NEW MAKE UP 2011

Hey everyone!

First off, I wantd to thank all my readers (you!) for your support - this blog has more than 100 followers now, and I hugely appreciate all your comments and your visits here!!

Second, I will be in London during the next week, to see the Phantom of the Opera, try some real English Afternoon Tea at a fancy hotel, and go shopping of course :D! So don't be surprised if I don't get to post next weekend!

Today, I just experimented a little with a multi-colored crease, but I guess it will take me some more practice to be content with my results (:.. I used Clair de Lune on the lid, with Gesso in the inner and outer corners. Then I drew a line with black kohl following the shape of my crease and winging it out. I started with Passionate in the inner corner, Grape in the middle and added some Carbon above the kohl line and in the outer corner. Sorry for the lashes, they suck but as I am not wearing any eyeliner, I didn't want to glue on falsies...






Product List
MAC Bare Canvas, MAC Clair de Lune, MAC Gesso, Maybelline Expression kohl in black, MAC Passionate, MAC Grape, MAC Carbon, CG Lash Blast

This look is almost entirely made of glitter - the only thing I added as a base was Bare Canvas to even out my lid's skintone (which is naturally rather dark) and, of course, Fixing Gel to make the glitter adhere. Then I applied first the gold glitter, using my fingers and MAC's #242 brush alternately, and added some more Fixing Gel for the stars, which I sprinkled on top. Finally, I glued on a pair of Ardell Lashes and applied some mascara and black liner to my waterline:






Product List
MAC Bare Canvas, You + Eye Fixing Gel, gol glitter and stars, Ardell falsies, CG Lash Blast

This week, I went for a kind of springy but slightly smokey look (which in real life looks a little darker than in the photo. Basically, I did my entire lid in Remotely Grey and then added Slip Pink in crease to blend. Lips and cheeks are kept in subtle wrm pink hues as well.



Product List
Face: MAC Studio Fix Fluid NC515, MAC Studio Finish NC15, MAC MSF Light, Stila Lotus blush, MAC Redhead MSF
Eyes: MAC Bare Canvas, MAC Remotely Grey, MAC Slip Pink, Manhattan JT, Maybelline Expression kohl in white, CG Lash Blast
Lips: MAC Melting Kiss l/s, MAC Partial to Pink c/g

For this look, I primed my lid with Bare Canvas, and then I applied Plumage on the entire lid, Rich Purple in the crease from the inner to the outer corner and Jewel Blue above the crease. I lined my upper lid in black and added another thin line of MAC Platinum pigment (dry and smudged) on the upper as well as the lower lid. For the lashes, I used dark Duo glue and a pair of falsies by essence, as well as Lash Blast on the lower lashes and black kohl on my waterline.







Product List
MAC Bare Canvas, MAC Plumage, MAC Rich Purple, MAC Jewel Blue, MAC Platinum, Manhattan JT, Maybelline Expression kohl in black, essence lashes, CG Lash Blast

And here it is, the post I promised to do about my photo equipment! I have answered the "What camera do you use" question countless times, so I'm trying to give a more detailed insight into how I take my pics. The camera I use almost exclusively for my eye shots is an Olympus E-410 DSLR:



In this picture, the lens attached to it is my macro lens, a Zuiko 35mm lens which is capable of taking 1:1 macro shots. For those unfamiliar with the term "macro photography", I recomment the Wikipedia article for a start which can be found here. Usually the focal length of macro lenses is around 50-150mm, but the advante of the 35mm one I have is that I can take pictures of my own eyes easily, because I don't have to keep a very large distance between the lens and my eye. As you can see here, it is only about 15 cm:



This lens is simply fabulous because it takes incredibly crips and clear images with very authentic colours. And in terms of lenses, it's dirt cheap: for 200 € it's all yours!

A typical feature of macro photography is a shallow depth of field, meaning that only a small part of the image is in focus, and the rest is blurry. It's not always easy to get the focus just right, but the further you hold this lens away from the object you want to photograph, the sharper it will come out. Here is an example of very shallow depth of field:



Especially when you are taking pictures of your eyes by yourself, it can be very hard to get the focus completely right - in this case, the only things that help is a. get someone to take your pics or b. keep shooting until you get one picture you love. You can always delete the rest!

Another bonus of the Zuiko 35mm lens is that it does not only have a high performance at macro level, but it works very well for taking shots of objects at regular distances. This shot, for example, was taken with the same lens (but not by me, this time):



Although I prefer shooting without flash, for this pictures I used an external flash attached to the camera:



I usually try to avoid shooting with flash because it makes pictures look flatter, but if the shadows without flash would be too hard, it is a good option. The external flash can be tilted anywhere you want it, allowing you to use indirect flash which is less harsh than straight-on flash.

For face shots which I do myself my favourite compact camera is a Fuji Finepix F10:



It takes great pictures without flash as it's very sensitive to light. I know that holding a camera in front of you in order to take a picture of yourself is one of the big no-nos of portrait photography, but I resort to it mostly for lack of time to put up a more complicated setting involving a tripod and stuff... Here is an example of a Fuji shot without flash, indirect daylight:



For processing my pics, I use Adobe Lightroom, Adobe Photoshop CS2 or Photoshop Elements, although I do more work on nature shots usually. For other shots, I usually choose to shoot in RAW format, to give me greater freedom in processing them, but my make-up shots are usually done in super high quality jpg.

I hoped this has answered most of your questions. If there is anything else you would like to know, please comment!

Somethin simple this week, for a change: I wore this look on Saturday when I went to shop the MAC - Brunette Blonde Redhead collection. I know, I didn't use a single MAC Colour here, but at least I didn't get slapped in the store for that (:... I only ended up with Redhead MSF and Partial to Pink Cremesheen gloss anyway, I walked in wanting to buy the Blonde MSF but it looked so similar to Lucent that I passed.

As I said, this look is simple: just China White in the inner corner, Drama Queen in the middle, Raven's Feather in the outer corner plus white kohl on the waterline, black liner and mascara. Voilà!





Product List
Eyes: MAC Bare Study, Archetype China White, MAD Drama Queen, Archetype Raven's Feather, Manhattan JT, Maybelline Expression kohl in white, CG Lash Blast