Robyn's Rockin Retro #8: Roaring Twenties!

Twenties make-up is weird! I watched a lot of YT vids (imo, the Pixiwoo vid is the best, you get a lot of info behind the look.) Basically they did everything totally different to how we would today - straight brows, all the darkness on the inner corners of their eyes as opposed to the outer, 'spots' of blush and those Clara Bow lips:




Despite being a bit 'weird', I think it looks pretty awesome and you can see the period actually has quite a lot of influence on style today:



Christian Dior - I looove this look. Dior definitely has my favourite runway makeup, it's always aaaaaaahmazing.



The amazing Alex Box often references the 20's in her work



And of course, our Lady! This site - makeupforlife.net - claims the lips to be Geisha inspired. Only Gaga knows but I think it's interesting that when on a geisha, these lips probably are supposed to give an illusion of youth and innocence whereas on a gal in the 20's, they would signify liberation!

Wanna see my take?








Please, please excuse my brows. I'm really having trouble covering them! Also, I think my brows should have been more straight. I mixed up the colours to make it a little more modern. They wouldn't really have had purple cosmetics back in the day - shadows were mostly grey and sometimes paler blues and greens, with blushes and lippies variations of red and pink. I wasn't sure what to go for for the blush, so I went for rusty! As for my hair, I did it very quickly but I took a tip from the ever-fucking-amazing ilovegerado and pincurled it up to get a bobbed look.


Eyes:
Sleek Black
MUA Shade 3 (sliver/grey)
Darkest matte purple from Wet n Wild Lust palette

Lips:
Evil Shades lipstick in Corruption (Wasn't sure about this lippy at first, LOVE IT now!)

Cheeks:
A mix of three rusty/reddish colours from the 120 palette


Well, I think that's my Retro Series done for a while, kinda bored on it, but there'll be a post here and there, I'm sure!

xxx

Robyn's Rockin' Retro #7: Cheaters Victory Rolls - First Attempts

Here's a couple of pics for those of you who don't know what victory rolls are:



Old school, as modelled by Rita Hayworth...



...and new school, as modelled by... er, this lovely model on Daddy O's. (Don't click on it, it'll make you very sad indeed.) This version is more of what I'm going for.


Nice, right? Basically, the style is two upswept rolls on either side of your head. I cannot do them. Well, I sort of can. I can't physically roll my hair up and under into a long roll, like Rita up there. Its too long and thin, plus I'm crap at hair. But I found this awesome 'cheaters' video for long hair on Youtube and I've made a couple attempts so far. It claims to be quick and easy...



...and it was, sort of! I managed to do one side and have it look ok, but I think perhaps I parted my hair too far to one side, and I couldn't get a nice roll with the thinner side, and it was Work Teim.

Onto the second attempt:




Do you like my little skellyton necklace? He's got a top hat and a guitar to keep him company :D

With more practice I think I could get these looking really nice!I think the rolls should have been a little further forward on my head, but I'm pleased I managed to get them more even. If anyone has any tips, knows what kind of styling product I should use to keep my hair smoothy smooth and not crunchy while I'm styling this kind of thing, or has ideas what to do with the rest of my bloody hair when I have the rolls in, I'd be more than grateful!

xxx

Robyn's Rockin' Retro #6: Some Kinda Psycho

I absolutely love the psychobilly style, although I find it really, really hard to define. I guess I'd describe it as rockabilly plus punk plus hot rod with a bit of a zombie twist! Think amped-up old Hollywood style make-up and dresses with massive pompadours, leopard print, skulls, brothel creepers, tattoos, blah.

Anyway, I've seen girls rocking the psychobilly look with all kinds of make-up, but the classic black/liner red lips is still pretty common. So here are my pin-up looks with a bit of a twist!

Sexeh:





There's been a distinct lack of red lips in this series! Basically this look is just amping up the classic pin-up look - I winged my liner out a lot more than I normally would, packed grey and black into the crease and gave my lips a lot of love!

Eyes:
NYX Ultra Pearl Mania in Pearl (highlight, lower lashline)
Evil Shades Glooming (outer crease)
MUA Shade 3 (crease)
MAC Gesso (lid, blended with the grey shades)
Collection 2000 Fast Strokes Liner

Face:
MAC MSF in Stereo Rose (thanks to Secret Beauty Blog!)
Collection 2000 Fast Strokes Liner (beauty mark)

Lips:
Maybelline Moisture Extreme lip liner in Royal Red
OCC Lip Tar in NSFW
Milani Buzz Worthy gloss in Bee-uitful (centre)
NYX Ultra Pearl Mania in Pearl (highlight cupid's bow)

Mmmminty:



This look was inspired by hollywoodnoirmakeup's Green Smoke tutorial, which I absolutely adored. Did not have time to do a proper cut crease, though, this was done super quick but I really liked how it came out. I paired it with a red gloss - I am still really afraid of red lips for the day, I don't know why! I think it's quite a lot with my hair, perhaps.

Eyes:
Hi-Fi Sweet Dreams (lid)
Sleek Black (crease)
Nyx White Pearl (highlight)


Pretty in Pink:



I wanted to do the same style/technique of make-up I've been doing with my pin-up looks, i.e., simple eyes, strong lips, but with different colours. I think you can still tell what era it was inspired by, especially with accessories like hair flowers, bandannas, etc. Dita Von Teese often uses a purple in her crease, but less girly and bright than this! I may do a Dita look if I have time this week with purple shadows.

Eyes:
Wet and Wild colour icon palette in Lust (light pink on the lid... oh, I can't remember)
Face:
Almay blush in Peach
Lips:
Milani lipstick in Rose Hip

Psychobitch Outta Hell:






Sprry about my eye bags! Anyway, I looooved this look. I think its such an awesome psychobilly colour combo - purple and green is very zombie glam, no? I did try red lips with this, and I sort of liked it, but I had to go to work in my lovely bright pink work shirt, and I really wasn't feeling it.

Eyes:
All 120 palette shadows (kelly green on lid, Stars-and-Rockets like purple in crease and deep matte purple in outer crease)
NYX Jumbo pencil in Milk on waterline
Collection 2000 Fast Strokes Liner


Hope you girls liked, it feels like I haven't posted any face for ages! xxx


P.S: I'm not going to bother listing certain make-up items any more. I always use Revlon Colorstay in 150 Buff, I always use UDPP, I generally always use NYX JEP in Milk and at the moment I generally use Lancome Hypnose. I don't think we all care that much what foundation, etc each other uses unless we're looking for a new one. And, you know, I'm lazy.

Robyn's rockin' Retro #5: Nails!

Obviously I had to do some nail art for this little series of mine. They're all modern designs based on retro or pin up stuff - your average fashionable 40's or 50's chick, from what I can discern, had pretty pointy nails, which I can't deal with even thinking about trying to attain, and there weren't many nail colours available back in the day.

Anywoo...



I tried my hand at the ol' half-moon mani, which the lovely Dita quite often sports. However, having seen a picture of the equally lovely Patricia Day wearing black nails with white tips, I decided to do a black and white one. Not the best, but for my first attempt I wasn't disgusted with my own incompetence. I just did them freehand (here's an Illamasqua tutorial!) and cleaned up with a Q-tip. I thought this looked punky and cool.



Conversely, this is the worst mani I've done ever. Raggedy cuticles, pooey Konad and my hair dye stained the white base pink! Fail. Oh well. You get the idea, cherries, pin up, yadda yadda.



A quick sailor mani - the colours and placement were my boyfriends idea. I think he did a good job, no? Sorry for the one crappy picture. Bad light that day!



Polka dots ftw! This was my sisters idea. I had no idea what to do for pin-up nails and she said do a pair like a spotty pair of knickers! I wish I'd had time to put little fimo bows on, but I didn't. Still, it was super easy and I got more compliments on this manicure than I've ever gotten for one before. Thanks Bones :D (That's my sister, fyi!)








I'm in two minds about this one. I love swallows, I love their use in tattoos (I have one myself) and seeing how - probably because of the tattoo thang - they're pretty synonymous with pin-up culture, I had to do a swallow mani. I chose red and blue on flesh-coloured nails to mimic early tattooing. I think I did an ok job - I used acrylic paints but I can't find my nail brushes so I had to do these with an orange stick.





Poodle skirt mani! Yeah, I know the lead doesn't really join up, but whatever. The bottom poodle looks a bit butch, which is odd because he was on my left hand, but I really liked the other one. I decided butch poodle takes care of cutesy poodle. I loved this mani even though I lost one of my nails - ouchy!


Sorry for my lack of posts with actual content. I do have another hair post to come, but I've only done half of it, and I have some more pyschobilly looks but I need to do one or two more to flesh out a post a bit. Also I need to do my 20s look! Gah!


Snogs xxx

150 followers?! :D

Yay! Thankyou all so much. I love all your sweet comments and really appreciate the time you guys take to read my little blog. I'd love to celebrate with a giveaway but I can't afford to do one that does you guys enough justice at the moment. Hopefully it won't be too far off!

I also want to apologise for lack of posting this week. I've been so busy and I'm working 24 out of the next 36 hours, so there's not going to be any posting till this weekend, when I'm going to write about ten posts to make sure I have something to post next week as well!

Until then, please enjoy this Slow Loris ^-^

Holy Giveaway, Batman!

Have you SEEN Blix's super awesome glittery giveaway? No? Wtf are you waiting for?! There's FIVE winners!

xxx

Surpise Swap Package is Suprising :D (And some bargains, woo!)

While me and 'im indoors were heading out the door to visit some friends for the weekend a week ago, I discovered ANOTHER swap package from Wendy aka Cydonian, who is awesome and sent me more stuff, on the doormat! Yaaaay! To Jon's disgu...amusement, I took it with me and opened it walking down the road, like any of us would, I'm sure.

I didn't take a pic of it all together because I opened it walking down the street, but she sent me:

Wet n Wild Color Icon palette in Cool as a Cucumber
Wet n Wild duo eyeshadow in Tequila Sunrise
Wet n Wild duo eyeshadow in Skys the Limit
NYC Blushable Creme Stick in Pink Flash
Claire's Mood polish in Calm/Wild
Claire's Mood polish in Moody/Shy

OMGWTF. Srsly girl, don't think you're getting away with this. I WILL find you equally bitching products. Anyway, behold le swatches:



Obviously the blush isn't blended at all, but loook how pretty! I see it as somewhere between bubblegum pink and coral, which is probably the most useless blush description ever, but hey.I've not worn creme blush before and its so easy to use! I also like the size of this - I rarely pack a make-up bag unless I'm going away for the weekend, and this is nice and slim while actually containing a lot of product. On the left is the Wet and Wild Cool as a Cucumber palette, which contains three shades. I adore the lightest green - I love highlight colours that are actually colours.



And thats just a really quick look with the palette - you can see how the darker green and purple are slightly greyed... lovely! I wore this palette....wait for it... two days in a row. Yeah.

The two Wet and Wild duos I'm also super impressed with:



The top two are the Tequila Sunrise duo and the bottom two are the Sky's the Limit Duo. OMG. That bronzey colour, I am informed by it's lovely sender, is similar to MAC's Amber lights. Sooooo pretty. And I was pleasantly surprised by the Sky's the Limit duo, too, though I haven't used it yet. The deeper blue is really pigmented and the lighter shade is a lot more complex than you'd think to look at it - it has a really pretty aqua sheen to it. Again, I love coloured highlight colours! I'm going to use this with my Milani liner next time I'm feeling a blue day :)



Here's another quickie with the Tequila Sunrise duo. I put the Amber Lights-y colour over Urban Decay 24/7 in Bourbon on the lower lashline - sweet, huh? - with a little MUA shadow in No 4 on my browbone. I think this duo is gonna get a lot of use.

And onto the polishes... I know plenty of UK beauty bloggers who are doing their nut wishing Claire's stocked these over yeah. Yeah, yeah, matte polishes for less than £3, whatever... These kick ass.




This is the Moody/Shy polish, which was matte before I put my top coat on. You can see the tips are darker because my nails are long and that part of them is cooler - the effect is more pronounced on longer nails. When you put your hands in hot water, the polish goes all the lighter colour but for some of the day it was so cold my nails were all the dark colour! These polishes will turn you into a total geek.



I couldn't get a picture of the Calm/Wild with its colour change, but its pretty well blogged. I thought it would be a cool idea to Konad an image in a near identical colour to the darker shade of the colour change polish, so that as your nails changed during the day, you can sometimes see the image and sometimes not. It was pretty cool :)


So thats it for the post. Girl, I love everything, you are so awesome. If you guys aren't following Turtle Beauty, then stop reading and go now :)

I also wanted to send out some thankyou's to Kat O (my little sister loves your blog, if you're reading, Kat!) and Beauty's Bad Habit for inadvertently helping me find two awesome bargain lippies. I'm not on a no-buy anymore, I am however on a low-buy, so no being silly for me.

Kat informed me that Beauty Base in Westfield London (which is where I work, sadly in a pub there and not MAC or Inglot or one of the 10,000 Benefit counters there) had a Milani stand. So when I trotted off there after work to check out what they had, I found Milani Rose Hip lipstick:



URM. OMG. This picture does the brightness no justice at all - I shit a brick when I tried this on. Fuck a duck, it's bright. And it was £2! Don't let me kiss you with joy when I see you, Kat! I've been wanting it for yonks ever since I saw MonroeMisfitMakeup (what happened to her?) wear it on YT. I was really missing a pink like this. I can't wait to try this with the Milani lipgloss I got in my first swap package from Wendy, as it has hot pink sparkles in it!

And here is my second new beloved, MUA Shade 11:



Oh, beautiful opaque creamypeachybrownyness for £1, how I adore thee. I saw this shade in this post by Beautys Bad Habit which rather helpfully compares some of the MUA £1 lippies to MAC, Clinique, Barry M etc. Anyway, this shade is really lovely, and its formula I think is the nicest of the MUA lippies I have. I just WISH they would have given them names! I mean seriously, how much do you have to pay someone to give something a name? Peach Cobbler, that's peach and brown. Done.


Sigh, that was a big one! (lolz) Hoping to do a victory rolls post tomorrow so wish me luck!

Robyn xxx