Peking Opera with an ‘80s twist

It’s the Easter weekend – which means loads of bank holidays off work for us lucky office workers, hooray!
The weather here in London has been absolutely gorgeous so far this week which put me in the mood for wearing some really bright make-up colours today.  I had a friend staying over and didn’t want to spend too long doing my make-up and keeping my friend waiting so I came up with this super-easy fun look that I like to think is a bit ‘80s but that my friend also said made her think of Peking Opera.

Although it's quite bright I think it's still quite wearable as most of the bright colour is just concentrated on the outside of the eye and it's balanced by matte neutrals.


I’ve written posts about all the products I used for this look which I've linked to below.  Here’s a quick run-through of how I created it:

Sleek Paraguaya palette: I used Cameo as a base colour across the eyelid up to the crease and blended out just above, and Sandstone as a highlight under the brow.
Sleek Good Girl palette: the bright pink that I used was Pink Punch which is in the top row of the palette. I applied the bright pink in about 2 min, just dabbing it on in a triangular shape on the outside of my eyelids with a smallish shading brush and not bothering to blend it in too well which I think created an interesting shape that wasn’t too defined.
No. 7 Gel Eyeliner in Turquoise: I ran this along the outer 3/4 of my upper lash line for some bright, contrasting definition.

I don’t have anything on my lips in the photos above, they’re just naturally really pale.  I did put some lip gloss on just to add a bit of colour before I went out, but nothing too bright because I felt my eyes were bright enough already.
I didn’t bother with any foundation or mascara because it was so warm today I thought it would just smudge if I got too hot when I was walking about outside.  I used Urban Decay primer potion and my eye makeup was all in place after I got home after being out and about for about four hours including walking in the sun for about an hour.

Dramatic Ballet Inspired Look

I’m quite into my ballet at the moment – ballet classes (I just started going to classes once a week in Jan and I love it!), fluffy tutu-esque shorts, and of course, ballet-inspired make-up!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m no dancer so I don't actually have any idea about real ballet make-up, but I have been known to go the theatre on occasion and I am slightly in love with the romance of ballet so this is just my interpretation of a ballet look.  I thought that the peachy tones in the Sleek Paraguaya palette would be perfect for coming up with a dramatic cats eye look inspired by prima ballerinas that might also work as an evening look too (if you’re quite brave with your make-up!)

my profile shot	me looking rather angry…he he.  I was trying to get a shot of the colours on my eyelids.
I think dancers often wear false lashes, but I usually can’t be bothered with them so I just caked mine with loads of mascara instead.	Look how few eyelashes I have!!  Never mind, who cares now that there are plenty of good volumising mascaras out there!
The key products I used – the Sleek i-divine palette in Paraguaya, a bright pink blush and a bronze coloured lipgloss pencil.

Here’s how I created this look step-by-step:

• I used a cream-based primer on my lid then patted Cameo all over the lid up to the crease then blended it out slightly above the crease.  I also took this colour all the way along my lower lash line.
• I applied Sandstone as a highlight underneath my brow bone and down and around to the inner corner of my eyes.

• I then used applied the darkest shade Stone into the outer 1/3 of my crease and along my lash line and blended well into the Cameo.  I also took the brown 2/3 along my lower lash line.
• I used loads of eyeliner along the outer 2/3 of my upper lash line, extending it out into a huge flick, and whacked on a ton of mascara on my upper lashes.  I have hardly any lower lashes so I never bother with them.
• Continuing in a theatrical vein I then applied loads of bright pink blush along my cheekbones and over my temples.  On the stage the bright lighting tends to bleach out colours so theatrical make-up can be applied with a heavy hand, and since this was a ballet-inspired look I thought, what the heck!  Actually as you can see from the photos it doesn't look like I'm wearing that much blush because I used a flash which can have a similar effect of bleaching colours out.
• I used a glossy bronze lip pencil all over my lips.  I think the colour that I used is quite nice and noticable without being too dramatic.
• I then brushed a teeny bit of concealer under my eyes just to increase the contrast between the colours of the eyeshadow and my skin and finished off with a light dusting of loose powder.

Then all that was left for me to do was to pout for my close-ups!  Hope you like this look.  I actually really like it so I might try out some variations in different colours too.

Sleek Avoir La Peche: Completing the collection…

I’ve been very excited this week by the launch of the Sleek spring 2011 collection Avoir la Peche and I posted a few pics of the eyeshadows and lip gloss a couple of days ago which you can check out here.  I’m happy to report that I managed to pick up the blush in Pan Tao (£4.29) from the Superdrug on Tottenham Court Road in London yesterday which means I’ve now purchased all the items in the collection.  As it’s the weekend I had a bit of time this morning to play around with the collection for the first time so I can finally show you a look that I came up with to give an idea of how the products look on.

First up here are a couple of pics of the blush.  I really like the slim black packaging which houses a generous 8g of product and a perfectly useable mirror in the lid.  There’s a peach-themed print on the cover which I think looks simple yet elegant and also helps differentiate this blush from the other Sleek shades which are all packaged in identical black cases.

The second pic gives quite a good indication of the colour of the blush which looks bright orange in the pan.

Here’s the look that I came up with - I went for a muted peachy feel across my whole face.  Hopefully the second picture gives a better impression of the blush – I’m actually wearing quite a lot, but it was a bit difficult to get it to show up on camera.  Also I hope this can allay some of the fears I know a lot of people would feel when confronted by that bright orange colour of the blush in the pan for the first time by showing that it is actually wearable!

Eyes: (pls check the pic to the right for shades) I swept Blush across my lids up to the crease and darkened the outer 1/3 with Cameo which I also took along my lower lash line, then I blended using a fluffy brush to try to create a hazy wash of colour that extended just above the crease and faded out to the brow.  I used a slanted liner brush to intensify my upper lash line with Stone and used Sandstone as a highlight on my browbone.  I wanted to keep this look soft and hazy rather than very defined so I didn’t bother with any eye-pencil on the inner lash lines, eye liner or mascara. I used a very thin layer of the light gold from the Sleek Primer palette as a base.  I applied my eyeshadow around 10h ago now and while I have suffered creasing the colours are still quite visible and defined on my eyelids – so Ihave  no complaints so far regarding the staying power of this palette.

Lips: I paled down my lips with the foundation left on my brush after having applied my base to my face and simply popped the Pout Polish in Sugar May on top.  The product is very soft and smoothes out over the lips beautifully, and as you can see leaves a lovely subtle wash of colour that doesn’t look orange at all.  I didn’t find it very long lasting, but it does describe itself as a lip conditioner and my lips did feel softer after I applied the product.  It also contains some sun screen (SPF15 but as with any sunscreen I think you’d need a whacking great layer to get the full 15x protection) which is good for being out-and-about in spring-time London, but I wouldn’t depend on it to avoid getting sunburnt lips anywhere really sunny.

Face:  I used a soft fluffy blusher brush to apply the Sleek Blush in Pan Tao onto my cheeks and across the top of my cheekbones.  I know that some people like to apply their blush by starting with a tiny amount and building up the colour, but I actually like to start by applying slightly more colour at first then toning it down by spraying some face spray onto a duo-fibre face brush and sweeping it across the blush and washing the colour out.  I find that this method gives both a radiant, glowing finish (thanks to the face spray – at the moment my favourite is The Body Shop’s Vitamin C Energizing Face Spritz, around £8) and also helps to fix the colour in place.

I’ve really enjoyed playing around with these products so far and in fact I’m pretty sure I’m going to be heading back to Superdrug pretty soon to stock up on some more Paraguaya eyeshadow palettes as both gifts and as a reserve for me when my own one runs out because I like these colours so much!

Introduction to the Sleek Spring 2011 Collection Avoir la Peche

Sleek make-up have just released their new Spring 2011 collection called Avoir la Pêche which is based around peachy tones. I think it will be available for the next month or so (until mid April 2011) from the Sleek website and in Superdrug stores in the UK. Well I've been working hard lately so I figured I'd treat myself and went to pick up the pieces in the collection from Superdrug after work today.

There are three new items: the "Paraguaya" eyeshadow palette (£6.49), a pout polish in Sugar May (£4.29), and a blush in Pan-Tao (£4.29). I managed to pick up the Paraguaya palette and the pout polish today but unfortunately the Superdrug I went to seemed to have already sold out of the blush. I guess I'll have to check back in Superdrug again soon in order to complete my collection.

Anyway here are some quick snaps I just took to give a rough idea of the aesthetics of the new collection.

The packaging has a pretty floral design, but for the i-divine palette it's only printed on the cardboard box and not the palette itself. However, the palette does have its name printed on the front.













I really like the packaging of the Pout Polish. The container is wide and shallow which makes it easier to pick the product up on your fingertips without getting it stuck under your nails (which I find can be a problem with narrower, deeper pots).

(I changed the contrast on the picture on the left below because I thought it gave it a bit of a cool '60s grainy feel! I haven't changed the contrast on the second pic which was taken in my living room under artificial lighting but which I feel gives quite a good indication of the actual colour of the gloss).











I-Divine Paraguaya eyeshadow palette (left: with flash, right: without flash). There is a clear overlay which has the names of the shadows printed on it. The names are cute but I'll probably just throw the overlay away when I start using the palette as I find that it just gets in the way. Hopefully Sleek will move on to printing the names on the palettes themselves soon.
You can click on the pics for a larger view.








Finally here's a shot of some swatches on my arm in the same order as in the palette (artificial lighting, without flash). All the shadows have been swatched over the light gold creamy primer from the Sleek primer palette. You can click on the pic for a larger view.

Top row left - right:
parfait: shimmer
blush: matt
cameo: matt
Persian orange: shimmer
peach gold: shimmer
sandstone: matt

Bottom row left - right:
bellini: shimmer
redstone: matt
persimmon: matt
tangelo: matt
bittersweet: matt
stone: matt

I really like the colours in the collection and the palette should be great for neutral(ish) looks that are still colourful. Although the shades are all peachy, they are much more varied than the shades in the Good Girl palette. I might pick up a couple more palettes when I go back to check for the blush because I think they'd also make nice gifts as none of the colours are too intimidating to wear so I think they have wide appeal to people of all make-up tastes.