// Give me the half moon manicure

Posted on | March 6, 2010 | 4 Comments

green half moon manicure half moon manicure tools, NFU Oh

I truly am a low-maintenance girl — but I do love make-up and thus I’m occasionally exceeding the normal daily maintenance level just because I like to work with color. To be honest I’m not that much into nail art (too little impact with too much fuss — although I somehow like those tiny and often tacky nail decorations), but I do experiment sometimes with the classic manicure variations: french and half moon mani.

With half moons I prefer the traditional look where the bottom of the nail bed is left bare although my nails are not ideal for that. My own half moon is tiny and thus I get a funky double moon effect. But the double polish effect is very difficult to achieve in a way that the result looks tidy — but I have found a decent method for the bare moon.

Personally I dislike all sticker guide methods for half moons and french manicures, the guides always leak and make the edge untidy and undefined. I have been practising the freehand method and it works… …for my left hand when I can use my right hand for the job (yes, I’m right handed). The overall best routine in my opinion is the removal method, you can use a brush and nail polish remover to create the half moon shape — or perfect tip shape for french manis. Of course this method has some limitations: the color you want to shape is always the first one against the nail bed. In french manis I actually prefer that order — but to get the best half moon effect for my nails I would like to have a coat of white or nude polish underneath a dark contrast color.

For this kind of look pick a good pigmented polish, you need to achieve the desired opaqueness level with maximum of two coats — preferably with just one, a curved tip bush (width should be 1 cm or just a bit under, it helps if the brush is dense and soft), effective nail polish remover or acetone, and vaseline or some natural plant based butter. And naturally you can layer a clear topcoat or some neat effect polish (glitter, opal, sheer color/shimmer) on top of everything.

Cover your cuticles carefully with vaseline (this time I was not too careful with this — thus parts of my cuticles have a greenish tint). You can now apply a basecoat if you want to, I did not because I feel that this method works the better the less there is stuff on my nail when I start removing. Apply the main color, note that you don’t need to aim to a perfect cuticle line for this — actually it is better if you do leave the bottom middle of the nail bed unpainted — the color is definitely easier to remove when there is not too much of it. Let the polish dry.

Now pour some acetone or effective nail polish remover to a small cup and place a cotton pad or some tissue paper next to it. Dip the brush to the acetone, brush it gently to the cup edge so that it is not dripping and place it flat to the nail bed bottom and let the brush tip to create the shape. Let it be there just few seconds so that the polish dissolves. Now use gentle curved motions sideways to remove the polish from the half moon area. Tap the brush against the cotton pad or tissue paper when it needs cleaning. Repeat the routine for all nails. If the color is really pigmented you might need to clean the brush thoroughly after creating the basic shape and make another round just to clean the residues. Add a top coat, if you want to, let it dry. Wash your hands and use some lotion — the remover dries the cuticles.

The polish I used for this is NFU Oh 570 — a gorgeous teal jellylike color. Although I prefer almost all my polishes opaque, this one makes an exception, I really love the color after the first coat when it is still quite sheer and the green tint in it is accentuated (in the bottle this color looks just plain navy blue). Somehow this reminds me of some beautiful Chinese laquered items. The brush I used is GOSH synthetic eyeshadow brush — an excellent tool for this purpose. Note that in the image you can see only side of it — but actually the tip shape is perfect for making the curvy shapes of nail tips and half moons.

Posted on | March 6, 2010 | 4 Comments

// 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 ). 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.

Posted on | February 17, 2010 | 3 Comments

// Make me up, part one

Posted on | February 6, 2010 | 4 Comments

It was funny to realize how bare faced I tend to go on everyday basis. I totally agree with Varpu — make up is fun, but dependence on it is something I want to avoid. Visiting in local supermarket or coffee shop 100% bare faced is not an issue for me, and that is the way I want it to be.

But on the other hand the entertainment value… I have collected a decent stash of stuff and tried numerous brands, formulas and techniques — I definitely could make better use out of them. I’m skipping the makeup too often because of my laziness and/or lack of time.

With makeup I’m definitely not going for luxury brands. Functionality, colors and price are the factors that interest me. If I have to name some well known brands available here in Finland, MAC would be the one to get the credits from me. Their professional approach really appeals to me, and the prices are not outrageous considering the quality and product sizes.

I never spend my cash for the “it” colors of selective cosmetic brands. Nobody’s going to see the difference between them and more reasonably priced options after the color is applied to skin — and there will always be more affordable color duplicates with same — or even better quality payoff.

So here are the tips from makeup lover — who loves also go barefaced — and has no respect for traditional cosmetics marketing .

The basics I use almost everyday are:

Base

Couple of years ago I made a transition from liquid makeup base to mineral powders. That was not particularly easy — changing to the dry base implicates automatically some changes to skin care routine. Another challenge is that mineral makeup comes from multitude of small brands and they tend to have much wider shade selections than any liquid makeup — suddenly the shade that was ‘ok’ was not satisfying enough, I had to find the perfect match.

What are the pros of mineral powders? A good mineral base feels absolutely nothing on my face — plus a light application is almost undetectable, just evens out the skin color and covers small imperfections. Some powders have also neat optical illusion effect, they make the skin look very even and radiant from a small distance. Light application of it does not stain easily and it does not run if I sweat or if the weather is humid. I can have a perfect match to my skintone. It has a very short list of chemically stable ingredients (mineral oxides), so it reduces the daily chemical load a bit. The ingredients are practically all pigment, covering agents and light reflecting agents, so I’m not paying for water and other fillers — plus the non-organic formula is very hygienic. For my surprise mineral makeup is also extremely quick to apply — and streaky application is almost impossible.

Products: Lauress Face Fundamentals — great color selection and three options for different finishes — all of them are good. They ship the samples really fast and the shipping costs are truly reasonable. For application brushes I go for MAC #128 or Alima foundation brush for slightly heavier application and Everyday Minerals eye kabuki for details (around nose, eyelids, inner eye corners).

My favorite brushes. Synthetic Alima brush is very firm and super soft, it gives relatively heavy coverage with minerals easily. Fluffier Mac kabuki is perfect for lighter — and super fast application. I can do my base with eyes closed with this!

The coverage of mineral makeup base can be greatly adjusted with application. A loose, fluffy brush gives a light application, if you want more coverage go for a dense and stiff brush. Different brands have different finishes, the variables are usually the maximum coverage and amount of light reflecting ingredients. The looks vary from very glowy to full matte. The powderiness of mineral base almost disappears when the oils of skin eventually mix to the base, you can speed up this process by using mineral water or face toner spray after applying the base. A light layer of mineral makeup ‘sinks’ to skin perfectly. If you want powdery finish you might consider heavier application and/or separate finishing powder.

Cheeks

Here I’m in transition phase. Used mineral products for a while — but now I’m tired for the messiness of those. I can handle it with base because minerals are so superior to liquids in my use — but with colors…

Currently I have one pressed favorite, above all colors I’ve ever had: Bobbi Brown Apricot. The name is a bit misleading, I think — the color leans quite strongly to pink. It looks super bright on the pan — but gives awesomely refreshing and very natural flush for my cheeks, instantly picking the whole face up. Blush is very underestimated makeup product in general — a good shade improves looks so much. Good contouring and highlighting products are also great additions to makeup bag. I’m not picking options here right now in the middle of this transition phase.

Bobbi Brown Apricot looks almost scary on the pan — but great on! A mix of pink and orange makes it quite versatile for different skin tones.

Decent brush is really an essential for face colors and contouring. My favorite brush type is definitely round double fiber — the thin silk-like longer fibers are great for very light (but buildable) application. Even the most pigmented face colors are easy to apply with these, with no fear of clown cheeks. The problem is that most dual fiber brushes have flat profile — which is not optimal for blush, highlight nor contour application. One well reviewed option is Morgana Minerals dual fiber brushes — they have great selection of sizes. My brushes are not these — but I can’t find the ones I have online anymore.

Brows

Mascara

I’m using supermarket brands, only. I like my mascara water soluble (hate separate eye makeup removers), with moderate volume adding qualities and layerability for more dramatic look.

Products: Max Factor False Lash Effect — great mascara, the only cons are the clumpy wand and relatively high price for a supermarket product. But the stuff itself is good, does not glue the lashes in clumps, does not crumble or stain easily, but comes off with no pain.

Nivea Volume Nanodefinition (duh, I hate the pseudo-scientific cosmetic babble) — very much like my previous favorite, but with better wand and cheaper price. Ugly shell, though.

To be continued!

Posted on | February 6, 2010 | 4 Comments

About

Location: Helsinki, Finland

Contact: kamicha (a) gmail dot com

I'm especially interested in young designers creations, non-established labels and indie fashion. So if you have something interesting to show, feel free to contact!

You can find Finnish design from both specific and some outfit posts - but both are tagged.

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