Contest entry

Ack. So I'm clearly not getting any sleep until my class in an hour. So I might as well post this instead of putting it off until forever. I was also planning on another entry before scaring y'all with my mug, but hey, disorder's always in a hurry, right?

Anastasia's hosting a contest over on her blog, to create up to 5 unique looks. There's still a little under a week left, so enter!

I was inspired by the Greek legend of Ouranos and Gaia, the really effed up Sky and the Earth.

Ouranos



Ouranos is the son and lover of Gaia. He is often depicted as a bronze dome, studded with the stars (silver and gold in my mind). Ouranos, or Uranus as the Romans later knew him, was also sometimes seen as Aion, the timeless one, father of Time, which in my mind, further pounds home the imagery of metals.



I tried to portray this by putting gold on the lid, smoking bronze a little past the crease, and lining with silver. The highlight under the brow is also a teeny bit of silver. For the blush I think I used tarte cheek stain in Fierce, an elegant red. The lips are, I think, a bronze lip gloss mixed with something with silver in it.

Gaia



Gaia is the mother of all the gods, and quite the temptress! Ouranos was only one of her lovers. She helped her sons/grandsons overthrow their father when Ouranos tried to lock them away, and helped her descendants when history repeated itself a generation later.



Gaia is independent and unpredicable, and I tried to recreate that by adding a pop of lime green to the inner half of a basic brown smokey eye (am not good at blending. Apologies). The cheeks are tarte cheek stain in Chic, a fun peach. The lips were originally nude, but i dabbed Chic on top, because the look was too dead for one as alive as Gaia! The end look was perhaps a bit younger than what I was aiming for, but hey, a lady never shows her true age. ;P [ Keep reading ]

Tagged by the gorgeous Glow Chaser a million years ago! Sorry for my lazy bum-ness!

Here are the Rules:
1. Link to the person who tagged you
2. Post the rules on your blog
3. Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself
4. Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs
5. Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website. (I think everyone on the 'net has done it by now! D:)


1. I am studying to be a professional procrastinator, about to graduate cum laude...when I stop putting it off. Seriously though, the more important something is to me, the longer I will put it off until I have something else to put off do it. (Hence my extremely timely post)

2. I'm a giant glutton! When I was little, I used to compete with my dad at all-you-can-eat buffets to see who can polish off the most plates. I'd always lose, of course, but you should have seen the waiters' faces when they came around to pick up my sixth or seventh plate!

3. I bite my nails when I'm stressed out and pick at them when I'm bored. I know, right?

4. I am scared silly of mold, but am an expert at growing it. Give me a piece of fruit, and I'll hand you back a pound of penicillin three days later (in a hazmat suit!). My roommate is a saint--she goes through the fridge every few weeks and chucks out the random bits of fuzzy stuff I forgot in the back of the crisper and stuff.

5. If it's got two legs, four legs, many legs, no legs...I've probably eaten it before. I'm all about variety. :P

6. I have the opposite of a photographic memory when it comes to people. I have to meet you two or three times to remember your name or face, and probably four more times after that to connect the two. Meaning that if I'm not greeting you by name three weeks after we've met, it's probably because I don't know it, but am too embarassed after knowing you this long to ask again what your name is. Sorry! [ Keep reading ]

Colored Thursday

I'm too pooped to write anything interesting tonight, but I'd like to direct you lovely ladies over to Alienman's newest blog post, a great piece on how just standing in someone else's shoes can turn a situation a complete 180. Too often, we let our preconceived notions color a situation, and I was definitely humbled in learning how fast I jump to conclusions.

The post was definitely a huge reminder that life is never black and white. Nor should it ever be--why settle for two boring extremes when you can have every color of the rainbow? Even those hovering above sprinklers.
[ Keep reading ]

Waiting for the phone to ring

Grawr. I think I may have blown a major, major chance today. Or at least a waste of heels. (Not being written into a funny story, because I can't find teh funniez in it. Oh, and WARNING: RANT)

I attended a career fair today, and both L'Oreal and Estee Lauder were coming to recruit. Let me repeat: L'Oreal and Estee Lauder were coming to my school to recruit. Oh my beauty-loving goodness, right? Right. So I get ready a la Fuzkittie (if this is your first time browsing her site, I do recommend clicking through the archives! She has tons of reviews and classy tutorials, and her site's a treat to read), and get my butt to the fair.

I got completely rejected at the Estee Lauder booth. I barely get past introduction, when the recruiter asks for my resume and that "we'll let you know when interview slots are tomorrow". Well, ouch. But I held firm and ran her through my resume, pointing out my strengths on my resume, to make sure she at least glanced at the darn thing before chucking it in the pile. She barely looked at it, and repeated firmly, "we'll let you know by phone when the interview slots are tomorrow".

Needless to say, I was a little hurt, especially since I really wanted to work at Estee Lauder. I made my way to the L'Oreal booth. The recruiter and I had a great talk, and she answered all of my questions and more. However, halfway through the talk, she asked me why I was interested in L'Oreal.
"Well," I said, "besides L'Oreal's aspiration to beauty, there's also its commitment to diversity and sustainability. And besides, with great brands ranging from Aveda and Ojon, to major department store brands like Clinique, Prescriptives and MAC."

Guess where I went wrong. Right. I still had Estee Lauder on the mind. Every single one of those brands was an Estee Lauder brand.

Well, major props to the recruiter, because she kept her smile, and concluded the rest of the talk without a hitch. I didn't even realize my mistake until three or four recruiters later, waaaay too late to try to correct my mistake. Way to get flustered, self.

Anyway, for those of you who were wondering, here are three major beauty companies, with the brands they are made of, just so my research doesn't go to waste.

L'Oreal

Consumer
L'Oréal Paris
Garnier
Maybelline New York
Softsheen.Carson
CCB Paris

Professional
L'Oréal Professional
Kérastase
Redkin
Matrix
Mizani

Luxury
Lancôme
Biotherm
Helena Rubenstein
Kiehl's
Shu Uemura
Giorgio Armani
Ralph Lauren
Cacharel
Viktor & Rolf
Diesel
YvesSaintLaurent

Active
Vichy
La Roche Posay
innéov
Skinceuticals
Sanoflore

The Body Shop (acquired in 2007)

Estee Lauder

Core
Estée Lauder
Clinique
Aramis
Lab Series
Prescriptives
Origins

Acquired
M·A·C
Bobbi Brown
La Mer
Jo Malone
Aveda
Bumble and bumble
Darphin
Ojon

Fragrances
Kiton
Tommy Hilfiger
Donna Karan
Michael Kors
Sean John
Missoni
Tom Ford
Mustang

Other
American Beauty
Flirt!
good skin
grassroots
Daisy Fuentes,
Coach (fragrance)
Eyes by Design

Proctor & Gamble

Cosmetics
CoverGirl
Max Factor
SK-II

Fragrances
Anna Sui
Hugo Boss BALDESSARIN
BOSS
BOSS SKIN
Christina Aguilera
ESCADA
Giorgio Beverly Hills
HUGO
LACOSTE
MEXX
PUMA

Hair Color and Care
Aussie
Head and Shoulder
Clairol
Herbal Essense
Infusium 23
Pantene
Natural Instincts
Nice'n Easy
Vidal Sassoon

Skin Care
Braun
Gillette
Noxzema
Olay

.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:.

Which brands are your favorite? And what should I have done differently?

[ Keep reading ]

Monday Morsels: Alphonse Mucha

Oops! Completely forgot to post this entry this morning, but luckily it's still Monday.

You know how Mondays are. I've created this section mostly to perk myself up for the start of the week and to keep you all from suffering from the "same old, same olds". For the first of this series, I'd like to introduce Alphonse Mucha, one of my heroes.

Alphonse Mucha, if you are not familiar with him, is the father of the Art Nouveau movement. He was born on July 24, 1860 in what is the Czech Republic today. He was talented in the arts since a young age--he sang as a boy, designed costumes, jewelry, stained glass and interiors, as well as painted and sculpted gorgeous pieces of art. However, he is most famous for his advertising posters.

Many of Mucha's works survive to today, and they are truly stunning, from his collaborations with Sarah Bernhardt, with whom he worked with for over a decade, to his fanciful nymphs framed with wisps of nature. However, even while his commercial artwork was a huge success, Mucha continuously pushed to improve himself and expand his artistic reach. "He insisted he followed his own sense of the important spiritual purposes of art, deriving his main inspiration from Czech traditions, rather than subscribing to the doctrines of any particular school". (source)

What really caused me to fall in love with Alphonse Mucha, aside from his gorgeous, delicate artwork, is a series of sketches and paintings he drew of his daughter, Jaroslava. You can really see a father's love conveyed with an artist's hand to paper and canvas.

In addition to being an awesome artist, Mucha was also a strong Slavic nationalist at a time when his homeland was under Austria-Hungarian rule, and a strong supporter of Czech culture and art at a time when his own countrymen denounced him as a "sell-out". His coup de grace, Slav Epic, which he created with no commission, is a beautiful reflection of his steadfast pride.

Sadly, it was his pride that brought Mucha to his death. When the Germans stormed Prague, Mucha was arrested as a reactionary. The aging artist contracted pneumonia from the incident, from which he never recovered. He was given a hero's funeral, finally acknowledged as a "great Czech" by his country.

References:
Wikipedia, "Alfons Mucha"
An Introduction to the Work of Alphonse Mucha and Art Nouveau

To see more of Alphonse Mucha's works, you can find browse through galleries here and here.
[ Keep reading ]

Eureka!

Maybe this makeup thing is getting out of hand.

Last night, I was flipping through my notes for class, probably less than totally focused, when a lecture slide suddenly jumped out at me, like my brother half past midnight.

No, I didn't scream and kick it in the shin. However, I did probably yelp and flail around for a bit, before settling down...and running for my makeup.

What was this miraculous slide?



Additives for Adhesives
-Primers: to improve bonding of the adhesive. Coatings applied to the adherent surface.
-Solvents: to modify the viscosity of the adhesive.
-Tackifiers: to improve the stickiness or capacity to form a bond between adhesive and adherent once they are in contact.
-Fillers: solid inclusions to reduce cost and improve cohesive strength.


...what?

Now, for those of you who didn't hit that little red "x" up there in the corner in disgust, thank you for indulging in my little moment of insanity. See, the little lightbulb that popped above my head probably a giant neon billboard, spelling out in all its gawdy glory, SIXTEEN HOURS OF MAKEUP, BABY!

Let me explain: We're going over a chapter on adhesives at the moment for one of my classes, and Starry is currently in an ongoing battle with floating foundation (you know, where you come home to foundation and concealer swimming in oil away from places they should be). Now, I'm not willing to part with my current foundation, since it really is the best I've come across, so what can I do? Add additives, of course.

Primer:
My skin hates silicones, so I can't use half of the primers out there, including most of everyone's Holy Grails. Boo. So what did I use instead? Kanebo Media Make Up Base. I have no idea what's in it, save that it contains deap-sea collagen and has SPF 22. It's fairly cheap, it goes on smoothly, and it clings like Saran Wrap. (Dang it, I should've bought 20 more bottles of it when I was in Asia!)

Solvent:
I mixed my foundation with my lotion, to make it easier to spread, as a solvent does.

Tackifier:
Since the foundation isn't holding on hard enough, I spritzed homemade mixing medium(1 part glycerin to 3 parts water) on the powder, then pressed it in, to help hold it in place.

Fillers:
I thought the point of foundation is to not cake it on, so no fillers for me! However, I took the liberty to dust everything with finishing dust, to set everything and to keep my oilies under check.


And the verdict?

Love it! I came home from five hours of work, and nothing moved! Usually by this time, my foundation has sifted a tiny bit and and my forehead has started getting "dewy". Today, I didn't even need to blot!

Real test will be tomorrow, when I'm clocking over 15 hours in makeup, with at least 2 or 3 sweating in dish room.
[ Keep reading ]

Sore Eyes

Hey all, I'm heading off to the library to finish everything I didn't do during the school week. But really, who doesn't have sore eyes after that many hours of hitting the books and computer? I found a really helpful eye massage tutorial, and not only does it feel great, it's also terrific for those days you're feeling puffy. Enjoy!

Eyeshadow Masterclass:How To Care For Your Eyes [ Keep reading ]