I have been on the lookout for a new primer for ages. The thinner liquids always seem to separate on me and the thicker ones are usually too hard to move around. On a bit of a whim I picked up the Too Faced primer from Kit after the girls there gave it rave reviews (love the girls at Kit!) and I’m not disappointed!
It glides on with ease and gives the foundation a wonderful smooth surface to go on to. It keeps the foundation on really well all day, helps a little bit with shine and the best part – no more separation of foundation mid afternoon! I used it on a bridal party for their makeup on the weekend and it was fabulous, I only needed a pea sized amount, no balling up, the foundation didn’t repel, and the girls looked perfect! Looks like this is the one for me!
The Too Faced Primed and Poreless retails at $57.95 AU and is available from Kit stores and counters Australia wide. Check it out!
As some of you may know, December 1st is World AIDS Day. As some of you may also know, I work part-time for MAC Cosmetics. One of the best things about my job is being part of the Viva Glam program and MAC AIDS Fund, it is something I feel very strongly about.
Since 1994, the MAC AIDS Fund has raised money and awareness for men, women and children living with AIDS and HIV all around the world. Worldwide, through the Viva Glam product range, MAC Cosmetics has now raised over $135 million US Dollars and the amount continues to grow. The Viva Glam range consists of six lipsticks and two lipglosses, which despite being beautiful, wearable colours for everyone are very, very special. 100% of the selling price goes to help sufferers of this horrible illness.
Over the past fifteen years, many celebrities have put their name to this worthy cause and become Viva Glam Ambassadors. They do not get paid in this role, they choose to take it on to help others. Wonderful, strong individuals who deserve a mention. Rupaul, Elton John, k.d. Lang, Mary J Blige, Lil’ Kim, Missy Elliott, Christina Aguilera, Linda Evangelista, Chloë Sevigny, Boy George, Pamela Anderson, Deborah Harry, Lisa-Marie Presley, Eve, Dita Von Teese and Fergie, have all dedicated their time and energy into promoting and supporting the MAC AIDS Fund. Viva Glam VII is due for release in 2010 with Lady Gaga and Cyndi Lauper rumoured to be the next spokespeople. For more information please visit the Official site at http://www.macaidsfund.org/ and watch the video I have posted also.
One Viva Glam can change a life. Please make a difference this World AIDS Day and go and treat yourself to a Viva Glam lipstick or lip glass. Not only will you look gorgeous, but you’ll feel it too.
Gemma xxx
I’ve finally finished re-designing my website and have launched it tonight. There’s still a few more images to add… but I’m so happy – it’s finally live!
I wear a lot of makeup to work and by the time I get home I just want it gone. I was always on the lookout for a good night time cleanser that removed my makeup as well (yes, I’m lazy!). I’d tried oil cleansers before but they’d always given me breakouts despite removing my makeup and cleansing really well, I’d tried the bi-phasal makeup removers that despite getting the makeup off, I’d always have to cleanse afterwards and even then they still left a greasy residue.
Then I discovered MAC Cleanse Off Oil. I was hesitant at first, and worried about breakouts but I had one given to me for free so I thought I’d give it a go. Well, thank God I did! I’ve now been using this product for two years now and my love for it has never waned. It is mineral oil free, which for me means no breakouts, it’s water dispersible so it doesn’t leave an oily residue, and it cleanses as well as removes my makeup so I don’t have to follow up with another cleanser afterwards! With oils like jojoba, vitamin e, and evening primrose, it’s conditioning and gentle to the skin.
To use this cleanser, first apply it to dry skin (between 2 – 3 pumps from the bottle) and massage all over your face, paying attention to the eye area (don’t forget to close your eyes!) to loosen mascara and eyeliner and also lips if you wear bold or long wearing lip products. Next wet your hands with tap water (or alternatively, spray your face with a thermal water) and continue to massage your face, emulsifying the Cleanse Off Oil. Finally remove the cleanser (and all your makeup along with it!) with a wet facecloth, rinse the facecloth and wipe over again. You’re left with clean skin, ready to apply your evening moisturiser and eye cream.
MAC Cleanse Off Oil retails for $37AUD and is available at MAC Counters and stores.
Runway makeup is one of my favourite things to gaze at for hours, just taking in the beauty and wonder of all the creativity and skill that makeup artists like Pat McGrath have circling around in their heads.
The pictures and footage from Paris Fashion week are always my favourite, the shows are so incredibly inspiring. The makeup seen on the models this year was an interesting mix of neutral, no makeup looks (as seen at Balenciaga and Stella McCartney), sexy sun-drenched glamour (Versace and Chloe of course), bold sculpted looks reminiscent of the 80’s and 90’s (Lanvin, Gaultier, Lacroix), the pale geisha inspired faces and red lips (Yohji Yamamoto, and who could forget the lips at McQueen!)… But then there was something different. Straying from the asian influences of past shows, Dior and Galliano (together with McGrath) emerged with a very old world look….
I find it so beautiful. Regal and romantic, with metallic champagnes, golds and rust tones (alternative looks included silvers, fuchsias and plums) for the eyes and deep, berry toned lips in a perfect cupid’s bow, and soft pink cheeks that don’t take anything away from the amazing eyes and lips. I especially love the focus on the inner part of the crease and brow bone near the nose and how that opens up the eye and creates a perfect almond shape. Half lashes on the outside of the eye complete the look (the gold is cute too, just not an everyday look!) . This is something I’ll be adapting and putting my own swing on for sure!
So what are the top products in my makeup bag at this moment? I thought I’d share….
• MAC Sculpt & Shape powder in Accentuate/Sculpt
- Instant mannequin-like face! My cheekbones look amazing and the lighter colour works amazingly to highlight lips and temples!
• MAC Groundwork Paint pot
- The ultimate natural base colour, I wear it with MAC Wedge eyeshadow over the top, MAC Hush to highlight, and MAC Cork in the crease. A bit of MAC Teddy eye kohl. Beautiful neutral eye.
• MAC #222 brush
- What did I ever do without this brush! The ultimate for soft blending and crease work. I wish it wasn’t just at the pro stores!
• MAC Invisible Set Powder
- Pro only, this stuff is brilliant, sets your foundation but you cannot see it at all!
• MAC Nude Rose Lipstick + MAC Pinkie Pencil
- My new favourite lip combination! The pencil is pro store only and the lipstick’s sold out everywhere but I am in LOVE.
• NARS Angelika Blush
- Candy pink cheek colour with a sprinkling of glitter, and like all things NARS, super pigmented.
• NARS Fathom Eyeshadow
- Baby pink with superfine silver glitter, I’ve been lusting after this for what seems like forever, it’s sooo pretty!
• Make Up For Ever HD Liquid Foundation
- Medium coverage, long wearing, lightweight. Beautiful skin like finish. Divine.
What are you loving? Please let me know!
Gemma xxx
A fair proportion of the questions I’m asked as a makeup artist relate to how to do a smokey eye makeup. Smokey eyes are perfect for an evening or party look or anytime you want to add drama to a makeup, and with practice and the right tools and products you can achieve this look yourself at home. So here’s a step by step guide so you can achieve this smouldery, sexy look next time you are heading out.
You’ll need:
3 eyeshadows – one light, one medium and one dark. I’ve used a soft beige (MAC Brulé), a midtone matte brown (MAC Kid) and a matte black (MAC Carbon). You can use other colours to get a smoky eye, just make sure you have light, medium and dark tones that work well together (test them out on the back of your hand to check if they match if you are unsure). For the purpose of this demo, I’ve chosen very dramatic colours. Please don’t feel that this is the only way to do a smokey eye, it’s just the way I’ve elected to go, as this technique will suit all eye shapes, unlike other techniques which can be unsuited to some.
A soft black kohl pencil (I’ve used MAC Smolder), one that smudges easily. If you are doing a coloured smokey eye though, have a play with a matching liner (eg for purple smoky eyes you can use a dark plum coloured pencil)
3 eyeshadow brushes – at least one blending brush (long, soft and loose hairs, I’ve used MAC #217 brush)), and one pencil/bullet brush (short and tapered to a point, I’ve used MAC #219 brush), the third brush will preferably be another blending brush.
Black Mascara – whatever your favourite is, dramatic is always good for an intense eye makeup.
Also handy to have around:
An Eyeshadow base or primer – to help give your eyeshadow intensity and keep it all on and in place all night without creasing (I’ve used MAC Groundwork).
Under eye concealer and a concealer brush
A few tissues and cotton tips (tissues to get excess product off brushes if necessary, cotton tips to remove any product from where it shouldn’t be)
So now onto application. Since I’m showing how to do a smokey eye on yourself, I’ve used pictures of me applying makeup to myself. If you have troubles seeing where the product should go, look at my facial expressions in the photos – I’ve always got at least one eye open, my eyebrows are usually raised, I’m tilting my jaw up towards the mirror and I use my spare hand to pull the skin of my eye taut if necessary. Also have a laugh at my inability to keep my mouth closed while doing certain steps! I realise these are incredibly unflattering pics, so I hope it helps someone, even just to make them giggle.
Step 1:
Start with applying your eyeshadow primer or base (optional as mentioned, but these really do make a difference!), you don’t need a lot, just a small amount. I prefer to apply this with my middle finger, you can use a brush, but I’m a bit lazy and use my fingers where it won’t affect the outcome.
Step 2:
Dip your blending brush into your lightest colour and apply it to your browbone. This will help define the shape of your eyebrows and also stop too much darker shadow grabbing to the area in future steps.
Step 3:
With the same brush, grab some of your midtone colour and in back and forth motions, apply to your socket area. If you tip your head back and look into the mirror, you’ll see where your socket is – the area between the top of your eyeball and bottom of your brow bone.
Step 4:
Now dip your pencil / bullet / point brush into the midtone shadow and apply shadow underneath your bottom lashline. This will help to keep the eyeliner from smudging too much in the next steps.
Step 5:
Grab your kohl pencil and apply it on your top and bottom lashlines, including the bottom waterline. It doesn’t need to be neat as we are going to smudge it anyway. Grab your pencil brush and work that pencil into the skin, smudge it all over to get that slept in, smoky look.
Step 6:
Using the same blending brush, pick up a small amount of your darkest eyeshadow colour. Give it a shake to get rid of the excess product before applying it to your eyelid. You don’t want too much product on your brush as it will cause eyeshadow ‘fallout’ underneath your eye which can be a pain to clean up. A little fallout is normal, but if you only apply a little bit of your darkest colour to your brush each time you dip it, you can minimise the amount you have to clean up afterwards.
Step 7:
Work the shadow into your eyelid in repetitve back and forth and round motions, recoating your brush with shadow where necessary. You want to try and blend the shadow into the midtone colour through your socket. If there are any areas that require more of your dark colour that are small, dip your pencil brush into the dark shadow and shade these areas in.
Step 8:
Still using your pencil brush take a little bit of the darkest shadow and run that underneath your eye to blend and smooth out the kohl pencil. Try and keep the thickest part of the shadow at the midpoint, not the outer or inner parts. If you get a little bit messy at this point, that’s fine, we’ll clean it up later. If you need to, take your clean brush and reapply your midtone colour to the crease if it requires more blending.
Step 9:
Now we clean up the fallout under your eyes. If there’s a lot of product you may need to use your cotton tips to gently pick it up, otherwise if there’s just a tiny bit pop a small amount of your under eye concealer and blend with your concealer brush. Don’t forget to set your concealer with powder afterwards. Some people prefer to do their eyes before their base so that you don’t have to clean up afterwards.
Step 10:
Apply your mascara to both top and bottom lashes. I always like to use at least two layers to get a lot of drama out of my lashes to go with the smoky eye, otherwise false lashes look fantastic. Your makeup may not look brilliant up until this point, so even if you are doubtful with your progress, wait until you’ve put the rest of your makeup on to judge the way it looks. Often you just cannot tell how it will turn out until it’s all done!
Finish off with nice eyebrows, some blush and lip product and you’re good to go. You may need to throw your kohl pencil and a couple of cotton tips in your bag along with your lip products so you can touch up your waterline througout the night and get rid of any gunk that accumulates, but basically – you’re done! The more often you do this sort of makeup the better you’ll get, so don’t be disheartened if it’s a bit tricky or takes a while the first few times, just keep on practicing and remember, if it looks really terrible, it’s just makeup, you can wash it off!
I hope you’ve found this helpful, and if so, please let me know how you go!
Gemma xxx
Last week I returned from a blissful New York City holiday. Gosh I love that place, I need to spend more time there! Unfortunately the plane trips wreak havoc on my sensitive skin and I was left not only severely dehydrated but also experiencing some horrible breakouts from the journey (possibly the amount of pizza and bagels I consumed didn’t help either, but they are sooo good!). Usually I would just wait for it all to pass and get on with life, but I knew my best friend’s wedding was two days after I got back and wanted to be looking my best for that.
So my last day in New York I was absolutely freaking out about the sore, red cystic pimples and horrible condition of my skin (as we girls do) as I was packing up my stuff and I noticed on the side of my Mario Badescu Seaweed Night Cream the address of their New York spa. I’m a religious user of a couple of their products (I also love the Enzyme Cleansing Gel for my morning cleanser) so I figured the three block walk to the salon might be a good idea. I’m so glad I did! After much contemplation I settled on the Whitening Mask (which I’d used before but not in ‘dire’ situations) and the Rolling Cream Peel with AHA.
The Peel I was a little concerned about. Having dehydrated and sensitive skin, exfoliants are pretty much a no-no for me, I usually just use my bath towel after a shower to gently buff my face, however I was pretty much at the point where I thought things could only improve skin wise so when we got home I gave it a shot. Well, I’m thrilled I gave it a go, because it is amazing! So gentle, you just apply a very thin layer to clean skin and leave for a few minutes. Then you start to gently massage your skin and within a few minutes the cream balls up and starts to come off – now this is a little messy, so do it either in the shower cubicle or over the sink. Underneath I was left with much smoother skin which felt far less congested. I applied my night cream and left my skin overnight.
The next evening I applied the Whitening mask to clean skin in the aim of diminishing the red bumps and scars I had remaining from the breakout. The mask does sting a bit when you apply it (active ingredients are kojic acid and liquorice extract so I’m assuming that has something to do with it) but as soon as the cream started to harden this subsided. To remove after fifteen minutes I sprayed my face with Avene Thermal Water in an aerosol can and used a wet, warm face cloth to remove. Again, night cream was applied and I left my skin overnight.
The next morning (the day of the wedding!) my skin looked the best it has for years – so radiant, smooth, even in tone and not irritated at all! The whitening mask had diminished the red spots left over from the pimple and my skin was so much brighter. I was over the moon and so relieved. These products are going to be a mainstay in my skincare routine from now on, both used once a week. Mario Badescu products can be found at Kit Cosmetics Australia wide and the girls are great with giving advice, so if these products sound like you, check them out!
Now that we are in September it’s wedding season, and I’ve been doing wedding makeup most weekends and that’s something I really enjoy. Since I’m an organisational freak, I thought I’d throw a few tips out there for brides to help their wedding day run smoothly and keep your makeup looking perfect all day.
• Before your wedding day have a makeup trial with your makeup artist so that you can decide on a look for the day. It’s also a great opportunity to discuss what you might like for your bridesmaids and also to get some recommendations on touch up supplies.
• On the day you will generally need to touch up your lips and powder, so have your lip products (lipliner, lipstick/lipstain, lipgloss) along with your powder (pressed is less messy. You’ll need a small brush too) in your clutch ready to go. If you have really oily skin, it may be a good idea to also have some blotting papers, and if you are wearing a dark eyeliner on the inner rim of your eye, you may need to touch that up also. I also like to have a few cotton buds (for smudges, eye goo, and any other unplanned happenings) on hand just in case.
• Straws are handy to have around the house on the morning of the wedding, so that you aren’t constantly having to reapply your lips after every drink!
• Make sure that your skin is in tip top shape for your wedding day. If you are having problems with your skin I recommend reviewing your skincare as early as you can when you know you are getting married to make sure that your skin is as clear and hydrated as possible on your big day. Drinking loads of water and taking Fish Oil capsules in the weeks leading up to the wedding will help your skin also.
• The morning of your wedding, cleanse your skin and give it a good going over with your towel once you get out of the shower to ensure that any flaky skin is gone, apply your moisturiser and eye cream (ensure they are light ones that aren’t heavy as these can cause your makeup to slide off your face) so that your skin is clean and well hydrated for the makeup to go on to.
• It is generally best to have your makeup done after hair, so try to get your hairdresser to arrive an hour earlier than your makeup artist on the day of the wedding.
• If you are planning on fake tanning, please have a trial run (preferably before your makeup trial) so you can see exactly how it will look on you so you have no surprises on the day. Do have a thin layer of tan applied to your face, otherwise the makeup can look mask-like and not blend in as well. Do your research on tans (some look more natural than others), and have the tan applied a day or two before to allow it to settle.
• Bach’s Rescue Remedy is great for those brides that get a bit flustered and stressed, particularly if you get a bit red in the skin! This stuff can really save the day, so if this sounds like you, pick some up!
• Get your waxing and other body maintenance done a few days before the wedding so that you aren’t worried about having to pluck your eyebrows or shave your legs on the day! Always have a razor handy though, just in case someone needs one last minute! Try and get your hands and toes taken care of the night before also so that’s not another thing you have to worry about.
• Aim to be finished hair and makeup by the time your photographer arrives (unless they are taking shots of hair and makeup happening!) or at least 30min before you have to leave the house. This gives you time to get pictures, have a glass of juice, brush your teeth, go to the loo and make sure everything is done before you have to get out the door.
• Remember to eat! Breakfast will keep you energised and ready to tackle the day, it’s a big one. Have some snacks around also for people to nibble on and plenty of liquids in the fridge.
• Enjoy yourself! Try not to stress out too much and be calm and happy. Where possible, hand over your phone and delegate everything to a family member (Dad, Uncle or Brother are always good choices!) so that the girls can just relax and be pampered on the day and not worry about tiny little things that can interrupt what should be a fun day!
Gemma xxx
Again, FAIL at being a blog writer, I’ve been hammered with work the last couple of months, so I’ve not found the time to write, but it’s been so much fun!
I was lucky enough to work on a few more shows recently, one for GHD Hair and another for Leona Edmiston at the Hilton. I always love seeing the process behind the scenes as all the hair, makeup and styling takes place to create such a wonderful outcome. Also, the gorgeous frocks are nothing to complain about either! I am loving the new Leona Collection, which is very suited to a Queensland Summer and oh so pretty!
Another one of the highlights of the last month was working on a video clip for Aussie band Eskimo Joe at an awesome mansion in Hamilton which was previously owned by Christopher Skase! My good friend Emma-Louise who is an amazing makeup artist gave me a yell to be part of her team for the day of the shoot, where we turned ordinary women (well, ex-models so I guess not quite so ordinary) into Cougars to get up to all sorts of trouble with the band members Kav, Joel and Stu, with the mansion providing an amazing backdrop. It ended up being like ‘Dynasty on acid’ and I’ve never used so much bright lipstick (cue MAC Lipsticks in Impassioned, Lady Danger and Saint Germain) and shimmery eyeshadows (too much frost was just not enough!) in my life! All in all it was an awesome (albeit long) day and I cannot wait to see the final result when it hits us soon. For more info on the clip, and some behind the scenes shots, check out the fan reported story on Eskimo Joe’s facebook page HERE.
EDIT: updated with Official Video - I still laugh everytime I see this!
