it comes to plums or deep colours. It goes on easily with a nice sheen, but it does dry down after about an hour or so and become more matte.

Barry M Lip Paint 157

158 “Coral Blush”

As you can see, this one isn’t as forgiving on application if you have dry lips and it takes a good swipe or two for good coverage, but I will forgive it those minor flaws as it is so SO pretty. Ever-so-slightly brighter in real life, it leans very pink on me (and I have seen it looking much more coral on other bloggers, so I do recommend giving it a good ol’ swatch before you buy) and has a slight neon undertone. Very niiiice.

 

Longevity on both is great and I can detect a slightly sweet scent compared to the regular range which I don’t detect any on. I’m going to take issues with the “ultra moisturizing” claims as I don’t find either of them moisturizing in the slightest. We all know that Barry M’s range can be very inconsistent and that a lot of their formulas can lean quite dry. In light of that it’s a bit annoying that these lippies don’t live up to their names, but they’re fantastic nonetheless and at £4.49 they’re still an absolute bargain.

Thursday 8 November 2012

Quickie Review: Lush Twilight

Yeah, yeah, we all know how bath bombs work and I think we've all reconciled ourselves to the fact that we get overexcited about fizzy beauty products. But I love the scent of this one so much, so I'm going to have a wee rave.
 

 
Despite fizzing away fairly quickly, the lovely lavender water gets choc-a-bloc with iridescent glitter... very beautiful for bath water (hyperbole? Moi?) and perfect for sparkle addicts like me! I also like the blue appearing as it dissolves - a fair few Lush bombs change colour as they melt away which I kind of enjoy.
My favourite thing has to be the scent though! Where once I'd wrinkle my nose at Grannyish lavender, when mixed in with the sweet, Horlicks-like malty smell I can't get enough of it. Perfect for sleepy time, it's a bit pricey for regular use at £3.20 a pop, but luckily for my newly lavender-loving schnozz, Lush have brought out a shower gel version for Christmas. Hurrah!

 

Tuesday 6 November 2012

Lip Mathematics: ASAP, Babe.

blue babe plus LOL

MUA Glitter Eyeliner Pencil in Blue Babe + Jordana Lips Out Loud in ASAP =


blue babe plus jordana

Sorry for the awful Vaseline-lens photo here, but this was the most accurate depiction of all the sparkle! Sadly the look didn’t look so lovely on the face and looks much better as a lip swatch, but who am I to argue with that much sparkle?

 

For those of you in the states who have access to Jordana, I wholly recommend this gloss – very, very pretty.