Celebrity makeup artist Kay Montano has new video tutorials! Fresh from making up Anne Hathaway in Oslo (for the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, as you do), she has a slew of wonderful makeup tutorials out on the uber-trendy London site, www.becausemagazine.com. Here’s a gorgeous red lippie one, perfect for those holiday parties – if you’re not all partied out yet!
Visit becauselondon.com/beauty-tutorials
Because this is the site with no shame, and because I haven’t had any cheesily fabulous 80’s music on here for awhile, here’s some Spandau Ballet to ease you into this season’s hottest trend for holiday parties – Gold.
Now that I’ve blown your mind with some feathered hair and ostentatious guitar chord playing (check around the 1.23 mark if you’re into that sort of thing), it’s time to get down to business, how to shimmer like a star this Christmas.
The best way to wear golds is generally on the eyes – although this season there are some ace gold nailpolishes around too (but more on them later).
Gold suits every eye colour and in fact every skintone, and metallics in general are huge this season.
My fave way to wear gold on the eyes is to layer a cream with a powder, and for full-on Midas eyes you can’t really go past Illamasqua’s Solstice Liquid Metal with Pure Pigment in Marvel. This is what Alex Box used to create the Golden Goddess look for the Myer show in Sydney this year, and I can attest to its – well, golden-ness. I love these because the gold isn’t too yellow and fake looking, and they have a burnished quality when they catch the light (golds that are too fake and yellow looking make me feel, quite frankly, ill. So cheap and nasty!)
If you fancy something a little less full-on, Laura Mercier does a lovely gold metallic crème eyeshadow in, aptly enough, Gold, and Chanel do a beautiful gold powder eyeshadow. It’s also, funnily enough, called Gold.
There are a few tricks to making metallics work. Firstly you need to apply your shadow, then line your eyes right at the base of the top lashes with a black liquid liner or gel eyeliner. This defines the eye and makes it much more party-worthy. Black or brown pencil liner on the inner rims is optional, depending on whether you really want to get your sexy on. I like MAC’s Boot Black liquid and Bobbi Brown’s Black Ink gel liner for this purpose. You can either just do a wash of gold on the lids, or you can use a nice matte brown shadow to wash into the crease to give some good depth and definition (I’m currently loving NARS Bengali as a great all round chocolate brown eyeshadow). Two coats of your favourite mascara (my current fave mazzie is L’Oreal’s Volume Million Lashes mascara for a party lash), and false lashes are optional but always a winner for parties. MAC and Shu Uemura are great for expensive ones, Ardell if you’re saving your pennies.
You can keep the rest of the face simple by using the minimum of foundation and powder, some bronzer and keep the lip a delicious nude. I love YSL Rouge Pur in 132 a gorgeous golden pinky beige. Golden-beige gloss on top, something like Chanel’s Beige Guitare.
Nails
Nails are also a key place to go for gold. Myface L’il Bling is an amazing new range of metallic polish, and their gold polish is particularly lovely (it’s called Gilt-y). For the ultimate gold nail though you should check out Nail Rock. Nail Rock are individual nail wraps in different patterns, including metallics, that you heat up with a hair dryer onto the nail. They do take a bit of getting used to, but for a true Midas touch, you can’t go past these. They are the creation of London manicurist Zoe Pocock and they last up to 7 days on nails and 8 weeks on the toes, plus they are inexpensive (£6.50 per set), so there’s no excuse for not going for gold. (Feathered hair and ostentatious guitar playing are optional).
www.illamasqua.com
www.chanel.com
www.narscosmetics.com
www.lauramercier.com
www.maccosmetics.com
www.yslbeautyus.com
www.myfacecosmetics.co.uk
Nail Rock are available from www.asos.com or Topshop, and Sportsgirl in Australia.
Who doesn’t love a YouTube beauty video? I mean really, what more do you need on a Saturday night than you, a glowing computer screen and a beauty nerd somewhere in the world showing you a trick you’ve never heard of? What’s that you say? A cocktail, a hot guy and some sexy tunes is your preferred way of spending a Saturday night? Ah well, to each their own.
But seriously, I do love a good YouTube tutorial (and so would you if you’d just stop going out at the weekends. I mean really, you could be learning a LOT about beauty.)
The words “YouTube Guru” get bandied around an awful lot, and to my mind almost none of them are worth the title. Two (or rather three) people do spring to mind however, and that’s English makeup artist, Lisa Eldridge, and the sister duo, Pixiwoos. All three of them are actual working makeup artists in one of the world’s most fashion-forward cities – they do shows, shoots, press junkets and everything in-between, so they actually know what they’re talking about. They use great products and all the backstage techniques that I picked up in London – and if you’re going to learn makeup, it may as well be from a master!
Lisa has been working as a makeup artist in London for over 20 years and has a genuine A-list clientele, from Cameron Diaz to Demi Moore and more Vogue tutorials than you can poke the proverbial stick at. She has a lovely blog as well and her tutorials are clear and easy to understand.
Pixiwoos are two sisters (Samantha and Nicola Chapman), and between the two of them they have now produced hundreds of videos. Want to learn how to do a 1920’s makeup? They’ve got it. Catwalk contouting? It’s there. And also simple every day makeup. They have had the distinction of being the inspiration for Sophia Loren’s makeup artist who did THEIR Sophia Loren – on Sophia Loren!
I know where I’ll be on Saturday night…(but maybe I could squeeze in a cocktail whilst I’m at it). See you on YouTube…
Just when I think I couldn’t be any more in love with Topshop, they go and produce these lovely videos for their new makeup collection, Heavy Duty. It’s a rockin’ London eye, fabulously cool makeup artist Hannah Murray (who is the Creative Director for Topshop makeup) is on beauty duty, and they have one of my favourite singers, Sia, providing the tunes. All r-i-i-i-ight.
London mega-manicurist Sophy Robson has been at it again, this time nailing (excuse the pun) the provocative new Tom Ford Eyewear campaign (see image above). If that doesn’t make you look, I don’t know what does!
The campaign was actually shot by Mr Tom Ford himself who has added photographer to his already pretty impressive CV, and the model is the ever gorgeous Dane, Freja Beha.
The deep blackened purple on Freja’s nails is Sophy’s Polish Pick of the Month, and it is a new colour for autumn, Dior’s Black Plum. Set to be huge again this autumn/winter are variations on black, so Dior’s new nail polish is typically of the moment.
Sophy has another nail tutorial as well – this time a Chanel nail tutorial, which I’ve included below.
She’s been a very busy bee the last month, shooting campaigns for Jil Sander, Tom Ford Perfume, Loewe, Armani and Givenchy, and editorial that includes a cover of Marion Cotillard for Paris Vogue and M.I.A for Interview magazine as well as her usual slew of editorials in British and Japanese Vogue and Love magazine. Phew!
So when you’re not painting the toes of supermodels or the world’s biggest fashion editors, or shooting major campaigns with the world’s coolest photographers, what’s a girl to do? Well if you’re the hottest manicurist in London, AKA Sophy Robson, the Nail Queen, you do nail tutorials on YouTube. Nailheads rejoice! Here’s Sophy’s first video tutorial, the Rainbow Nail. When she does it, it looks easy, although I’m not sure when I try it it’s going to look quite that good…
