BROWS

Yesterday’s Face: What it Was

/ brightandbeautyfull / 2 Comments

Yesterday’s make up — which, like yesterday, is gone! Take off your make up, women, for the love of God! — and as ever, will be keeping my day job. I am very sloppy about the picture-taking.

From left:

> No. 7 High Shine in Pink Veil
> Hourglass Opaque Rouge Liquid Lipstick in Rose
> That Karaja Waterproof Eye Pencil that I am wearing down to the nub.
> Bourjois Paris Smoky Eyes in Rose Vintage
> Clarins Instant Definition Mascara in Intense Plum
> Bourjois Paris Flower Perfection Translucent Smoothing Primer
> Stila Set & illuminate Baked Powder Trio
> L’Oréal Paris Nude Magique BB Cream in Fair Skin Tone
> Also L’Oréal Paris, the LumiMagique highlighting pen
> Yves Saint Laurent Dare to Glow No 2 in Fatal Red
> My beloved brow duo, the AVON Glimmerstick Brow Definer in Dark Brown, and BeneFit Speed Brow

I am very much loving the Hourglass lippy: it really does last, and I counteract the dry-feelingness with a top coat of gloss — ooh, and the No 7 is super shiny! I am also very impressed with the Bourjois eye palette, less so with the primer, as it is such a small container, I don’t imagine I’ll get many faces out of it, if you know what I mean. The YSL illuminator was a little rosier than I wanted to go, but if you are feeling that pale-and-interesting is not working for you, this will warm you right up.

Stila! Completely into the this illuminator, but keep forgetting I want to use it, so I am all dressed, and the danger of illuminating my frontage is, I am afraid, about 200% guaranteed.

I would not normally be interested in a non-black mascara either, but I find myself reaching for the Clarins Plum these last few days.

The whole look is soft:

Brows and lips, betches. It is all about them.

I’ll deffo do this again. Ah, yesterday!

***

HD Brows: In Which I Get the Eyebrows of My Dreams

/ brightandbeautyfull / 4 Comments

‘Open your eyes.’

I opened them, to see two intent faces peering into mine. It was like that shot in a hospital TV show, from the POV of the trolley*: the surgeons are huddled over a patient, a patient that they have maybe just zapped back to life, and they are ensuring said patient’s consciousness. I wasn’t in A&E, and the two intent faces belonged to eyebrow artists; despite the lack of cardio machines or whatever, this was something of a crisis situation, and it was about to be resolved. Categorically.

That brow, there, that’s what I brought before Marissa Carter and Katie Fox at Carter Beauty {the other brow, not pictured, is, you know, the same.} That’s a manageable brow for me. I can lay on the brow enhancer, like Benefit’s Browzings, or Clarins’ Pro Palette, and sculpt a decent shape, and take attention away from the stray hairs.

Why not tweeze those strays, you ask? Because I cannot bear the tweezers, as wielded by me. My nose is itching just thinking about it, and my eyes are tearing up. This reaction is why I have been getting my eyebrows tended to, by professionals, since I was 13 years old.

That’s a lot of years between then and now, and I can say with conviction that nothing has ever approached the shaping of my brows with the focus that the HD Brows system brought to the treatment table.

The procedure is delineated in seven steps: assessment of the client’s face shape in order to design a brow to suit; tinting to even out the colour of the hair; waxing; threading; tweezing; trimming; finishing {< which entails soothing lotion and application of colour to cover any pinkness of skin, but this was the least painful eyebrow treatment I’ve ever gotten, and there was barely any reaction.}

During the assessment part, Katie used a thread to get ratios of distances between my nose and the outside of my brows, between my pupil and what would hopefully be the arch I’d always pined for. She attended to the specificities of my face the way I imagine the people who cleaned the Sistine Chapel attended to its restoration, but with less scaffolding.

It’s not as though the guts of the above are not fairly typical to a brow shaping treatment, but in this case, I’ve never experienced such a comprehensive use of all of the elements. By this I mean, it wasn’t like, slap on the wax and rip out the hair, zip-zip. Or the scrinch-scrinch-scrinch of threading, boom, you’re done. I suppose it’s not like that because the seven steps don’t come in rote order — both Marissa and Katie went back and forth between the steps, waxing, tweezing, threading, re-checking the plumb lines, and yes, peering down at me until they were satisfied that they had crafted the perfect brow for me and my face.

Okay, you’ve gotta see this now: Continue reading →

Sisterhood of the Travelling Products

/ brightandbeautyfull / 3 Comments

So: three weeks worth of stuff. It doesn’t seem like loads when laid out like that. {It seems like tonnes when you have to pack it up. In three make up bags of various sizes so you can distribute the weight.}

Or does it? I no longer have perspective. I’ve got thirteen shampoos and conditioners on the the go! What can you expect from me, honestly.

This photo is as much as about what is not here, as what did make the transatlantic journey… Continue reading →

Best Brows in the History of Brows

/ brightandbeautyfull / 1 Comment

The first time I got my eyebrows waxed, I was 12 or 13. This seems crazy to me, but I mention it by way of establishing my credentials. I know that this nothing, nowadays, when girls much younger are getting waxed in places that don’t bear thinking about, or even younger girls getting spray tans for their First Holy Communion — but it still strike as kinda young. So anyway, that little bit of personal information is given so you know that I’ve been around the block, several times, and am a good judge of services that concern the removal of excess hair on the brow.

As for threading, I’ve only had five instances, but they all had defining characteristics:

1} My first time, and the lady took so much off the ends of my brows they have barely grown back — two years later.

2} This time, it felt like the lady was pulling out the hairs one by one with her teeth.

3} My sister took me to the place she goes in the strip mall in North Brunswick, NJ. It cost $3, which is roughly €2.24. When I was waved to a seat, my sister winced, because she knew the threading ladies, and this one liked to take her time, possibly in sadistic fashion. The lady ran the thread through my brows like an arpeggio — a slow, slooooow arpeggio.

4} I will be writing about this in future, because it was good one, and an option for southsiders: Shavata in Harvey Nicks, Dundrum.

5} This was the best one, though: Neelu at Arnotts. Continue reading →