Be Stila My Beating Heart ...

I believe Stila is exiting as a beauty brand from the UK, I'm not sure I'm surprised at this news, I've always liked the looks of their products, but have never really been grabbed enough by them to make them a regular purchase.  This wasn't helped by the discovery that I'm allergic to their lipglosses, which really are their star product. But Brandalley had a sale of Stila products recently, and the prices were waaaaay too good to resist, so caved in and bought their Marrakesh eye palette.

Look how pretty these colours are:

Pictures with flash and without

Two lovely pinks, a gold and a rich brown. Brandalley's shipping times can be a bit slow, so by the time they arrived, I'd been waiting for several weeks, and I was desperate to try them.  But ... look at the swatch:

All shades were swatched once with a humongous amount of shadow on the applicator. Hmn, I thought,  not very pigmented, and exceptionally sparkly.  So I set to work creating an FOTD from them:

I'm wearing four different shades of eyeshadow in this picture, which is not something I do often, but I was trying to build up something besides sparkle on my eye. The gold is in the inner corner, the pinks are over the lid, and the brown in the crease and as an eyeliner.  This is also applied over a primer, and with a not particularly light hand.

Very disappointed, both with the pigmentation, and the sparkliness that verges on glittery, I couldn't build up any depth of colour no matter how much I applied, and when some of the powder got into my eye (not something that bothers me too much ordinarily) my eyes were stinging for hours.

Sorry, Stila. I wanted to love you, I really did.

Scents of Winter

I don't know about you, but I spent the summer drenched in sunshine! Not literally, but I did wear a lot of  Clarins Sunshine fragrance.  When I first smelled it, I had an instant sense-memory of my first ever foreign holiday, it was so redolent of Ambre Solaire, the beach, and bubblegum, that I was instantly ten years old again, right there on the shop floor. For me, its instant summer in a bottle, no matter what the weather!

Sadly, I can't keep deluding myself that it's not winter any more, and the changing season seems to call for deeper and darker scents.  My usual winter perfume of choice is Aromatics Elixir by Clinique, I love the depth and unusualness of it, and the fact that it doesn't simply smell of fruit and/or ozone like so many modern perfumes.

This year however, instead of going back to an old faithful, I wanted to try something different.  I've been wearing a lot of Kesu by Tsi-La recently, it's a lovely spicy blend of woods and incense, and  it smells like a sexy church according to those I know who've smelled it on me.  But much as I love Kesu, I think I'm going to be alternating it with Jo Malone's latest: Vanilla & Anise.  I smelled it last night, and despite being somewhat leery of vanilla scents, I fell for it.  It's not at all sweet, unlike so many vanilla-based perfumes, and it's very spicy.  It has a powdery top-note from the vanilla and has notes of cinnamon and cloves underneath it, I love it  (I may have tweeted something about a dentist covered in custard at the time, but let's keep that under our hats, shall we?)  It's just that little bit different to my more incense-y favourites, and I think it's going to become a new staple.

Do you change your perfumes with the seasons?

Organic Wednesday - Plant Love II: The Review

I already said a fair bit about Plant Love during the makeover part of Organic Wednesday, so this won't be a long post!  I've tried a few ranges of organic colour cosmetics recently, and I have to say that Plant Love is definitely a cut above as far as I'm concerned.  The colours in the eyeshadows are strongly pigmented, they're easy to apply and blend plus the colour selection is wider than the usual round of sludge colours you get in some organic/natural ranges. Genna has stated that the Parakeet e/s is one that she's going to use on a regular basis, she liked it so much!

I like the easy to apply lipsticks too, the one we had  (Joshua Tree) was shimmery without being frosted which is spectacularly difficult to pull off, staying power seemed about average, it had to be reapplied after a couple of hours, but we didn't have any issues with dryness.

For me though, the stand out product has to the Natural Baked Illuminator.  There are three of these in the range: Earth, Wind and Fire.  Earth is a selection of bronzing shades, Wind has a hint of subtle pink blush with the bronze and Fire has a gorgeous bright pink blush in there.  I have Wind (if you'll pardon the pun) and I've used it every single day since it arrived, it's perfectly pigmented, and makes your skin just glow, I adore it, and it's now a makeup staple of my very own.  Just swirl your blusher brush over the marbled powder and either use it as you would your blusher, or use as you would a bronzer (for Earth and Wind) for a brightening effect.

I do have to say that I think the packaging is a bit of a misfire, I love the fact that it's all vegetable based and compostable, but these are actually serious cosmetic products, and whilst the pink packaging is pretty, it's a little too "girly" and makes the items look cheap.  That said, I'll be investing in at least the other two illuminators, and a couple more of the lipsticks, pretty soon.  I've discovered that blusher is a lot more important to my make up bag than I ever previously suspected!  The range starts from £10 and is exclusively available from Puresha

Organic Wednesday - Makeover Special!

So, something a little different this week.  As promised, every Wednesday I'll be seeking out and reviewing organic beauty goodies, but this week I'm bringing you a makeover first, and a full review later.

I've heard a fair bit about Plant Love over the last few weeks, and when Puresha offered to send me some of their range of cosmetics to try in a makeover, I jumped at the chance!  Plant Love is vegan, free from paraben, phthalates, petro-chemicals, and synthetic dyes and fragrances.  I love the fact that all the packaging is compostable, and is manufactured under carbon-neutral conditions, it makes my inner hippy happy.  I don't let my inner hippy out much, she tends to disagree with my inner control freak, but I'm digressing a bit here.  So, on with the makeover!

Meet Genna:

Genna's been offering to sit for a makeover session for weeks, but as she's a vegan I've been waiting for the right opportunity to come along, Plant Love seemed like an ideal fit.  Genna already has an excellent beauty regime of her own, but when we were planning this session one idea kept coming up: "California Beach Babe", and as that's what she wanted, that's what she got ...

First off, we used Genna's normal foundation as a base - looking tanned and glowing doesn't necessarily mean looking like a tangerine, then started straight in using PL's eyeshadow in Parakeet:

It's a lovely coppery shade, that makes Genna's blue eyes a lot brighter.

 

Once that was in place, we defined Genna's top lid with PL's eyeshadow in Sparrow:

 

Then we added a layer of eyeliner in bronze to her lower lids:

A layer of Genna's usual mascara (sadly, the Plant Love line doesn't carry a mascara, which is a real shame judging by the quality of the rest of the products), and we also added a little definition to Genna's eyebrows:

Genna's eyes were now finished, and we were ready to add more colour.  Using Plant Love's Natural Baked Illuminator in "Wind", which is a bronzer, blush and highlighter in one, I used it on Genna's cheekbones and temples, then added just a touch to her nose and chin for a bronzed effect:

Naturally, no look is complete without lipstick so we added a (very light) layer.  For this look we had chosen Joshua Tree which is a lovely shimmery pinky-brown:

And we're done!  Here's the finished look:

Subtle, simple, and softly glowing, I think it looks great.  Have a look at the before'n'after:

If you click on any of the pictures, you can see an enlarged version of them, please do! I'd like to thank Genna for being so patient, Puresha for being so generous, and the lovely Neville Fenn for taking today's wonderful pictures.

Full reviews of the products used will appear tomorrow, but I can let slip that both Genna and I have adopted at least one of these products as new daily staples, they're great!

Makeover - Bizarre Ball Revisited

Remember Sharon? She was going to a Bizarre Ball, and we tested a makeup look for her a few weeks ago.  Well, the ball was on Saturday, and we redid the makeup for it. 

Taking into account what we did last time, I didn't take the black as far up the browbone this time, and gave it a more pronounced winged shape at the edges.  Oh, and I used MAC Greasespaint for the black, much, much easier than a powder.  Still love that green!

Makeover: Sarah

I love doing makeovers, I love seeing the transformation you can make in someone's deportment and demeanour just by giving them a little colour, even with a relatively simple transformation like this week's:

Meet Sarah:

Sarah's gorgeous.  I love her cheeky freckles, and she has beautiful grey-blue eyes.  Talking to Sarah before her makeover, she wanted a quick, simple, easy, and above all GLAM look from her makeover today.  Always happy to oblige, this is what we created.

First off, creating the base.  Sarah is worried about patches of uneven colouration, so we used her MAC foundation, and applied it with a sponge, using a rolling motion evenly all over her face, then followed with a light layer of MAC Blot to set it.  Sarah had wanted to cover up her freckles completely, but I suggested that we leave them showing as they're a) very attractive and b) very difficult to cover up without turning your face into one big freckle!

I wanted to play up the colours in Sarah's skintone, and accentuate her eyes, so I thought a golden peach shade was in order.  I used Benefit Creaseless Cream Eyeshadow in Gabbi, and applied that all over her lids. In the centre of each lid,  I used a small amount of golden shimmer powder just to accentuate the colour, and add a little highlight. :

Then, I added a small touch of dark navy liner, just to further accentuate her eyes:

I smudged that out a little, and added the finishing touches.  Blush (MAC Mocha)

And a little lipgloss (MAC Strobe)

And here's the finished look:

So there you go, quick, simple, and hopefully, GLAM!

Nail of the Day - Zoya Coco

I don't do these often, as I'm completely cackhanded at applying nail varnish, but I had to post about this colour, I love it so much.  It's a lovely, velvety, chocolatey-purple shade, not too warm, and not too brown. It's a cream finish, with no shimmer or glitter.  It's rather unusual, and reminds me a great deal of the colour of proper, old-fashioned cocoa powder in the tin.

Zoya's varnish is a massive cult in the US, and should really be better known in the UK. Their formulas are  toluene and formaldehyde free (and vegan friendly!),  and though the the varnish itself s a bit thin and runny  (I found it very streaky after one layer) but I was very pleasantly surprised at how rich the colour was after two coats. The above pic is of two coats and is finished with a layer of seche vite top coat.

I got my polish from Organic Pharmacy, but you can buy it online in the UK from Nail Care Club for £9.29 a bottle.

Have just realised the colour matches my blog (nearly!) maybe that's why it was calling to me in the shop ...