fruitybeauty

And now over to Fruity for the Overt Product Adoration Segment.

Brought to you by:

ELES sheer mineral tint, a tinted moisturiser slash illuminator, which is giving my face the most delicious glow, and being mineral is of course non-irritating (which was IDEAL after being given a nasty, acne-esque rash from one of the 456 products I tried last week at some point: rash covered, no further skin irritation). I wear it alone on weekends, but through the week when I need to look all professional like, I combine this with...

ELES Liquid mineral foundation which is excellent because I love the finish and sunscreeness of mineral makeup, but have the accuracy and carefulness of a drunk wearing a blindfold on rollerskates when it comes to applying powder anything. So, with this, I get the benefits of mineral makeup, sans mess. It's sets as a powder, (although I wouldn't call it a matte finish, just nice and flawlessy) which is why I blend with the Sheer Tint, so that I get the dewy finish I've been loving since 1963. And! ELES is an all 'Strayan brand! Stone the flamin' galahs!

Estee Lauder Sumptuous mascara, which kindly gives me glamorously thick, overweight lashes every day, in just a few simple strokes. But they're still light, if that makes sense. No matter how much you put on: no clumpy. Lauder have delivered some cracking mascaras over the past few years, (special nods and knowing winks to Projectionist and Illusionist) and each of them have been marvelous in their own way (curling, separating, lengthening, dancing), but who am I kidding: I'm a volume whore. Always will be. I love volume like Meowbert loves Toobs.

Decleor Aromatic Essential Balm, also known as The Thing That Keeps My Skin Glowy despite heaters and air conditioners and performing massive aerials at Thredbo on the weekends. If you like La Mer, or Ella Bache Creme Intex (it's like I'm addressing myself here), you'll be so down with this, you'll probably need to dig a hole for how far down you are.

Aaaaand, cut.

To those asking about Primped, not long now, fruits. Not long at all. We're working our asses off (saves going to the gym/spending on cellulite creams) to get it PERFECT before we launch and elegantly and aggressively create an entirely new way to enjoy/drool over/learn about beauty.

Creme blush application tip mimics multinational sporting brand logo; blogger awaits legal action

So, I just learned a wonderfully simple and effective and easy-to-pass-off-as-your-own-tip application technique for creme blush from a wonderful M.A.C makeup artist, Lisa.

It's to apply in the shape of the Nike symbol.
If you have just returned from Saturn, (how amazing is the coffee there?!) this is the symbol she is referring to:

You start the symbol on the apple (fleshy part of your cheek) and then take it down, and then up and under the cheekbone, right back to the top of your ear. Repeat on the other side of face. Blend any edges with a clean foundation brush or clean, blush-free fingers.

This part: "under the cheekbone" is crucial, because if you apply your blush above your cheekbone, you drag your whole face down, and that ages you, and unless you are 13 or attempting entry into a licensed residence as when you are yet to blow out 18 candles jovially placed on an iced cake, you don't want to look any older than you actually are.

Simple.
Clever.
Looks Very Good.
Try it.

Ps Many kind thanks to all of the fun, gorgeous, excitey fruits who came and got a book signed at my Myer/M.A.C makeup parties yesterday and today. You guys made me feel very special. Especially since I had texta marks (yesterday) and chai latte spill (today) screaming at you from my dress and you were all kind enough to pretend not to notice.

M•A•C makeovers! Pens being used to sign books! Excellent fun had by all

Once upon a time (12 noon til 2pm) there was a day called Friday July 11, 2008. And on this day a young lass called Zoe Foster stood at the M•A•C counter at Sydney city Myer and watched as talented makeup artists gave fun women complimentary makeovers that matched the looks in a book she once wrote called Air Kisses.

The looks were created by M•A•C Senior Artist and hotstuff genius person, Nicola Burford, and were inspired by the characters in Air Kisses: One was called Illuminated, and was a lovely glowing, no-makeup look. One was called Hannah Red, which featured a deliciously dramatic red lip, and the third one was Thunderstorm Brewing, which was a sexy, foxy, minxy and other words meaning 'attractive' and involving the letter x, smoky eye.

And so these women came to this M•A•C Myer counter and they had their copies of  Air Kisses signed as they enjoyed one of these three magnificent looks being applied to their face and then they all went out that night, some to dinner, some bowling, some to origami making class and some to the kind of nightclubs that charge $17 for a vodka, lime and soda and give you attitude when you ask for a glass of water please, and they all looked incredibly beautiful with their professionally applied makeup and took lots of delightful photos that ended up on Facebook but they didn't un-tag any of them because they looked so hot.

And then, the very next day, July 12, at the very same time of day, Zoe Foster did the EXACT same thing at the  M•A•C Myer counter at Parramatta because she enjoyed it so much the first time. THEN she did it again, but this time in Melbourne city Myer, on Friday July 25.

The end.

For more details and less fairytale, open this file: Download book_signing_media_alert.doc

For a really cool thing to do on Friday or Saturday during your lunch break, go back to the top of this post and read it again.

Posietint is now instore! (6^&%6refjn +#ds25kn iu8 dsjd%4v 45@kls9*!!!!

Quick fruits!
BeneFit Posietint ($53 ish) is now in store  and on sale but probably not for very long!
That means I get to use some of these: !

A recap on all of its excellence and why I love it so much I am posting TWICE about it. I'm not sure the last time I did this, but it's pretty rare. But then, so too are New Products of this calibre.

1. Liquid, creme or gel blushes and tints are, I think,  infinitely more fresh and youthful looking than powder. (Refer to the liquid on liquid, powder on powder rule here please. Which I may have never actually told you before, so your reference would be... here: If you use powder foundation, follow through with a powder blush. Liquid similarly, demands liquid. Why: If you try to put a creme/gel/liquid blush on powder, it will grab, and not blend, and you will get cranky, and probably break or throw something or someone. And if you put powder blush on your radiant, dewy liquid foundation, it too will grab and not spread and a frighteningly similar brand of rage could ensue.

2. It's a gooey, viscous cheek gel/tint. Silky but thick. Much more user-friendly than Benetint, which is thin and watery and kind of stains the nanosecond it hits your skin. I was never that good at Benetint, even though it's, I think, one of Benefit's ongoing best-sellers. Posie gives you a few second window to blend. Nice P0sie. Good Posie.

3. It comes with a nail polish type applicator. Ignore this: spread onto cheeks with fingers instead. Actually don't ignore it altogether, use it to apply the product to your index finger, which you will then place onto the fleshy part of your cheeks, and blend up and back, and pretty much all over the cheek. It will look Way Too Pink for a second, but will fade real fast, and you may, at this point, even re-apply. I do. It's fun and I love really, really pink cheeks in winter. Adorable! Fresh! Girly!

4. It's lurid, flamingo pink. Ignore this too: It's sheer, universally flattering and is the perfect flush of pretty pinkness that is not too 8-year-old at all, and very appropriate if you are aged anywhere between, say, 0 and 115. 116 is pushing it. Plus, it seems to have a built-in glow mechanism. Not sure how. Just does.

5. It lasts. All day. No reapplying needed. No shit.

6. It's also a lip stain. Score.

7. This beauty blogger has done a really very thorough appraisal, complete with images. I'll let her take it from here.

 

Shops with Benefits.

Fun fact: Benefit opened their first Australian shop in oxford street Paddington last week. They were launching not only the store, but Posietint, which is the flirty little sister to their famous cheek and lip tint, Benetint. Posietint is a petal pink, sheer translucent gel that you blend into the apples of your cheeks for perhaps the cutest and most believable blush effect since a walk in the winter wind. And it stays put! Brilliant stuff. It sold out in Sephora REAL quick and is kind of the cosmetic version of Gossip Girl in terms of coolness right now. I love Posietint. Say hi, baby.

"Hi."

Fun lie: I sometimes speak to Katie Holmes on Skype.

Fun fact: They have a brow bar in this Benefit store, or rather a row of adorable little brow stations, and even though I am very very very very very very very very very fussy about my brows, I gave it a go and was very happy with the outcome.

Fun lie: All food consumed on road trips is fat, sugar and calorie void.

Fun fact:  When you are midway through getting your brows tinted, you look really, really fug.

 

The post that never ends.

Get this. Almay  just sent me over the entire collection of their insanely appropriate Intense i-colors because they felt it would be criminal for me not to see that everything I was saying, they had already cottoned onto a long time back, and then had gone so far as to create entire 'eye colour complementing' makeup ranges too. Each has a mascara, a shadow palette and a liquid liner.  And as they're Almay, they're hypoallergenic. (Contact kids? You're good to go.)

See? Here they are. And here too. And they start at $16.95 and end at $18.95.   

I've laid them out for you guys in the respective eye colours (I failed to mention hazel before. Sorry my hazely fruits. I mean no discrimination) so that you can see that I was pretty much almost not lying in my previous post. I think I may have mentioned this very clever range before, but it was SILLY of me not to mention it in such a fitting post. I mean really. (One of you guys did though, well done.)

Probably the best part of the range? That the colours are all very wearable. No scary, I-can't-possibly-wear-that-I"ll-look-like-a-tramp, shades, just lovely earthy, gentle tones for all ages and all fruits.

Oh! Look! Meowbert has arranged himself in a completely non-posed fashion that is both humorous and human-like!

Meowbert wasn't sure if Spencer was telling the truth about that late night phone call. He sure hoped Heidi knew what she was doing...

As Paula Abdul and an animated cat once said: Opposites attract.

It would be remiss of me, after seeing the comments below, not to let you in on the best/most flattering/utterly subjective eye shadow to iris combinations.

I've heard mild variations from make up artists over the years, but generally, it goes a little something like this:

The Eye Shadow Tones That Will Make Your Eye Colour Scream With Beauty and Allure and the Deepest Most Lovely Possible Shade of Your Iris:

Blue eyes: Browns, coppers, golds.
Green eyes: Plums, purples, lilacs, lavenders.
Brown eyes: Deep cobalt blue, baby blue, aqua, emerald green.

But don't think it needs to be a full eyelid of shadow. Oh gosh no. Even a swipe of coloured liner or mascara does the trick. Subtlety is always on the menu, fruits.

See Visual Aid for green eyes popping with purple shadow.

And now for something completely different.

I have a new job! I am now the Editor in Chief of a definitely excellent beauty portal called Primped. (Primped.com.au). We launch in July. And suffice to say, if you love beauty, you will love it more than that moment when you FINALLY get to take off your high heels after standing/dancing/walking to McDonalds and then waiting for a taxi for 45 minutes.

Yes, leaving magazines/paper for online/computers was a big decision, but I figured someone had to begin implementing Lycra unitards and flying cars or we'll never get there.

Insect legs in your sink.

If I find myself talking about A Product at a dinner party, then I know it's good fodder for my fruits. And so, last week, as I was joyously slurping on some soup (Thai-style pumpkin featuring more Chili than TLC) I found myself discussing the merits of finding insect legs in your sink.

Explanation: Clinique's new-ish Lash Power mascara.

It was made for humid climates, you know, those places where your mascara runs all by itself, with no assistant from tears, sweat or flecks of rogue paper bark in your eye. Hot. Muggier than south central LA. Stickier than.... sticky tape.

Makeup? Me? Please: Obviously I A) just woke up and B) sat by my open fire for a moment.

This is LisaNova. Big deal on SpewTube and with good reason: she's a funny, funny girl. Destined for SNL.
But then! Today I see her latest clip (in the top ten most viewed, as usual) and gone is the ponytail! Gone is the t-shirt! It's just her looking all seductive and rumpled. (Interestingly her usual fans responded with fear, shock and rage at the sexy new Lisa. I must admit the glimpses of cleavage and bare shoulder teamed with the limp attempts to pull up her cardigan seemed sliiiightly contrived. But she's funny and has good hair, so who cares.)

This is the kind of intensely styled, I Just Woke Up But Definitely Don't Have Bad Breath or Sleep in My Eyes, look makeup artists, hair stylists and fashion designers flog happily each season, both in their shows and campaigns. (Cue Country Road's latest campaign.) I am a big fan. Especially in Winter.

Incidentally this is not a funny video. The whole point is that she's creating a new channel because she's now trying vlogging, as well as her regular skits. BUT. That's not the point, you don't even need to put the sound up or listen to a word she says: just focus on the makeup and hair, fruits.

Key points of interest if you would like to try this look. (If you are a Calvin Klein model, probably you don't need to read this as this is your natural state.)

Messy, texturised hair. Achieve this by using root lifter and a LOT of spray in texturiser/sea salt spray on damp hair, then blow drying with a big round brush, pulling the hair up and out for lift, and then down and forward to get the face-framing thing happening. Go a centre part, of course. Get it 90% dry then go to bed. Wake up, ghd the front bits and any cowlicks into place (again, pulling down and forward so it frames the face) and scrunch and texturise the mid-lengths to the ends with more product. I like L'Oreal Professional's new Play Ball texturiser.

High, flushy blushy cheeks. Please note where her blush is sitting. On the apples. And high. It looks as though she's been sitting in front of a lovely warm fire. (And possibly on a bear skin rug. With a dashing young man. But let's leave that there for now.) Creme blush is best for this look. Bloom, Becca or Bobbi: the choice is yours.

No mascara, or very little. Makes you look younger and fresher. (Seriously.) Curl lashes, though so your eyes are opened up.

Nudey/pinky lip gloss. I'm enjoying VIP Gloss by Benefit for this at present.

Falling down cardigan, flirtatious voice and come hither eyes optional extras.

I was doing my blush wrong. Maybe you are too.

I met with a Definitely Excellent makeup artist and lovely woman in general last week, Fiona who has just released her line of makeup brushes called Smudge (call 1300 720 413). They are very good, very simple to use and when she explained how to use them all, I felt like I actually didn't know very much about applying makeup at all. But that happens a lot with me: every time I meet a clever new expert with new techniques to the last one, I feel dumb, but then waaaaay smarter after. I'm used to it now.

Anyway. Fiona didn't approve of my blush. I was trying to be sophisticated, and sweep it back and up towards my hairline, under my cheekbone, so as to push said cheekbone out. That's what I'd been taught to do most recently, and thus it was what I did every day.