Finding the perfect match

After reading this post on Karla Sugar I'm reminded of the importance of viewing swatches before you buy make-up online. Not just any swatches, as many as possible, on as many different skin tones as possible. The difference a skin tone can make to the colour of makeup is incredible. In the spirit of helping you dear reader, I will do a series of swatch attack posts showing - in natural light - the colour of all the lip products I own. This will likely take some time so please accept my apologies in advance. I'll also put up a picture of my un-coloured lips for comparison.

The best way to gauge what will suit you is to find a reviewer with similar colouring, for reference my stats are as follows.

Eyes - Blue/green with bronze central heterochromia

Hair - reddish brown/black

Skintone - Cool

Skinshade - NC-15 ish

L-R Me, Holly, Hana

That photo looks to give a pretty good idea of skin tone, though the night time lighting pulls a bit yellow. It also shows how subtle differences in skin tone as well as depth can make a difference to colour. Hana for example, looks fabulous in purple eyeshadow, but I can only get away with the very coolest tones comfortably, and even then if I blend out into an out and out cool shade. Yet, as you can see in the photo there, our skin is practically the same.

Holly as you can see has a much warmer tone and looks beautiful in rich bronzey golds the likes of which I can only dream. :)

Mac Craving Review

After falling in love with the delightful scent of mac lipsticks I couldn't resist using a bit of Christmas money to order another. The swatches on the mac website aren't too bad, but the colour descriptions I find to be twaddle. I always look for real life swatches if I can, but even then skin tone differences can cause the colour to pull another way.

After a long time choosing and many google searches for colour swatches (the swatches on Karla Sugar are AMAZING) http://karlasugar.net/2009/09/mac-amplified-creme-lipsticks/ I decided on "craving".

The amplified creme finish is an odd one. It actually reminds me more of Ellis Faas creamy lipcolour than a usual stick lipstick, it's almost a thick ink. The lipstick doesn't feel like much is on your lips and has a slight sheen to it, though not at all as much as something with creme in the name normally has. Craving is VERY pigmented and yet doesn't bleed. You should be careful with application though as it stains! The colour melts into your lips (exfoliate first for optimum results!) though I find it works better without a balm under as the extra moisture just makes it slide off.

This photo was taken with my laptop through facebook to show off my new favourite lipstick colour. I haven't altered the colour in any way, nor did I use flash. The odd white cast to my face is caused by the illumination of the screen, normal skin tone can be seen on my arm at the bottom left of the photo in case you were wondering. Not that much difference, but that's what a healthy dislike of the sun does to you. (Speaking of which, can you please make shades lighter than NC-15 mac?)

Craving as I would describe it, is a plum tinged pink that looks deceptivley warm in the stick. On me it seems a cool toned pink, which is exactly what I wanted, I can't pull off warm toned colours near my face.

I found the way to get what I consider the best result from this lipstick is to just rub my lips with a toothbrush (first thing in the morning when I brush my teeth - lazy) apply a good slathering of lanolips 101 straight after and then get dressed, do the rest of my makeup and lipstick last when the ointment has sunk in properly. For a faster way i'd exfoliate, moisturise, let it sink in a moment then wipe off the balm to leave a dry canvas for this ink stick to adhere to.


Transfer is surprisingly little, I adore this lipstick!

I live! Also, Merry Chrimblybob!

Well hello there!

I know the beauteous Sammi has been keeping up with her blogging diligently, but I have been failing to update! For this, I am sorry! However, in the coming few days I will have quite the number of posts, reviews, swatches and rants for you all to enjoy.

For now I shall say Merry Festive season! Hope you all had a lovely Christmas and Boxing Day :)

x

Guerlain Meteorites

Thanks to my lovely parents I received Guerlain Meteorites for Christmas, and Belle de Opium, which I adore.

The meteorites as we know come packaged in a beautiful silver cylinder with a little puff, more for protecting the perles than application, they seem best applied with a large fluffy brush.

There they are applied, sorry for the miserable expression, I was focused on covering up some of the flash that was washing the colour out.

The meteorites give a moonlit glow to the skin and gift a soft focus effect, blurring pores and generally improving the look of skin. The soft powder also helps set makeup which is handy.

Love them. Well worth the price IMO.

Christmas

Merry Christmas one and all!

Things I need, things you need

Owning suitcases full of makeup and beauty products, it's not often that I hit pan, nevermind repurchase. There are however a few products that i've repurchased time and time again. That's not to say that I've stopped looking for one I might like better, but in the case of these items, I've never found one, definitely an achievement!

The Body Shop - All in one face base

I use this in Shade 02, the lightest they sell. To be honest this is still too yellow and dark for my skin tone, 01 was lovely, but it was discontinued in this product a few years ago, much to my disappointment. I hate the way liquid bases feel on my skin. This powder base gives brilliant coverage, lasts all day with minimal oil breakthrough and gives a soft matte finish.

GOSH liquid eyeliner

This comes in a huge range of colours, creme, glitter and metallics, paints on smoothly and more importantly, sets and stays where you put it. This really doesn't come off until you want it to.

Barry M Nail Paint in Turquoise

With a heavy hand this gorgeous Tiffany-esque colour goes opaque in one coat, two thin coats dries quickly to a satiny finish. I prefer to keep this glossy with a shiny topcoat but it looks stunning under all sorts of layers. I've used glitter top coat, Illamasqua prism, silver tips or even tiny jewels. Very sweet.

Fixing my poor nails

Scrubbing off the glitter top coat from my nails today I noticed the surface is looking rough and damaged. I raided Heidi's polish drawer and found a collection 2000 nail care strengthener.

Painting it on my nails it has a thin oily consistency that looks glossy and immediately smooths the surface somewhat. It also says it can act as base coat which is handy! Let's hope it works.