making faces :: hot stuff

it's hot in here. it's not you.

ah yes, it's that time of year when the sun is strong, the humidity is high and most people are a little leery of putting a layer of paint on their faces, even a light one. after all, the inclination in the summer is to remove layers rather than add them and hot, humid weather has a way of taking your nicely done makeup and turning it into something from the climax of "raiders of the lost ark" in a hurry.

if you live your life moving from one air-conditioned spot to another [home, car, office], that's very comfortable for you. but chances are that you're going to have to sit on a terrace to have a drink or visit a friend who find that air conditioning aggravates their asthma [me] or get on a bus because your brakes are being repaired. and there are a lot of people [me included] who just have to do battle with the elements every day.

no one is likely to force you to wear makeup [put on the mascara or we'll kill grandma!], so a lot of people just don't bother with it in the warmer seasons. but there are places- often workplaces- that do sort of tacitly expect that you make some attempt to hide the embarrassment of morning face and, if you're the kind of person who likes to put on makeup anyway, you're probably not interested in just stowing your collection until the mercury drops.

so, here are a few things that i find work for me... feel free to agree, disagree or add your own.

1. hot weather tends to make you perspire. i don't think anyone is going to disagree with that, but a lot of people use cosmetic products- creams, colour cosmetics, anything- that are actually intended to be quite moisturising. unless your skin runs quite dry [in which case, for once, you can laugh at the rest of us] you're at least going to want to move away from putting a lot of products on your face that are too rich or sebaceous. anything that has the keyword "glow" in it is suspect, because products that make your skin "glow" do so by imparting it with rich, nutritious oily goodness. doesn't mean you can't wear them [i've stuck it out with my nars' sheer glow foundation], but keep in mind that you'll be compounding what nature is doing to you anyway.

one thing that you can do is get yourself a nice mattifying primer. yes, it's another layer, but the whole point of these is that they help absorb. there are a lot of them around and i don't claim to have tried all of them, but nars has a very nice one that's light without being drying and neostrata in canada has one that leaves the skin feeling quite velvety. for a cheaper variant, apparently using milk of magnesia accomplishes the same goal, although i'd really recommend this only for oilier skins.

2. it's bright. again, probably not a lot of people are going to disagree with this one. the fact that you can't really do anything about the fact that you're under bright light all the time, though, means that there are a few things to keep in mind. very elaborate, detailed makeup under bright lights tends to look a bit overdone. keeping things simple- fewer shades, less blending, etc., tends to work better for me.

of course, that doesn't mean that you have to be overly subtle. under bright conditions, bold colours can really work. simple can mean one big punch in the nose of colour. 

3. heat makes things messy. makeup is certainly no exception. to get around this, i usually try not to get around it at all. bring on the mess and make it your friend. i like to do things that start out looking a little smudged and imprecise, because that way, when the heat inevitably takes its toll, it at least won't be quite so obvious. mac's sadly discontinued greasepaint sticks are amazing for this sort of work and give you the awesome sensation of literally colouring your face with big crayons. benefit's creaseless cream shadows and armani's eyes to kill powder-that-you'll-think-is-cream shadows are also very effective. essentially, a creamier product can go on looking a little blurry and inexact, but still look good. if you want to put shadow or liner over top of that base, it'll also help them last longer.

4. moisture feels good. i'm not being really controversial here, am i? but one of the things that i avoided for a long time, but now keep as a staple for everyday use is mac's fix+ spray. it purports to make your cosmetics last longer and is perfect for applying powder products [especially loose pigments] or priming your skin. i don't know that my makeup lasts longer with it, but what i will say is that it definitely keeps it looking fresher for the time it does last. it really seems to stop the fading that occurs, especially in warmer times. i also find that it softens the appearance of makeup slightly, making it look a little more natural and relaxed.

and you can spritz it on your face when you start applying and when you finish, to give an incredibly refreshing feeling. i swear i'm going to start carrying bottles of this stuff in my purse for those moments when i need something to relax me. it's probably better than vodka. well, the two go hand in hand, really.

here are a few things that i've done to my face that illustrate these points...

this is a sort of hot-weather variant on a smoky eye, where i just smudged a cream shadow over my lids, set it with a bit of a darker pigment and was basically ready to go.

face ::

nars sheer glow foundation "mont blanc"
diorskin nude hydrating concealer "001"

eyes ::
benefit creaseless cream shadow "skinny jeans"
mac pigment "the family crest"
mac eye kohl "smolder"
inglot e/s "352"
diorshow mascara

cheeks ::
mac blush "my highland honey"

lips ::
mac l/s "out-minxed"



here's one using one of mac's greasepaint sticks. i basically just used it all over my lid- more towards the outer corners, since that's where i like to concentrate colour- and the quickly blended a shadow over it. this actually held up remarkably well during a particularly hot day and i credit that to the fact that it looked all mussed-up to begin with. i only put eye kohl [also known as "liner", but i like to talk fancy] on my upper lash line, since, when it's really hot, it lasts less time on my water line than it takes me to apply it.

face ::

lush colour supplement "jackie oates"
diorskin nude hydrating concealer "001"

eyes ::
mac greasepaint stick "french quarter"
mac e/s "patina"
mac e/s "dazzlelight" [as a highlight along the brow bone]

cheeks ::
mac mineralize skinfinish "by candlelight"

lips ::
urban decay l/s "voodoo"


this is the sort of thing i was talking about in terms of using bold colours very simply. i'm kind of proud of the fact that this looks complicated, but actually took all of five minutes to do. because the colours are separated into blocks, there was really nothing to do other than just apply. they more or less blended themselves, clever buggers. i think that this shows off the lovely, intense pigmentation of the shadows that came out with mac's "surf baby" collection. there's a reason i got almost all of them.

face ::
nars sheer glow foundation "mont blanc"
diorskin nude hydrating concealer "001"

eyes ::
mac e/s "saffron"
mac e/s "sun blonde"
mac e/s "manila paper"
mac greasepaint stick "dirty"
ysl faux cils mascara

cheeks ::
mac cheek powder [aka blush] "my paradise"

lips ::
ysl rouge pur shine l/s "blood orange"


and, finally, another more colourful look. normally, i don't do this sort of pronounced liner in the summer, because it ends up looking a hot mess in short order, but one of the nice things i've noticed about the armani "eyes to kill" shadows is that they actually hold other products in place fairly well. it's like they're having a little colour competition on my face. these photos were taken not long after application, but i was floored six or eight hours later to notice that i looked more or less exactly the same. no summer-smudging, no fading, no creasing. i also decided to take another of the dangers of summer in hand when i did this by anticipating that i was going to get flushed in the heat. i started out with a fairly bright pop of blush on the cheeks and presto- i meant to look like that.

face ::
lush colour supplement "jackie oates"
diorskin nude hydrating concealer "001"

eyes ::
armani eyes to kill e/s "pulp fiction"
nars e/s "dogon" [dark side only]
mac mega metal e/s "prance"
mac e/s "all races"
mac fluidline "blacktrack"
ysl faux cils mascara

cheeks ::
guerlain blush g

lips
nars l/g "strawberry fields"

making faces :: product review [stila, benefit]

thought i'd take the opportunity of a truly miserable sunday afternoon [is it just me or does bad weather seem a lot worse when it happens on sunday?] to give some quick [for me] thoughts on a couple of things i've picked up lately, one new to the market, one just new to me.












stila sparkle eye liner "curacao"
this is a brand that i've wanted to try for a while, starting chiefly from the fact that my first exposure to them came from seeing their name on early iterations of companies that don't perform animal testing. while it's a lot easier to find companies who meet that criteria nowadays, i was still always interested to see what stila did. it's just that i could never find them. for whatever reason, their products never seemed to be on sale any place i could actually get to. reluctant to make my first experience an online exchange, i waited and was recently rewarded when i went into murale and found that the lise watier display had been uprooted in favour of a shiny new stila one. [smart move on their part- watier is available everywhere in montreal, whereas this is the only location in the downtown area that has stila.

i was a blank slate, having no idea where to even start with the brand, so i was surprised when what really caught my eye was a bright blue sparkly liquid liner called "curacao". i say surprised because i'm not normally much for eye liner in any colour other than black and, in particular, blue is a colour i tend to avoid since i find it makes my actual eye colour look faded. it's just that this one looked some damn pretty and so damn unique compared to just about anything else on display. the colour when i tried it on the back of my hand was intense and i figured that, if i was going to try something new, i might as well go all the way new. and as it turns out, these particular liquid liners are new to stila as well.

curacao sparkle liner

the formula on these is fairly watery- i found that on my eye [where i'm not inclined to push down with tremendous force], i needed a couple of coats to build up the intensity. i also found this meant that it took a few seconds to really properly set. the good aspect of that is that if you make a mistake, you can just wipe it away and it's like nothing happened. the bad part is that you need a little patience applying or else you're going to have smudges all over your lids. once set, the staying power is great. it doesn't budge and it maintains its intensity of colour, which is probably one of the main reasons people choose liquid liners to begin with.

the reason people tend to avoid liquid liners is because they can be really, really finicky and messy to apply. however with these, that's not so much the case. aside from the fact that you can clear away an "oops" pretty quickly, the long, conical applicator gives you a great deal of control over where the product goes and is not prone to dripping where you don't want it. i found the application smooth, even and neat, despite having to layer the product to get the intensity i wanted.

that layering is actually my biggest problem with these liners [or at least with the one i've tried]. the applicator makes it easier to do, but to me, trying to line up layers of eye liner is just asking for problems. once i did get the colour where i wanted it, though, i do have to say that it's very beautiful. i love the way it shimmers when it catches the light and adds just a flash of blue to my eyes. that effect can be more subtle when worn with other colours, or could be more dramatic if used on its own against a nude/ neutral base.

there are eight shades available of the sparkle liners. i would characterise them as "standards"- black, brown, olive, purple, blue and teal for colour. curacao is more original- more of a royal blue than a cyan base and a sort of ultraviolet reflect. there is also a mauve-grey ["starry"] that looks a little more distinctive than most dark grey shades available.

stile sparkle liners are $22usd/ $30cad, which puts them firmly on my s**t list for currency gouging, but the product is nice enough to warrant giving a try to whichever colours grabs your fancy.

available from sephora and murale [canada]. 

benefit full-finish lipstick "mod squad"
oh benefit, i so want to love you, with your slyly humourous marketing and your highly specialised products designed to meet needs i didn't realise i had, but we just never quite seem to connect. i'm extremely glad to see that the california-based company who celebrate both femininity and feminine power have grown to such a success and i still believe that their "bad gal" mascara is something to which all other mascaras secretly aspire [which makes me wonder why they've launched a new one this summer], but i just seem to have very little luck using their products myself.

their "high beam" highlighter is a beautiful, moonlit shade, but it settles in my pores something wicked. "dr. feelgood" priming balm makes my skin feel like velvet, but after a few days' use, it has a tendency to make me break out. their "creaseless cream" shadows work far better on me than most creams, but i still find they leave my lids feeling "sweaty" and can irritate the corners of my eyes [although they're not nearly so irritating as the mac "big bounce" shadows]. i keep going back to them because i love their attitude, their products are inventive enough to keep me interested and both "bad gal" and their ubiquitous boxed blushes are standouts.

their lipstick crossed my path when i had a hankering for a summer version of a lighter, cooler pink, something a little less heavy than mac's "saint germain" and a little more neutral than guerlain's "fuchsia delice". "mod squad" fit the bill quite nicely, because, despite the name invoking visions of opaque sixties white-pink kissers, the shade is quite sheer and, while definitely a cooler nude pink, it reads as quite natural with a single pass.

it surprises me that this is listed as a "full finish" lipstick, since i find the formula to be quite light. while it's not sheer, the colour of my lips definitely pokes through a little. if i layer the colour [which brings it closer to that light, cool "mod pink"], this becomes more pronounced, since the colour of my lips "fights" with the colour of the lipstick. personally, i didn't like the effect of the lipstick once it was layered- it seemed to apply very unevenly and the formula is slippery enough that it becomes more uneven every time your lips move. as a light, fairly sheer shade, i liked it very much, so whether or not this is the colour for you may depend largely on what you want to get from it.

mod squad- the cat hair is simon's touch

the formula, as i mentioned, is very moist/ slippery, almost more like a gloss. very strangely, although the colour itself doesn't have any shimmer or frost i can discern, there is a fine "grittiness" i can feel on my lips. i can't imagine why that would be the case or why someone wouldn't fix it, because it feels like you've got dust or dirt on your mouth. if you can get used to that, or learn to ignore it, the formula is quite moisturising and i did feel like my lips were getting some benefit from that. [i'll give you a moment to groan.] being a pretty emollient texture and a lighter colour, it's not a long-lasting shade; i would say i could get two hours or so of wear [assuming i could stop pleating my lips trying to figure out the grittiness] without having to reapply. based on what i've red, lipsticks in general seem to last less time on me than on others, so your mileage may vary.

there are definitely things that i like about this shade and some of the things i don't like, i can forgive because they're not as noticeable in a light/ sheer colour as they would be on the kind of colour i normally wear. but, once again, it seems that benefit and i are just doomed to be a little bit out of synch.

benefit full-finish lipstick is available in 20 permanent shades. $18usd/ $22cad [gets a slight growl, but canadian customers can order directly from benefit's web site].

available at sephora, murale, select shopper's drug mart/ pharmaprix locations and on line from www.benefitcosmetics.com

here's a quick look incorporating both products.


face
lush colour supplement "jackie oates"
diorskin nude hydrating concealer "001"
mac mineralize skinfinish natural "light"

eyes
mac e/s "neutral pink"
mac e/s "prussian"
mac megametal e/s "prance"
stila sparkle eye liner "curacao"
diorshow mascara

cheeks
mac mineralize skinfinish "pink power"

lips
benefit full-finish lipstick "mod squad"

nails [visible above, so i figured i'd share]
nars "desperado"

Hear Suzanne Vega perform Carson McCullers Talks About Love to benefit Girls Write Now

Very cool benefit - I'll be there! Get tickets here.

In 1936, 19-year-old Carson McCullers published Wunderkind, an autobiographical piece depicting the insecurity of a teenage girl. McCullers went on to write such acclaimed works as The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, The Member of the Wedding and The Ballad of the Sad Café. At Girls Write Now, at-risk high school girls (not much younger than Carson McCullers when she wrote Wunderkind use writing to explore their own adolescent experiences. With mentors by their sides, they are set on a path towards college, and their promising futures beyond.

In Carson McCullers Talks About Love, a new work written and performed by Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Suzanne Vega, the iconic Carson McCullers reminisces about her life, her loves and her art. Seamlessly moving from spoken word to song and back again, the show features 16 original songs written by Ms. Vega in collaboration with Duncan Sheik, Tony Award-winner for Spring Awakening.

Girls Write Now is the first organization in the United States to combine mentoring and writing instruction within the context of all-girls programming. Since 1998, they have provided a safe and supportive environment for more than 3,500 at-risk girls to expand their natural writing talents, develop independent creative voices, and build confidence in making healthy choices in school, career, and life. 100% of GWN’s seniors graduate and move on to college – bringing with them awards, scholarships, a new sense of confidence and new skills.