The door in my wardrobe*

*the door not actually being there was a disappointment - but at least I was allowed to play with the clothes

//// Make me up, part two

Posted on | February 17, 2010 | 3 Comments

Ok, here I’m continuing the marathon post about my favorite make up products. See the first part here. This is going to be a bit MAC heavy — sorry about that — but with make up I like extensive shade selection and no-fuss packaging. Make Up Store is often a good option — but they don’t have the palette options MAC pro stores offer.

Liner

Gel liners definitely! The gel liner magic comes really evident with age. My eyelids are not as smooth as they used to be — but a gel liner applied with soft brush still applies with precision — without pulling and tugging the skin too much. It is also tremendously easier to apply than fluid liners — plus when the gel is still moist you have the option to smudge the line. And it lasts extremely well.

Products: Mac Fluidline is great — and the best budget option might be Indelible Gel Eye Liners (several online retailers, just Google!). A good brush is essential for these — MAC #209 is a true workhorse — and you can get a fine budget option from online again, my favorite is Kileng Line & Smudge brush. Don’t be afraid of the slightly unusual shape, it actually gives a great freedom from very thin line to more heavy strokes — and works also for smudging hard lines to soft ones. For tightlining (a very natural lining on the roots of upper and/or lower lashes) you might want to get a firm, slanted or straight, flat brush. Tightlining is very easy with gel liners!

Gel liners are not the best option for under eye lining — they give so precise and hard line that without smudging it is hard to combine to soft everyday looks. And smudging window for gel liners is relatively short, they dry so fast. When I use liner under eye I opt for eyeshadow lining — or pencils. Gosh is a supermarket brand with good color selection — and their eye pencils are outstanding. They have traditional pencils with colors ranging from classics to beautiful brights, mechanical pencil liners with less color options and basic colors in softer kohl pencils for inner lid lining.

One classic makeup trick is to use white kohl in inner lid to make eyes look larger and remove the signs of tiredness — but it can look a bit harsh, especially in day makeup. Isa Dora has a great, peachy skin colored kohl (Blonde), an instant pickup for tired eyes.

Eye shadows

I use cream eye shadows as an eye makeup base. Mac has two great options, Paint in small tube and Paint Pot — eh — in a small pot. They have a stick, too, but it is too hard for my taste. I prefer the Paint for hygiene reasons. You can get a different shade for different makeups, if you want to. Personally I use only one shade: Bare Canvas. It lightens the lid a bit and that helps especially bright colors to pop. I’m considering though getting a dark toned Paint Pot (Blackground), dark base would be great for smoky eye — and some brights look good — and very different — on a dark base. Base really helps the eye shadows to stay in place. There are several products meant solely for that — I have tried some but I’m always getting back to Paint — the base pigment is really good boost for eye makeup. If you have greasy lids, Paint would probably be the better option — on the lid it gets a powdery like finish pretty soon. Paint Pot is more moist and sticky.

For actual colors I have opted for minerals for a while. They are inexpensive, hygienic (no organic ingredients means really long shelf life) can be very intensive and come in multitude of shades. Most mineral companies offer inexpensive samples — and for color I don’t use often the sample can be enough. Applying loose powders needs a bit practice and is slightly more time consuming than applying pressed shadow. The absolutely worst thing with these is storing them… …the jars take space and create some mess eventually. I have considered getting rid of all others except my favorites — most of them come from awesome indie brand Fyrinnae. They have the most intensive pigments with multitude of finishes — and colors ranging from not too boring everyday shades to wild accent colors.


Great Fyrinnae pigments! Bright chartreuse is surprisingly flattering color for many skintones, try it for example as a summer liner. Fyrinnae OMGWTF is perhaps the most intensive one I have seen — and the silky texture is awesome. On the backround few great everyday shades, peachy creamy Taurus refreshes the look with the subtle shade and understated shimmer — in a hurry I use this color only. Accentuates blue eyes, but goes well for other colors, too. Leshii is an unusual mix of muted purple and taupe, great everyday shader. Angel’s Tale is yellowish taupe, a staple for my nude eye.

My traditional option is — again — MAC. The only thing I wish for them is that they would bring the awesome professional palettes and filler pans to consumer stores, too. The palettes are so handy and nice to store. I dislike readymade shadow palettes — but when I get to pick the colors it’s all different!


In my large Mac palette from bottom to up, left to right, Phloof, Copperplate, Carbon, Shroom, Warming Trend*, Espresso (?), Stormwatch*, Freshwater, Steamy, Arena, Woodwinked, Filament, Evening Aura*, Patina, Purple Haze. Starred ones are limited editions, you might find them from eBay.

The best overall trick I have learned with eye makeup — do it before the base! I always get some under eye stains, especially with darker shadows — removing them from clean skin is so easy. Beats the old loose-powder-under-eyes –trick 6 – 0.

Brows

For brows I use both powder shades and pencil. Make Up Store has a great three color palette with pale filler shade (or for blondes) — very natural cool brown for universal accents — and grayish brown black for dramatic look. On a travel I tend to use Mac Copperplate from my eye shadow palette, it is a perfect dark taupe matching my mouse brown hair.

For pencil I use Rimmel Brown Black — it’s not all perfect shade, but the consistency is very good (not too soft, not too hard) and the little brush in the lid is handy. It lasts better than powder colors — but I prefer the look I can achieve with powders. Sometimes I use Mac Brow Finisher colored wax for setting and finishing.

Lips

I threw away all my lip glosses recently (I dislike the lipgloss feel on my lips plus they go bad so easily) — but I have a decent selection of lipstics, mainly from MAC and Clinique, with some selective ones from my better paid days (when money evidently burnt in my pockets :-D ). If I’m after a glossy finish I will apply a topcoat of clear Clinique Superbalm. MAC is a definitely winner for me in lip products. The color selection is awesome and there are several options for finish, too. Opaque options are truly pigmented — but dabbing them lightly on top of the Superbalm gives nice transparent finish.


MAC Blankety and Politely Pink are great cool toned nude shades that don’t make the lips totally vanish. I use bright colors quite often, but usually just lightly dabbed on clear glossy lib balm, these are classic red Russian Red and blindingly bright Impassioned (it has more pink in it than in this picture).

My lip line is still quite defined — and I really dislike overlining lips in the hope of fuller lip look. So I use lip liner quite seldom and don’t have too many of those. But a lip brush is a staple, don’t have definite favorite, supermarket ones do the job very well. I’m looking for a perfect nude liner though. The problem is that my natural lip color is rather red mauve than red brown — most nude liners tend to be brownish. And I don’t want the liner be too pale, I don’t want to make my lips vanish. Previously I used Chanel Mordoire (if I remember the shade name right) — but I’m afraid that it has been discontinued.

My favorite trick for slightly fuller lip look is lightly outlining the cupid bow with skin highlighter color, dabbing a light dot of skin contour shade below the bottom lip — and using a dab of lighter lip color in the middle of the lip.

Extras

Silicone wrinkle fillers got popular few years ago — but like with all anti-aging products the prices tend to be outrageous. Clinique Pore Minimizer Instant Perfector is exactly same stuff with more reasonable price tag. Silicone paste can be bit tricky to use, it can make some other makeup products to ‘roll’ — and use too much of it and you end up with dry and flaky looking skin. Personally I tend to use it very sparingly over a finished makeup base when I’m after a super smooth finish. Of course you can minimize the pores too with it — it can even smooth some indented scars to less detectable.

Mixing medias can be very handy with powder eye-shadows. I use Make Up Store Mixing Liquid or Blend&Fix for intensive and lasting eyeshadow liner and totally opaque, lasting color effects. Especially at summertime a fresh, bright shade foiled on the lid with mixing medium can look very good.

Stuck in a rut?

There are so many great makeup blogs there for new ideas — just mentioning few. For all Finnish people I warmly recommend Karkkipäivä — great, quality images and awesome tutorials from beautiful Inkivääri (Ginger). Killer Colours is in Swedish and English — and the looks are strong, interesting, varied, sometimes experimental — and the writer is super beautiful. Writer of Purity is skilled Mac fanatic who draws inspiration from movies and such — and recreates the looks with ease. For classic looks and product reviews try Shades of U.

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Discussion

  1. dust
    February 18th, 2010 @ 9:32 pm

    I’ve wrote a long comment on your first make up post, but it got lost in cyberspace.
    I so much love custom made pallets, but can never find one that fits different products, something for take-away. Now I make them myself. It’s a tricky procedure, sometimes I ruin stuff, But I’m stubborn enough to keep trying until it finally works. Your make up is delicious, should use it more often!

  2. dust
    February 18th, 2010 @ 9:34 pm

    You see, I get so excited just writing about make up that I turn into retard and make stupid spelling mistakes.

  3. Kamicha
    February 18th, 2010 @ 9:54 pm

    Haha, that happens to me all the time!

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