The Makeup Mole

After lots and LOTS of relaxation, and wine, and food, and lounging by the pool with novels so trashy I would be downright mortified if I lost my Kindle, and more relaxation, it’s back to normality.

Which is good because I have a new mascara that I’ve fallen in love with! I’m quite a tough mascara tester and have been through a LOT over the years, but the new Revlon mascara, Grow Luscious, has rapidly taken pride of place in my kit.

It’s my favourite type of mascara – it’s soft and pliable and strokes on like a dream, creating full, fluffy lashes. It can be layered without clumping and I’m yet to do a makeup where it goes into Stick Lash (where your lashes all coagulate into nasty little points so instead of lush fringe, you have three sticks, ugh). It doesn’t flake or smear, and the brush is nice and big – not as big as DiorShow, which in my opinion for a lot of makeups is too big, but it’s a generous size with good soft bristles that coat every lash.

Now the other amazing thing about Grow Luscious is supposedly it makes your lashes grow longer! For anyone who has lashes that could do with some extra growth (er-derr, like pretty much every woman on the planet) this is the mascara for you.

Unfortunately I can’t test this on myself as I have developed an allergy to my cats so mascara is off the menu for me at the moment – which is awesome, I can’t tell you how thrilled I am about it. But thank goodness I can still use mascara at work as I would start hyperventilating if it was out of my life completely.

Now the next mascara I can’t wait to get my sticky paws on is the Revlon Grow Luscious Plumping mascara – all that lovely lash growth PLUS fat fluffy lashes, I think I may already be in love with it.

revlon.com

 And because I’m a sucker for Revlon commercials – it must be all those years of Cindy Crawford and Brooke Shields telling me that they’re the most beautiful women in the world (and they aren’t wrong) – here’s the lovely Jessica Alba for Grow Luscious:

Kate Moss. Lara Stone. Milla Jovovich. Natasha Poly. Malgosia Bela. Isabelli Fontana. This is such a beautiful video of Mario Sorrenti shooting the 2012 Pirelli calendar in Corsica using nature as a backdrop, with very simple hair, makeup and styling on some of the world’s most gorgeous women.

 I found this video the other day and couldn’t resist posting it for a number of different reasons:

- Kate the Great. ‘Nuff said

- Longchamp make beautiful bags

- I love the house that they shot in – it’s an incredible home in West London that someone actually lives in and it’s full of the most beautiful little objects and nooks and crannies. I assisted Kay Montano there when she was shooting with Ellen Von Unwerth. It is the ultimate location home.

- Alasdair McLellan directed it and not only is he one of my favourite photographers, he’s a lovely guy. Can’t get enough of his gorgeous campaigns at the moment.

- Katie Shillingford styling. Odile on hair. Tom Pecheux on makeup. Need I say more?

TOTALLY obsessing on the new lipsticks from Chanel, Rouge Allure Velvet. Perfectly matte and with a texture like, well, velvet, they are the ultimate in achieving the decadent rich lips you want this holiday season. Here’s one of their lovely videos to get you to start dreaming about the ultimate mistletoe accompaniment. Finding the cute boy to go with the mistletoe is up to you…

Can you tell I’m just a LITTLE bit excited for the launch of the new Tom Ford Beauty line? (At David Jones Sydney in just five days, people! I for one have packed my sleeping bag, my primus stove and a selection of snacks to get me through until those doors open at 9am on the 14th of November).

Since I’ve had his genius Shade and Illuminate palette on constant rotation in my kit and have used it on almost every job since I tried it, I just can’t wait to see what the handsome Texan has in store for us cosmetics junkies. In the meantime, here’s what he told Style.com at the US launch:

Bobbi Brown Celebrates 20 Years of Beauty

Wow, how can it be twenty years since Bobbi Brown first hit the makeup scene with her revolutionary take on neutrals and her fresh approach to beauty? I remember stalking her counter in London (she was only in the big cities in those days), in the early 1990’s, and the idea of foundation for not only yellow skin tones but ALL skin tones from the palest through to the deepest, was seriously revolutionary. Her ethos of enhancing what one naturally has is something that’s important in my own makeup work, embracing one’s own beauty instead of masking it.

To mark her 20^th anniversary, Bobbi has released a new scent, aptly called Party Fragrance, and it’s part of her Party collection due out in November. Regular readers will know that I can’t wear perfume due to olfactory changes and pregnancy (which was quite a while ago now). I do keep trying to wear perfume and I guess it’s better than it was, but there are far better judges of perfume than me out there.

What I CAN show you is this absolutely beautiful film, shot by Bruce Weber to commemorate Bobbi Brown’s twentieth year in the business of making people beautiful. Bruce is my all-time favourite photographer, and I was fortunate enough to work with him in London whilst assisting Kay Montano, one of his long-time collaborators. This video has all the hallmarks that I love about Bruce’s work – gorgeous people, lovely music and lots of divine dogs. Enjoy!

bobbibrowncosmetics.com
bobbibrown.com.au

Kay Montano is working her makeup magic again, this time a beautiful take on 70′s disco glamour. So beautiful!