The Makeup Mole

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:

I have never looked Frieda Pinto look so beautiful as she did last week at the premiere of her new film, Trishna, directed by Michael Winterbottom.

London makeup artist Kay Montano did two looks for her, one during the day, and one for the premiere in the evening. Here’s what she used:

Day Look

Foundation

• MyFace MyMix Foundation in Med/Dark 02
• Bobbi Brown Tinted Moisturising Balm in Dark Tint (on cheekbones and forehead)

Concealer

• Armani concealer under her eyes in 40GD

Powder

• Jurlique Rose Silk Finishing Powder

Blush

• L’Oreal True Match Blush in True Rose

Eyes

• L’Oreal Colour Appeal Chrome Shine Eyeshadow in Brown Lame
• L’Oreal Extra Volume Collagen Mascara in Black

Lips

• L’Oreal Glam Shine Reflexion gloss in Sheer Peach

Night Look

Foundation

• MyFace MyMix Foundation in Med/Dark 02

Concealer

• Armani concealer under her eyes in 40GD

Powder

• Jurlique Rose Silk Finishing Powder

Blush

• MyFace Costa del Sol blush

Eyes

• L’Oreal Studio Secrets Eyeliner in Black (top lid only)
• L’Oreal Contour Kohl in Iced Chestnut (bottom lid only)
• Chanel Illusion d’Ombre in Ebloui on lid
• L’Oreal SuperLiner in Black

Lips

• Shu Uemura Supreme Shine lipstick in RD 165

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!

I haven’t posted about mascara for ages, and I’ll tell you why – I can’t wear it anymore. There, I said it. From being a mascara wearer all my life (or from where life really begins, when makeup-wearing does, at say, fourteen), I have gone to a nude-eyed egg face. I comfort myself with pictures of Tilda Swinton’s bare-eyed alien beauty and tell myself it’s something along those lines, but I don’t know if it is. To compensate, I wear lots of gorgeous blush and have whole-heartedly embraced a red lip when I go out. As Gwyneth Paltrow famously said, “Every woman needs a kick-ass red lipstick”.

Why no more mazzy in the House of Mole? My eyes have rebelled, and they hurt when I wear it. No more contacts, no more eye makeup for me. Which was sad for awhile but now I find it strangely liberating. And of course I still get to layer it on at work, so that does compensate. As a consequence I’ve not been inspired to blog about mascara or much eye makeup lately, but I was cleaning my kit yesterday and thought it was high time I told you about my latest staple mascara – Sublime de Chanel.

This is the one I reach for when you just want perfect lashes. Not major false fringes or uber natural, but perfectly lifted, curled, and darkened. Classy lashes. Left Bank lashes. The types of lashes one might take to the Spanish Steps in Rome, or the Guggenheim in New York. Every girl needs a mascara for those days don’t they? This one delivers as it has dense, inky pigment which doesn’t flake or smear – no crumbling under hot lights or one too many cocktails! So it’s perfect for real life, it just does what you want it to do. And even though I can’t test it on myself anymore, I’ve used it often enough on jobs to keep on pulling it out, time after time. J’Adore.

chanel.com

Make Up Director Alex Box | Report by Celine Bopp

Supremely chic, as the girls walked round the fluorescent light filled room, it had a sporty feel to the collection. The girls’ foundation was kept super minimal using a little MAC Studio Sculpt, and then the fun began! Using MAC Lip Mix in Yellow we blended a tiny bit on areas such as the creases of the arms and back of knees to give a bruise like feel. Then using a special effects’ product that was melted down in hot water, we created oblong shapes on parts of the body.  Each girl had an individual look, so some had shapes on their face and some on their legs and arms. Once it set on their skin we dusted MAC pigment in Reflects Teal, a pearly white, which was barely visible until they hit the fluorescent lights on the catwalk, giving flashes of light. Gorgeous girls, perfectly suited to Tait’s wonderful collection.

Tom Ford blew me away when he first came onto the scene at Gucci in the early 1990’s with his uber-luxe interpretations of the 70’s. It was the 70’s through a lens where everyone looked like they were partying it up at Studio 54, and his clothes and the images that accompanied them quickly became iconic.

When I heard he had moved into cosmetics with his collaboration with Estee Lauder a few years ago, I died a little bit and yes I will confess to quite a bit of feverish eBay buying to get my paws on parts of that collection. So when he created his beautiful lipstick line in 2010, the progression from clothes to makeup felt complete. But it wasn’t…yet. Now he has a full line of Tom Ford cosmetics that has just been released in London, and true to form, it is perfection in every sense of the word. The initial images featuring Lara Stone and utilising the not inconsiderable beauty talents of renowned English makeup artist, Charlotte Tilbury were tasters of what’s to come, and having tried the Shade and Illuminate contouring palette, I WILL be making room for more of his products in my kit.

The contour palette is available in two shades, a lighter version and a darker one (important as not everyone is one colour! One person’s shadow is another’s dirty GT racing stripe). I have it in Intensity 1, which is perfect for quite fair complexions. I used it on two shoots last week and fell more in love with it every time. It’s just a great, great colour, as it’s quite tan with a little bit of red in it, so it looks like a shadow but a glamorous shadow, if that makes sense. (Only Tom Ford could make shadows glamorous). If contour colours get too grey they can look muddy and dirty, but this one walks the right side of warm brown to create perfect, sculpted hollows just where you want them. It’s a very light cream so that it’s buildable, and has an almost transparent quality to it, but enough heft to give you cheekbones Scavullo would have loved. It works equally well with a brush or fingers, and blends gorgeously.

The pan size is huge so unless you’re doing serious Mount Rushmore work on your face every day it should last you ages, and it also has a clear white highlighter in the palette, so you can make those cheekbones pop. I love the highlighter too as it’s the same transparent cream and it has a gold effect to it as opposed to a pink pearl base which a lot of highlighters have. The whole effect is shimmery, amber-y gorgeousness. I also love that the packaging is so light – I know lots of bloggers have been finding this annoying as the price tag is high, and presumably they expect expensive makeup to feel like a block of obsidian. Thank you Mr Ford for not making it so! As a makeup artist, I actually have to take out luxe but heavy items (cough, Burberry, cough) as weight is an issue when you take a suitcase full of products with you to work every day.

It’s not cheap. But it’s about the same price point of other premium brands such as Chanel, Dior, Burberry, YSL etc. When you are buying a little slice of heaven you can expect to pay for it, but for me the quality is just so good I will be skimping on other things (like food, utilities, new shoes) to pay for it. This is a range worth getting in hock for, and I rarely say that! (Oh alright, when the new Chanel collection comes in I generally do, but who needs shoes or food when you can have new season designer makeup gorgeousness?)

I literally cannot wait to try the rest of the collection. Kay Montano was emailing me about it from London when she had a private viewing of it at the Dorchester (as you do, obvs) as it was just so amazing. Kay has tried pretty much every product on the planet and has an encyclopaedic knowledge of beauty, so for her to say that is a pretty big call.

tomford.com
Tom Ford Beauty is available now at Selfridges in London, and will be exclusively available at David Jones Sydney and Melbourne from November 13th, 2011.