The Makeup Mole

Makeup Director – Pat McGrath

The YSL show is always considered to be a beauty bellwether – whereever Pat McGrath decides to take the models’ wearing Stefano Pilati’s gorgeous clothes, we can all expect to be following in her incredible footsteps’ next year.

This season there was a change on the lip colour right before show time – I don’t know whether we’d call it Lipgate, but the original, gorgeous strong violet lip colour was decided to be a little overpowering and minutes before show time Pat had her team remove the violet lip and replace it with a gorgeous, glossy nude.  I love both but as always I think Pat made the right call. Can this woman do any wrong?

Here’s what she used (all products by YSL Beauté)

FACE

Pale polished skin, very neutral, touch of shimmer on cheeks

• Teint Radiance N° 1 – Ivory
• Touche Éclat N° 1 – Luminous Pink
• Touche Éclat N° 2 – Luminous Ivory
• Semi Loose Natural Radiant Powder N° 1
• Highlighter – Ombres Duolumières N° 1 – Evenly Beige/ Astral Brown used on cheekbones to add touch of shimmer

EYES

• Eyes sculpted in taupe – Ombre Duo Lumières N° 1 – Evenly Beige/ Astral Brown
• Beautiful designed brows – Dessin des Sourcils N° 2 – Dark Brown
• and Dessin des Sourcils N° 3 – Glazed Brown
• Mascara Volume Effets Faux Cils N° 2 – Brown –  on upper lashes only.

LIPS

• Stunning chic coral beige lacquered mouth
• Sculpted with Touche Éclat N° 1 Luminous Pink
• Touche Éclat N° 2 – Luminous Ivory
• Rouge Pur Couture N° 10 – Beige Tribute
• mixed with new Rouge Pur Couture N° 36 – Coral Legend (available with the Fall Look 2011).
• Topped off with Golden Gloss N° 11 – Golden Whisper – or a modern “patent” shine

NAILS

• La Laque N° 14 – Transparent Pink

For more information about the products, please visit www.yslbeautyus.com

Report by Celine Bopp | Makeup Director Sam Bryant

Sponsored by MAC

The girls at Richard had very defined eyebrows, with a ‘finished and sporty’ glow, dewy and alive, but always cool.

Skin

The skin was perfected and kept cool toned using MAC Studio Sculpt foundation.

Eyebrows

Squared off and elongated using MAC Eyebrow Pencils in Fling, Lingering, Spiked and Stud (depending on the model’s colouring).

Contouring

Using three tones on the cheeks, MAC Cream Colour Base in Sand Brown to create the cheek bone, Cheek Matt low on the cheeks, with a touch of Ginger Cream Blush in the middle, all beautifully blended together. Divine.

Highlights

Beautiful highlights were placed on the cheekbones, bridge of nose, inner eyes, Cupid’s bow and chin using Vaseline and MAC Silver Dusk powder

Lips

Just buffed off with cotton bud and left au naturel.

Report by Celine Bopp | Makeup Director Sam Bryant

Sponsored by MAC

The theme of this show was a dancer, just come out of dance class, fresh faced and innocent. Beautiful.

Skin

MAC Face & Body foundation for a very sheer base, and only if the model needed it. Super fresh skin.

Eyebrows

Brushed up using MAC Eyebrow Gel

Eye

A tiny line blended into the socket line of MAC Evil eye shadow, barely there, just enough to see as she blinks her eye.

Cheek

A flushed cheek, using a mixture of MAC Lilicent and So Sweet So Easy cream blushes to make it look like she’d been working out.

Lip

The natural colour of the lips was brought out by mixing either MAC Lip pencils in either Beet, Dervish or Spice, with a little Vaseline, and then blotted to take out any glossiness.

Simply Divine!

Celine Bopp doing makeup at the John Rocha show

Report by Celine Bopp | Makeup Director – Sam Bryant

Inspiration

This season the John Rocha girls were just on their way to Glastonbury to work on the circus, a bit grungy fresh, with a conceptual lip. Feral eyebrows.

Skin

Fresh skin was the look, using MAC Face and Body foundation a fraction paler than their skin tone, so that the skin felt real on the girls.

Becca Shimmering Skin Pefector was used for highlighting nose, chin, cheeks and a wash over the eyelid.

Cheek

A fleshy coloured cream colour (MAC Uncommon Blush Crème) was placed just at the low front part of the cheek, just a suggestion, not heavy.

Eyebrows

Real hair was finely chopped and added into the girls brows to make them big and ‘feral’!

Lip

MAC Vino Pencil  was used to create the strong v-shaped lip, top lip sharp with a softened lower lip, giving it a grungy but not too grungy feel.

MAC Silver pigment and MAC Mixing Medium was used to acccentuate the cupids bow.

Finally a light dusting of Ben Nye Translucent powder, not too heavy, just to take off the shine.

Makeup Mole @LFW

Well not actually me in person if you haven’t guessed, but the Mole has her spies everywhere! This time around my superspy superstar backstage makeup artist is Celine Bopp, one of my oldest and dearest London makeup friends. Celine was first assistant to major makeup artist Sam Bryant for over three years, where she worked constantly with photographers like Tim Walker and celebs like Natalie Portman. She has also assisted Alex Box and Kay Montano on a regular basis for a number of years, and is a fabulous makeup artist in her own right, now working independently on jobs like Hugo Boss and McQ by Alexander McQueen.

For London Fashion Week this year she was on Sam Bryant and Alex Box’s team – here she shares with us the look at Betty Jackson (one of my favourite shows to work on. Great girls, great clothes and great makeup – what more could a girl ask?)

BETTY JACKSON
Makeup Director Sam Bryant
Sponsored by MAC

Inspiration
Think Patti Smith grunge, smokes a lot of fags and doesn’t pluck her eyebrows. Tobacco stained girls with a touch of Violet from the Incredibles. Amazing.

Foundation
Pale skin using MAC Studio Sculpt foundation

Brows
Thick elongated brows with MAC Eyebrow Pencils in Fling, Lingering, Stud and Spiked (an MM favourite!)

Eyes
Tobacco eye – Like a nicotine wash over the whole lid, slightly squared off at the brow, buffing in MAC Pro Sculpting Cream in Malaysia

Cheeks
MAC Pro Sculpting Cream in Malaysia was used as the lighter colour, and Pro Sculpting Cream in Sand Brown was used at the back of cheekbone to create the contoured intensity

Lips
Lip are nude by paling them down with MAC Lip Erase in Dim

Accents and Highlights
MAC Polished Ivory Paint Stick was used to create this, no shimmer!

Powder
Finished with a light dusting of Powder with either MAC Shimmering White or Translucent

www.maccosmetics.com

I think I might have mentioned in a previous post how excited I am that Revlon current Global Artistic Director is Gucci Westman. I’m a big fan of hers – she has the perfect career mixing red carpet work and celebrities with beautiful editorial work in the world’s most prestigious magazines (most months will find her work gracing W magazine, Allure, and more than one Vogue, amongst others.)

Not only that but I just like her. I see her interviewed and she seems like a really nice person – switched on, relaxed and just plain cool, like someone you might actually want to be friends with. (It doesn’t hurt I would probably beat her up in a bathroom for her wardrobe as well – but then she is married to Rag and Bone’s co-founder, David Neville, so I guess style just runs in that family). Not to mention she has pretty single-handedly revived my interest in Revlon which is looking younger and fresher by the minute, plus I love that they’re getting their digital on lately. The products are great and in the US/UK you can’t go wrong with the price point – not so much in Australia but cosmetics in general are outrageously priced over here, so it’s not just Revlon that is expensive in Oz – and compared to a lot of other brands they’re still downright reasonable!

And now without further ado, here’s a breakdown of the latest look she created for Rag and Bone’s New York show for A/W 2011/12 yesterday. The inspiration was an “urban eskimo”.

Face

• Revlon Cream Blush in Berry Flirtatious

Eyes

• Revlon Crème Illuminance eyeshadow in Wild Orchid
• Revlon Matte eyeshadow in Rich Sable
• Revlon Luxurious Color Eyeliner in Black Velvet
• Revlon Colorstay Liquid Liner in Blackest Black
• Revlon Smoky Crayon in Black Smoke

Lips

• Gucci Westman for Revlon lip palette in Bordeaux in the Snow (out later this year).

www.revlon.com

Stella McCartney for Adidas - Makeup by Kay Montano

It’s been quite a hard LFW to be away from this year – all my peeps have been doing gorgeous work in London on Richard Nicholl, Margaret Howell and Betty Jackson (all my old regulars, sniff!)

But I was especially sad I couldn’t be there for the Stella McCartney for Adidas show as it’s my old dream team – Kay Montano on makeup, Sophy Robson on nails and the lovely Katie Service busting out makeup alongside Kay. (And it was in a gorgeous private home in London as well, rumour has it the home of one of the A-list!)

However even though I couldn’t be there in person, I DO have the breakdown of how to achieve a perfect sporty glow, even though the models turned up looking decidedly lackluster as it’s halfway through the international fashion calendar.

Skin – No extra moisturiser needed as the foundation gave a creamy glow

Base – Myface Mymix foundation, applied from the centre of the face outwards with a sponge

Concealer - Myface Mycover concealer in the matching shade for the models’ skintone, applied to any redness around the nose

Blush – Bobbi Brown Pot Rouge in Pink Truffle applied with the sponge to create the ’30 minutes of cardio’ look to their cheeks.

Lips – Lucas’ Paw Paw Ointment

www.myfacecosmetics.com

www.bobbibrowncosmetics.com

Thursday’s fashion parade for Myer’s Spring/Summer collections was all glitter and mayhem backstage, with 22 makeup artists, 75 models, 7 manicurists and a veritable fleet of hairdressers all working their creative magic to make the girls look breathtaking.

New makeup kid on the block, Illamasqua, just arrived from the UK and selling like the proverbial hotcakes at Myer, was sponsoring the show so we were using all of their products to create the looks. We were also fortunate enough to have the Illamasqua creative director, Alex Box, here to direct the show, which is a rare treat.

I’ve assisted Alex in London and Paris for a long time so I was heading up the Ready to Wear section of the parade whilst she was looking after the Avant Garde Gold section. Dressed in the season’s hottest trend of nude dresses the models literally looked like they’d swum out of a golden, glittery sea. Genius hairdresser Brad Ngata did an amazing job on the hair, which was either loose, gorgeous and sexy hair for the Ready to Wear models, or for the golden girls slicked back with gold leaf through it.

We were lucky to get some of Sydney’s top makeup artists to work on the show as many of them are fans of Alex’s editorial work, so backstage it was lovely to see some of our major makeup stars working side by side.

Illamasqua very kindly gave every artist a full set of Illamasqua brushes so we were all getting into those, particularly the Contour and Buffing Brushes. I love the feel as they are made of synthetic fibres so they are cruelty free, super soft and easy to clean. This was big makeup so we put those bad boys to work!

Both the looks were heavily contoured so we used cream foundation to perfect their skin, and then spent quite a bit of time buffing in contouring and highlighting powders (key to both looks was the layering of products). Here is a breakdown for Alex Box’s Gold Avant Garde Goddesses.

Illamasqua Avant Garde Gold
All products are by Illamasqua

Face

• Flatten brows against the skin using soap and a toothbrush to create an exaggerated bushy shape
• Illamasqua Satin Primer all over face
• Using Illamasqua cream foundation about two shades darker than their natural skintone, start bronzing the skin with the Foundation brush.
• Contour the skin using Illamasqua Rumour powder blush (a grey tone) then work into the same area with Disobey Powder blush, a biscuit colour, using the Blush Brush 2 over the brow, up into the temples, under the chin and down in to the neck. The combination of colours is what brings dimension to the face.
• Using Illamasqua Bronzer duo in Glint/Burnish, dust the dark side of the bronzing duo over the same contoured area again.
• Use the lighter side of the Bronze duo Glint/Burnish, fill in the areas of the face that weren’t covered with the contour/bronzer to start bringing radiance to the centre of the face.
• Using Create blush, go over the chin, forehead, neck, ears and cheek area using wide, sweeping motions and a Blush Brush 1 brush, but avoiding the nose.
• Take Marvel pigment and a Blush Brush 1 brush to go over the whole face, but adding more gold through the centre of the face. Work gradually to build the colour.

Eyes

• Illamasqua Wolf Powder shadow is used first to get the shape of the eye, creating a strong contour shape up into the crease and over the lid. Take the Wolf shadow quite high on the crease, and use an Eyeshadow Brush to smudge underneath eye to make a dramatic round shaped eye.
• Using Gimp shadow, a matte black, go over the whole lid and up into the crease, with the Eyeshadow Brush, and under the eye as well. Make sure it is stronger on the outer 2/3rds and up into the crease area for extra drama. Soften the outer edges with a Blend Brush 1 underneath so it blends in with the gold on the cheeks.
• Line waterline with black Sophie pencil and smudge all around eye. Blend in well with the Gimp shadow.
• Spatter Solstice Liquid Metal (Gold) on inner eye corners and tear ducts using fingers and a Lip Brush. It should cover the inner 1/3 of the eye, and look quite organic. Take under the inner eye corner as well with the Lip Brush.
• Gold Marvel pigment goes over this, with the same Lip Brush.
• Harness mascara (black) top and bottom lashes
• No 13 lash is applied to top lashes.
• Use Gimp shadow with Eyeshadow brush along the upper lashline to make sure there are no gaps in the black
• Illamasqua Android pigment goes on the outer corner of the lid, just up to where it meets the gold on the inner corners, with Eyeshadow Brush
• Solstice Liquid Metal is painted all over neck, body and ears with Foundation brush.
• Spatter large craft glitter in gold randomly over hairline and neck and shoulders

Lips

• Gold highlight lip using Solstice Liquid Metal on cupid’s bow and Lipliner Brush.
• Add Brilliant clear gloss with Marvel pigment in it with fingers in the centre of lips.