Illamasqua Powdered Metal - Ether

Hi Everyone,

 

Illamasqua's Powdered Metal in Ether was the second item from the new Art Of Darkness collection that Alex kindly sent to me. The powder is a pale gold shade and extremely finely milled, it applies to the skin like butter. It's quite versatile and easily built up, a quick sweep across the skin adds a subtle glow, whereas when built up you can achieve a full-on metallic sheen (I like that it's not glittery, it's really unique that it provides a metallic effect). As the gold is so pale it seems a little cool toned to me, which doesn't look as stark against my pale complexion. This would look beautiful on darker skin tones too. I've actually worn this as an eyeshadow a few times also, it looks great on the lid paired with just winged liner. I have yet to try mixing a little with my foundation for a glowing effect but I will definitely be giving it a go! I love anything that brightens the skin.

The container is quite large, holding 15g of product and has a sifter which I like with finely milled powders as they tend to get everywhere. The powder also comes with an Illamasqua powder puff which I thought was a nice touch. I however have been using both the Illamasqua Body Kabuki or a small blush brush for application. As you get so much product it's ideal for application on larger areas of the body too.

(Indoors with flash, natural lighting)

The packaging again comes with the decorative slip cover unique to this collection, however this time it was blue as opposed to the red that came with the nail polish in Viridian.

-LadyDanger

xxx

Halloween Makeup: Elphaba (from the musical Wicked)

Let all Oz be agreed, I'm WICKED through and through!

Hi Everyone,

I was going to wait until the beginning of October to start posting Halloween looks but I could wait no longer! I thought I'd start out with Elphaba as I've been listening to the Wicked soundtrack all day (what can I say, I have a serious love of all things Idina Menzel). I think this has to be my favourite look I've ever done!

I thought I'd go for the makeup that's seen more in the second act where she has more of a heavy contoured look. Watching lots of backstage broadway videos on youtube helped a lot! One thing I did change was the lip, it's a green lip on stage however I added a twist with the red lip which is seen on all of the promotional images for the show;

(only image taken with flash - the green makes my eyes look really light!)

How I greenified myself:

For the green skin I mixed Barry M Dazzle Dust in Emerald with 6 pumps of foundation (as I knew I would be covering my neck, chest and tops of shoulders and arms). Though the pigment was sparkly when mixed with the foundation it became matte, a little iridescence was apparent on the skin.

I then set the foundation using mixed matte green shadows from my ebay 120 palette to alter the colour a little (it ran a little blue toned, I wanted more of a warmer deeper green). To add dimension I heavily contoured my cheekbones, nose, jawline and collar bones with black shadow.

For highlighted areas of the face (cheekbones, nose, forhead and chin I applied a bright chartreuse green shadow (120 palette). After all this was done I powdered my face using Milani translucent powder to remove any shimmer.

Products Used for rest of look:

Eyes:

Milani Domino Quad - slightly frosted white shadow for browbone, lid and inner corner.

Ebay 120 palette - matte black for crease and under eye, also used applied wet for brows.

MAC Penultimate Liner - Rapidblack - for winged liner

Benefit Eye Bright - Waterline

Lips:

Barry M Liner in Red

No7 Lipstick in Cherry

MAC Lady Danger lipstick

Black shadow applied with angled brush and blended around edges of mouth.

And that's it! I highly suggest everyone turns themselves green at least one time in their life, it's so strange looking at yourself! ;)

-LadyDanger

xxx

NOTD: Illamasqua - Viridian

Hi Everyone, 

It's been a while since my last nail polish post, mainly due to snapping a few of my nails which led to cutting them all of and painstakingly waiting for them to grow back- which they have now :)

A while ago I was invited to the Illamasqua Art Of Darkness event, but sadly couldn't make it which I was very disappointed about! Alex from Illamasqua offered to send me some information post event, but much to my surprise a few days after the event an unexpected package arrived on my doorstep! 

One of the products kindly sent to me by Illamasqua was one of the new nail polishes, Viridian. It's a beautiful multidimensional emerald green. It looks different depending on how the light hits it, a brighter emerald shimmer is illuminated within the deep forest green base. I'm not usually one for green toned polishes however I found the shade worked quite well with my skin tone - so I think Illamasqua may have converted me into a green lover. The photos of these run a bit darker and more blue based than it looks in daylight, it's definitely more of a true emerald colour.

The polish took 2 coats for me, I don't think I'd reccomend 1 coat for this polish as the layering of the colour really gives a more dazzling effect. It does dry a little matte compared to how it looked wet so I applied a glossy top coat to bring out the reflective effects of the polish.

I love the green beetle (I'm wanting to say it's a scarab beetle) featured on all of the packaging, the 2 items I recieved featured a decorative slip cover unique to the collection over the traditional black Illamasqua packaging - I'm really liking the attention to detail Illamasqua have put into the whole collection.

I did pull off the larger square cap when applying, as it reveals the smaller cap underneath which is much easier to hold. The brush for the polish is quite thin in comparison to most polishes in my collection, but I found it very easy to control. As I've only just applied it today I can't say how well it wears, I'll update through the week!

*Update* The nail polish lasted 4 days without chipping, I didn't use a base coat (naughty!) and the topcoat was my usual Barry M 3 in 1 nail paint. It definitely lasted a lot longer than I can normally get away with! I had a little tip wear today on the 5th day and 1 small chip on my index finger, very impressed!

-LadyDanger

xxx