As I suspected, beauty spots are super easy to create. Check out this youtube vid. My Revlon colourstay liquid liner will be perfect for this. If you wanted a 3-d beauty spot you could probably dab a teeny bit of false-eyelash adhesive to your face a paint over that with eyeliner.
According to wikipedia, beauty spots were particularly highly regarded during the eighteenth century and creating false ones became common, often in fanciful shapes such as hearts. Marilyn Monroe’s beauty mark generated a new vogue for them during the twentieth century.
Going through the list on wikipedia of celebs sporting beauty spots, my favourite beauty spots belong to: Dita Von Teese, Madonna, Eva Mendes, Lil Kim, Kim Cattrall, Natalie Portman, Cindy Crawford, Goldie Hawn, and Amy Winehouse. Their beauty spots are real features of their faces.
It’s weird how these little facial moles are actually quite pretty. And so easy to fake! I’m gonna start wearing one – are you ladies with me?!?
If you have any beauty spots (your own or others) to share, leave details/links in a comment.
If you’re lucky enough to be in Auckland today, you could head to Miss Illicit’s grand opening next to Illicit in K’Rd. There’s drinks, nibbles and a burlesque show! from 7pm. Places are limited though so it might pay to give Illicit a call to see if there’s still space.
The new range of oh-so-pretty ladies wear takes over where Misery Boutique left off.
I nicked this pic off of Illicit’s myspace page. Can’t wait till this range makes it Welly.
P.S. I love this model’s beauty spot - I’m so gonna do a beauty spot post!
This trick is great for straight or curly hair, at medium length to long. And one of the simplest things you can do for a subtle style change.
If you have straight hair, it adds a lovely wave to your hair. If you have curly hair, it tames the frizz. At different times I have either curly or straight hair ( thansk to my GHDs), and the photo below is of me starting out with straight hair, and then adding wave. And I like it just as much when I tone down my curls using the same technique.
So how’d I do it? It’s diabolically easy! Just plait you hair before you go to bed and sleep on it. For this amount of wave I plaited two pigtails, secured with hair ties, and slept. Sometimes I go for just the one ponytail plaited. And obviously, if you want more wave, just do a few more plaits - easy as!
In the morning pull out the hair ties, tussle your hair and set with hair spray (optional). And as I said, it’s a nice technique if you curly hair too.
NOTE: This works best soon after washing your hair. I’ve noticed as my hair gets oiler days after washing, the waves don’t hold so well. Oh, and start the plait close up to you scalp so you get the wave starting high up.
When I was in New York in 2006, my friend took me to Times Square after we’d been drinking, and we went into a Sephora store which was open until midnight. OH MY GOD I nearly died with lust for all the products, and we spent over an hour in there while I agonised over what fragrance Philosophy shower gel to buy (I bought Frozen Lemon Custard eventually) and deciding on Hard Candy and Juicy Tubes Coconut Lipgloss. Going into such luscious shops when you have been drinking is potentially very dangerous, but luckily my need to pee got me out of there before I spent too much money. And it’s okay for me to give you the link because they don’t ship to New Zealand anyway.
But what I really wanted to tell you about was is the Jezebel Sephora Spy series. If you’re not familiar with Jezebel, you should know that it has the tagline “Celebrity. Sex. Fashion. Without airbrushing” and while it does cover many trivial issues, it does have a feminist slant and that sits very well with both my personal taste and my hopes for this site. Their Sephora Spy is an employee of the store who answers questions about their products in a totally bullshit free manner, and is full of good tips, and evaluations of whether or not potions actually do what they claim to, so check it out. And if you’re going to the States any time soon and want to blow your mind, make sure you go to a Sephora.
A little while ago I was at work on a Friday, and I was planning on going out for drinks afterwards, but had left all of my makeup at home (that’s probably a lie because I normally carry at least four kinds of lipgloss with me wherever I go - mostly my juicy tubes), so I decided to head up to the supermarket and see what kind of beauty I could get myself for $20. $8.95 bought me an issue of the new magazine Jolie that came with a free Maybellie Great Lash (which retails for $17, woo!), and I also decided to buy myself a new lipgloss. Because I’m worth it. I decided on a Maybelline Shinylicious in Banana Pudding colour, Here’s how it looks with a before and after.
As you can see, it’s pretty subtle. It looks much browner in the tube than it does on. It has a really strong scent which I like, but which others liken to banana penicillin. I like the soft tip of the applicator, it makes it neater to put on than other lip glosses. It’s not too sticky, but it does need touchups every hour or so to maintain the colour. For $15, it’s pretty sweet, and I’d buy it in other colours if I ever needed another pick-me-up.
I clipped a coupon from a magazine that let me get a 2ml sample of mascara from a Lancome counter. When I presented the coupon to the lovely Lancome lady, she generously gave me two to try.
The first is the Virtuose, which got good reviews on Totalbeauty.com. It promises 6 times the volume.
The other is Hypnose, which also got good reviews. It promises 100 Degree Lash Curve with Divine Length All Day. CurlGuard formula lengthens and holds a divine lash curve for up to 12 hours. The KeepCurl brush provides an outstanding eyelash curler effect.
So I road tested them for you. Here’s me with no mascara:
Here’s me with the Virtuose on the left and Hypnose on the right.
LEFT: Virtuose RIGHT: Hypnose
Method: I applied the mascaras to each side for approx. the same amount of time using the same application method (straight up from roots to ends, over and over), and under the same conditions (slightly steamy bathroom, clean eyes).
Verdict: The Virtuose certainly does curl lashes - I was surprised at this actually, because I’m dubious of such claims. And it goes on nicely, no clumping. The curved applicator is a bit hard to get used to though.
The Hypnose is a bit disappointing. It’s super clumpy, as you can see from the picture. So difficult to tell if the ‘6 times the volume’ claim is true (even if I could measure it). And it was a bit messy - I ended up with black bits on my eye lids.
I slept in both mascaras (in the name of science) and they both lasted really well - no smudging over night. The Hypnose is probably the most water resistant as it was difficult to remove even with eye make-up remover.
I like my current brand of mascara, but if I wanted curly lashes in a flash I’d go for the Virtuose.
Maybe you could be cheeky and ask for one of these samples without the coupon thing I clipped from a magazine. It’s worth try!
We all know about celeb touch-ups, but it’s still fun to see the lengths they go to hide a bit of pudge or a crooked whatever. Though half the time i wonder why they even bother - most of these celebs are as pretty as you and me anyways, and the celebs’d be pissed that the magazines have digitally nipped and tucked them.
Click on the photos at bottom of page and then scroll over the pop-up photo to see the before and afters.
I kinda like pencil eyeliners, i really like liquid eyeliners, and now i love love love cream eyeliners. I bought this Stila smudge liner (my first cream liner) a little while ago and it’s really versatile. You have to apply it with a make-up brush, but you can create all sorts of different looks with it using different brushes, mixing with water, smudging with fingers, or blending with eyeshadow. The possibilities are endless!
Here’s a pic of my Stila liner in Copper, with the tiny-tipped brush i bought from the art shop. Sorry about the blur.
With the smallest brush you can get real precise lines like this…
I dipped the brush in water first to make the liner more liquidy for the above look.
And then i got a bigger brush, and smudged it all out, and the blended with a blender brush with a bit of vanilla eyeshadow. This isn’t the best photo but you get the idea…
(Sorry about the poor quality of the pics.)
The only thing that’s a bit of a pain with this creme liner is that in cold weather it hardens and becomes difficult to apply. i guess i could fix that by putting the pottle into warm water or blow drying it.
I was lurking around pursebuzz’s site a while ago and read a post of hers about CEW - the Cosmetic Executive Women something or other. They’re industry experts who test and determine the best beauty products (in this case in the US, and there’s also a UK group) and have these annual awards. It’s like the Oscars but for make-up nerds.
Here’s the results - very interesting!! and i don’t own any of these products!
It might pay to also look at the 2007 awards. Go Oil of Olay!!
