The Makeup Mole

Lovely Aussie actress Rose Byrne was sporting a red lip at the Breakthrough of the Year Awards in LA, and her makeup artist, Amy Hollier, was channelling modern glamour. “I’m always inspired by old Hollywood glamour, but this look was definitely a modern version of that. It was more Angelina Jolie in Manhattan, than Marilyn Monroe in Hollywood”, Amy said.

Rose is beautiful, great at what she does (Damages is one of my favourite series EVER, and anyone who can hold their own with Glenn Close must be a fairly serious actress), and we both grew up in Balmain in Sydney, so I am quite partial to a bit of Rose.

Amy Hollier used the following products to get the look:

Eyes

• Stila Starlight shadow “on the inner corners of the eyes, then blended out across the top lid and under the eyebrow arches. The shimmer picks up the light to brighten the eyes and give them a pop”.
• Paul & Joe mascara duo in black “One of my favourite mascaras for dramatic black lashes”, says Amy.

Lips

• Stila Longwear Lipliner in Passionate
• Lipstick Queen Lipstick in Red Sinner

Whilst I hate to kick a brand when it’s down (as of last week Stila was just brought back from the brink of receivership by a private equity firm who have bought it. It’s not been doing well since Estee Lauder sold it in 2006), and there are quite a few Stila products I like, this ain’t one of them.

 The Smudge Pots (in my humble opinion) are the worst of the current crop of gel eyeliners. And the reason I know? Because the good stuff (ie the Bobbi Brown Long Wear Gel Eyeliner I posted about last week) is in my kit, which leaves the rubbish (ie Stila Smudge Pot), in my personal makeup bag. Isn’t there that saying that the cobbler has no shoes? Well that is definitely me. I have my fancy pants amazing work makeup kit all organized and color coded and with so much stuff in it I have actually injured myself carrying it around (which is just sad but also happens to be true), and then my own makeup bag is beyond tragic. It’s full of gift with purchase brushes (I know! The shame! The horror! I am always telling clients off for this!) and brushes I didn’t like enough to put in my kit, and my makeup is either things I have doubles of, or things I have pulled out of the Vault, where makeup at my place goes to die.

 Which is where the Stila Smudge Pot comes in. It flakes, it smudges, it’s like pushing an eyeliner brush through tar (which at 6am is even less fun than it sounds) and its consistency is just plain wrong. Then by the end of the day when you’ve been working so hard, and (let’s face it) sweating, and you haven’t had time to look in the mirror, when you actually do, what do you find but two very attractive half moons of black nestled in the creases of your under eyes. SO HOT.

 If you want to go halfway between the worst (Stila) and the best (Bobbi Brown), you would find the MAC Fluidline, which is quite nice and creamy and is certainly cheaper than the Bobbi Brown. It’s by no means terrible, so if, at this delicate stage in our global economy you are finding your financial affairs a little straitened, you could definitely do worse than this one. I usually use this at the shows as most of the shows are sponsored by MAC.

 But please, stay far, far away from Stila Smudge Pot. And I’ll take my own advice and I will too.

 BIN IT!