The divine Jourdan Dunn for Burberry Beauty’s new campaign. So loving seeing black women in major beauty ads – and with supermodel Joan Small’s recent spate of covers (I think I can count 5 this month, including Italian and Australian Vogue) finally maybe we’re seeing a significant shift in the representation of all races and skin tones in fashion? Here’s hoping.
These are INSANE. It’s been awhile since I was this excited about an eye shadow – and let’s face it, I do get quite excited about eye shadows on occasion. Not since the launch of Chanel’s divine Ombre d’Illusions which are still in constant rotation at MM HQ have I gone crazy for a new eye product.
First off, the colours. The whole of Tom Ford’s Spring collection is all bronze-y golds, and no one does a bronze-y gold better than Mr Tom Ford (HE even looks bronze-y gold himself!) Like everything TF these eye shadows just look like money, an expensive shimmery whipped cream mousse confection that I can’t get enough of.
Gilt is a gorgeous gold cream that glides on the lid like a dream and can be used all over the lid as a wash or strategically placed for a pop of golden shimmer along the lash lines, or the tear duct. It’s not super-pigmented – there are other products you can buy if you want serious strong gilt territory (try Illamasqua, MAC or Ben Nye if you want to go a bit Goldfinger). But this Tom Ford shadow is so beautiful it doesn’t need to pack a pigment punch – it’s just the right amount of everything. Not too yellow gold, not too sparkly, it’s in a word, ravishing.
Spice is a browny-tobacco colour but warm enough to make eyes pop (not with that grey tone that makes even the shiniest of eyes look dead). It is more pigmented than the gold, and in fact they look absolutely gorgeous when worn together.
The texture of the shadows is like a whipped mousse, less spongy than the Chanel Ombres d’Illusion shadows and creamier, with more slip so they glide on easily with either a finger or a brush. I’ll be curious to see whether they dry out like most cream eyeshadows do, not matter how careful you are about securing the lids. The Tom Ford makeup range makes me think of Capri in the 70’s, private jets, hell, private islands – and hyper-real women who look like goddesses. Don’t mind if I do.
If perfection could be potted in tiny jars, TF has managed it with his makeup line. Add to cart.
The new Tom Ford Spring collection will be available exclusively through David Jones for a limited time from March 25th.
Featuring Kate Moss (who just never seems to age), here’s a look at her photo shoot for the new Dior Addict Extreme campaign. The new Dior lippies look gorgeous and are right up my current alley as I’m loving rich saturated colour with just the right amount of shine.
Shot by David Sims, with makeup by Lucia Pieroni and hair by Guido.
I am super excited about the launch of the new Gucci Westman collection for Revlon, Expressionists. Inspired by abstract paintings it has a deep, glamorous colour palette which has such an audacious colour selection, particularly for a drugstore brand. This is a real collection for makeup artists featuring the kind of colours that we swoon for – very unusual lipstick colours, and the stand-out new products, the Diamond Lust shimmer eyeshadows that gave me grabby gimme gimme gimme hands when I first saw them. The new single eyeshadows are:
The colours are absolutely gorgeous and I’ve been itching to do an uber-glam shoot so I can properly test them out. My favourites are the darker coloured Neptune Star, Plum Galaxy and Night Sky as I find the colour pay-off is best on these. I also found that using an eye primer (like NARS Pro-Prime Smudgeproof Eyeshadow Base), did help with how well the shadow adhered. They are quite glittery but it’s small guage glitter (the kind I like in shadows as it gives reflection without massive glittery chunks) and I love to layer them over shadows in a matching tone. Celestial Silver and Starry Pink are perfect for highlighting the centre of the lid or the inner eye. In fact, who am I kidding? I love them all. Now I just need some insanely glamorous shoots to use them on!
I’ve now got them in my kit to quickly jazz up smoky eyes. And the packaging is so lightweight, I can carry them all, which is always added bonus points at MM HQ.I use a tissue to catch any glitter fall out however as some of the particles do drop down (either that or do your foundation second, which is a good trick if you’re in a hurry).
The new lip colours from the Expressionists collection are interesting too – more so for makeup artists as they are full-on hard to find editorial colours! They are really quite unusual from a drugstore brand, as they aren’t your everyday medley of nudes (sometimes I think if I see one more pinky-beige lippy, I may scream). I can definitely detect Gucci Westman’s makeup artist hands in these, and it’s interesting to see if Revlon is starting to push the boat out a bit more with their colour range. I always think that makeup Creative Directors need a few ranges with a brand until you can really see what they’re made of (Peter Phillips at Chanel and Tom Pecheux at Estee Lauder are great examples of this). Over time you can see their influence in everything in the line, not just the new collections they are releasing – until the whole line has a much more editorial feel to it.
Anyway, back to the lipsticks! My favourite of the four new ColorStay Ultimate Liquid Lipstick is Buffest Beige – put it this way, if a beige lipstick looks good on my skintone and not Corpse Bride, it will look good on most people. Plus as it’s Colorstay it really does stay on for ages. I always find long-wearing lipsticks a bit of a funny feeling on your lips, but this one isn’t too drying and comfy to wear once you get over the initial stickiness. For every day life, long-wear lipsticks can be a god-send (I tend to be a tinted lip balm girl most days myself, and at work I’m there to touch up the lipstick so I’ve only ever used a couple of long-wear lipsticks). And if you feel like testing out some very glam new colours there’s a plethora to choose from – from true candy pink to coppery orange to a deep true purple. See what I mean? Not a pinky beige in sight – thank you Gucci Westman!
Ah my hair – what a saga that is. When it’s well behaved it looks like this:
When it’s badly behaved it looks like this:
(Although David Lee Roth looks a hell of a lot prouder of his luscious locks in this video than I am of mine).
And that’s how it’s been my whole life. The only difference between the two is the products I use, and I have learnt through trial, and much, much error which ones work for me (Answer: Not Many). And just to give you an idea of what my barnet is like to deal with, let me tell you this – it’s long, it’s blonde, there’s lots of it and it has natural wave to it, which can be a good or a bad thing. Put it this way, my husband calls me “The Tree” on bad hair days. Not a desirable nickname. Too much product leaves it looking flat as a pancake and voluptuous waves soon become hideous 80’s rocker frizz. Did I mention it’s dry? So very, very dry that usually I use masks for black hair as conditioner. My hair is one freaky place, let me tell you.
Shampoo and conditioner are paramount for me. If they’re right, it’s Blake Lively time. Get it wrong and it’s all about the 80’s soft rock/heavy metal tribute band (think Van Halen, but more ghetto). But now I’ve discovered OriginalMineral’s UNBELIEVABLE range of natural haircare, every day is a good hair day. I’ve tried natural hair care before and it often leaves a strange residue in my hair, weighing down the ends. The result would be less than flattering, so it was straight back to the hardcore chemical numbers that did the job. But I’d stand in the shower wondering how much of those lovely chemicals my body was ingesting, and it did make me feel uncomfortable (not enough to risk having bad hair mind you, a girl has her limits). But now with OriginalMineral my days as a wannabe David Lee Roth are over – OVER I tell you! I can have organic haircare and hair that can be seen in public. I can’t rave enough about this brand.
The CEO, Jose Bryce Smith, developed the line after her husband had contact dermatitis, and they were trying to find products without ammonia. O&M was born in Australia in 2007, and since then it has stealthily worked its way out of the salon and is now heading around the world (I believe they have just hit the States with a bang.)
Let me tell you about my new O&M Hair Heroes, which are Hydrate and Conquer Shampoo and Conditioner. They contain Tasmanian Sea Kelp, Vitamins A,B,C & E and amino acids – and more importantly they took my hair from heavy metal tragic to Gossip Girl in one wash. ‘Nuff said.
I love the scent of the products as they aren’t too heavy, and the packaging is super cool as well – very 70’s retro (I can totally see these in Dustin Hoffman’s shower in Kramer vs Kramer) and it’s recyclable. I’m also gradually testing out some of the styling products which are just as fabulous as their haircare. So for a little less Miss Lively and a lot less Whitesnake, you need some O&M in your life.
OriginalMineral can be bought through salons in Australia and for Australian and US customers on their website. For those in the UK, Adore Beauty will ship to you.
SHUT UP! Tom Ford’s new collection for Spring now includes four glistening, gorgeous, unbelievable cream eyeshadows. You all know how popular cream eyeshadows are around MM HQ (put it this way, if we were both single…) and now one of my favourite makeup lines has them? Well I’m there, in spades. Here is the rather lovely campaign visual to whet your appetite. More on these new guys on the block as news comes to hand.
I literally can’t get over this new ad for MAC’s Reel Sexy collection that has just been released. Shot by her husband photographer Miles Aldridge (who I worked with in London on quite a few occasions, assisting Kay Montano and Sam Bryant), it’s full of Miles’ hallmark super-saturated op art colour – not your everyday makeup. Thank goodness! If makeup ads can’t make you dream (in Technicolour) then what can?
The colours are incredible and totally in tune with my latest vow to re-stock my kit with new retina stinging shades. My upcoming trip to London will help immensely with that and I literally can’t wait to hit Screenface and Charles Fox for a colour fix. If you’re lusting after hot new tones too, great brands to try are MAC Pro, Illamasqua, Ben Nye, Kryolan and NARS. I for one plan on hitting all of them up before the end of my visit.
In the meantime, luxuriate in Kristen McMenamy’s opulent cinema-goer. Pre-released on nowness.com it’s the ultimate website for those who like their fashion with a side dish of art and interest, one of the best purveyors of fine content on the web.
For Monday’s delectation here is the gorgeous British model Daisy Lowe, for a Vogue shoot that I worked on a couple of years ago. I was assisting Kay Montano who gave Daisy feline lined eyes, and James Pecis the hairdresser gave her cool girl hair. The story was shot by Jacob Sutton, one of my favourite photographers as he’s super talented and really nice. I even have a ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ cameo in the background at the beginning of the video.
Daisy was really unwell on the day of the shoot having just recovered from an illness, and let me tell you she is such a trouper! I would have been in a body bag if I was her, but she’d just close her eyes when she felt faint, and continue on. Now that’s what I call a Super Model. Enjoy.
These are, in a word, awesome. Super pigmented lipsticks in a deep cream formula that you dispense from a small artist tube, and you mix to custom blend your own shades. Amazing, right?
It’s so funny that I don’t blog about MAC more often (note to self, must rectify that). I think it’s because they are such a workhorse brand in my kit that I don’t think about them as much as I should do. Their products are just there, trusty, reliable, ready to be used on every single job. Also I think I overdosed on MAC when I was younger – the MAC counter at Harvey Nichols in London was one of my first destinations back in the 90’s, where I bought my first Spice lipliner – sadly it never looked as good on me as it did on Linda Evangelista – and various shades of dead person brown lippy that were the shizzle back in those days.
Then MAC was the cornerstone of my kit for along time, and gradually I started to phase in loads of lovely new brands and products – Shu Uemura, Laura Mercier, Bobbi Brown, Illamasqua, NARS, Myface, Dior and Tom Ford and YSL – oh God stop me now! So because MAC was always there, and sponsoring the shows, and just around, I didn’t take so much notice when I used their lovely products in my kit.
But it’s time for me to get my MAC back on, and I thought Lip Mixes are a great place to start. Pretty much every makeup artist I know has these guys in their kit, as they come in – not that many shades, but once you start mixing, there’s no stopping you! Deep burgundy, bright red, pure orange, yellow, black, white, even blue shades mean that you can mix in different colours to create whatever shade you fancy. I love them as they are deep and velvety matte, and if you want to add gloss, well away you go once you’ve painted on your desire shade. Just add a lipbrush and a painter’s beret and voila! Instant Van Gogh (inspirational madness and severed ear not included).
Makeup by Gucci Westman
I know that New York Fashion Week was a couple of weeks ago, but I just loved this makeup by amazing makeup artist Gucci Westman. I thought it was fresh and gorgeous, like all her makeup really (and let’s be honest, my favourite type of makeup).
Gucci Westman is Revlon’s Global Creative Director and under her ministrations the brand has gone from strength to strength. Here’s what she said about the Oscar de la Renta makeup “ I wanted the makeup to be gorgeous, but still look a bit dishevelled. I put the focus on the eye by lining the top lid, added a mix of eyeshadows and layered on lots of volumising mascara for a very intense lash look. I paired this with a soft pink lip to add a bit of femininity.”
All products by Revlon:
Face
Blush
Eyes
Lips