Vintage beauty

I've always loved all things vintage and how old beauty/fashion books talk about being ladylike and keeping up appearances, so when i found a whole row of dusty vintage beauty and fashion books under the stairs at a relatives house i couldn't help but have a look. It was a tough choice but the photo above is the book i chose to take home with me, It tells you everything from how to mix your own skin care products to the perfect bath! I'll leave you with the Rose Essence recipe from the Fragrance section, i haven't tried it yet, i just like the image it cunjers up of an old fashioned rose garden.. 

3 handfuls of dried rose petals

sweet almond oil as needed

In a glass bowl or jar, or put dried rose petals and cover with the oil. Put the pot in a pan of simmering water, heat until the oil has removed all the colour of the petals. Strain; keep tightly lidded.

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Final Major Project 'Body As A Canvas'

So i finished my art foundation last month and i've only just realised i hadn't written anything on here about my fmp so here goes.. 
I decided to develop/continue on from my last project of wrap/unwrap because i felt i wanted to explore it further using the idea of body paint as a layer/wrap. After lots of research and deliberation i decided my theme was going to be vintage wallpapers because i found it interesting and thought it might be fun to play with and combine different colours, patterns and fashions.

I tried out lots of different simple camouflage designs on my hand including stripes, spots, floral, lace and papier mache. My first practice was just a simple spot design which i tried both on my hand and on a friend. I moved on to using wallpapers from certain eras to look like fashion ideas from those eras, these are the 3 main body part looks i created -

      

The first one is 40's style Laura Ashley wallpaper with a painted on 40's style stocking, the second is Sandersons 50's style wallpaper with a painted on 50's inspired glove and the third is 60's style Laura Ashley wallpaper painted onto the face with 'Twiggy' style lashes. They aren't perfect but i was pleased with how they went, although they took a longgg time! 

They led me to my final piece of a whole body paint in a 50's theme, I was very inspired by Emma Hack's work (have a look at her work if you haven't already, its amazingg!) at this point because she had done a similar thing/idea to what i wanted to achieve. I had to make sure the pose, shape of the dress, accessories, props, make up, hair and of course wallpaper were all 50's inspired to make the look complete and effective.. After about 6 hours of posing, painting, adjusting and more painting i finished my fmp look and it was finally ready to be photographed! (big thanks to my models, they stayed still for so long!) 

Hope you like it :)

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A better use of embroidery thread

This all started last Wednesday when i was very jealous of the little girls braid i was babysitting for. I started thinking how it was you don't see many braids when you get older, so not one to be afraid of being a little childish sometimes i decided that i was going to single handedly bring back the braid! 

I know that braids probably seem like something you just used to have when you were little but why not give them another chance. If you're not brave enough to try out dip dying or streak dying at the moment then braiding is a perfect way to add a splash of colour to your hair. It's also cheap, easily done and you can change the colours as much as you want! 

My roots are terrible at the moment (due to too long without getting my highlights redone :( ) but i have to say that my braid has given my hair a little lift and made the wait for highlights a bit more bearable! I chose to have mine on the top on my hair but you can have them underneath or wherever you like, the pastels trend inspired my colour choices (i used embroidery thread) and my pattern was pretty much random.

Its really easy to do, first pick your colours and cut lengths of each colour about 3 times the length of your hair, tie a knot at the top of your chosen bit of hair so that the thread is tied securely to your hair, now just start wrapping your first colour around and around your hair leaving the other colours in with the bit of hair, when you want to change colour just swap it with the colour you want from the bit of hair, when you have finished simply knot the threads at the end of your hair and trim if need be. Thank you very much Tamsyn for teaching me how to do it :) 

Help me bring the braid back, i know you want to ;) 

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An essential and 2 pretties

Had a bit of a magpie moment and couldn't help myself.

The first thing that lured me in was a Pink Maybelline New York lipstick (Color Sensation Popstick in Pink Lollipop £7.19) that I had had my eye on for a while. It's silky not sticky and adds a soft sheer layer of colour to your lips, perfect for brightening your look up in the morning and throughout the day.. plus it smells yummy!

Second thing I caved to was a gold and pearl ear hanger from Miss Selfridge (£7.50). With an ever growing collection of earrings and an obsession with pearls it was inevitable that this would have to be mine! It is 6.5 inches in length and hooks onto the back of your ear, looks nice with hair up or down and is a lovely mix of classic pearls with a new and different accessory.

Lastly I bought a hair doughnut from Claire's (£3) which is both cheap and very effective. I really should have bought one of these sooner, really enjoying being able to have a bun bigger than a grape (okay, slight exaggeration) and it was really easy to put in. Just put a ponytail wherever you want the bun, pop the doughnut onto the ponytail, wrap your hair around and over the mesh and push a few hair pins in, sorted.

I'd thouroughly recommend them all and have to say that writing about them has made them feel like even more justified purchases :) haha.

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A post not toast

So i know my posts do/will mainly be about makeup related things because that's just my fave but i want to include other things that i love too.. and somehow this mornings breakfast became something i felt i needed to share with the world! Being half polish means that there are lots of family recipes of various delicious polish things in our house, including a recipe for a Polish Omelette, don't be put off by the word omelette if you don't like them because it doesn't taste or feel the same as a typical omelette, here's the recipe...

You'll need:

2 or 3 eggs     1 tbsp milk

pinch of salt    1 tbsp flour (level tbsp)

bit of butter                                  

1 tsp sugar

You'll need to:

Crack the eggs into two separate bowls so one bowl has the yolks in it and the other has the whites in it. Put the salt, milk, flour and sugar into the bowl with the egg yolks and mix them all together, smoothing out any lumps. Next whisk the egg whites until they can form peaks, spoon by spoon fold in the yolk mixture until it is all added. Put a bit of butter in a fairly large frying pan, pour in the egg mix and level out. let it cook until it is golden on the bottom and then flip over and do the same on the other side, turn out onto a plate and cover with apricot jam or another jam of your choice.

It's so yum, try it if you like and tell me what you think :) 

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Wrap/Unwrap

Our Last project was called wrap/unwrap, this could be interpreted it in various ways so it was very interesting and inspiring to see everyone in the groups ideas. 

   Throughout the project I did lots of research, development work and planning in my sketchbook to reach my 3 final outcomes: 

Model - Ash Kaur

Photographer - Catherine Dunthorne 

For my first final look I was inspired by the way flowers open/unwrap and decided to do something similar to the petals on the Lancome advert. I cut the petals from a white fabric flower  and stuck them around the eye using eyelash glue, for or highlight colours I used a bit of MAC Impassioned lipstick, Bed Head - 4 play -Drama Queen eyeshadow in Shimmering Pink.

Model: Catherine Dunthorne

Photographer: Me 

My two other final looks were based around the idea of painting on clothes/accessories onto the face/body, for the first one the use a airbrush to spray through some lace into a mask type shape  and for the other I sprayed a background with the same lace pattern as a background and sprayed the lace onto the face and shoulders to camouflage the model into the background.

I love how these turned out and I'm excited to expand these ideas onto more of the body in final major project!  

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a bit of glue and a lot of time

I was asked to do a few make up looks for a beauty shoot for someone's portfolio.. the perfect opportunity to get a bit playful with make up! The looks I chose to create are inspired by looks I had seen before but adapted to make them my own.

'Candy kisses'
The products I used were:
primer - L'Oreal Paris Studio Secrets 'Smoothing/Resurfacing Primer'
base - Lush base colour in 'Light Pink'
cheeks - Sonya blush in 'Bashful'
eyelids - No7 Stay Perfect Eyeshadow in 'Starry Lights'
eyelashes - Max Factor False Lash Effect Mascara in 'Black'
...lastly Vasaline and cake sprinkles for the lips.

'Embellished eyes'
The products I used were:
primer - L'Oreal Paris Studio Secrets 'Smoothing/Resurfacing Primer'
base - Lush base colour in 'Light Pink'

cheeks - Sonya blush in 'Bashful'
eyebrows - Jelly Pong Pong Wakeup Makeup in the middle shade
eyelids - multi colour heart shaped sequins and Eyelure eyelash glue
eyelashes - Eyelure Individual lashes and Rimmel Lash Accelerator in 'Extreme Black'
lips - Jelly Pong Pong Lip Orchid in 'Pink'

'Bright jewelled lips'
The products I used were:
primer - L'Oreal Paris Studio Secrets 'Smoothing/Resurfacing Primer'
base - Lush base colour in 'Light Pink'

cheeks - Sonya blush in 'Bashful'
eyebrows - Jelly Pong Pong Wakeup Makeup in the middle shade
eyelids - Ruby and Millie Smokey eyeshadow palette and Sonya eyeshadow in 'Charcoal'
eyelashes - Rimmel Lash Accelerator in 'Extreme Black'
lips - MAC lipstick in 'Impassioned' and Broadway Nails body gems and body glue


It was fun creating these looks and i'm really happy with how they turned out!
big thank you to Catherine Dunthorne for modelling for me and putting up with glue on your face and Sophie Hutchings for taking such lovely photos :)
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