Patisserie and Gleam

Patisserie is a lustre lipstick that I love when I see it photographed.

However. . .

Sometimes when I apply it. I am a little bit disappointed. It is so close to my own lip colour that when I look in the mirror in certain lights, it is almost like I've applied nothing. I guess like most of us, somewhere deep down I still hold on to the ridicoulous notion that some make up product/combination will transform the way I look. So Patisserie, a lipstick which sits so close to my natural lip colour, is not a lipstick I get excited about. In fact, it has pretty much been relegated to my work draw. I very rarely pull it out for any other reason.

Until today.

And then I only pulled Patisserie out because it was the only lippie in reach and I thought well, since Patisserie is for me so non-descript. I can always go over it later with something more interesting.

Yep, I've got a whole drawer of lipsticks at home and four or five in my handbag. All of which I could easily have used to paint over Patisserie.

Except I never did.

Today, I tolerated Patisserie. In fact, dare I say it, I actually think that I quite liked Patisserie. I think this has a lot to do with the eyeshadow that I teamed it with. Gleam from MAC, a lustre colour that is almost the skintone of my eyelid but better.

Gleam is a shadow that I am very fond of. A slightly lighter and pinker All That Glitters.

Gleam also has a sparkle to it. Maybe it is this sparkle that balances out the mundane, safe nature of Patisserie and pulls the pretty combo together.

Now here I need to apologise as I was going to put a nice face of the day in here and I took tens of pictures on my new camera (ooh), only to find that when I got the pictures up on the computer that the camera had picked up something and that was the fact that one of my make up brushes had shredded all over my face and ruined my pictures so I got handy with the cropping tool to give you an idea of how Patisserie and Gleam worked for me.

What do you think? Do you have seperate lipsticks for work? Have you met Gleam?

X

Three things!

Here are three things that I’m liking at the moment.

1/ FRENCHED

This Benefit lipstick has defined the last week. Ever since the PixiWoo Christina Agrilia trutorial and Pixi2Woo wearable red lip one, I have being heading towards pan with this beauty. I am going to do a post/vlog very, very soon (I am wearing it in my new perfume collection videos http://www.youtube.com/user/essjay23x ) but this is a true, true red. No compromise or safe bet like the pretty but nowhere near as daring as Viva Glam Cyndi. Frenched is a berry red, a real red and I can wear it! Yay! And what is more, no gloss is required, a beautiful pigmented creamy finish is delivered by Frenched all by itself.

2/ SATIN TAUPE

I’ve always liked this one. It is so verstaile and can be used just for the lid or it can be the lid in a smoky eye or the contour in an everyday look. I’m favouring the mono look in the day and then smoking it up with carbon and sable (or one of the browns from my Sleek palettes) at night. I knew I liked this one but didn’t realise how much I wore it until I was flicking through some photos earlier. I love Sable but I think sometimes that is a little bit red for me. Satin Taupe is more of a greyer brown akin to Barry M Mushroom rather then chocolater colours.

3/ CURLIER HAIR

It must be the green tea because I am a ‘Sleek’ freak and almost always wear my hair straight on a day to day basis but I would say I have curled, flicked or waved in some way at least three times over the last month and I think I act differently with curled/waved hair. I’m more relaxed, more ‘blonde’, I guess. Maybe I think that I’ll get away with more as curly hair is so not me. It does take some heavy conical work to curl/wave my hair so that it wearable. My hair is not straight so I presumed (pre-curling action this month) that it was wavy or curly but no, curls actually fall out in a quicker time duration then the transformation from my straightened hair to frizz. I have come to the conclusion that my hair is just one great big puff ball. Although the Garnier Fructis Bamboo Finish and Hold Extreme (obviously) hairspray seems to help a lot!

What are you liking at the moment?

X

POST REWIND:Look, look . . .

My post about Blackberry got me thinking about how excited I was earlier in the year when I had my MAC haul so I decided to share some of that excitment with some of you newer readers, this post was first published in January http://essjay23x.wordpress.com/ I got my first MAC products, yay, yay, yaaaaaaaaaaaay! We have (from the back and left to right) Untitled; Blackberry; Mineralise SkinFinish Natural in Light Medium, Embark, Modelette, Shale, Underage and Hue. Whoo, these little purchases have made my week. I have the week off and this is just how I wanted to start it . . . with MAC! You should have seen how tightly I was holding my little bag. I can't wait to wear them all properly. I'm hoping that I will not be disappointed. I shouldn't be. I did do a lot of research. I went with a whole list of colours that gurus such as Lollipop26, FleurDeForce, Dazzledust25, AllThatGlitters, JuicyStar05, OxfordJasmine and so many more, have talked/blogged about and that certainly helped to guarantee Hue and Underage a home but with the eyeshadows, there were just so many on the shelf and you could not see the names without picking the actual shadows up and looking on their rears. I soon gave up on that and just ended up picking the ones that I actually liked the look of. I wanted mainly neutrals but one or two colours to shake things up for more made-up looks. I already had purples in mind and when the assistant suggested them . . . sold! Going back to lips. I tried three lipsticks. The lady suggested Patteserie and I asked to try Hue and Angel. Angel just seemed a little too pink for me. It came down to Hue and Patteserie. I hope Patteserie becomes part of my collection evantually but I guess as I already knew about Hue, that is where my heart stayed. I tried two lipglosses. Fantabulous and Underage. This was easy. Fantaboulous really did look purple on me. When I've seen people wearing it in videos, it looked conventional and I would be surprised to find out that it was a purple gloss but on my lips, you could certainly see that it was a very purple gloss. Just slightly too outrageous for me . . . at the moment! I also have a paint tube (there is more in the tube then the pot for the same price) and the assistant said that she preferred tubes. I got Untitled which is a very subdued nude with a trace of pink. I will be interested to see how this works as I have always used either the Benefit cream shadows or concealer as eye bases. That is, if I used anything at all. The Mineralise Skin Finish Natural seems a bit of a 'boring' purchase compared to the shadows and lipsticks but it was the one 'boring' product that so many gurus bothered to rave about and, maybe I'm a bit dense but, I don't see the point in raving about a 'boring' finishing powder unless it actually works. Also get this, I'm still off the fake tan and was colourmatched for this powder and it seems the lightest was too light, wow! Well, I hope you enjoyed a little peek in to my shopping bag. Expect to see a lot more of these products in future posts (after all, I've got to get my moneys worth). Also be warned, todays shopping did not stop in MAC . . . Can you remember your first MAC product? What products do you aspire to? X

Stay or go?!

Make up can get expensive but I have recently discovered the world of swapping and think that maybe I would like to give it a go. So I have been going through my collection to try and find something to swap but it is very, very hard. There seems to be a 'Just In Case' (aka JIC syndrome) scenario for every product. I think the closest I've come to finding something is Blackberry, a matte eyeshadow from MAC. I remember when I brought this item from MAC- it was part of my first MAC haul- I was so excited but to be honest, I don't think that I have used it since that first week and I'm not sure why. According to macmakeup.net, a matte eyeshadow is meant to be intense with true colour payoff and, obviously as a matte, it has no shine or shimmer. Therefore I can see why my MAC artist and many reviewers suggest using it as a contour and an outer lid colour. I brought it to combine with Shale (a satin) as recommended by the MAC artist -I have swatched the two above- This also seems a popular combo on Make Up Alley so why have I not used it again?! I'm not sure. I think that I felt Blackberry was hard to build up and my eyes had less impact then I initially hoped. These two colours were meant to create my night look but once on my lids, didn't seem to quite reach par. I think I was comparing the combination to a Purple Smoky Eye that Nic of PixiWoo did on You Tube. My Blackberry/Shale combo sadly was nowhere near as striking. So maybe Blackberry should go!!! Yet, I still have a bout of JIC syndrome. Surely there is a way that I could work this shadow. Currently 77% of Blackberry Make Up Alley reviewers would buy the shadow again http://www.makeupalley.com/product/showreview.asp/ItemId=19409/Blackberry_Eyeshadow/MAC/Eye_Shadow  . It looks such a gorgeous colour in the pan and it is basic colour wheel theory, that purple will be a great compliment for my green eyes. What is more, even I can see on my complexion that this shade of purple does not make me look bruised. I think that I'm going to try my Blackberry/Shale combo again and rate it for what it is and not in comparison to something else. Lately I have been sticking to the same old contour colours (Sable, Barry M Dazzledust in Pale Tan and Satin Taupe). It is time to shake things up a bit. I read somewhere that contrasting these matte shadows with shimmer ones can create good results. I may try it Blackberry with All That Glitters, a veluxe pearl, as well as Shale. And while All That Glitters is out, I may combine it with another swap contender, Embark. Another darker contour type colour from my first haul which has not overwhelmed me. I think I originally brought this to combine with one of my faves, Modellette but now often use Satin Taupe or Sable instead. However again, Embark is a popular choice for others so one that I am reluctant to swap before I have a little play. As you can tell, I'm really enjoying the reviews on Make Up Alley at the moment. I would recommend everybody has a look before a shopping trip. You can get a good idea of products and I think maybe you can find products that will work in the long term for you rather then just the latest fad shadow or lippie overwhelming You Tube etc. I have also discovered Mac MakeUp. net and I think this would be a brilliant site for any real MAC obsessives to hop over to. There is a very useful index detailing lots of combinations of MAC shadows that work well together and all of the MAC face charts are available to purchase. Check it out here, http://www.macmakeup.net. So what do you think of Blackberry and Embark? Do they really deserve to be evicted from my not so little collection or do you know how I can work them? Please, please let me know. Also any other comments or product suggestions are more then welcome as is your support. Don't forget, there will be some sort of competition/giveaway when I get 50 followers!! There may be a video soon too as I've nearly reached 100 posts on WordPress but as usual, I am having trouble uploading and now, I'm starting to go off the idea so we will see Update: As you can see I've tried the Blackberry/Shale combo again. It is okish, enough to keep Blackberry but I'm not that excited about it. I don't think either colour is particularly striking on my eyes and it is difficult to see where one ends and the other begins and believe me, I walked all around the house trying to find a flattering light. Blackberry was very hard to build even in the swatch and I think the shimmery moisturiser I had on underneath actually helped this matte shadow out a little, added a bit more interest. On the plus side, there is a little colour added to my eyes with the Blackberry/Shale combo although I would have preferred a more purple contour but then at least, I do not look like a clown. You've done just enough to be redeemed, Blackberry, but little more!!! X