Be Right Back!

Hello all, unfortunately, since I've packed away most of my things, I find myself unable to put up any blogposts. And since its 2 days to the BIG MOVE... I'm just going to roll with it.
I reach the UK on Saturday morning, and will probably only get Internet by Tuesday, so normal posting may resume the Friday after this one.

Please be patient with me!

And wish me luck!

Much Love,
Shrutilaya

Project 10 Pan - Revisited

So this post was supposed to go up several hours ago, but as you can imagine things are a bit hectic around here - with me leaving on Friday and all that.
I posted the original Project 10 Pan 2 months ago - where I gave myself two months to finish mostly base products - which let me tell you was a stretch. Even if they are half full, no one can finish so many basis in 2 months unless I started drinking them.. eeek. But I'm rather proud of the seven products I have finished.

So, I'm left with the MAC Studio Fix Powder + Foundation which is still the wrong colour for me, but I'm sure I'll be using it up soon... or giving it to a friend because I've finally repurchased it in the right shade.
The Bourjois Happy Light is a foundation I LOVE, but I just don't feel like taking something which is so close to finished all the way, so its being passed on to my mother.
Finally, my beloved Nars Casino Bronzer is coming with me because frankly, I can't live without it.

So yes, this is my progress. Bit of a fail, but the stuff has been used up which was the important thing.

...Its a short post today, and the next 3 - 4 will be scheduled to go up on time (I promise).
England, here I come!

That Effortless Foundation

Do you find liquid foundations to be a bit of a pain? Not worth the effort it takes to buff in into the skin? Don't like the feeling? Not easy for on-the-go?
Whatever your gripe maybe with regular liquid foundations, this product is basically the answer to them all!
I completely forgot I even owned it until my recent Project 10 Pan - but once I started using I wondered what made me forget about it to begin with. Its everything you need for a quick 'sweep and go', also, you chuck it into your bags and you've got touch ups throughout the day covered.
The MAC Studio Fix Powder + Foundation is finely milled and silky soft with a matte finish, but after about 10 minutes your natural skin does come through. I use it with an Illuminating Primer or my Strobe Cream, and with both, it works wonderfully. It works really well on people with oily skin, because it stays put. And on someone with Dehydrated Combination Skin like myself, it manages to glide over my dry patches without emphasizing them or getting stuck around them.
Its a medium coverage if you use it with a buffing brush - like I do. But it can also be sweeped on with a fluffy brush for just a veil of matte and hardly any coverage at all. If I build it up, it easily goes upto full coverage. Oddly enough, no matter how much I layer - it never looks too matte of cakey or even like I'm wearing full coverage. There's just something about the formula.
The one pictured is NC43.5 which is too dark for me, but I can make it work. I have repurchased it already in NC42 which matches me perfectly. Oh, and for the record, it currently costs INR 1990. (Ugh, stupid price increases)

Do you own this? What are your thoughts?

No Makeup - Makeup.

I'm all about the smokey eyes and the bright lips, but on occasion, you want to look as natural as possible - without having acne scars and dark circles showing through.
So, I bring to you, my natural no makeup makeup look.

Makeup for me starts with a good base. I need my skin to look half decent, but it still needs to look like skin, so my Chanel Vita Lumier Aqua makes an appearance again. I've typed it out so many times that my phone now auto corrects anything that starts with 'Cha-' to 'Chanel Vita Lumier Aqua' and if my laptop could, it probably would too, whilst rolling its non existent eyes. But anyway. I dabbed a little extra foundation under my eyes to skip concealer.
Some colour always adds a bit of dimension and life back into my face so I used the Bobbi Brown Matte Bronzer in Dark on my temples, cheekbones, across the bride of my nose lightly and near my jawline - the intention was to make it look more natural and less contoured.
After popping a bit of MAC's Groundwork Paintpot on my eyelids, I used the same Bobbi Brown Bronzer in the crease of my eye, so deepen them more.
Now the real star of the show - them lashes. I haven't been much of a mascara girl in the past, but when you aren't wearing eyeliner, mascara really helps you bring some life and lift to your face. So I curled my eyelashes with my Shu Eumera Eyelash Curlers, and followed that up with a generous coat of the Tarte Lights, Camera, Lashes! Mascara, which I have to say might be my favorite mascara ever (Thanks Aditi!). I really need a full size of this!
To finish things off, I ran a bit of NARS Coconut Grove Eyeshadow through my eyebrows, and viola!

Do I look natural to you? Just say yes...

The 'Not Me' Colour

When I first received the L'oreal Infallible Eyeshadow in Flashback Silver for my birthday, I swatched and said "oooo pretty" - a gorgeous silver that is sparkly and reflects lavender and pink (more lavender than pink on me) but in the back of my mind, I wondered if I would ever use it. Because its be honest here, a cool toned silver on someone as warm as me is a disaster waiting to happen. So into the depths of my eyeshadow drawer it went, never to see the light of day until recently...
...When I picked up the Laura Mercier Metallic Cream Eyeshadow in Alloy during a strawberry.net sale in which it costed me the grand total of INR 520 (Frekkin' steal, I agree). Without thinking twice, into my bag it went and within a second I found myself clicking 'checkout'.
Fast forward to 3 weeks later when I received it and greedily ripped open the packaging. Yes, I knew what Allow looked like, but it didn't stop me from freaking out a bit. A cool Lavenderish purple with a silver sparkle. Uh oh.
However, when I used it, I found it transformed my eyelids. There is just something about this cream shadow thats subtle but still brightening and downright beautiful!
When I paired this with a light layer of the L'oreal Shadow - a very fluffy brush was used - I realized that YES, warm toned bronze loving me could totally pull off a lavender-silver!
Kachiinnngg. Win. 

What is the 'not you' colour that you've discovered is really 'you'?

Night Out #9

There seems to be a sudden revival of the Face of the Day/Night here on Colliding Interests, hasn't there? Blame it entirely on the 'moving to another country' bit, but I've been going out a lot. And with the going out comes a plethora of other things - good food, actually using my fancy clothes and jewelry and of course the makeup!
I went back to an old Foundation Combination of mine - the Chanel Vita Lumier Aqua mixed in with the Giorgio Armani Luminous silk. I've posted about it here, but let me tell you, it is some seriously amazing stuff. Since it pretty much conceals everything that needs to be concealed in my case, I just dabbed a bit more of the Luminous Silk mixed with the Maybelline Dream Touch Lumi under my eyes, on my chin etc to add a bit more coverage, and highlight those areas ever so slightly. I dusted a bit of the Kryolan Anti Shine Translucent Powder just to set the highlight (precision powdering people!).
For the rest of my face, I used a combination of the Inglot 357 Matte (contour), MAC's Lustre Drops in Sun Rush and the Clinique Cheek Pop in Berry Pop. These are finally out in India, btw, at INR 2100 - ridiculous!
Onto the eyes. I finally got my hands on the Clinique Eyeshadow in Black Honey, which I used all over the lid, and a bit of the Kiko Eyeshadow Stick in 6 in the inner corners. I smoked things out and lined my lashline with Makeup Geek's Corrupt and used a boatload of the Maybelline HyperCurl Waterproof Mascara.
For the lips - this is a bit of a confused one. So, I started out with L'oreal Matte Moisture Lipstick in Lincoln Rose, but I didn't like the way it looked with Black Honey, so I added a bit of the WetnWild Mauve Outta Here on top of that, and suddenly things came together, I feel.

Also featured in this post is my new haircut - I went shorter, woot!
So, what do you guys think?

P.S. Two weeks to England! *runs off to panic*

The Cheek Trifecta

You don't have cheekbones, you say? Moonfaced like me? Never fear, for the cheek trifecta is here!
^ Did that sound like a bad commercial to you too?
Anyway, going back to the point of this post. Using a boat load - I mean 3 products to create an illusion the illusion of cheekbones. Sussh, its our secret.

The Bronzer/Contour
Refer to the brown portion of the little diagram up there. A matte Bronzer of contour shade - preferably slightly cooler helps mimic the place where the shadow falls - if you're like me an entirely lacking in the cheekbone department. I place it in a triangle because I find it suits my face shape the most (think moon), but this is something that you need to work out for your own face. More oval faces can get away with just a line. Oh, and do not forgot to the blend the crap out of it - because y'know, you don't want to look like you have dirt on your face.
I find the Bobbi Brown Matte Bronzer pretty decent for contouring. And then there's the Inglot 357 matte eyeshadow which is the perfect contour colour on darker skins (yes, I'll shut up about it now)

The Highlight
So, right after the contour I like to highlight the area, because when you add blush over that, it gives you that 'oh, I'm so glowy, I light up your life' face. Ideally, this goes on your actual cheekbone, from the centre of your eye upwards to "lift" the face a bit. High cheekbones = bomb.com. I'd use something that doesn't have visible glitter, but a sheen would probably work. I love the MAC luster drops in Sun Rush for this. It gives me an almost JLow glow (I wish!). What this essentially does is draws the light to the top of your cheekbones, making your contour look more like a shadow - see see? Its coming together, ain't it?

The Blush
You could skip this, but with a stark contour, I find a little blush goes a long way.
Now, once again, the thing about blush is your placements depends on your face - how you like to wear it etc. I personally, hate blush on the apples of my cheeks, so I place it along the contour line and blend it out into the apple-area, so it gives me colour, but intensifies my contour at the same time.

So, 3 steps to cheekbones, told you it wasn't that hard!
In case I sounded a bit.. odd through this post, blame is on me listening to blurred lines while writing this. I know, I know.. judge away.

The Makeup Tool Everyone Needs!

Things just got a bit upclose and personal with the second picture, didn't it?
So, eyelash curlers, probably the most boring thing to blog about, but really, they needs waay more attention than they get!
To start off - I used to use a pair of Etude House Eyelash curlers that were nothing great. I somehow wrote it off as something that I didn't need to spend much money on.
However, since they weren't doing the greatest job, I bit the bullet and got the Shu Uemera Eyelash Curlers, and holy shit my eyelashes have never been the same.
There is just something about the shape of these curlers that get right to your roots and help your lashes curl.. while keeping them that way. Worth the hype? HELL YES.

While we're talking lashes, another discovery which would probably get several eyes rolling is Waterproof Mascara. Now, I'm not much of a mascara girl - and its taken me a fair few months to get into the habit of wearing mascara regularly - but waterproof mascara? Consider me lazy. Its a pain to take off - and hence I just don't use it. But unfortunate truth? It helps the curl stay all day long. If you want proof - the second picture shows you my curled and waterproof mascara'd lashes after 6 hours.
So it works? Yes.

This is my newest revelation - though its nothing particularly new to the beauty world.
What's yours?