Makeup Look - Aztec Gold

I saw a screening of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides last night. I liked it, but it its nothing to write home about. I've also been playing Lego Pirates of the Caribbean lately since my roommate brought it home. It's super fun! In honor of pirates, I decided to do a really shiny gold look. And here it is:Eyes

• outer corner: EyeKandy - metallic mineral shadow in Creamsicle, applied wet for extra oomph.
• inner corner: Smashbox shadow and liner trio in Girls Night Out (the light gold shade) applied with a larger brush and then blended like fuck to get it to fade into the metallic
• crease: MAC pigment in blue brown
• just above the crease: Inglot shadow, a shimmery pumpkin orange
• highlight: MAC pressed shadow in Shroom
• liner: Smashbox shadow and liner trio in Girls Night Out... its a brown gel liner, applied to both upper and lower lids
  
• inner liner: MAC Pen-Ultimate liner, very very narrow and precise, just for definition
• on top of both liners i put Urban Decay Heavy Metal liner in Baked for some glitter to add to the shine
• waterline: Beautique eyeliner pencil in black (since all pirates apparently wear black eyeliner)
• mascara: Smashbox DNA mascara in black, then a layer of Peter Thomas Roth lashes to die for on top of that.

Face

• foundation primer: Makeup Forever HD Primer in Neutral
  
• foundation: Smashbox Healthy FX foundation in L3 (which is a bit too dark for me right now, but won't be as summer progresses)
• concealer: MAC, the kind in the little pot
• powder: Inglot
• blush: Inglot
  
• lips: Kat Von D lipgloss in Rocker (its a pretty reddish/gold shade)

I think today that I used every brand of makeup that I have in my collection. Good for me :) Don't forget to follow me on twitter: @vortexofsin!

Earth Day Makeup Look!

Hey all (all three of you...)

Happy Earth Day (and also Good Friday if you're into that sort of thing).

I spontaneously made up this look as I was putting my makeup on today. I realized as I reached for my new Inglot palette that since I got back from IMATS I've been neglecting my other makeup. Including the stuff I got from the MAC pro store in Chicago. So this look uses a good blend of all my makeup brands. Why do I care? I dunno.... lol.

Eyes
Crease: MAC pressed shadow in Humid (emerald green) (trees)
Lid: Two Face pressed shadow duo in Lucky Charm (the lighter shade) (grass)
Inner corner & Brow bone: Inglot golden-y yellow shimmer (sunshine)
Under eye, and surrounding all the dark green: Two Faced pressed shadow duo in Skinny Dip (the lighter, iridescent blue/lavender) (clouds)
Lower Lid: Makeup Forever Star Powder in neon pink (flowers)
Liner: OCC pure pigment in Ultramarine (water) & Beautique black
pencil (just for a bit of definition)
Mascara: Peter Thomas Roth Lashes to Die For in black

Face
Urban Decay De-Slick makeup setting spray to start, Makeup Forever HD Foundation Primer (neutral), Smashbox High Definished Healthy FX foundation in Light L1, Inglot powder, MAC blush in Rhubarb (pro color), MAC concealer pot in NW20

Lips
L'Oreal Infallible Lipstick in Java Jolt (dirt, earth), OCC Lip Tar in Memento in the center (uh, just for fun)

I think the results are pretty cool. I may take the lipstick off before I go out, I don't like having bold lips and bold eyes at the same time.

Happy Earth Day everyone, and don't forget to follow me on Twitter!

OCC IMATS discount!!

Hey, real quick!!

OCC (Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics) is giving you the 20% IMATS discount (the same one I paid $40 in travel and $30 in admission to get!) through 4/17/11!

Login with username: OCCDISC and password IMATSNYC (case sensitive!)

I recommend the lip tar and any of the eyeshadow pigments. Wicked awesome!

Hair curling!

OMG! Two posts in as many days... go me..

Last night I got it into my head that I wanted curly hair today. This is always a struggle with my stick-straight ultra-fine hair. I remembered having success as a kid with squishy foam rollers that you wear overnight. So I ran out to Target and bought these:


I put them in last night around 1am, in completely wet hair, then went to bed around 3am. I slept very poorly and woke up around 1pm. The rollers had been in for roughly 12 hours. The little fuckers were still slightly damp. I left them in for about an hour after getting out of bed, and aimed a hair dryer at a few of them, in hopes of drying them further. It was super curly when I first took them out. Its now been about three since I took them out. Here is my hair:


I'm actually pretty happy with the results. Its bouncy and voluminous and full of lovely texture. But I predict in about two hours it'll be back to straight. God damn my hair! Maybe I should just get a perm and be done with it.. ha.

Twitter! IMATS!

So... I got a twitter for this blog. You can follow me! @vortexofsin Yeah, that's about it. I feel dumb. I've railed against Twitter for a long time now. And I'm still not sure I'll use it, but, hey, hopefully it'll get me some more followers on here.

Recent news: Me and two friends decided to go to NYC for IMATS! That is, the International Makeup Artist Tradeshow. We had SUCH a blast. I got a TON of stuff for waaay cheap.



Purchase 1. Eye Kandy

The top three are Sprinkles Glitter (left to right), in Gumball (deep purple), Semi Sweet (royal blue) and Honey Drop (gold). The bottom three are mineral shadows in Sweet Pea, Creamsicle and Peppermint. I swatched them with mixing medium and without in each color (the glitters don't really work without mixing medium). As a special IMATS deal, they were 6 for $40 and included a brush and their "Liquid Sugar" mixing medium. They claimed it was water based, but the lady got a bit in my eye when she was demonstrating on me and it BURNED. Probably because the second ingredient is alcohol (the first is indeed water). I like them... but I kinda wish I'd gone the route of my friend who just bought one color for $5. The brush included with the kit is garbage. Its just a little kids paint brush, very chinzy. After the first use it won't go back to its original pointed shape. And as shiny as the glitters are, I do not need that much glitter... The gumball shade is missing the little plastic liner dispenser that allows you to tap out just a little at a time, so basically I have a tiny jar FULL of very fine purple glitter. I can predict this will end well... All that being said, I'm very fond of the mineral shadows, they're metallic and look very lovely. I like that there's no metal in anything, its all very fine plastic.



Purchase 2. Brushes from Royal & Langnickel





Not super exciting, except that they were cheap. And seem to be good quality. And fairly reasonable on the website too. I got a concealer, big eyeshadow, powder and kabuki brush all for $26. The kabuki brush is just about the softest thing I've ever felt. I used it today to put on my powder, great coverage, not too much product wasted. I'm actually quite pleased with these, and will probably continue to buy from their website. I swore I'd never go back to buying "makeup" brushes when art brushes work just as well, but these seem very reasonable.



Purchase 3. Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics




I bought OCC Lip Tar in Memento and Pure Pigment in Ultramarine Blue. Both of these are INSANE pigmented. The lip tar is really really thick and could be used as a cream blush as well. I will use it very sparingly as its SUPER thick, and once its set, behaves like a stain. It stays put (even after eating Sonic yesterday). I'm scared to death to actually try the Pure Pigment. It can be used for anything, though I'll be using it mainly as an eyeliner. But the shit is BRIGHT. I swatched it both just as loose powder and with the Liquid Sugar mixing medium. The sheer powder is eh. Doesn't seem to have great coverage, but I used a q-tip to swatch it, AND my hands are really lined. But with the mixing medium... whoa. One drop swirled with some product in the cap and I suddenly had tempera paint. Its about that consistency and color. Holy crap. I can see this being some AWESOME liner and probably a great shadow too, if I can get the right consistency to blend it. Running my finger over the swatch now, it does seem to smear a bit, but maybe if i dilute it with enough mixing medium it might be better. I'm excited, and scared. The brush I used to swatch it came clean... mostly, but I had to use soap and water (I know, bad me, but it was an old brush). It also came completely off my hand with soap and water, which is more than I can say for the lip tar which really wants to hang on... good!



Purchase 4. Inglot


Omg. Inglot. This company was pretty much the reason I went to IMATS. Inglots used to be only available in Inglot stores. And up until recently the nearest Inglots store to me was Las Vegas. They now have stores in New Jersey and New York, AND online! They have this freedom system, where you custom create your own palettes. They have round and square (round is slightly cheaper, but you may as well pay the extra few bucks for square since there's more product). You can buy eyeshadow in 2, 3, 4, 5 or 10. Same (or almost same) goes for lips, eyebrows, blush and concealer. You can buy powders in 2's. And they're freaking stackable with the little super powerful magnets in the corners. Or you can just have the lid which is also magnetic. I'm not finding the powder, blush, eyeshadow palette online, so that may be only in stores, or only to pro's (like at IMATS) or something, but I'm glad I bought it. The shadows are SUPER pigmented for being pressed shadows. The orange-y/gold shade is SO beautiful. The white/yellow shade is very similar to Kat Von D's Sugar Skull out of my Memento Mori palette, which is awesome since that shade's only available in sets. And the pans are huge. It'll take me forever to go through these. But I haven't talked about the powder. That powder is the best powder bar none. Its fucking great. I put my makeup on about 12 hours ago and I'm only just now seeing a bit of shine on my nose. I can't recommend it enough. Love love love. I want to buy everything they have. Like now. I almost wish they didn't have an online store so I wouldn't spend all my money.



Guess that's it. I'm unemployed now, so hopefully that means posting more. Don't forget to follow me on twitter! Ha!

Foundation Review: The Search Continues!

I just read the post before the one I just put up, and realized I promised a foundation review and never put it up.

Well... this past summer I tried mineral foundations. I tried Pur (available at Ulta) and Bare Minerals (available and Sephora, Ulta, Bare Minerals stores and probably other places too). Bare Minerals did not live up to its hype. I mean, it was good and stuff, but didn't really stay put the whole time. I bought the starter/trial size kit which gives you their mineral foundation in original and matte, the mineral veil and the bronzer/blusher thingy called warmth. I could have told them that I would never want the "original" foundation and would almost inevitably always want the matte, but whatevs. I liked the matte a lot, it was more effective for my oily skin in this humid-ass city. I liked the mineral veil too, but there wasn't enough of it in the trial kit to cover going through both the matte and original foundations. The "warmth" was good, but I'm so red naturally that I barely needed any of it, so I have tons left. In the end, I was impressed, it mostly stayed put. But the shit's so expensive that I thought I could probably do better doing my regular summer routine (primer, concealer, powder). All in all, I'll recommend it, but only if you feel like spending the money.

The other mineral foundation I tried was PurMinerals 4-in-1 pressed mineral makeup in Blush Medium. I'd read some reviews online of PurMinerals and they seemed much more positive than the stuff about BareMinerals. People were saying it worked as well, if not better and was much more economical. Yeah, stuff was still $37. The saleslady at Ulta recommended that I get the full size of just the foundation instead of spending more on the starter kit, since the foundation is 4-in-1. I had bought the PurMinerals primer already, since I was anticipating trying this, so I was all set. I liked that it was pressed, it felt like less of the product got wasted on the way from the container to my face. It comes with a sponge, that I used only rarely when I had dark circles or something like that. Sponges = bad, they spread bacteria. I had quit using it when the weather got colder, but I've recently come back (after I had a series of breakouts and wanted to put less crap on my face) and discovered I like it again. I dunno, I'm still not thrilled. I do like that it comes in a ton of shades (many more than BareMinerals) and they have different shades not just for light/dark, but for yellow/pink/olive as well. Which made my Scottish ruddiness happy. The shade I picked in the summer is a hair too dark for my untanned winter face, but I blend it down on my neck and all's well, no orange foundation lines. It stays put when I layer it over Dr. Brandt's Pores-No-More and provides pretty good coverage.

In the end though... my search for perfect foundation continues. I recently discovered that Urban Decay makes a few sprays that are highly recommended on Sephora for keeping makeup on oily skin, so I'm going to have to check them out. I also heard about Skindinavia makeup setting sprays. My youtube makeup guru xsparkage also says you should be using a translucent powder as well as a regular powder. Fantastic. More things to spend money on and layer on my skin! Ha ha. Happy New Year everyone!!

Personalized Face Charts

So, I saw this video and thought it was a fantastic idea. Especially since right now I'm trying to plan the perfect NYE makeup scheme. I found the site that Leesha (the girl in the video who's my favorite YouTube guru) recommended. Here it is. I took a photo with my webcam. It took several tries to get it right. Then I right-clicked and saved the picture (you don't have to pay for the full size one, just swipe the preview) then dropped it in Photoshop, played with the levels a bit, cropped it and then erased all the excess crud from my face. You want just an outline of everything. I even had to pretty much put in my waterline because it didn't turn out in the picture. If you don't have photoshop, uh.. I dunno. Use other photoediting software? Beg me (or someone else with photoshop) to do it?

Tips for taking the photo:

• If you have a Mac and use your iSight camera, turn the flash off (instead of clicking the camera button to take the picture, hit CMD+SHIFT+T to take it without flash)
• The video says no makeup, I tried that a few times and couldn't get my lips to show up well. So i grabbed a light colored eyeliner (L'Oreal Kohl eyeliner in Cloud) and just lightly traced the top of my lip and the bottom. Just enough to provide contrast between my skin and my lips. I tried it before I washed off my eyeliner and mascara and the results weren't super successful either, so I washed it off and my eyes came out better.
  
• Do not make any kind of face or pose in anyway. Just look straight at the camera and deadpan.
  
• Do not be surprised if you discover a biological flaw you didn't notice before. I just discovered that my left eyelid is larger than my right. Ha! Probably because my eyes are funny shaped due to my astigmatism.

Here are my results:
Original photo. Lovely isn't it.








Exported image from that website








Final image after cropping, erasing and playing with the contrast settings. I also filled in my eyebrows for shits and giggles. And not very well.

I was going to make the product chart too, but eh. I'm going to print it on 8.5x11 card stock, which I have around somewhere. If you print, you shouldn't print on regular printer paper, some kind of heavier cardstock is required. But I wouldn't think that 90# watercolor paper (as stated in the video) is all that necessary. You could do 65# or 67# vellum bristol (which you can probably buy by the sheet at your local kinkos, or whatever cover weight they happen to have in white) Pretty much just make sure its a heavier-than-normal paper and that its as white as you can possibly get.

Happy New Year everybody! I will do my best to post more. I have two companion looks coming up and a few reviews. And I always say that, and then never post. But I'll try to do better in the new year.