Essence of Smooth - EOS lip balm

Whilst I was out in America I also picked up a bunch of these fantastic EOS lip balms! They look like some sort of Kinder Surprise toy but instead of mediocre toys (Kinder Surprise toys ain't what they used to be) they're filled with delicious tasting, brilliantly moisturising lip balm and they come in assortment of fun colours and flavours. Yay! I also think they'd be a really cool idea for a girls easter egg hunt (mental note for next year).


They have recently been brought over for sale in the UK and you can buy them online or at Selfridges, although they're unsurprisingly much pricier over here. Mine cost about $3 or $4 in America where as they go for about £5 or £6 over here. Now you can see why I bought so many in the US! That being said, I would still definitely recommend them, even at £6, they really do keep your lips soft, they last for ages and there's also something weirdly satisfying about the egg shape!

California Wedding!

Hello! Unfortunately I've been pretty negligent towards my blog in the last month or so, I think it's down to the fact that I was in California for 3 weeks and have been really busy with work since I got back. I dunno, excuses, excuses. I kept meaning to post something and then completely forgetting bla bla bla...

Nick and Flora
The happy couple

Anyway, as I said, I was in California in March and April, I spent 2 weeks in LA and 1 week in San Francisco.
I'd never been to San Fran before, although I had always wanted to check it out and conveniently one of my old school friend's, Flora, decided to celebrate her wedding there!
Flora and Nick(the groom) met at university in Cali, hence the location, so a bunch of us flew out for the occasion. What better excuse to visit a city than to celebrate a wedding!

Finished look - beautiful bride

She got married in Shakespeare Gardens in Golden Gate Park and then had the reception at the Foreign Cinema. Nick wore a bow tie which he tied himself - one of the most impressive things I have ever seen and Flora had the most beautiful bouquet, the colours were gorgeous and complimented the Spring wedding perfectly.
It was such a beautiful day from start to finish and so lovely to have experienced it with great friends in such a cool city.

Me looking weirdly moody,  prepping Flora's hair

I offered to do the hair and makeup for the day which was really fun but also kind of scary doing makeup for friends on such a big day! Luckily everything went swimmingly and Flora looked so stunning. The makeup was fresh and classic and she went for an up-do with a bun and a few soft waves, we put tiny white flowers throughout the bun at the end that were the same as some of the flowers in the bouquet which tied everything together for the finished look.

Curly Sue!

I can't believe I am old enough to have married friends now but I'm definitely not complaining. Weddings are so much fun and who doesn't enjoy love, food, drinking, dancing and listening to a few heartfelt vows and speeches? I think I just listed my top 5 favourite things...

Mineral Makeup Magic

Okay sooooo I absolutely love mineral foundations and I feel like a lot of people like the idea but don't know much about them so I thought I'd try and share my love and break it down a bit through this post.
First of all, let me explain the difference between normal makeup and mineral makeup - it's actually a lot more simple than you'd think.

Great stuff this.

Basically all makeup contains minerals, but what makes mineral makeup so unique, is that it contains less additives (It's kind of like organic food in a way in that they're essentially the same thing but one comes with a load of chemicals and other additives and the other comes with less or none). In makeup these additives can include oils, waxes, dyes, preservatives and perfumes, that whilst looking and smelling great, could actually worsen our skin in the long run by blocking our pores and irritating and damaging our skin. If you want to know more about the chemistry behind it I found this article really interesting and informative: The Lowdown on Mineral Makeup

Whilst it's great to know about all these benefits, the biggest selling point for me is that it gives a great, flawless, complexion without looking too heavy and it really works with my skin. I have annoying combination skin, my t-zone can be both oily and flaky at the same time and I hate the pores on my nose, but this seems to fix all of these problems in one.

My Favourite - I adore this product!

My Personal Favourite - L'oreal True Match Minerals. I was first recommended this diamond in the rough by my old house mate (also a makeup artist) and I've since passed the secret on to a select few close friends who have all been equally hooked.
Two years on and I've now gone through numerous pots of the stuff and use it pretty much every day. People are always complimenting me on my skin and I put it entirely down to this little pot of magic. On the few occasions that I've accidentally left it at a friend's house, I have felt so lost without it that I actually now keep a backup powder at home in case of emergency.

Highly recommended

Highly Recommended - The oldest and probably most famous mineral foundation is Bare Minerals who definitely deserve a mention too. They have been around since the '70s and are a mineral makeup holy grail to many. I have a lot of friends who swear by this brand and they have an extensive range of colours, which L'oreal is slightly lacking, so they cater for everybody.




My Routine - Before applying the powder I apply a small amount of light moisturiser to my t zone, preferably a while before to allow it time to absorb, I then conceal around my eyes and any blemishes with a cream concealer. After concealing, I brush the mineral powder all over my face in a thin layer, focusing on any areas of redness repeating until the skin is even and flawless. I find it very build-able, although it is important to go in with very light layers, if you over do it it can look cakey. I then finish off with a powder blush and a fine powder highlighter and that's my skin done!
Straight after applying it can feel like the powder looks slightly heavy, after about 15-20 minutes it starts to work with the oil in your skin and this powdery look completely disappears leaving you with a perfect even complexion. Absolute heaven!

Xx

40's Wavy Hair Tutorial

The 40's wave is a timeless hairstyle and once you know how to do it, you can use the technique in many other hairstyles, from retro to modern.

40's Hair - Before and After

It is best to start this hairstyle on clean, dry hair. My hair was washed yesterday but I have done this style before immediately after drying my hair and it has stayed in until my next wash (2 or 3 days).

You will need -

• 1 pair of curling tongs - I used babyliss 25mm but you can vary this depending on your hair type and how tight or loose you want the wave.
• 1 crocodile clip or hair tie to secure your sections.
• 1 can of medium hold hair spray - I used VO5 Ultimate Hold.
• 1 smoothing brush The image in the pictures is a back combing brush but this is a link to a good smoothing brush.
• 1 pintail comb
• 1 serum or conditioning milk to smooth your hair at the end. I personally love the Aussie Conditioning Milk.
• 1 heat protective spray to prevent hair damage. I used Tresemme Heat Defence.

Step 1 - brush your hair through to remove any tangles and decide where you want the hair to be parted. Traditional 40's is a side parting which you can make as light or heavy as you like. I went with quite a light parting because my hair is quite fine.

 Step 2 - section your hair into layers leaving out about a quarter of your hair loose at the bottom. The main thing about sectioning is that you want everything to be even. the hair sections you tong should be an even size and shape throughout the whole hairstyle. Start as you mean to go on. Each section can then be split into 6-8 individual curls as you go.



Step 3 - Spray each layer of hair with a heat protective spray
 and start tonging.With this look you will need to curl towards your face for the side with the lighter parting and away from your face for the side with the heavier parting. It may help to split your layer in half down the back of your head.

(I'm left handed and I hold the tongs in a bizarre way so don't necessarily copy that but do make sure the tong is vertical and parallel to the head and that the hair curls from top to bottom.)


Step  4 - Continue curling until the whole layer is completed then spray the layer thoroughly with hair spray and let down the next quarter of hair. Repeat Step 3 until all hair is tonged evenly.
Make sure your parting is defined before starting the top layer.

Step 5 - Once everything is curled you may feel worried that you look like Shirley Temple or some sort of 90's prom queen. This is normal.
Spray your hair thoroughly with hair spray.

Step 6 - At this point you may want to pin up the front of your hair with your crocodile clip and spray with hair spray to help maintain a little height at the front.
You may also want to apply suitably 40's makeup to go with your new hairstyle. I went with black eyeliner, pink cheeks and red lipstick.

Step 7 - The next part is quite scary but this is where the magic happens. Get your smoothing brush and gently brush out all of your curly little corkscrews to reveal the finished look! By brushing out the curls you will create the softer wave which gives the classic 40's feel.

Step 8 - Tada! To finish everything off smooth a little serum over the hair to add shine and smooth any strays.


(Whilst posing for what is essentially a 'selfie' is not my strong point, especially front on, I had to get a proper picture of the old boat race to show the look, so excuse the stupid face and here we are!)

The End. Xxx

Xx

Gel Nails Review - Gelish Forever Beauty

There's something about a fresh manicure that fills me with a surprising amount of happiness and for this reason I try and get my nails done with a gel polish every 2-3 weeks. Not to mention that in my lne of work I'm constantly touching peoples' face/hair and like to keep my hands as clean and presentable as possible.


The Place: I currently pay £20 (such a bargain) to get my nails done in the aptly named 'Nail Bar' in Hanwell, west London. The salon itself is run by a vietnamese team of very talented nail and beauty technicians and whilst its basic layout doesn't look like much with the slightly dated 4 nail stations and 2 pedicure chairs, the quality is always extremely high. Value for money is also excellent and I wind up saving myself about £50 a month (or two and a half more mani's) compared to the £46 it costs for the same service in a nail bar I used to use in Notting Hill.

The Colour: I should mention that I am desperately indecisive, this makes picking a nail varnish a very difficult task for me and quite often results in me choosing something either nude/pinky or red/burgundy. True to form on this day I chose a pale peachy pink shade with a very slight pearlescent effect. I was a little concerned because pearly nail colours usually remind me of old lady nail varnishes, but this one was very subtle and just made my nails look a bit more glossy.

The colour I opted for was Forever Beauty by Gelish, a brand that I've used before and have always been happy with. They have a good range of colours and were one of the first brands around when gel nails started to breakthrough.

The Result (Excuse my weird claw hand)

The Result: I am very happy with the result. I've had loads of compliments on the colour and along with all this sunshine it's getting me in the mood for spring! I went with a friend who liked mine so much she ended up getting the same colour as me. As always the service was excellent and a week on they're still looking pristine.


Xx

NYLON Mag - Rodnik X Belle

Last Sunday I did a makeup job for Rodnik Band, a very cool fashion label created by the incredibly talented Philip Colbert. The shoot was for Nylon Magazine to show the new collaboration with Rodnik and Snoopy. The photographer was Alex Lambrechts and we had two beautiful models and the weird and wonderful French singer Petite Meller to model the collection.

Rodnik x Belle - Exclusive for Colette, Paris

The finished look

The inspiration for the makeup was Belle who is Snoopy's little sister, this meant the girls needed to look girly, young and fun, so considering my recent obsession with hot pink lipstick it seemed like the perfect opportunity to try it out.
I decided to go for very clean, fresh and dewy skin, a classic black eyeliner with fake lashes and hot pink matte lips as the main focus on the face.

Behind the scenes - Models and besties

The two models looked like absolute dolls when they arrived so I was really excited to get to work and it turned out they were also best friends so they had a great chemistry on camera.
Sadly for me Petite wanted to do her own makeup so I wasn't able to try out my look on her but I was very pleased with how the shoot turned out.

Makeup - Before & After

The collection was very bright and so fun with a kind of 90s vibe to it, lots of colours and sequins and even some liquorice all sorts and popcorn to throw into the mix! We had a really fun time on the shoot and the stunning model Elena was even kind enough to let me post a before and after picture of the makeup.

The full shoot should be out in print in the next couple of months but Nylon have posted a preview on their website that you can see by clicking here.

Xx

Bloglovin!!

Finding my way in the blog world is a lot more in depth than it looks from the outside!
I've just signed up to bloglovin so please follow my blog -

<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/11909203/?claim=8hwyg7dyrs6">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

Thanks,

Axx

Makeup Review - Revlon ColorBurst Matte Balm

Revlon have recently brought out a new lipstick range called ColorBurst and it looks like this:

I know, it looks like a crayon but it acts like a lipstick. Amazing. The range comes in a Lacquer Balm which has a more moisturised, glossy effect and a Matte Balm which is has an opaque, matte finish. I'm going to review the Revlon Matte Balm in shade 220 Showy which is a blue based hot pink colour. 

As far as drugstore makeup brands go, I find Revlon to be at the top end of the market, I have used their foundations before and was very pleased, so I felt confident going back to them. Also, at only £7.99 this lipstick is pretty reasonably priced. I had been looking for a matte hot pink lip colour for ages so I went on a hunt. After trying loads of different brands and colours I settled on this one simply because I liked the colour best and it was matte.

                          

I tried a LOT of pinks

Application: Firstly I moisturised with a thin layer of lip balm (I used Lucas' PawPaw ointment which is one of my favourite beauty products of all time) and then used a Barry M lip pencil in Fuchsia under the lip colour to map out my lips and make sure the colour would last all day.  Lastly I applied the Revlon ColorBurst Matte Balm in 220 Showy. I used a lip brush to apply the lipstick just because I personally find it more accurate than using straight from the stick but either method is fine. 

The finished look

Result: The Matte Balm felt like velvet on my lips and went on very smoothly and the finished product looked fantastic. It felt really moisturising whilst still giving a matte effect which is very hard to find and I found that it was very light and not at all sticky to touch. Mine did last a long time but I do think that the lip liner may have had something to do with the lipsticks longevity. All in all I'd definitely recommend it and am looking forward to trying out some of the other colours in this range!

Xx

MomoCreatura

I did a makeup job a while ago for jewellery brand MOMOCREATURA, created by uber-talented jewellery designer Momoko Tamura. We shot the collection in a warehouse studio in Stoke Newington and it was styled by my friend Verity Pemberton who is an amazing stylist and also designs for Urban Outfitters as well as launching her own magazine - MOON.

The collection itself is really cool; each piece represents a small, sculpted animal cast in either gold or silver. It has a sort of fairytale/secret garden vibe about it but with a ‘Brother’s Grimm’ style twist to it, sounds weird and it kind of is but from the shocking to the delicate there are so many different little pieces it’s not hard to find something to love!

The silver and sapphire snake ring

My favourite pieces have got to be the rings, since doing the shoot Momoko gave me one of the snake rings made of oxidised silver with tiny sapphires for eyes and I’m in love with it! Momo makes the rings (and all of her other pieces) by hand, first modelling tiny pieces of wax under a microscope and then making a mould of each design, which is then cast in gold or silver. Knowing how much work has gone in to making the designs makes the detail of each intricate piece even more stunning.

The "spirit of love" rings - head and tail

The snake comes from Momo’s La Cirque Macabre collection, another favourite of mine, from the Secret Garden collection, is the ‘spirit of love’ ring. The ring can be bought in two parts, a head, and a tail, the concept of which is pretty cool in itself and they depict an embodiment of what Momo described as ‘the spirit that comes out of a rose when it dies.’ She didn’t want her collection to be all about beautiful things, and by making this ‘spirit’ with it’s bizarre appearance she seems to be challenging our perceptions of beauty. I really like the story behind the ring and it had a heaviness to it that felt good when you slid it on your finger.

 Chained bears from the 'Nearly Dead' collection

Momoko's jewellery is truly stunning if a little controversial. I’d highly recommend checking it out, all of Momo’s work can be seen at www.momocreatura.com.

Xx

ELLO LA

Here is a post I actually wrote last year about my first ever trip to LA -

So I recently got back from a 2-week trip to Los Angeles to stay with my best friend. Not only was it the first time I’d been to LA but it was also my first ever trip to America (better late than never)! During my trip it became pretty apparent to me that food is a pretty big deal over there. I think in London there’s quite a big drink culture where friends often meet for drinks after work whereas in LA the culture seemed to be more food orientated. 

Over the course of my trip we went for lunch and dinner pretty much every single day and never ate at the same place twice, we had Mexican, Italian, Burgers, Chinese, pizza, diner breakfasts, French, Korean, All-American, ramen, sushi, ribs, BBQ… the list goes on, not to mention all the snack stops and fast food joints we had to check out along the way.

So, to give you an idea of some of the MARVELS I witnessed, I’ve compiled a list of my top 5 food-speriences in LA:  

5. IN-N-OUT Burger

I’m not a huge burger person but these were insanely good. If you go to the west coast make sure you at least try one of these burgers. The buns were so soft and the meat was delicious, they caramelise onions and put them on top of the cheese and everything all just melts together in perfect harmony. I also tried a corn dog, the controversial Chick Fillet and a bunch of other fast food places and this was definitely the tastiest.

4. DONUTS

I wish donuts were more of a big deal in the UK. American people have boxes of donuts in their kitchens, which they eat for BREAKFAST! Yes the Food Research and Actions Centre do state that ‘two thirds of US citizens are overweight or obese’ but whatever, don’t blame it on the donuts.

This particular donut was a CUSTARD FILLED MAPLE GLAZE. Could there be four words more perfect for each other in the English language? No, I don’t think there could. It was gigantic and I enjoyed every second of the 20minutes it took me to devour it.

3. HEUVOS RANCHEROS

Mexican food is the shit. This Mexican breakfast is served in diners all over LA, I tried mine in a diner called Swingers in Santa Monica and it was heavenly. Soft flour tortillas topped with black-eyed peas, fried eggs,  melted cheese, guacamole and fresh salsa. ¡¡Ay Dios Mio!!

2. THE SPRINKLES CUPCAKE ATM

Sprinkles Cupcakes are pretty much The Godfather of cupcakes. They call themselves “the world’s first cupcake bakery” and I’m not here to question them on that, especially after they did us all the kindness of inventing a CUPCAKE ATM! That’s right, you just pick a cupcake from the touch screen (I chose s’mores flavour) swipe your card and down it comes.  They also do ‘doggie cupcakes’ in case your pooch is feeling peckish too, how considerate.

1. SUSHI

I wasn’t expecting to appreciate sushi as much as I did as I’ve never been that into it in the UK but the sushi I ate in LA was out of this world.

I don’t know for sure why it tastes so much better over there but it really, really does.  My favourite was the crab roll; the rice was slightly sticky and perfectly cooked and the crabmeat was warm and had so much flavour to it that was complimented perfectly by the seaweed it was wrapped in. I literally could not fault a single aspect of my meal and just wish it was easier to find good sushi in London too. One of the only great places I've been to over here is Eat Tokyo, highly recommended. 

Hello!

My name is Alice and I have been meaning to start up a blog for SO long and I've finally done it!!

First, a little bit about about me. I work as a freelance makeup artist in London.
I studied History of Art and Architecture at Reading University before training at Greasepaint Makeup School in London in 2010.

I now do makeup and hair jobs in commercial, beauty and editorial fashion, film and TV, bridal and makeup for private clients and I absolutely LOVE what I do so hopefully I can share that with you somehow.

I am a very visual person so my posts on here will mostly be about things that look really lovely to me and I think might be interesting to you too; whether it be makeup reviews or tutorials, shoots I have done, art shows I've enjoyed, places I've travelled to, beautiful things, that kinda thing, I'll be posting it so I hope you enjoy!

Axx

P.s I also have a website www.alicehowlett.com if you want to take a look at any of my makeup work!