Back for a While

How's everyone doing? I've been very busy at work so I haven't had the energy to post (I have very little energy for things in general, lol).

June was the longest month in my life, but suddenly half of July is gone! The exact date of my move is still unknown, but it should be within 2 weeks. And Seattle is about 3.5 weeks away. My mom said there are lots of packages waiting for me at home... :-)

Yesterday I finally took some photos before stepping out so here they are.

I applied two coats of Jane Iredale mascara (great stuff), a little Dior pencil liner, Nars Angelika blush and Dior Addict High Shine in 220 New Look Beige.

I noticed that the Jane Iredale liquid foundation gives me a more luminous look. A bit of M.A.C. Nylon eyeshadow in the corner of my eyes, bridge of nose and cupid's bow is even better.

While I'm not really into eye makeup, I do love taking the time and do some highlight on the top of my cheeks (any white pearlescent powder) and just under the jaw line (any light bronzer).

A random note: Illamasqua has announced that they will begin distributing in Sephora in the U.S. starting October of this year. Fabulous!

Get a Haircut, Get a New Job

OK, not exactly, but tonight I got out of work at a decent hour and decided my hair really needed a trim. I'm not sure why, but it's been looking kind of dull. Even my hairdresser asked what the heck happened to my hair.

Anyway it was just a trim. I had him re-do my fringe. I think when I visit Seattle in August, I'll have my Japanese stylist over there do a more dramatic cut...

The lighting is not very good, nor is this Canon model fit for timed shooting, but you get the idea.

Don't mind the makeup either because this is taken 12 hours after application. Well, at least the NARS Angelicka blush stayed put! I used a mix of white and lilac eyeshadow to highlight the top of my cheeks.

Jamilla asked if I got my "vacay" shopping list. I sure do! I just got started a week ago:

M.A.C. blush: Mocha (matte), Breath of Plum (satin?), Vanilla or Pink Opal pigment

NARS: Sin

Jane Iredale: mascara (back-up), anything from this brand

Anything else I must get?? :-)

Easy Saturday

Thank you for all the new followers that have come on board lately!

I hope everyone's having a good weekend.

Apparently I wasn't the only one who experience bad customer service mentioned in the last post. In the end I did walk out of the shop with two Shiseido products: the cream eyeliner and Perfect Rouge lipstick.

So I'm glad to tell you that I LOVE the liner. It stays put all day as long as I apply powder before and after on the eyelids.

The Madina bronzer that I tried out this past week was also great. For now, I'm just using it to contour. Here I highlighted my cheeks too. It's subtle, but I hope you can see.

Today I was determined to have a different kind of Saturday so I decided to try the Thai massage place downstairs from where I live and do my own hair colour (not pictured above).

Sorry I didn't take photos so you will just have to imagine "The Orchids" massage place with dim lights and the typical Thai decor. It was cozy. I asked for a traditional massage that focused on pressure points. It was different from the Chinese massage that I knew. The Thai masseuse was tiny, but she could really hurt you, lol. Just half an hour of treatment, I came out of the place like butter and couldn't walk a straight line :-)

But I did zig-zag my way to the pharma-cosmetics shop and got a vegetable extract hair colour in a dark hazelnut. May I say that I will never do this again by myself at home, because it's just such a mess. I think I did it right though. The colour is luminous and beautiful, and best of all, it doesn't have ammonium and parabens!

Happy Holidays!

I've had a bit of a difficult week, but I don't want to think about it anymore...

Let me first wish every one of you and your loved ones a great Christmas, and a better 2009 ahead!

The sun finally shone down on Milan after months of darkness and rain.
Time for some photos!

Here I used Too Face Lash Injection mascara, and the M.A.C. cream colour blush in Crushed Bougainvillea - both were what my mom sent a while back.

The mascara is absolutely wonderful. My lashes are hard to get into, so I don't use the applicator inside the tube which is really big. Instead I'm using a tiny little mascara brush to pick up the product. It's really working out great! The mascara is easy to wash off too.

The M.A.C. cream colour base is beautiful. It's an intense blue-toned fuschia, which is just my thing. I dabbed it onto my lips and that's it, very easy to apply. The only drawback is that it's not very moisturising.

Here, I highlighted the corner of my eyes, the center of my eyelids, and even my cupid's bow simply with a dab of M.A.C. eyeshadow in Nylon. This beige gold colour is so versatile and beautiful.

On my cheeks, I applied an iridescent purplish fuschia with a small domed mineral brush by Sephora for precision.

What do you think? I can see a real difference. I love a matte look, but this highlighting can add some radiance.

I've been watching Smashbox's tutorials on youtube. They're so helpful! Just search under "giovannismash" as the channel name. There are all sorts of looks: beachy, bronze, everyday, soft smoky, rock n' roll, etc.

I'm still waiting for my box of Jane Iredale cosmetics to arrive so I'm afraid it won't get here till after Christmas :-(

Cheeky

I'm back with another so-called tutorial, this time using two blushes, one lighter and one darker.

I've already applied base, loose powder, bronzer, eyeliner, everything except lip and cheek colour.

I started with an iridescent pink for the cheeks.

After having applied it across the cheeks (see photo above), I proceed to an iridescent purple. I applied it sparingly with an angled brush right under the pink and blended.

You don't need to have mad skills, as long as the colours you use are sheer enough to be foolproof.

So there you have it. You can see the contouring more on the right side, where the purple creates depth while the pink provides a bit of glow.

You can still play up the lip colour, but it might be better to leave the eyes natural.

Mauve Away

Apparently after my 100th post, I disappeared for a few days :-) This morning instead of heading straight to the gym, I snuck into the department store.

I browsed quite a few brands' holiday collections: Lancome, Givenchy, YSL, etc. I think Guerlain's theme is most outstanding.

I also checked out NOUBA's palette sets. I don't know why a youtube guru says NOUBA is like a NARS sister brand. There's nothing comparable between the two.

But being a nerd, I just had to look at something even less mainstream.

Royal Effem is a wonderful laboratory makeup/skincare maker that collaborates with the University of Pavia, a school well-known for numerous studies on Italian cosmetic products.

I picked up the long-lasting lipgloss in #02, a warm mauve. The flash made it look light here, but you can see the ever-so-slight pearlised finish.

The tube is small (compared with my palm-sized hair clip), but that's what I want, because I can never seem to finish a whole tube.

So it's between brown and purple. This is close to the autumn look that I've been looking for.

This brand does not use any lanolin, paraffin or petrolium-derived ingredients, and a minimum use of paraben. The only drawback is the collection offers mostly "practical" colours so you won't find anything crazy here.

Sunny Sunday (edited)

I hope everyone had a good weekend. The sun shone for the first time in two weeks. Pasty me enjoyed the warmth, and went to the theatre yesterday for a violin concerto at Teatro Dal Verme.

The programme was Paganini and Haydn. Music is the only thing that can truly help me relax or cheer me up.

On a different note (ha.ha.), today I tried Taer Icelandic's Restore & Replenish moisturiser for the first time. It's supposed to be for face and neck, but I used it on my body. The medicinal smell was overpowering, but it disappeared after a couple of hours, leaving my skin baby-soft. No parabens, no lanolin, no petrochemicals. It's very spreadable so a little goes a long way. My skin feels pampered and perfectly fresh. Wonderful stuff!

I haven't been getting a lot of new makeup, just trying to use up what I have so far. I did get Make Up For Ever's Aqua Eyes in a silverish white colour though. Here's how I used it.

I only lined the very outer corner of my waterline in black. The rest of the lower eyelid is all white. I lined the upper lids so the eyes look rounder and winged a bit towards the ends.

I tried a warmer complexion for a change. No mascara or false lashes used (too lazy on a Sunday afternoon).

Here are my best friends who achieved the look:

• Shu Uemura UV base
• Shu Uemura loose bronzer powder (not pictured)
• La Prairie undereye treatment
• La Mer loose powder
• M.A.C. kohl pencil (tightline), eyeshadows (to fill in the brows), fluidline in Blitz & Glitz (upper lids), and highlight powder in Emphasize (all over lids).
• Make Up For Ever Aqua Eye pencil in 14L
• Madina eye pencil in a matte white
• Clarins lipgloss 03
• NARS Angelika blush

Let's Face It (cont'd)

I got off work early today and went straight to the hairdresser's. My last cut was mid-August back in the U.S. by a Tokyo stylist. He's amazing, and is very knowledgeable about haircare. Any of you in Seattle can write me so I can give you the contact.

My hairdresser here is good too. He's fast and precise. I hate spending more than 1 hour at the salon. He convinced me to do a wavy blowout and I gave in :-)

The look is really a bit mod, isn't it?

Let's Face It

I wanted to thank everyone for their messages. I think I do need to remind myself to look at the bright side of things sometimes: I just went to the spa last week and now I'm already complaining about life! I guess I'm just a bit homesick.

So, without further ado, here is my bronzer/blush tutorial. I just woke up when these photos were taken so bear with me!

I already have La Prairie cellular treatment liquid foundation in #100 on:

Get a round brush and Make Up For Ever HD loose powder.

Tap a little onto the brush and gently tap off excess. This step is messy, but oh well.

Brush all over face. Get more powder if necessary. I even powder my eyelids if I have eyeshadow on (I don't here). It's what I use instead of eyeshadow primer.Now that I have a smooth canvas to work with, I use that Sephora "mineral" brush and apply my favourite bronzer starting from the hollow of your cheeks.

And U-shape it down to the jawline in one single stroke. Repeat a couple of times if your bronzer is sheer. Remember to check before re-applying.

At this point, I switch to my angled brush and apply blush on the apple of my cheeks.

It's subtle, but you can already see a bit of contour and colour.

The face is pretty much done here, and I can proceed to eyes and lips makeup.

I realised perhaps I applied the bronzer and the blush too lightly, but you get the idea.

If you want the blush to really pop, simply apply the bronzer on the apple of your cheeks and u-shape it down to the jawline.

The Sephora mineral blush tends to pick up a lot of product since it's short and sturdy so be careful. Its application is very, very precise.

You can also simply use this mineral brush to apply the blush.

I hope this was helpful!

A Few of My Favourite Things (cont'd)

About the new brush mentioned in my previous post, I'll do a tutorial on it.

I'm really liking shades of wine/berry/brown lately.

These are some of my usual suspects this autumn:

Bobbi Brown lipshine in Toffee

Royal Effem (a local brand)

M.A.C. 5N

NARS Masai, my favourite

L'oreal H.I.P. lipgloss in #724

I layered the L'oreal lipgloss over M.A.C. 5N and really liked it. I don't particularly like these products used on their own so I combined them!

Do you use warmer shades like these? Any recommendations?

Trang asked me to talk about more Shu Uemura Whitening Recovery EX products so here goes:

I have the whitening refresh lotion and the emulsion, both purchased in Japan. I haven't been using them long enough to say whether they really whiten my skin or not, but surely they have helped to even out my skin tone.

These two products contain Ougon extract, Mint Extract, Shiso Extract, Vitamin C derivatives, vitamin B3, etc so I'd say they're treatment products without aggressive chemicals.

On humid days (which is everyday in Milan), I use only the lotion in the morning before using the UV base. In the evenings, when I feel I need more moisture, I'd use the emulsion. Both of them feel very nice on the skin, not oily at all. Worth a try!

Shades of Autumn (cont'd)

So this is how the Nouba purple eyeshadow looks like:

I used M.A.C. Electra on the first third of the eyelids, then a matte dark grey on the last third. I'm still using Giorgio Armani's concealer here.

I went easier on the blush, but used L'oreal H.I.P. #636 "Giddy" lipgloss to match the eyes. This lipgloss is extremely pigmented. It keeps a stained look all day long.

My fringe was so out of place because I slept when my hair was still damp.

In the Mood for Fall

Hi everyone, I thought I should post a proper photo this week. I didn't do anything extraordinary here, but...

This is happy hair with Phyto shampoo :-)

Now that the weather is nice and cool (finally), I've started using Shu Uemura purple base as foundation. My skin looks more luminous with it, and the loose powder stays on better.

I don't know if you noticed, but I applied the blush only on the apple of my cheeks, and did contouring. It's not my favourite way because it can easily look clownish, but I gave it a try anyway.

On my lips, I dabbed some M.A.C. 5N lipstick (not very noticeable, sorry). I'm into stained lips for autumn so I'll continue playing with this kind of colour.

Monday Blues

These are the worst photos I've taken! I use a professional camera, but recently it's been updated and I realised that it works quite differently! I'll figure it out somehow...

This weekend was very tiring for me, and today wasn't much better. Here's an attempt to dispel the blues.

On my cheeks, I used a completely matte pink, then topped it with an iridescent version, concentrating on the apple of the cheeks.

After applying black kohl, I used a white pencil around my eyes, and applied M.A.C. contour powder in Emphasize all over my lids. On my lips is NARS Masai, the most versatile shade I've ever had.

Blush Tutorial

As autumn sets in, sometimes I need a little pick-me-up with a sun-kissed look. This can be achieved by applying blush in a particular way.

1. I usually do the rest of my makeup first.

No foundation. La Mer loose powder, M.A.C. and MUFE kohl pencils.

2. I'm using my Sephora contour brush and NARS Angelika blush.

I wiggle the blush on the product to get quite a lot of colour without making a mess.
3. If you want a glowy look, start from the apple of your cheeks.
4. Then I slowly drag it towards my ears.

5. I like this brush because it's dense and small enough for precise application without the product flying all over my face.
6. But if I want a sun-kissed look, I start from the bridge of my nose, being careful with my eyes here.
7. Lightly drag towards the apple of my cheeks.
8. Drag a "U" shape up towards my ears.
9. Repeat with more product if necessary.

10. I use the remaining colour left on the brush to go over my chin too. As you can see in this last photo, there is a band of colour across my face, mimicking a sun-burnt look.

The look is modern and fun. The trick with blush, as always, is use more. Otherwise, the effect is really lost. Hope you liked it!

Pastels

purple, grey, cyan, pink

A few days ago, I don't know what got to me, but I applied one colour after another. And then I realised that bright colours can work in harmony.
Here's how I applied the colours to my eyes:

• Outer third of the eyelid: Madina matte grey
• Middle third: M.A.C. Electra (silver)
• Inner third: Madina iridescent purple
• waterline: M.U.F.E. kohl in cyan on bottom, M.A.C. Phone Number on top

For the cheeks and lips, I applied a lighter pink colour.

Who doesn't like blushes?! To fulfill Purple Snowflake's request, I will try to do my very first tutorial on how to apply blushes for different effects.