My beak and claws

Sleek Divine Storm Pallette #2 - nude and blue. I wore and photographed this look about a week ago, the morning after an Ashes to Ashes marathon where I spent too much time engaging in eyeshadow envy. (I still managed to guess at least one major plot twist though…) I brushed the paler gold colour around the socket area and up to the brow line, then applied the dark blue to the lower lid and the outer half of the upper lid, winging a bit at the outer corner. I also applied some of the lighter blue at the inner corner.

I’m aiming to work my way through this pallette and blog a few more looks from it, depending entirely on whether I go anywhere that calls for makeup and/or have time to photograph it!

Sleek Divine Storm Pallette look #1 - green and gold. These are the eyes of someone delaying her return to work by the precious minutes it takes to snap photos! I applied the paler of the two metallic golds around the entire socket area and up to my eyebrows on the outside corner, then used the dark green on the lower lid and the outside half of the upper lid. I winged the green at the outside corners and brushed a little of the darker metallic gold at the very corner. I finished with a coat of No7 Lash 360 mascara, no eyeliner. The look was inspired partly by Jasmine (in terms of shape rather than colour placement) and partly by devouring half a series of Ashes to Ashes near the end of the vacation.

In general I’m quite impressed with the shadows in this pallette. The colours are very strong and blending them properly has taken a bit of practice, plus I find it a bit difficult to clean up misplaced colour (including on my nose!). Still, bold colours are often a good thing, and certainly something I felt like today.

Somewhere over the rainbow, little ducklings fly…

I finally caved in to the allure of a slightly extended 3-for-2 offer in Superdrug, the proximity of two lemmings in one space, the fact that buying an item of makeup in Oxford still feels slightly more special than doing so in Nottingham, and my boyfriend’s eagerness for me to make my mind up already, and bought a bottle of Gosh Rainbow and Sleek MakeUp’s Storm eyeshadow pallette, as well as a Sleek mascara to try out. The eyeshadows will be blogged when I’ve tried out a few more of the colours. The photos above are the Rainbow worn over my otherwise buck nekkid nails, blurred a bit to show the sparkliness to slightly better effect. I may try to photograph the polish again when worn over something dark.

Anyway, since the photos don’t show it to its full effect, Rainbow is a clear polish with varying sizes of flat glitter. Under some lights the glitter just looks like gold leaf, which is pretty cool in itself but then under other lights it flicks between gold, orange, pink, green and the odd fleck of blue, which is even better. Wearing it over naked nails, even two coats, is a bit of a private pleasure since it isn’t immediately obvious - yes I do plan to try that at work, why do you ask? I also want to try it over black pretty soon, and as concealed bling over a pale gold. Who am I kidding, I want to layer this over every damn colour I have…

Red for 2010! I felt like I needed something bright for a celebration not only of the new year but also of my boyfriend being the same age as me (in years, if you don’t count months…) from then until March! 17’s Showbiz seemed to fit the bill. I don’t often have the nerve to wear it, but it always seems to look good when I do! I don’t remember having to reapply it, either, so the ‘Lasting fix’ tag may even be accurate. Anyway, it was a great evening - the first time I’ve spent NYE in company for several years, incidentally - and the vegan chocolate cake went down well. And I still found a moment to photograph my lippy!

Superdrug Optimum Cooling Eye Roll-on

Ok, it isn’t makeup, but since I haven’t been wearing much of that lately and this weekend’s nail colour is the already-blogged Barry M Bright Red I thought this product was worth a post. I don’t usually rave about a skincare product unless I’ve used it for months or years, but I’m making an exception for this one because basically I bought it yesterday morning, have used it maybe two or three times a day since then, and already the dark shadows under my eyes are receding. Since I haven’t been sleeping any better and my normal eye cream (Superdrug Natural High, the one with arnica in) doesn’t usually have such dramatic effects, I guess I should credit the new arrival.

The active ingredients are

• Caffiene (yeah another way for me to get a sneaky fix!) - meant to reduce puffiness and fine lines by promoting micro-circulation in the skin
• Menthol - cooling
• Hyaluronic acid (no I hadn’t heard of it before either) - moisturising
• Liquorice root extract and vitamin C - reducing dark circles

The product is applied with what is basically a ball-bearing performing a similar task to the roller in a bottle of deodorant. This rollerball action is supposed to be useful in itself for encouraging circulation in the skin around the eyes. Personally I found it a bit scary at first, but am getting used to it after some practice!

Essie Wild Thing - doesn’t make my heart sing but it does make a nice bit of sparkle! I got this free with a magazine at some point over the summer and wasn’t too impressed at the time given the love being expressed for this brand on various blogs. It was thin and weedy and needed three coats to get any sort of coverage on its own, and it proceeded to chip very quickly during a busy weekend. On the other hand, I was going through several sorts of rough patch at the time, so maybe I’m unfairly pinning too much on an innocent nail varnish! Anyway, this is two coats of Wild Thing over one coat of Barry M Raspberry, topped with Barry M 3-in-1 to hopefully remedy the chipping issue. Over Raspberry it becomes quite a satisfying dark red, still with the multicoloured sparkles that attracted me to it when I saw it in the bottle. Just the thing to cheer up my newly-shortened nails! And yes that is a TV guide with a picture of David Tennant on - it was nearby and roughly the right colour, and I happened to be watching Dr Who (which made me cry, dammit) at the time so thought it was appropriate…