Realm of Fantasy

A lot of people ask me, how on earth do I have the time to put on a full face of makeup every morning. Even if I have to leave the house pre 6:00am, my lipstick will be most firmly on. I would sooner think of leaving the house without my shoes, than my makeup. Is this caused by some deep set insecurity about venturing into the world without a mask on? Perhaps, but more importantly it is the relaxation that playing around with pots of colours which makeup gives me. A brief time at the beginning of the day to think of nothing of importance and put myself into fantasy. Perhaps this indicates a theatrical personality on my part – but makeup is all about fantasy to me – and while pondering this subject, I began to wonder whether the characters of the realm of fantasy would agree with me. What would these literary characters wear if given pick of our lipstick counters?
Lady Fuschia (Gormenghast) Poor Lady Fuschia, I always had a rather soft spot for this character of the Mervyn Peake novels – ignorned by almost everyone for being a mere girl and craving attention, I’m sure she would turn to a bright slash of colour and what could be more obvious than picking one in her own signature colour? MAC’s Girl about Town seems perfect for Fushia Groan – and would suit her wild black hair and her “full and rich” mouth. Marguerite For the lovely Marguerite, wife of the Scarlet Pimpernel I think we must venture to Chanel. I could think of nothing that would suit this dangerous woman more than the Rouge Allure in Passion, especially as the cool ‘one click opening mechanism’ would allow her to execute her subteruge with great weapon within her armoury (the biggest being, of course her acting skills and exceptional beauty). Alice in Wonderland Okay, so Alice was too young to wear lipstick during her adventures; but once she had grown up how could she possible have worn anything other than MAC’s High Tea. This pinked beige would suit her English rose complexion, and every time she looked at the label she would have fabulous memories of her trips through the looking glass. Lizzie Bennet This slightly impoverised Wessex lass needs a colour both on the *cough* cheaper side of the market, and also one that will suit her country environment and not disract from her ‘fine eyes’. Therefore I would put her In Barry M’s Peach (no.54) – a nice soft pinked up melon – applied lightly with plenty of balm to protect her lips on long walks on country roads, and ensure she’s ‘fit’ to meet Mr. Darcy – despite the full six inches of mud on her skirts :oP	Lady Fuschia with Steerpike
	Chanel’s Rouge Allure in Passion
	Alice with the Pig
	Barry M’s Peach
And there I must leave you all – I’ve had a request to do a post focusing more on a ‘makeup for dummies’ out look rather than commenting on products and their ingedients etc which I have been doing. Naturally this is going to be looooong and requires a lot of time. However, I’d love to hear your lipstick recommendations for your favourite heroines!

Lemon Squeezy

Lately, I have been noticing more and more ‘makeup for dummies’ products appearing on the market. Some of them are simply genius, and tap into problems that even people experienced with makeup seem to have – while others are, errr, lets just say – best left well alone. The Good Get-in-Line This set is what I have been waiting for my entire life (well, that part of my life that involved wearing makeup). The product involves a three colour palette (which, if you have as many eyeshadows as me is not entirely necessary) and a series of staggeringly marvelous stencils. The premise is so easy peasy I wish I had thought of it myself – each stencil corresponds to various parts of a look, all you need to do is follow the instructions, choose the right stencil, and stipple to eyeshadow through the shape onto your lid. There are little tick shapes for cat eye flicks, rounded edges for perfect eyeliner, and even lid shapes to create deeply dark smokey eyes. While we can argue that everyone’s eyes are different, and there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all stencil, I still think it is a great idea. For years now I have been using the edges of business cards, credit cards, rulers, cheque books etc etc to aid me with creating a clean ‘tick’ at the edge of each of my eyes – and even that is thwart with problems – these stencils would pretty much solve those problems…and leave my cheque book free of eyeliner – if $38 lighter. If you aren’t a make-up novice, and already have you favourite smokey eye colours, but not the lining skills to match, you can buy the stencils by themselves in the travel kit for a mere snip at $16 from bettesboutique.com – and yes, they do…do international deliveries! The Bad Now these are just plain scary – designed to make mascara clumps a thing of the past, these fiendish battery operated mascara wands vibrate at 150 times a second – but honestly, if you cannot be trusted to use a lash comb to tackle the problem, I think you should be force-ably barred from using this product for your own safety. Estee Lauder’s Turbolash All Effects Motion Mascara is expected to hit counters in the US on the 17th of July, and makeup addicts are set to hit the A&E on the 18th. I have serious doubts whether many people are going to manage to use this product more than once without poking their eye out :oS Lancome however is upping the vibration stakes with its Oscilation mascara – said to vibrate around 7,000 times a second! *gets the jitters* The Ugly Color On Eye Envy This company has certainly surpassed all expectations at creating not only an awful product, but also made it seriously hideous to boot (they cannot even make the model look good with a full professional team behind the shoot!) These little patches (thankfully, have not made it over to this side of the pond yet) retail for a staggering $25! The idea is that people so incapable of putting on eyeshadow, should master the art of applying these patches without slipping them, transferring the powder without smudging them, and then figure out how to blend them properly…a skill which indicates an ability to apply eyeshadow normally in the first place (!). I’ve shown the more avant garde Exotics set here and they seem the most purposeful, as…if one really wanted to create a leopard printed lid, skill and time would be required. However, for the other ‘plain’ sets – I recommend the following…step well away…go to MAC…get a makeup lesson from the loving artists…buy good brushes…enjoy!