Weird Obsession: Turquoise Eyeliner

Urban Decay's 24/7 Glide On eyeliner pencils are like, the Holy Grail of makeup, hands down.  They come in all the best colors, apply effortlessly, and stay put for hours.  The only downside the price.  I've particularly been obsessed with Flipside (seen at far left), the most incredible bright turquoise color in the world, but at $18, I couldn't really justify spending that much on a color I wasn't sure I'd actually wear.  It's one thing to love turquoise; it's quite another to love it on your eyes, right?   

I finally found a near dupe of Flipside from NYX with their Aqua Glitter eyeliner pencil.  I'm not usually a fan of pencil eyeliners.  Most of the time I have to press down uncomfortably hard and repeatedly on my eyelid to get the proper shade, but NYX's pencil eyeliner applied almost as smoothly and painlessly as Urban Decay's.  And it's so perfectly subtle!  Turquoise eyeshadow might be a little too '80s for me, but as eyeliner it's the most amazing hint of color.  I applied a thin line of black liquid liner to make the blue even less obvious, and the effect is better than I could have imagined!  I made several attempts to photograph it on, but the color is actually much brighter than what you see in the picture below.   

Turquoise is surprisingly wearable and almost universally flattering.  Chances are, this will look amazing on you!  Go try it out.  I know I want to try every shade of colored eyeliner ever now.

I'm also trying to experiment with photographing color swatches, but with each picture it only becomes more evident that I fail horribly at photography.  I can no longer place the blame on my camera, the true culprit is just my regrettable Lack of Skills.   Any tips for taking pictures of color swatches would be amazingly helpful and appreciated!

Best Kept Secret: TKB Trading

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A colored mica is the ingredient behind the colors of many, many eyeshadows.  Several companies have been notorious for ordering TKB Trading wholesale micas and repackaging them as a unique, finished eyeshadow.  Colored mica alone is not a finished product; fixatives are added to make the color last longer and apply more evenly, but will not alter the shade of the mica alone.  While most companies create truly unique colors by mixing micas and pigments, some mica shades are already fantastic colors and inevitably left unaltered.

I suspect such is the case with TKB's Dragonfly mica.  From what I can tell, it's more or less identical to a shade found in eyeshadow collections from two different high end cosmetic companies.  After swatching both shades at Sephora, the two are near duplicates of each other; both are a reddish brown with a reflective greenish-blue sheen.  Which is exactly how TKB describes their Dragonfly mica, and how it looks swatched here.  I don't mean to make any accusations that these higher-end companies repackage their eyeshadows (they obviously don't, as both shadows are pressed and the mica is loose powder).  Rather, my point is that I'm excited to find this unusual shade elsewhere and for a much cheaper price.

With the mind boggling array of colored micas TKB offers, plus finishing ingredients and other supplies, essentially anyone now has the ability to mix their own eyeshadows!  And it's all so CHEAP!  They've combined ingredients into a kit including enough product to make 30+ eyeshadows for only $22.  I love that TKB even includes gloves.  For separate mica colors, an entire ounce of pigment is around $4.  Four dollars!  They also offer supplies for mixing lipstick, soap, nail polish, bath salts, and so much more.  TKB even sells makeup brushes at wholesale prices!  I'm tempted to never buy another eyeshadow again without consulting this website first, and I can't wait to place my order.  The minimum order is $19.00, but that will get you an insane amount of product!  Everything comes in little bags, which is kind of a pain, but they sell jars, too.  Whatever you can think of, it seems TKB has got you covered!

Sucker Punch Movie Makeup: Interview With the Artist

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 Sad (?) but true fact: I often pick movies to go see based solely on the costumes and/or makeup.  Which is why the trailer for Zack Synder's new movie Sucker Punch with its awesome special effects, an even better soundtrack, and the best makeup I've seen in a film since Burlesque (which I think is totally worth watching just for the makeup) left me mesmerized.  And really, after watching it in theatres last week, those were the highlights of the movie, plus costumes.  Hot chicks in leather and glitter fishnet stockings and heavy eye makeup with mile-long eyelashes doing battle scenes to an amazing soundtrack more than made up for the lackluster dialogue and ending.

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The makeup, though, was by far my favorite aspect of the film.  Think lots of lip gloss, glitter eyeshadow, thick black eyeliner, and multiple pairs of false eyelashes.  Even the male leads were heavily made up with smeary eyeliner and base of some kind to create a seedy, swarthy effect.  Spending two hours in the makeup chair each day was not uncommon for each principal character.  Luckily there are tons of close ups, which provide many opportunities to see the makeup, well, up close!  This is the meaning of makeup artistry.  It's almost unreal.

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I wish you could see the above picture even more up close.  There's a tiny gap between her upper and lower eyeliner, with a little shimmer highlight in between the two lines at the outer corner of her eye.  It's how Marilyn Monroe did her eye makeup!

Rosalina da Silva previously worked with Snyder on Watchmen (yet another incredible film) and was also the head makeup artist on the set of Sucker Punch.  I came across this short but sweet interview with her on The Beauty of Life blog and felt it was definitely worth sharing!  I'm dying to ask her a few questions myself.


Each of the main characters has such a unique, different look. How did you come up with the concepts for each of the girls?
Every girl had a very different and individual personality in the story. Through weeks of prep we defined and created their character, that best suited the illusion created by Zack Snyder. Wardrobe was a big part of it as well -- then we changed hair color and lengths, the makeup just developed to bring the look together.

I love the look you created for Babydoll. What products did you use to get the look?
Babydoll was a lot of fun, inspired by Brigitte Bardot with a splash of Anime characters. A sweet, innocent look but at the same time very fearless. [I used] a 60's eyeliner, long full lashes, nude lips.

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There's so much black eye makeup in this movie! What were your go-to products for characters like Amber and Blondie?
My old favorite eyeliner, M.A.C Fluidline in Blacktrack -- tried and true. We airbrushed the foundations on -- we used various brands, Armani, Kevin Aucoin, Kett, Kryolan.  On long-running shows I often change the foundations, as the skin changes due to the long days on set.  Sometimes with lack of sleep and dehydration, you need to adjust to achieve the best and smoothest results.

What was the experience like on this movie, with all the special effects?
Most of the special effects were in post production, so there was a lot of green screen and staring into empty space. In general the experience of working on this movie was exhilarating ... and exhausting!

How was it working with a bunch of girls for this movie? Were they all really into makeup?
The girls loved makeup! Who doesn't? They were totally into experimenting, pushing the envelope to find their character through their makeup look. We really went to extremes on this movie due to Zack Snyder's incredible vision and the fantasy world that he created. There were no limits, never too much in the world of glamour, color, lashes, glitter and crystals.