Man, cleansing oils are the bizzo.

You’ve heard me rave about Dermalogica’s Precleanse, but lately I’ve been using SK-II’s cleansing oil, (which has a pump, and I’m very pro-pump) which requires no follow up cleanser. No, you just:

1. Apply to a dry face groaning with makeup

2. Rub it in all over, eyes included (it doesn’t irritate, well not for me anyway)

3. Step into the shower

4. Lather it up to emulsify

5. Rinse off.

And I tell you what fruits, gone are the days of getting out of the shower with great rings of black fury around my eyes! Gone are the days of missing some mascara, only to locate it under my eyes when I peer into my puffy little face at 6.57am the following morning! Gone are the days of squeaky, stripped, dry skin!

Yep, it’s just one groovy, smooth ride to clean town with cleansing oils.

(Just ask Bloom, MAC and Utowa: they know, they’ve all made one, 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.
 

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(Just for Aimee, who keeps asking me to post this because I keep not posting it when I say I will.)

• Apply a nude, neutral shadow over your eyelid, or even just some loose powder. This hides veins and gives the eyes a fresher, open look.
• Use an angled, thin, flat brush, they are crucial for good liner application, (and make any eye shadow into liner with a bit of water.)

  

• Wet it and dip into a light-medium brown shadow.
• Take the brush very carefully along your lash line, trying to keep the line half on your lashes and half on your eyelid so that it’s not an obvious line, and so your lashes are boosted and look fatter. There absolutely shouldn’t be any skin showing between the line and your lashes.
• Take the brush and kick it up into a little “wing” around ½ cm before you get to the end. It needn’t be perfect, mine never are, but you must must flick up at the ends, otherwise you drag your whole eye – and subsequently face – down. (Maybe Google ‘Eye liner wing’ for a more in-depth how-to on this technique.)
• Once you’re happy with the line, get out your cream or gel liner. Take your brush and pop the tiniest amount of gel or creamy liner on it, both sides. Using one of these liners is key: They’re the New Breed liners and they’ve come in their little pots to revolutionise eye makeup forever. Try Clinique, M.A.C or Bobbi Brown: They’re all quick to dry, look crisp but soft simultaneously and are very long lasting. In short, they’re a dream.

  

• Very carefully follow the line you made with your brown shadow, including the wing.
• Apply two coats of mascara.
• Look eerily similar to this woman:

  

*No hard, scary, messy, I-can’t-do-it-and-fug-it-i-give-up, liquid liners required.

Is when people only apply their mascara:

A) On the underside of their lashes
B) From halfway up the lash
C) Sweeping directly up so that the lashes are stiff and vertical

Here is why:

A) It becomes twice as thick when you paint the tops of your lashes, and gives a flawless, defined look to your lashes to anyone observing said lashes.
B) It creates an obvious line which is obvious to everyone who looks at you as you blink (if your conversations are shorter than three seconds then you can get away with this one), except for you, because sadly due to not being able to see yourself when your eyes are closed, your mirror just can’t help in this situation. (Don’t get upset, mirror – when it comes to eyebrows, you’re the business.) Especially when it’s a thick, volume-boosting mascara and your lashes are thin, or you’re a fair-headed fruit.
C) This can look unnatural, as lashes usually have a slight curl, and span out to the outer of the eyelid. Wiggling at the base and then sweeping the wand/comb out gently to the side gives a prettier, wide-eyed, look. Please see visual aid for evidence.

SYTYCD update:

Demi: Now officially my favourite. JD second.
Nat’s hair: Much better, but still a bit flat on top.

I love So You Think You Can Dance. A lot. (The Boogaloo two were my favourite last night.Go Demi, you little pocket rocket.)

I also love Natalie Bassingthwaighte, despite having to google how to spell that insane last name. She’s adorable. Cute, warm, funny, well-styled in the threads department and always experimenting with different makeup looks! (Incidentally, I thought the makeup on the show was really quite excellent last night. Wonder what they’re using…)

One minute she’s all red lip and a slash of shimmer on the lids; the next is a smoky ice blue effect with nude lips. And her hair! Such a delicious cut. Love it short. Makes her so fresh, and stylish and chic. Makes me want to be her friend, and sit over a chai latte and talk about how she gets her curls to sit just so.

And then, then there was last night, and the cemented ’70s rollergirl effect someone had cruelly  spilled all over her usually lovely haircut.  Apologies if you missed the show, but basically, there was faaaar too much volume underneath, and not enough on top (although had she patted down and loosened up the bulk of her hair, the flatness on top wouldn’t have even registered.) But the main issue, as even Boyfriend noticed, was that those lovely masses of perfectly coloured curls Did. Not. Move. It was a turbo Farrah Fawcett, sans movement.

It kind of looked like the stylist should’ve done her hair at 3 p.m and then said with a smile, ‘Don’t you worry  your pretty little head about the fact that you kind of look like Jennifer Lopez in that pink dress at the Oscars a few years back, Nat. It’ll drop in a few hours and will look really lovely and natural’ … except that her hair was done ten minutes before Natalie went on, and the drop time occurred when she was already tucked up in bed.

I’m absolutely not picking on ol’ mate Nat, (how will I ever be invited for tea and tonging techniques if I do that?). But her hairstylist does need a good talking to about ‘natural movement’ and ‘using less hairspray’.

With Meowbert.
Who is just shy of one, and yet looks simultaneously two months old and 14 years old because of his ridiculous face and fat belly combo.

Handy Hint: Imagining for a second that this were the set of Full House (I’d be DJ, of course) the ‘Awww’ card would come up at photo two, and the ‘Oh, now would you look at that’ card at photo four.

Okay, enough looking at handsome young boys, you perv.
Back to work.

Ah, love. Love, love, love, love, love, love, as Ben Stiller said in The Heartbreak Kid, in the only funny line of the film.

Anyway! Here are just some of the many, many products I currently love. (Or "love" as they say in New Zealand.)

Prevage anti-aging night cream.

Ah yes, that synthetic antioxidant show-off, Idebenone, making us
all stay looking younger by fighting off free radicals in the kind of
kickass way nature simply can’t match. This night cream version of the
treatment is possibly even better than the ‘serum’, original for me,
cause it has an even more concentrated dose of the good stuff and
contains Vitamin A for better skin repair through the night. In a nutshelly version: My skin
feels lovely and soft and plump in the morning, and I especially love
that I can wack it on after cleansing at night, and skip using a serum
cause it’s that potent. After all, wasn’t it… someone… important, possibly religious, who said easiness is next to excellenceless? Yes. It totally was.

Radness factor: Stratospheric.

Bobbi Brown Luminous Foundation.

How much do i love makeup that includes skincare ingredients: Probably
more than the paparazzi love Britney. This particular baby has collagen
boosting hexapeptides and milk thistle extract, which is probably why
my skin looks so lovely and luminous all day when I wear it. I especially love it for
night. It’s a medium coverage, radiant without shimmer – easily
buildable if you need to cover blemishes or pigmentation, though. Oh gosh. This
is all sounding well familiar. Have I spoken about this baby before? If I
have, pardon, pardon. If i haven’t, it’s uh, real nice and I like it.

Awesomeness rating: As high as this. (My arm is up as high as I can hold it, and I’m standing on the lounge.)

Lancome Virtuose mascara.

I think I may have discussed my love for Other Mascaras once or 56 times before, but I have yet to talked up the splendour and long lashiness and curviness of this mascara. A long time volume lover, I made the switch to curl and length only out of necessity: I’d run out of my other current mascara obsession, Hypnose. But oh, the magic that awaited my little lash curtains. The brush, is curved, you see, but more than that, it actually grips your lashes and coats them as sweeps up and out. Clever, so clever. And the curl! The length! Happily, there’s still even some volume. In all, a wild little adventure in coating and curling lashes. No eyelash curler required. Seriously.

Genius factor: Einstein-esque.

xoxo
Beauty Girl

This is Ella.

She’s a ginormous nude, peachy woman created by Ella Bache. She’s seductively perched down at Sydney’s Circular Quay, (where she can keep a eye on all the ferries  and make sure buskers have their proper council permits) and is made up of almost 25, 000 peaches. (The Presidents of The United States of America would wet their corduroy pants at the sight of Ella’s incredible peachiness.)

The point in all of this, of course, is that Ella Bache’s tagline is Stone Fruits Are Better Than Lego When it Comes To Building Giant Structures, (And Taste Better Too Although Some Two-Year Olds May Disagree.)

Hang on. That’s not right.

Ah yes. Skin Good Enough To Eat. Yes, that’s it.

Whatevs. Ella is unreal.  (And by the looks of it, a C cup and a regular Spin class attendee.) 

She’s also a PERFECTLY accurate visual representation of "fruitybeauty", which happens to be the name of a blog I own. (You should visit it one time. It‘s totally awesome.)

Before embarking on a Night Out, many a lady will attempt to jam a cosmetic artillery the collective size of a laptop in a bag roughly the size of a cassette tape.

She has done such an elegant, marvellous job of her makeup before she leaves the house, you see, that she feels the only way she can possibly maintain this splendour throughout the evening is by packing all of the cosmetics (and appropriate tools) used in creating said splendour with her when she leaves.

Sadly, she is wrong to do this.

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It’s called Accidental Allure, I’ve decided. Those things that you probably don’t even realise are beautiful, and sexy and make men (or women) melt like an icy pole on hot asphalt.

Examples:

Having really smooooooth skin

Having nice feet that are well-looked after

Having hair that smells really awesome (cue Herbal Essences)

Having a graceful, elegant neck and playing it up by wearing your hair pulled back

Having incredibly soft hands

Having a yacht

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