Plays With Color

EOTD: Boyfriend-requested green

February 19th, 2010

I got mail today!  My sample pack from Detrivore arrived today, so I had a rainbow of 50 new samples to play with.  Now, when faced with that many choices I never know what I want to do.  I decided to try an experiment: after I got out of the shower, I asked my boyfriend what color eyeshadow to wear.  After sputtering for a bit about not knowing anything about makeup and what looks good on people, I finally got a color out of him.  Green.  Okay, I don’t wear green often because I have green eyes, but why not?  Here’s what I came up with, 5 hours after putting it on:

Note that it’s a bit creased, and also that my eyeliner didn’t last at all.  I was going to take a picture right after I was done putting on the makeup, as usual, but our friends that we were going out with tonight chose that moment to show up at the door.  The picture is a little washed out too; the shadow may have creased a little, but it hasn’t faded nearly as much as my picture shows.  I’m going to reserve judgment on the Detrivore primer; I really want to like it, because the shadow stuck to it nicely but also blended well, but my skin has been a lot more oily than usual lately, and I think that’s a contributor to the early creasing.  I’ll have to experiment with quantity, since it’s a different texture than I’m used it.  It’s a lot firmer than Paintpot.  (I don’t have a decent open-eyed picture.  The eyeliner had already disappeared from my lower lash line.)

Here’s what I used:

  • Detrivore primer on the lid
  • Detrivore Ectoplasma (bright green) on the inner two-thirds of my lid and slightly into the crease
  • Detrivore Amazon (bright deep emerald green) on the outer half of my lid, blended with the Ectoplasma, and swept into the crease a bit
  • Fyrinnae Nijiro on the brow bone, blended down onto the greens
  • A touch of Urban Decay 24/7 liner in Zero on the outer bit of my upper lash line and smudged onto my lower lashline.  I should have done the waterline, but I was already running a bit late and my waterline can be a pain in the ass to get right.
  • Cover Girl Lash Blast Volume mascara.  I really should have combed my lashes, but whatever.

For lipstick today, I wore NYX Lips in Thalia, and I was right about it.  It’s an excellent my-lips-but-better color.  Oily Mexican food wore it off in the middle, though, and I didn’t really want to put any more on just to hang out on the couch and watch the Olympics in my pajamas.  Trust me, it’s excellent.  I think it may have replaced my Bare MAC Slimshine as my go-to color.

Also, I’m looking for a new black eyeliner pencil that’s waterline-safe.  If anyone has any recommendations (bonus points if they’re drugstore, since I’m probably going to Walmart and/or Target tomorrow), please leave a comment!

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EOTD: Not one I’m proud of. *sigh*

February 18th, 2010

When I first started this blog, I warned you that sometimes I would “fail in an epic way” and then blog about it.  Here is one of those epic ways.

This is one of the better pictures, so it may not look too epic, but trust me, it’s bad.  If I want to make Aromaleigh shadows work on me, I definitely need a different primer.  Also, Fig (from the Opulent Lustre collection) looks completely and totally like dirt on me.  If I had stuck with just what I put on the lid (Viviane from the Bete Noire collection) and my browbone (Odette from the Eye Lustre collection) I think I could have pulled it off.  I managed to get it to blend, somewhat, after a rather long session of brushwork, but that still isn’t stopping the Fig from looking like dirt. It’s a lovely color in the baggie, but it just doesn’t suit me one bit.

I have a sample order from Detrivore coming (hopefully) tomorrow, complete with primer, so I’m hoping that’ll be something that works for me.

The good?  Viviane is a BRILLIANT color and does amazing things for the green in my eyes.  (All the open-eyed pics I took were utter crap, so you’ll have to use your imagination here.)  I actually tried something different, so yay for that.  Also, at least when my eyes are open you can’t see as much of the Fig, so it looks less horrid.

And it looks like I need to pluck my eyebrows again. Dammit.  They grow back way too fast.

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The last of the lipstick swatches!

February 16th, 2010

Sorry for my disappearance–had a death in the family recently that hit me really hard, even though it wasn’t unexpected, so there really hasn’t been much makeup-wearing lately (why wear it when there’s a good chance I’m going to get emotional and fuck it up, right?)  I have a random EOTD photographed, though my photography skills seem to be regressing, and if I can remember what I used I will post it at some point.  Maybe tonight.

Until then, here are the last of the NYX Lips lipstick swatches!

I quite like Foxy, and Thalia looks like a great go-to color.

Indian Pink is nice as well, and I’m really hoping I have the guts to get away with Chloe sometime.

Whew!  That was a lot of lipstick swatches, but I hope they’re useful to someone.  At some point I should do lip swatches at some point, but I doubt I’ll post all of those.  (I will definitely post Chloe when I do that one. Just because it’s a really fun color.)

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EOTD: Complementary colors.

February 3rd, 2010

I don’t even know what possessed me to do this.  Yes, I did the orange on purpose, but I tried something weird with the crease, and it actually worked.  Just eyes today; my skin is feeling really dull, so I didn’t want to deal with foundation, and I had a dentist appointment, so I didn’t bother with lipstick.

I’ve been applying my Paintpot more lightly lately, so it’s not getting cakey, but I think I need to find a different happy medium, because I think I’ve been erring on the side of too lightly.  Look!  Capillaries!

And open (dear lord, I need a brow wax):

  • Painterly Paintpot on the lid.
  • (You can’t see this, because I decided to put on more orange, but…) Fyrinnae’s Finnegan’s Wake on the lid.
  • Sassy Minerals Solar Flare on the inner corner, and I ended up expanding it farther out onto the lid than I’d originally intended, so you can’t see the Finnegan’s Wake anyway.
  • On the crease and outer corner, Fyrinnae’s Arcane Magic: Mystic.  This is the part with the “I can’t believe I did that” because in the pot, this is blue.  I applied it fairly lightly, though, so it’s reading as more gray than blue.  This color would be amazing in a smokey eye.  I put some along my lower lash line, too.
  • Fyrinnae’s Nijiro on the brow bone, as usual.  You can’t really see it, though, since I had to crop out my eyebrows in order to crop my bangs out of the picture.  I need to trim them.
  • New mascara!  I picked up some Cover Girl Lash Blast volume last night.  So far I like it, but I think I’m going to get more volume once the tube dries a bit.  Freshly opened, it’s really quite wet.  I also hate the tube.  It tapers so small at the bottom that it doesn’t stand up very well.

I need to mess with my skin care routine and start drinking more water.  I’ve been breaking out a lot recently (well, a lot for me), and though my skin feels okay to the touch (soft, not dry, not greasy), it looks dull and blotchy, and my pores are more visible lately.

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EOTD: These colors are so Not Me.

February 1st, 2010

I placed an Aromaleigh order a couple weeks ago, got it over a week ago, and am just getting around to playing with it.  I ordered a few colors that were completely out of my comfort zone.  Played with them this afternoon.  I wasn’t going to blog this look, because I’d taken off some eye makeup a little bit before and I had some irritation (I’m using different cotton pads than I’m used to, and I suspect they’re leaving fibers behind–I’d thought it was the remover at first, but I’ve used that remover before without incident) and redness, but the redness doesn’t really show in the pic.  (The fact that I didn’t blend my outer corner very well because the brush was starting to irritate it DOES show.  In fact, when I was blending my outer corner was when I noticed the irritation.  Fine now, as long as I don’t touch it, and I probably won’t wear makeup tomorrow to give myself time to recover.)

All shadows are from the Aromaleigh Rocks collection.  Eyelid is Estranged, outer corner is Dominion, and there’s a bit of Death Valley in the inner corner.  All shadows were put on dry, over my MAC Painterly Paint Pot.  (The blending is okay on my right eye, but I had to stop before the left eye was blended properly.)  Nothing on my browbone, because I’m not really going anywhere with this makeup on–I just put it on to play.  Liner is Urban Decay’s 24/7 in Zero, and I lined my waterline with the same thing, but it’s already migrated from waterline to lashline.

Question for those who are better at this than I am: What would you wear on your lips with this look?

I’ve noticed that on me, Aromaleigh shadows don’t seem to get on well with the Painterly Paint Pot–I wore Edie from the Eye Lustres collection today when I went to campus, and it faded really quickly.  I waited to take pictures until I got home, because I almost missed the bus going to campus, and by that time you couldn’t tell I was wearing makeup.  I’ll have to experiment with primers, I guess.

Also, I have the last batch of NYX lipstick swatches photographed, and will post those as soon as I resize the pics.

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Finally to the pinks

January 21st, 2010

More lipstick swatches.  I’m finally into the pinks, and I have to say that I’m a fan.  (I apologize again for any goosebumps.  As you can see, my arm is pretty much right against the window.)

Yes, Athena really is that light.  It’s not quite white, but it’s pretty darn pale.

I’m not really much of a girly-girl, but for some reason swatching these pinks today made me want to get started on some lip swatches.  Perhaps over the weekend, I’ll play.

(Why is it that, between these two pictures, my skin tone can come out so different, but the actual lipstick colors in both are accurate?  A mystery of image editing, I suppose.)

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EOTD: The beginning of a very good mail week.

January 20th, 2010

Yes, I know it’s Wednesday.  But besides the Fyrinnae package I got today (squee), I’m expecting 3 more packages of samples and things in the mail.  I haven’t really gone anywhere the past couple of days due to weather, but I figured I’d try out one of the more intriguing shadows I got today.  Just eyes today, and today’s pictures are brought to you by the letters S, N, O, and W, so I’m not really able to get a good shot of the nuances of this shade.  (In fact, I’ve got about 30 failed pictures.  There probably would have been more if my camera didn’t need to be charged right about then.)

I actually attempted my waterline for once, but I think I may need to try another type of liner there.

Here’s a closeup:

You can almost see the shimmer in the lid color, but with today’s light, it photographs more like Vaseline.  You get a better idea of it in the open-eyed picture, strangely, because I used the same color under my lower lashline, and the gold comes out more there.

  • Painterly Paint Pot on lid, with a wee dab of Pixie Epoxy over it.
  • Fyrinnae Meerkat on most of lid–I left a little space on the inner corner.
  • Sassy Minerals Gossip Column (a smoky purple) in the outer corner and a bit into the outer V.
  • Fyrinnae Sakura blended into the inner corner.
  • A bit more Pixie Epoxy along my lower lashline, covered with a bit more Meerkat.
  • UD 24/7 pencil in Zero in the lower waterline, badly.  (Combine ticklishness with the fact that I just can’t get a nice dark line in there.  Next time I decide I want to line my waterline I think I’ll try a gel liner.)
  • Fyrinnae Nijiro on the browbone.  I can’t remember if I brought it down into the inner corner, or if that was all Sakura.
  • L’Oreal Voluminous on the upper lashes.  I ignore my lower lashes for the most part, unless I’m trying to do something really dramatic.

That’s it!  If I were going anywhere, I think I’d pair this look with MAC Slimshine in Long Stem Rose.  (I would quite like to link that, but apparently it no longer exists on MAC’s site!  It’s a slightly cool-toned light pink.)

I swatched what I got today (I’m particularly in love with Japan, Fruitcake, and +20 Beautification, but I had a heck of a time capturing the shimmer/sparkle.  I may try it again with electric light tonight.

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Browns, finally

January 17th, 2010

Today is sunnier than yesterday, so today’s shots are a bit better, but still a little blurry.  I decided that they were the most color-accurate ones I’ve gotten so far, and so here they are!  I didn’t put them into any sort of color order, because I knew I’d fail somehow, so they’re in the only order I knew I’d get right–alphabetical order.

Cocoa surprised me a bit.  It looked a lot browner in the tube.  (Please forgive the goosebumps.  Our apartment is fairly cold, so I’m a lot more comfortable wearing a sweater.)

I also quite like Topaz.  Mostly cream formulas today–I didn’t see any noticeable frost on these.  Topaz is fairly shimmery, but I’m not sure I’d quite call it frosty.

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What would you put on me?

January 16th, 2010

I’ve been wanting to swatch some more of my NYX lipsticks, but now that school has started back up, my hours at home during daylight are limited.  I got some fairly color-accurate pictures yesterday, but they’re also pissing me off because somehow they got really blurry.  (Ok, I know how–it’s because I had to turn the flash off to get the color absolutely right.)  Should I post those anyway?

Since I have no content today, I’m going to pose a question.  The past couple FOTDs are really sort of boring.  Mostly neutrals, and not at all adventurous with placement.  Apparently I need help:  If my face was your face, what would you do with it?  If I have the proper colors in my collection, I’ll give your suggestion a try!

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EOTD: Actual foundation.

January 14th, 2010

I’m not sure why I bother to post the neutral eye looks I do. I was especially non-adventurous today because I had to spend time at an elementary school–a Catholic elementary school at that.  So I didn’t want to wear too awfully much makeup.  I think I succeeded at being thoroughly boring, however.  (Click for embiggened boring.)

I did wear foundation today though!  Eye makeup closeup:

What I did:

Face:

  • L’Oreal Tru Match foundation in shade N01, applied with a brush.  I tried to go light (as in amount, not color) on the foundation, but I think I might have erred on the side of too light.  This is probably the closest I’ve found to my skin tone, but I’m not sold on the finish.  I tend to like something matte.  (Dammit! This would have been the perfect day to try the Fyrinnae primer sample I got with my last order.)
  • MAC blot powder in medium
  • Sephora blush in Peche Tendre.  (For a color named “peach” it looks a lot like mauve in the pan.)

Eyes:

  • Sassy Minerals Perplexed on the lid
  • Sweet Libertine Copper Penny on the outer corner, crease, and wet under the lower lashline
  • Fyrinnae Nijiro on the browbone and into the inner corner.
  • L’Oreal Voluminous mascara, top lashes only.  I think I only did one coat, but this was 7 hours ago, so I don’t remember for sure.

Lips:  MAC Slimshine in Bare.  Again.  I know I have all those NYX lipsticks, but I’m so inexperienced at this whole thing that I get overwhelmed with so many choices.  I’ll branch out, I promise.

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