EOTD

OK, the name says it all really. This is a look with the pink (lid) and purple (contour) shades from the Boots 17 Vanity Case, finished off with MAC Fluidline in Non-conformist (cool toned purple). And NYX Doll Eye Volume mascara.


While Gemma is jetting off to New York on her fabulous winter break, I'm upholding the same standard of stylish living back here in London. For example, while wearing this look I braved the Christmas shopping crowds in London's glamorous* Wood Green, took a wintry ride on the charming sleigh-like 144 bus, and later in the evening was somehow convinced to follow the example of my friend Greg in climbing into a large Ryman's carrier bag, just to prove that it could be done. Yes, this actually happened.

*Actually not glamorous. At all.

This hasn't photographed too well, but the idea was to mix chartreuse green on the lid with blue-ish opaque silver in the inner corners. I started out with matte green to contrast the silver in texture as well as colour, but it didn't show up in the photos, so I went over it with a shimmer chartreuse instead.



Colours:
MAC Bitter, Chartreuse pigment, Phloof to highlight.
Urban Decay Strip
Milani Clover (crease colour)
I finished it with NYX Doll Eyes Volume mascara on top and bottom lashes.

Somewhat meh... I think I need better lighting!

Just a quick picture post tonight (because I'm deathly tired and about to clamber into a bath with a copy of Chat magazine because that's all my battered intellect can cope with) - here's an EOTD I did at the weekend with the Sleek Acid Palette. I'd been concerned about using this because my experience with the original Sleek i-Divine palette was that it stained my skin, but the matte colours in the Acid palette at any rate didn't give me any problems at all. In fact they were a lot of fun and easy to work with. Yay to that.

I used: Sleek palette in Acid (£4.89)
MAC Royal Wink Fluidline (discontinued, but try Urban Decay Radium liquid liner, £12 as a more shimmery substitute.)
Brows: Illamasqua brow powder in Motto
Urban Decay Primer Potion

Sorry for the rather hopeless focusing in the middle one - hopefully you get the idea.

Here's a quick look using the following products

OCC Lip Tar in NSFW (these seem to have dropped off the map a bit, which is a shame because they're still as brilliant as they were back in Jan when they were getting so much hype)
Stila Oil Free Foundation in Shade A (as concealer)
Stila Convertible Eye Colour in Stone (gawd bless those bargain websites)
Belvada Noir sliding mascara (it's £5 in Boots at the moment but it's not that amazing, I am just using it up because I bought it out of curiosity)



Click for more pictures and a couple of close-ups

Here's an EOTD with my newest "adventurous" makeup purchase - Eyeliner Gel from Inglot in shade 79 - aka bright, pillarbox red.

I fell in love with this pretty much on sight. I didn't know if I'd be able to wear it but it didn't matter - the idea of a red gel liner had me sold straight away.

As it turns out, this stuff is great. It has a smooth, creamy formula and is no fuss to apply. It also dries down to an unbudgeable finish. The box describes it as "matte" but I actually found that it had a slightly shiny finish once dry.

I've DIY'd red liner in the past using red eyeshadow and various mixing media, but I feel that the itch is now well and truly scratched with this product.

One small complaint - the product seems to have dried out and cracked a bit in storage, as the picture above shows. I understand that these probably don't sell very often so the stock won't move very quickly. But Inglot, how about designing some decent air-tight packaging for your gel products?

Price was £8, bought from the Inglot store, Westfield, London. I don't have details of an online stockist for this brand, but I'll update this information if I discover any.

More pics below the cut.

Disclosure: The Models Own and OCC items in this post were samples provided for consideration.

Earlier this year, the Metro ran an article about summer corals by British Beauty Blogger, with contributions from Makeup by Katy. I loved their selection of products, and was especially struck by the neon orange Models Own eyeliner that BBB picked out. I told her I loved the look of it but doubted I could pull it off, and she suggested I should try it anyway. And so I have.

Pictured above are the orange pencil itself and a complementing loose eyeshadow in Orangeade, both £5 from Models Own (who kindly provided the materials for this experiment).

The barrel of the pencil is a staggeringly bright colour. It has a highly practical design, with a lidded smudger on the end and a sharpener set into the pencil cap. I love how well thought out it is. Swatched on bare skin, the pencil is opaque and true to colour.
However I found that applying it to the eye (I really didn't enjoy the prospect of this, and as you can see it does look pretty horrible by itself) it dragged quite a bit over the layer of UDPP I had put on in preparation and took a few tries to get payoff. (NB to self for future reference; UDPP and these pencils are not a good mix.)

Obviously I couldn't let it stay like that. Bleurgh. Below are the Models Own Orangeade (right), a cooler toned and surprisingly wearable orange/salmon colour, and OCC Titania loose pigment, a beautiful pale neutral with warm reflects that I thought would be handy in pulling a look together. I put the Orangeade on the lid and the Titania in the inner corners and on the browbone.

The next step was to thoroughly line the eye with UD 24/7 eyeliner in Zero. I went for the inner rim. I rarely do this (I feel a bit squeamish about applying product to mucuous membranes) but I felt I had to put something between that orange liner and my eyes.

That still looked off, so I added some black eyeshadow to the crease (applied with a pencil brush and blended out). And then some NYX Doll Eye mascara.

Passable, no?

Pics taken indoors;



And in natural light;

This Yaby palette is easily my most extravagant makeup purchase of 2010 so far. Even with the IMATS show discount, it was pretty pricy at £64.99. I decided I had to have it on the Sunday of the show after buying a few of the single shades on the Saturday.

Best of Both Worlds is one of Yaby's pre-filled kits, with 40 shadow pans in one of their customisable palettes. This isn't the exact Best of Both Worlds layout. I have swapped a few pans with the singles I bought. Like "Highlighted", that neon yellow.



It's extremely easily to change the pans around or replace empties. You just press down on the edge of the pan with your finger and out it pops. Very well designed. The palette generally is a solid piece of work, with a decent mirror and a pleasant, smooth weightiness in the hand. If Apple made palettes, they might look a bit like this.


I think one of the most powerful draws for me was the miniature-ness of the pans. They're like adorable little buttons. I've always been a sucker for tiny things, and when tininess is combined with cosmetic-ness, I'm sort of helpless to resist. The palettes also remind me of the Bobbi Brown Brights LE palette which was around last summer and which I wanted quite badly at the time.

There are two textures in this palette (hence Best of Both), regular eyeshadows, and Pearl Paints. The Pearl Paints are buttery opaque shimmer dreaminess, and the regular shadows aren't half bad either - very pigmented and smooth.

Here's my attempt to create a suitably bright look with my new toy. I'm not entirely happy with this (nnng at not getting shadow in crease exactly) but it does give a suggestion of the finish and opacity these shadows can achieve. My camera has washed the colours out quite a bit.



Yaby cosmetics are available in the UK from The Makeup Artist Boutique. The Best of Both palette costs a rather daunting £79.99, but it is quite a special bit of kit. And you won't need to say "I don't have any [x colour] eyeshadow" ever, ever again.