Luminous Makeup

I am fortunate to have a big window spanning an entire wall, with a panoramic view of some magnificent trees on the street opposite. Spring is definitely in the air. The flowering trees are sprinkled with pink and white blossoms. This time of year is much treasured as come summer, the pinks and purples will be replaced by a monotone green.

Spring is also the season skincare brands start pushing their whitening products. Whitening is taken to a new height this year by the many brands introducing the "luminous look". Having a flawless complexion is simply not good enough, the skin should be glowing with light. Right.

Amongst the onslaught of catalogues, the one that has caught my eye is the meteorite pearls by Guerlain. It's a finishing powder that promises to bring a pearl like glow to your face. The pastel pearls come in different tints. All it takes is swirling the makeup brush to pick up the brightening hues to bring out a glow not found in ordinary powders.

I would love to try the new powder, though it would have to wait till my quality of sleep improves, because no amount of makeup could cover the the sallow complexion of fatigue. My luminous equation~ 70% good night's sleep+20% good skincare routine+10% makeup. When the 70% finally happens, I will definitely go to the Guerlain counter to see if the meteorite pearl lives up to its promise.

White

New Year is ushered in only a little more than a month ago, with Valentine's Day and Chinese New Year two days fresh. After a full month of gatherings and get-together, lying on the couch with a good book seems to be most appealing. What if you have another "thing" before having the luxury to relax and do nothing?

When you feel like you have been up for months, everything seems like a chore. Suddenly, eyeglasses, pyjamas, ponytail, sans makeup is "the" look you want. Sadly, if you have another "do" to attend you have to look somewhat "together".

White eye shadow and eye liner are the "it" makeup this season. I am drawn to them not because of the hype, but as an instant booster to droopy eyes. When you are this tired, the less steps you have to complete doing your makeup is a god sent.

Apply the white eye shadow on the upper eyelids. Use the white eye liner to line the lower rim of your eyes above the lashes. Don't stop until you have filled the little triangle area towards the end of the eye. Smudge the white liner a bit to make it more natural.

The two steps above ought to brighten your eyes even without mascara and other eye makeup. It beats dabbing and evening out concealer. It takes a couple tries to make it look right, but at least it's white and not black eye shadow or eye liner which you have to cleanse to get rid of. A tissue is all it takes for a do over.

I have an earlier post of using concealer as an instant eye brightener. However, if you feel like you are not here, there or anywhere, white eye shadow and liner are safer choices. You don't want to have caked concealer while exerting your last effort to look you are present.

Makeup Tip 3

Model look from Estee Lauder


Smoothing Creme Concealer from Estee Lauder

This is a simple yet magical makeup tip. Magical in the sense that it is instantaneous, et voila la difference. Notice the eyes of the model above are tilted upwards? Aside from the perfect eye line, mascara and eye shadow, the lifting effect could be achieved by dotting concealer on the outer corner of the eyes.

When we think of concealers, we usually use it for covering blemishes on our skin. Our focus is almost always covering the eye bags and the dark circles, which are the most obvious spots. One place we miss though, are the outer corner of our eyes. The part that is closest to the rim of our eyes bordering our eye lashes.

If you look closely in the mirror, the rims of the outer corner of our eyes have the same shade or in a more terrible scenario, a darker shade than the dark circle. This is the most often missed spot but the most important one for an instant brightening and lifting effect on our eyes.

The rationale behind it is, even if we have sucessfully covered the eye bags and dark circles, our eyes are only san bags and circles. If you look closely in the mirror again, the eyes still lack that luminous look. This is when the magic takes place. Take a tiny dot of concealer and dab it evenly on the rim of the outer corner of your eyes. Now compare the one eye you have dabbed on the concealer and the other eye you haven't.

See the difference? An instant lifting effect! If you are lazy and don't want to put eye line or any makeup, this is the best you could go san makeup, but still have luminous and not drooping eyes. Now get your wand and do some magic!!

(Photos: www.esteelauder.com)

Makeup Tip 2

Ombre Eclat - 4 shades Eye Shadow from Guerlain


Eye Pencils, eye-liner and Kohl from Guerlain

Une empreinte de moi dans la memoire des autres....
A trace of myself, in the memories of others...

Makeup is a process and it comes in little steps, the last and most difficult being the eyes. I envy women who have no eye bags and no dark circles. So do women who have bright, large eyes that mesemerize and dazzle people. Unfortuately, I think these women only exist in air-brushed Vogue magazines.

If you use eye-liner and mascara, even water proofed ones, you might find yourself looking at a panda in the mirror after several hours. Even the best of water proofed eye makeup do smudge. We can only make it last as long as possible without smudging.

The trick to making eye-liner lasts longer, which contributes to smudging as well as mascara, is to put a similar colored powder on top of the eye-liner. The rationale behind it is that even if we use kohl pencils, they are still 'moist' on our skin. Since our skin is warm, it will slowly melt and smudge. Eye shadow, however, is dry powder. If we put a layer of eye shadow on top of the eye-liner, the staying power will be much longer.

Most ladies like to pick black eye-liners, but it's real difficult to find a real black eye shadow to dust on it. I have found a dark chocolate color eye-liner at Guerlain. The color is very dark for a brown eye-liner. The texture is dense enough for a fine eye-line and you can easily find a dark brown eye shadow to match the color.

I haven't used eye liner for a long time until this tip, mostly because of the panda effect. Now, I do put eye-liner and dot eye shadow on top of the line. Well, after 5 hours a panda is forming, but hey, at least I got 5 hours of bright eyes, which is not bad for a makeup tip. Try it, you'd be surprised.

(photos: www.guerlain.com)

Makeup Tip 1

This is one of the makeup tips I got from my makeup class. The main thing is picture a perfect oval shaped face, with the eyes, nose, mouth in perfect dimension. Ok just "picture".

Makeup, therefore, is to enhance our best features and camouflage the not so good features that do not fit the above. One very good tip to instantly slim the face and "make" it look oval is shading. Not a surprise.

Well, the magic is to highlight and shade at the same time, so this little box by Benefit is perfect for the job. The flat brush picks up both colors and the darker shade goes on the jawline and under the chin, while the other side of the brush, the highlight, will glide above the shade on your face, which will enhance your features.

I bought it and the first time I used it, I got a surprised but welcomed comment, that I looked slimmer!! Wow, a makeup tip and some camouflage did it. Now I am complacent into not losing the extra weight. Well, just a bit, hehe.