fruitybeauty

Probably the best lash curler on the market.

So there's this makeup brand, right, called She Uemura, and it's created by an amazing Japanese makeup artist, and although he made lots of excellent things he was undoubtedly most famous for his eyelash curler which EVERY single makeup artist with the ability to apply foundation sans jawline line swears by because, oh, it's just so beautifully and delicately made and your lashes just respond so perfectly and curl so incredibly. 

Mr Uemura and his magical lash machine used to be available in 'Straya via Mecca cosmetica, but then one day it wasn't, and it still isn't and so most of us have carried on with our lives, secretly grieving our lashy curly loss but knowing deep down there's always overseas, and we can buy it there, right? Right?

Concealer Tricks You Should Do Tomorrow.

This is Michael Brown. He's a Makeup Hero for Lancome.

He looks very serious here, but he's really nice and funny, and wouldn't at all poke your eyes out with a shadow brush for blinking while he applied your liner, although you could be forgiven for thinking so looking at his serious and mildly frightful facial expression. (For the record, he didn't want me to use this shot. Yeah, I'm nice like that.)

So I asked him for his best concealer tricks. He said 'Wear a balaclava'. We laughed. I may have even slapped his back in a friendly fashion, the way friends do sometimes. Then i asked him again, with a fierce look in my eyes. Oh yeah, he got it.

Here is part one of Michael's Concealing Wizardry Course.

1.  Apply concealer after foundation. Apart from being more economical as you use less product, the concealer will blend easier into foundation leaving no edges.

In other words: Concealer as underpants; foundation as clothing.

2. To cover imperfections (blemishes/Dark shadows) on the skin you should use press and roll type motions as that will layer the product by building up a coverage. Sweeping motions will thin out the product.

Wow, nice shade of blue, Michael. Oh, that was me. Nevermind. Carry on.

3. Always use a concealer around the eye area rather than a foundation, as the concealer (preferably a lancome one as they are made for the eye) should have a more oil based texture for the eye, making it less cakey and looking smoother. Foundations being more a lightweight texture tend to be more flexible and can move into the curves of the eye! Concealer stays put!

I like his use of exclamation marks. He loves his job. He is a good little banana.


Okay. Go home and learn your new trickery now, fruits.
More concealer tips from Mikey Mike and The Makeup Bunch as they come to face.

Post fruit bowl: One Lancome concealer Michael and I both agree is Definitely Excellent: Effarcernes Longue Tenue Concealer. Superb for under the eye.

A Makeup Artist's Favourite Eye Make Up.

This is Maude Toohey. (Email me for her details.)

She is a Professional Apply-Makeup-to-Celebrities-and-Models, Person.(She's prettified Gwen Stefani, for example. Can't remember the others. I'll get back to you.)

I wanted to know what she, as a person who uses A LOT of makeup, thought were the best products in terms of the eye makeup we all use. All of us. ALL OF US.

THE BEST MASCARA
"For a cheap mascara, you can't go past Maybelline NY Great Lash, but my favourite is definitely Lancome L'extreme instant lash extensions. It is the best lengthening mascara."






THE BEST CONCEALER/ILLUMINATOR FOR UNDER THE EYES
"Definitely YSL Radiant touch, it's great for fine lines and shadows and feels very smooth under your eyes."

THE BEST BLACK EYELINER

"I love the M.A.C black kohl eye pencil in Phone Number, it's really soft and very easy to apply."

THE BEST BEST EYE SHADOW QUAD

"Benefit's Big Beautiful Eyes, great natural colours, comes with two small brushes and has easy to use instructions."

Judges Comments
I should've put money on Great Lash coming up. It always does. Without a doubt. It's like back in 1575, the International Makeup Artist's Association decided that Great Lash would be their code word to the others, to signal they were being held captive by the Spanish Inquisition. Or the Loch Ness Monster. Or something. Whatever. Go buy some mascara.

Frederic Fekkai Video: Backstage hair trickery

Heard of Frédéric Fekkai?

He's a celebrity hair messiah based in NY that kind of does Scarlett Johansson, Debra Messing, Heidi Klum, Charlize Theron, Ashley Judd, and Salma Hayek's hair, among others. Mm-hmm, big time hair guy, fo real.

Has his own range of hair stuff too, (buy it at www.meccacosmetica.com.au) which is Pretty Amazing. I love the glossing creme. It gives texture and definition but is ixnay on the stickyay.



Anyway, he's in Straya, which means I got to pick his brains, yeaah.

I filmed it, too.

Here he is talking about his Best Backstage Hair trick; one that he uses not only with Salma and Johansson, but on fashion shoots and catwalk. And gosh I'm glad I got this all on film - as you'll soon see, This Tip requires much gesticulation and visual aid.

Anyway - enough gibbering. You're about to see a tip that would cost you hundreds of US dollars to be told in person.

Smoke and mirrors with eyeliner.

Earlier this week, Adam Dargan, a High Up Dude from Pout cosmetics in the UK brought a very large makeup kit and a couple of hundred tips to a bunch of beauty editors housed in the same building as I am.

Here he is putting out the fire on my eyelids. (To make them smoky... get it? No? Grow up.)

As you can see, he wore a very cool outfit that if I were to be a guy (hint: I'm not) I would hope I would be fashion-able (deliberate hyphen) enough to understand that it is a cool outfit and I should wear it pretty much every day.

Now. The best tip I learnt from Adam, was a very simple one regarding applying black liner UNDER THE UPPER EYE LASH LINE.

As in, not along the lash line, on the eyelid, but actually under the lashes. Kind of like how you line your inner rim on your lower lash line. Only on top. So you pull your eyelid up, look down into the mirror, and line the black kohl (make sure it's a soft, gel formula - nothing that pulls or drags) along the under rim of your eyelid.

What it does: It emphasises your lashes, opens up your eyes (liner on top of the lid closes your eyes because it creates a frame, or outline) and makes your eyes look whiter and brighter and prettier without any smooshing or running of eyeliner up and over the eyelid.

What I also learnt: I am a little bit stupid, and possibly a total fraud. Because EVERY OTHER BEAUTY EDITOR IN THE ROOM ALREADY KNEW THIS TIP. SP has even published it several times in her magazine. Man.

Anyway. Here is a shot of Adam doing it to Foxy Emma. Sure she doesn't look too foxy in this shot, but BELOOYVE me, when he was done with her peepers, she smoked.

(Not literally. That would've been really frightening.)

Avoid the tips.

Sure, we all want lovely, natural looking eyelashes like this excited young man.






















But a lot of us just don't know how to do it right.

Especially when it comes to the lower lashes, which I believe should only be coated in mascara if you know what you're doing.

So, do you know what you're doing?

Yes?

Liar.

Here's the good word, thanks to a lovely makeup artist called Sam Powell, who taught me the secret trick to Applying Mascara to Lower Lashes.

Say Hi, Sam.

It's this: Only apply mascara to the roots of the lower lashes.

Just wiggle the wand in there for a second.

Avoid the tips like they are an invitation to nibble on a homeless man's toenails. You don't want mascara on the tips. 'Cause that's when you morph from a Sweet Girl Trying to Accentuate Her Eyes, to a Spooky Clown Woman That People Will Avoid at Parties.

Boar bristles mean wolf whistles.

This is Rob Talty. I just interviewed him.

He's fun. He's a celebrity hair dude from The States (nothing, nothing like that toss from Blow Out) and he's worked a lot with hardly famous people you've probably never heard of like Mischa Barton, Paris Hilton and Gwen Stefani. Whatever.

Who's hair do you love doing best, I say.

Nic.

Oh, she has extensions now.

No... she doesn't.

Um, she kind of does...

No, no, she doesn't.

Nicole Richie has extensions, dude!

Oh! Noooo, I meant Nic Pussycat Dolls Nic. She's the best.

I concur. She is the best. She has excellent hair. Her hair in Dontcha made me get my extensions.

Have you seen I Don't Need a Man? It's her best hair film-clip moment yet. Natural. Shiny. No tongs or irons, just a blow dry and brushes. And some Pantene Renewal Shine Tonic before you start. But the key, the key is using a boar bristle brush at the roots for volume, and a nylon bristle at the ends for the flicks. And lots of teasing.

You'll see what he means here:




* Even though Nicole says she doesn't need a man, I think it's clear she does. His name is Rob.

Lights. Chanel. Action.

Random Tip Lucky Dip Giver:
Cherie, Chanel.







Tip 1. Pat, don't rub concealer under your eyes, and only apply it where the skin is dark and needs evening out. (Doing it all the way out from the nose to the edge of your eye is a bit silly, because it’s not dark there, and the concealer will just settle into your fine lines, thus making you look way less hydrated and older than it says you are on your licence, or, y’know, however old you lie and say you are to people at dinner parties when someone inappropriate asks your age.)  That is, in the inner corner of the eye, both under and above the eyeball, and at the outer V, where the eye creases/crinkles which is also usually dark.


Tip 2. If you bodge your mascara mid-way through your application, don't get all cranky and frustratey because you were supposed to be out the door 3 minutes-ago from now, just wait til your mascara has completely dried, then take a cotton tip and lightly ‘scratch off the naughty mascara from your eyelid, under eye, elbow.

In other news...

This morning, I went to the delicious new Chanel training facility (kind of like being in a huge eyeshadow quad crossed with a Chanel catwalk and a space station) to learn about their Precision range. Which is excellent. I love their products. Especially the Hydramax serum. It makes my skin plumper than Jess Simpson's lips.

But what I mainly learned was that Chanel's NSW Promotions executive, whose name is Cherie Kiss, I kid you not (do you know how many burlesque dancers would kill for a name like that? That would be funny if the statistics of burlesque dancers committing homicide wasn't so high. Apparently one burlesque dancer killed her boyfriend because he borrowed her felt tip pen and innocently nibbled on the lid) is a stellar find for Genius Makeup Tips. She did my eyes magnificently. (I’d show you but I’m desperately shy.)


Also, see that mirror behind her?

Not your average bear.

Mirror, mirror, I meant mirror.

So.
Cool.


It's called the Chanel Mirroir Lumiére, and it has specific light settings for daylight, sunset, inside-nasty-fluoro lights, candlelight and so on.

Meaning your make-up artist can demonstrate how your foundation will appear in varying light conditions from daylight to evening.

And you don't look like a chump when you walk outside thinking you look Barely There and you really look like a burlesque dancer. Only with less nipple tassels and red lace and giant champagne glasses full of bubbles that you can use as a seat in the absence of any other chairs on stage, or simply hide your machete in.