Glamour Check!

I instagrammed this look ages ago and promised to do a blogpost letting you know what I used.

Tardy, much?

Anyway, i'll cut to the chase ...

It was to be an evening of bar hopping and a quick pub quiz (which we won, hell yeah! Team GB).  I was going for casual attire so I usually go for something a little more glam on the eyes.

Excuse the half stripped walls in the background ...

... and excuse the monkey eyebrows!

EYES: Chanel Illusion D'Ombre in Ebloui as a base. MAC Woodwinked all over lid with Glamour Check! and Twinks defining outer v and under the eye.  Glamour Check! and Twinks are such similar colours you could easily just use one.  Mac Blacktrack fluidline to add a flick and line the waterline and MUFE Smokey lash to finish off.

CHEEKS:  Benefit Hula to bronze and contour.  Mac Springsheen and Illamasqua unrequited mixed together on cheeks. 

LIPS: Hmm, i'm sorry I actually have no idea - I can't remember.  How rubbish am i?! 

A special shout out to skin.  I used Smashbox Studio Skin which has been likened to Mac studio fix fluid.  I don't find the consistency quite as thick and find the colour range a little better in terms of the lighter foundations. (I sometimes find Mac SFF shades too pink or too yellow).  

A little goes a long way with this foundation and piling it on will leave your face hanging by your knees by the end of the day, it's so heavy!  However, a light application gives just the right medium coverage and is easy to blend.  It looks fresh, flawlwess and lasts all day and night.  The only judgement I have yet to make on it is whether or not it photographs well.  This is always the clincher for me.

Now I am off to work out how to make the best of this blog and possibly come up with a better look and name for it.  I feel like I have grown out of Saskia the Style Fairy ... girl feels like a numpty! Any suggestions, you can let me know :) 

x

FOTD: Pink Eye

Apologies for hideously bad quality photo booth images but it was the quickest way for me to take photos of my make up yesterday. 

I wanted to go for a soft feminine look so decided to break out all the pinks.  Eyes, lips and cheeks all in tones of soft pink.   Pink is not always the easiest shade to wear on eyes, you can potentially come out looking a little ill or bruised so tone, intensity and contour is quite important.  

This was a daytime look so I was able to keep it soft and subtle avoiding any chance of a heavy handed application.

FACE:  Chanel Vitalumiere Aqua in B40 Beige - Desert, MAC Select Cover up concealer in NC25

CHEEKS:  Bourjois Delice de Poudre Bronzer in 52 (Just started using this, review will follow!) and New CID i-glow in Coral Crush 

EYES:  Clinique Strawberry Fudge palette, MAC Fluidline in Blacktrack, MUFE Smokey Lash mascara

EYEBROWS:  Shavata eyebrow pencil

LIPS:  MAC Pro Longwear lipstick in Love Forever! smudged over lips applied with finger, topped off with Lipstick queen fifteen minutes of fame gloss in 2 minutes

A review on the Bourjois bronzer is coming up soon.  It's the first time I have properly strayed from my holy grail bronzer, Nars Laguna so I really want to let you know my thoughts.  Watch this space!

I kind of miss face of the day posts, I remember back when I started blogging it was one of the most popular type of posts from bloggers.  I quite like kicking it old school sometimes!

Are fotd posts of interest to you?  And what do you think of pink eyes ...?!
x

Grand Central - what I wore ... and MUFE HD thoughts

If you have read my previous post you will know I attended the launch party for the Grand Central Hotel this week.

It was a mid week affair and I had to quickly dash home to get changed before heading to the hotel.  Now, with a launch party like this there is no dress code stated ... I had no idea if it was as fancy as black tie or if it was simply smart casual.  I decided to go with smart casual basically because I had very little time to spruce myself up in between finishing work and arriving at the event.

It turned out many people had pulled out all the stops with their outfits with evening gowns strutting by me through the corridors but likewise many business people attending had obviously come straight from the office so in the end I think I struck a nice balance. 

I wore my River Island cropped leather trousers, Zara leopard print shoes, black Mango tee, Mango fitted blazer, my worn to death H&M faux fur stole and my everyday Balenciaga bag. 

Rabbit caught in the headlights!

It was a really comfortable choice but looking at this photo, something isn't quite right.  My face looks grey ... or even greige.  Looking back I thought that my make up brushes were to blame - they are long overdue a good wash - but I think the real culprit is my foundation. 

I decided to go for a change in  my foundation that evening and went with MUFE HD Foundation in shade 125.  I know this is a much loved foundation by beauty bloggers and I have always been quite partial to it myself.  Everything starts off well with this foundation, the packaging is sleek and comes with a pump which I think should be a must have for all foundations going forward.  However, I normally notice after a few hours wear I start to look really tired and my skin starts to look almost saggy as if my foundation is slipping off my face.  For this reason I tend to only wear it when I know I won't be out long enough for it to start looking tired. 

I now feel that maybe this foundation isn't worth the hype or the price seeing as I can only get a few hours decent wear out of it.  When first applied my skin looks lovely - it offers medium coverage which easily builds to full coverage if desired, it also gives a dewy effect without necessarily requiring a powder or blotting. 

One of the selling points about this foundation is that it is supposed to photograph well.  For me, this photo is evidence that I (personally) do not photograph well wearing it.  My skin looks washed out to the point of dull and I look like I have done 6 rounds with Tyson and need a week long kip.  I can even see that my eyeshadow and blush don't seem to sit well layered over it.

MUFE HD isn't the only foundation I have found that photographs badly on me, so too does Revlon Photoready - again a foundation whose selling point is that you photograph well in it.  Estee Lauder Double Wear also doesn't photograph well for me but is a foundation I adore ...and I just make sure I avoid camera's when wearing it ;)

At the moment I think I will stick to my Rituals foundation if I think I may face the camera lens but I am keen to investigate other foundations that work well in photographs?

What do you recommend?

x

Product Review Rewind - MUFE Smoky Lash

Way back near the start of 2010, I blogged about my disappointment at a recent mascara purchase. Make Up Forevers Smoky Lash. You can see that post here.

Boy, am I eating my words now. You see I have purchased this mascara 3 times since that review. 3 times!!

Let me explain. Each time I open a new Smoky Lash mascara I still feel exactly the same way I did when I wrote my first review. It's clumpy, wet, messy and doesn't give me that polished look I am eager to attain.
Fast forward a week or 2 later and suddenly the texture and consistency of this mascara is just perfect. It is still as pigmented as when freshly open but much less wet and much easier to define, lengthen and thicken my lashes.

Gone is the clumpiness and untidy finish and instead we have a clean but full set of lashes that have wow factor. The finish is so close to a false lash effect that I am often asked if my lashes are real! Result.

It just goes to show that opinions can be changed and that really a product has to be trialled much longer than just a couple of weeks before you can make an unbiased judgement on it. A lesson learned.

x

Halloween .....oooooohh!

This year for Halloween I went to my friends party in Newcastle. Jen dressed as Ursula from The Little Mermaid and I went along as Queen of Hearts. If I do say so myself, our outfits were pretty cool but I was mostly impressed with our make up which I did myself for us both.

I had tweeted a lot about this over the weekend so I thought I would show you the results.

Meet Ursula and Queen of Hearts ...
Depending how you look at it either Jen is teeny or I am massive. I am sticking to Jen being teeny, okay?! ;)

The unfortunate thing about going as Queen of Hearts and having loveheart shaped lips is that I looked permanently p****d off the whole night. Oh well, I guess it made me look a little scary in the spirit of Halloween of course.

Onto the make up ... ahhh I was so pleased with the make up...
I will give you a quick summary of the products I used:
FACE: EL Doublewear foundation in Al Fresco (this shows up a little pink on my skin and doesn't photograph too well), MAC select cover up, MAC MSF Natural
CHEEKS: Nars Laguna, Illamasqua blush in unrequited, MAC pearl highlighter
EYES: Bourjois pale blue shadow over the lid, Teal from EL Blue Dahlia collection under eye and in crease, Alice from UD AIW palette over lid and under eye, illamasqua sadist in crease, illamasqua roulette blended out at crease along with Queen from UD AIW palette and FINALLY illamasqua immortal on browbone. All this teamed with MUFE smokey lash mascara, Nadine Girls aloud lashes, Mac fluidline in blacktrack .... phew!
LIPS: Illamasqua lip pencil (unsure of name), MAC russian red

The heart gems above my eyebrow and on my cheek placed as a beauty spot was from a set of Broadway nails, nail & body art kit. I also used these on my nails. Nails in China Glaze Ruby Pumps, NYC white polish in manhattan and a glitter polish over the top.

This kit really deserves its own mention, the gems are still on my nails 4 days later and they show no signs of budging.
Now onto Ursulas make up. Ursula in the movie is obviously purple but I didn't want to paint Jen's face purple otherwise we might lose the effect and we also still wanted her to look attractive despite playing the role of a villain for the evening.
Make up summary
FACE: MUFE HD Foundation in 125, MAC MSF Natural
EYEBROWS: Lined with MAC carbon
EYES: Urban Outfitters blue eyeshadow all over lid, Zara purple duo shadow blended into crease and underneath the eye, MAC fluidline in black track to line the eye, a purple glitter liner underneath the eye, Sarah Girls Aloud party lashes (not shown in this photo)
LIPS: Lined with an illamasqua pencil, Gosh red lipstick
I then shaded and contoured Jen's face with the zara purple duo eyeshadow. This doesn't show up so well under the flash but looked fantastic on the night. Ursula's beauty spot was filled in using Urban Decay liner in zero.

Thats the finished look. I have to say I was a bit gutted to wash all that make up off after the effort that went into creating it but it has definitely got me in the mood for being more creative.

Did you dress up for Halloween?

x

MUFE Smoky Lash Mascara

I hadn't really read any reviews on this mascara when I decided to buy it in Sephora on a little visit to Barcelona before Christmas.

The name in itself was enough to encourage me - Smoky Lash. It conjurs up an image of dark, sultry, sexy, mysterious lashes... but the reality didn't quite match the expectation.

This mascara claims to lengthen, curl and volumise whilst being intensely pigmented.



Hmmm, no, not quite. It is very pigmented but instead of luscious, full on lashes, MUFE smoky lash left me with flaking, dry, heavy lashes! Not good.

The mascara applies really clumpy and messily on the lash - even when you wipe any excess beforehand. When it dries it feels heavy on your lashes to the point where you want to rub it off your eyes. After a couple of hours you will probably want to start picking at the clumps of mascara which in turn just causes more flaking. At no point in the day can I look in the mirror without finding dry mascara excess somewhere on my face.

If you want to look polished this is not the mascara for you, its not even suitable for carrying off a really smoky eye as it just looks a bit dirty, dried out and slept in! I literally look like I have just woken up from a heavy night on the vodka jellies wearing this!

However, some girls do like a very layered clumpy lash, almost spider like, in this case it may still be worth trying but as for me, I will be steering clear of this mascara.

Anyone else tried it? What do you think?

x