marie laforet

mum coloured

I've never been a big lipstick wearer. I love it on other people and I like the idea that it can be the only makeup you need to look chic and put-together, however I've never managed to make it work for me.

I have pinky pale skin which tends toward red at the slightest irritation, none of this porcelain or alabaster business which lends its self so well to statement lips. I wouldn't dream of going out in bright red unless I was covered in foundation and concealer, which kind of defeated the purpose when I keep being told a good lippy is all you need. The few times I have braved bright lips lately it's been a magenta which seems to work okay, it's fun and bold without highlighting every imperfection of far from perfect skin.

Han looks gorgeous in dark purples and browns, which I love and am particularly jealous of after seeing so many beautiful examples of these colours over the last season or two. So far the closest I've come to a shade that actually suits me was a lovely dark nude - if you can imagine such a thing - that I found in my girlfriend's bathroom and the name of which I've forgotten except that it contained the word suede. We called it 'mum colour' and it looked bland and terrible in the tube before being applied but lo and behold it was actually fantastic. I'm now on the hunt for my very own mum coloured lipstick, something in a dark nude, deep peach or light mocha should do the trick. The autumnal colours at Chloe are certainly the best examples I've seen of this anywhere (besides my face on Friday night) though most of the fall 2010 runway shows seemed to stick with muted shades.

While on the subject I also just want to say that I hate lipsticks lighter than your skin colour. Sorry if that's your thing but I think it looks trashy. And all the pictures are from style.com

i like this

I love the makeup at Chloe - where can I get a lipstick like that?
Of course, the clothes are great, too. All those neutral tones have my mouth watering....

All photos from style.com

paris 1962

Browsing through Rifle Paper Co's blog led me to this incredible set of photos from Paris in 1962. The photographer is Tom Palumbo, who I can't believe I'd never heard of until today. Oh to be a sophisticated 60s parisienne...

hold on while I put on my face

I read an article last night about make up.

Basically, it talks about how if you really want to have pretty looking make-up, the key is to put on six different types of make-up (like skin corrector, then a primer, then concealer, then foundation, then blush, then highlighter) in tiny amounts in exactly the right places on your face. Apparently, by doing this in tiny, thinner than wafer-thin layers, with wee brushes that look like little fans, you can wind up with the best make-up in the world.


My personal makeup usage varies. Sometimes I wear heaps, often I wear none. At the moment, I barely leave my office during the week so I see little to no point in wearing any. My skin is a bit patchy and a bit dry (Auckland is great for patchy/dry/oily) at the moment, so wearing lots of makeup would probably make it worse. Also, I had, for the first time in ages, two horrid pimples, one hidden on the side of my right nostril, and the other, right next to inner corner of my left eyebrow. I have no idea where they came from. Luckily, they weren't huge. And extra luckily, I hardly ever get pimples so its not something you're going to hear me bitch about a whole lot on the internet (dry skin = a whole other story). Anyway, I feel that makeup worsens pimples so I tend to wear less when I have breakouts.

Carrying on. I tend to use Mac. My last trip to the Mac counter was slightly disastrous as my friend who works there was too busy so a less awesome make-up artist piled my face in slap and I wound up buying it just to leave the store. It is wierd though, the way makeup artists take one look at me and say "NW20!!!" as though it is glaringly obvious. Is my skin tone that transparent? Yes. Anyway, turns out this Mac stuff works. It took some getting used to, but my step-mother complimented me on my skin and its glowy-ness the other day which is all I need to declare it a roaring success.

I used to use id Bareminerals. Now that is a nice foundation. PITY IT COSTS SEVENTY DOLLARS. And it has almost no ingredients? How do they get away with that? What kind of a world do we live in, where to buy "natural" makeup with "nothing" in it, it costs seventy dollars? Really, id? REALLY?

OK. Rant over. The point of all this is to say that this weekend I plan on trying the Harpers' several different layers of makeup in tiny amounts in exactly the right place all over my face. I'll let you know if it works.

Images from here