Beauty Squared Round-Up: April 6, 2014

Hello lovelies! Happy Sunday! Is it spring where you are? SO MUCH to share with you today. Let's get started.

• Remember how Adele looked at the 2013 Grammy Awards? MUA Nina Westbury has a step-by-step guide on how to achieve her gorgeous retro look. Click here. 
• L'Oreal has hair chalk now - you can achieve unicorn hair without the commitment. Check out Tracy from Beauty Reflection's review here.
• From the temporary to the classic, do you know if the products you are using are from a brand that's been around since 1937 or earlier? Check this list here to find out!
• Beauty Geeks takes a look at Dior's New Vernis Gel Shine shades. Swoon!
• New and improved Make Up For Ever's High Definition Blushes, including the shade used on Christina Hendricks on Mad Men (#210). See them here. 
• Speaking of Mad Men, let's look at the beauty looks from the Season 7 (the last season - sob!) premiere red carpet - Elizabeth Moss, January Jones, Christina Hendricks, Alison Brie, and Jessica Paré. 
• Eyebrows are so important. Bad brows are just...bad. Good brows deserve a hallelujah. Want proof - look at these celebs with both bad brows and good brows. 
• Five rules for contouring and highlighting in a step-by-step guide. 
• In news that should surprise few, the gorgeous Lupita Nyong'o has been named as Lancome's spokesperson, making her the first black ambassador for the brand. The first half of that sentence makes me happy, the second half, not so much. Seriously, it's 2014, and Nyong'o is the FIRST black ambassador for Lancome?
• A visual history of the cat eye.
• Well this is a makeup trick I'd never heard of before - shower eyeliner. To read more, click here. 
• New Zealand singer Lorde tweeted this week about a photo of herself that had been photoshopped to give her perfect skin, alongside a photo taken the same day that hadn't been retouched, and adding "Remember flaws are OK." Hear, hear, Lorde!
• David Horne's The Art of Male Makeup looks like something I need to own. 
• Singer Ingrid Michaelson's video for her very catchy song, Girls Chase Boys, is an homage to Robert Palmer's iconic Addicted To Love video, but with a twist. Sexy girls AND boys (in makeup)!  
• (Also check out Ingrid's Blood Brothers video which features her being made over into John Lennon, Lady Gaga, Marilyn Monroe, David Bowie and Amy Winehouse among others.)

Beauty Squared Round-Up - November 17, 2013

Hello lovelies! It's time again for the weekly Beauty Squared Round-Up. This week has quite a bit of interesting, helpful and exciting links for you, so let's not delay any longer...

• First up, Jennifer Lawrence. I have a big, old girl crush on this gal. She cut her hair off into a great pixie cut and is experimenting with new looks (as I think we all do when we change up our hair dramatically). Check out this dramatic, vampy look that we haven't seen her do before. Thoughts? 
• Speaking of drama, here's a way of getting a bit into your daytime makeup look - the daytime smoky eye. 
• You've heard of food trucks, now what about a Lip Bar Truck? 
• Do you have naturally curly/wavy hair? The Hand Dry Hair Glove may change your life.
• Apart from comments like "She needs bangs like she needs air in her lungs" this is a cool, quick, simple makeover, done in an elevator. Also, it shows you how to curl your hair with a flat iron.
• Plastic surgery trends in Venezuela are changing the appearance of mannequins. Now they're being built with enormous breasts, very narrow waists and exaggerated rears.
• Benefit Cosmetics has a build-your-own makeup kit, just in time for Christmas!
• This list is entirely subjective, but here are seven beauty products you can (probably) skip completely. 
• Adele has reportedly turned down a £12 million offer to be the UK ambassador of L'Oreal. 
• And finally, check out this incredible aging and rebirth transformation, done entirely with make-up.

Beauty Squared Round-Up - September 23

Here are the links we've gathered up for you this week! Scroll though and enjoy all the interwebs had to offer up beauty-wise this week....

Some great hairstyle ideas for you curly-headed folks.

Rumour has it that when Burberry asked Adele to model some of their clothing, she asked them to first design a plus-size line.

Scrangie reviews the NARS Andy Warhol nail lacquer colours.

The style evolution of Sophia Loren. 

27 ideas for awesome accent nails. 

Can candy-coloured hair look expensive?

New York Fashion Week's Spring/Summer 2013 season saw more models of colour than ever before. Let's hope this isn't just a fleeting trend.

In South Korea, it's actually becoming expected for men to use skin perfecting makeup. Can this trend be coming to North America to? 

GPS shoes that can guide you home. 

Is grey hair really caused by stress?

Some makeup dos and don'ts from Pixiwoo. 

How many of these beauty myths do you believe?

butter LONDON's waterless pedicure!

Looking for vegan beauty products? Here are some picks from xojane.com.

New York Fashion Week as seen on Instagram.

Adele, Wrinkles and Twitter

What does age mean to you? If you see a face with wrinkles, do you think old? If you see grey hair, do you think old?

I’m writing this post in response to some tweets I saw from Sunday night. People were tweeting that at the Grammy Awards Adele looked old, older than her 23 years and had “so many wrinkles”. This annoyed me for a few reasons. One reaction I had was “People are ignorant.” Another was “How dare you talk smack about my girl, Adele? I will CUT YOU.”  Another was sadness, because it seems that our modern ideas of beauty means that having wrinkles means that you are old. Being old is BAD and even worse is looking old.

I understand that Twitter and the Internet are largely about the snark, about people wanting to be funny and clever and cruel, and I admit to participating in that to an extent. I find myself turning Twitter off during awards shows and the like more and more because it seems that people are being snarky just for the sake of being snarky. Perhaps I’m overly sensitive and indeed, hearing criticism about Adele bothers me because of what I see in her and in her music. I feel a kinship with this bubbly, lovable, genuine, stylish, immensely talented and humble young singer. But this time the superficial criticism of her lovely face went beyond that.

So let me bring this back to the realm of beauty. Grey hair. Sagging skin. Wrinkles. The visual signs of age and experience. But are they signs of those things alone? No. So for people to comment on Adele having wrinkles (of which, I cannot see in any photos from that night), and therefore she must be prematurely aging, or lying about her age, or just looking “old” is extremely superficial.

Who says that a 23 year old cannot have wrinkles? Who says that a 23 year old cannot have naturally grey hair? Broaden your sense of reality, please. It may not be common, but wrinkles and grey hair do not designate age. Think about the last time you went swimming or soaked in the bath or were out in the rain for a long time. Did your skin not pucker and crease and wrinkle? Did you suddenly become older for a short period of time?

Now I’m being snarky.

So let’s get technical. What causes the skin to wrinkle? The natural aging process causes skin to wrinkle, as the cells that make up the skin layers thin and lose their ability to hold moisture. Have you ever touched the skin of an elderly person? It feels papery, dry and very delicate. Touch the skin of an infant and you’ll feel plumpness and smoothness. It stands to reason that seeing wrinkles on someone’s face helps you to identify their general age.

However, there are other things that may cause the skin to thin and dry. Living in a dry climate, lots of sun exposure, too much moisture, smoking, drugs and medication, illness, dehydration - these are all factors that can contribute to the skin looking wrinkled and creased. Wearing lots of makeup on a regular basis can dry out your skin, drinking and smoking can dry out your skin, medication can dry out your skin, being out in the sun can dry out your skin. If you lose weight rapidly due to diet or illness, your skin may feel looser or saggy.

One trick I learned at makeup school was how to do aging makeup. We stood in front of the mirror and smiled, then frowned. Where your face contorts with these natural facial expressions can tell you how you might age. If your eyes crease up when you smile, you’ll get wrinkles around your eyes. If when you frown, you crease your brow, you’ll get the vertical lines between your eyebrows. If when you smile, you smile big, you’ll get laugh lines. This is how you know where to create wrinkles on people so that their aging makeup looks natural.

One of my favourite faces ever is that of Buster Keaton (1895-1966), a silent film star known as "The Great Stone Face". He conveyed a huge range of emotion although he maintained a stoic, deadpan expression through most of his performances. Look at his face in the photos below and see how it changed as he aged.

Back to the modern day (sorry Buster), and to the modern celebrity. 23 is young, no one (except maybe a pre-teen) will argue that. Adele is 23 years old, as is Rihanna. Lady Gaga is 25, Taylor Swift is 22, Katy Perry is 27 and Nicki Minaj is 29. Do these ladies actually look that different age-wise?

Let's look at the example of Amy Winehouse, another singer I adored and one whose death I mourn. The below photos are arranged roughly in order from oldest to most recent. Amy, as most of us know, was a drug addict and an alcoholic. Beyond that, she perhaps had an eating disorder, but she most definitely did not eat or sleep properly and did not take care of herself. Amy was 27 when she passed away last summer, so these photos range from roughly age 20 to age 27. You can see the difference in her face and skin texture, some of which can be explained from the natural aging process and makeup, some, obviously from her chosen lifestyle. 

Or Google Lindsay Lohan, who is the same age as Adele. 

There are a few factors that I can think as to why Adele may have appeared older than her years to some people. 

Makeup

Her look is one that's reminiscent of old Hollywood or the 1960s with her winged eyeliner. It's a look many people associate with a time period decades ago. The look requires heavy eyeliner, lots of eyeshadow, defined cheeks, lips and brows and a matte complexion. These things can make someone young look more mature.

Adele wears predominantly black. Her black dresses are very sophisticated and figure flattering but black can suck colour from your skin and make you look pale and unwell. Makeup is undoubtably used on her to counteract this effect.

The texture of the makeup Adele wears often looks matte. We associate youthfulness with clean, clear, glowing skin which is why many people like to look sit out in the sun or use tanning beds.

At the Grammy Awards, Adele would have been wearing a lot of makeup, suitable to be photographed in on the red carpet, to be on camera in, and to be visible onstage to a theatre full of people. She would need to look as flawless as possible for as many of those scenarios as possible. Ever see a photo of yourself where your face looks much paler than the rest of your skin? That's likely due to the flash on the camera reflecting off of particles in your makeup. A makeup artist needs to use products that will counter that effect on their celebrity clients. A television or film camera will affect the appearance of makeup on someone's face as well. Adele's makeup artist would have needed to balance what looks natural-enough, glam-enough and what is enough makeup to translate on camera. Trust me, Adele was wearing a lot of makeup Sunday night that you can't necessarily see.

See this FOTD I did a few years ago. It's not dissimilar to Adele's makeup and it ages me.

Lifestyle

Adele is a smoker and has admitted to liking to have a drink or two. Both of these things can dehydrate the skin. She also has a hectic lifestyle involving lots of travel, late nights and early mornings. She also has to wear lots of makeup because the paparazzi are always around wanting to catch her not looking done up so they can post the pictures online and we can all snark and point out her flaws.

Smiling

If you've seen any interviews with Adele, she's bubbly, funny and delightful. She's always smiling and laughing. Smiling and laughing make your eyes crinkle up. I don't know about you, but a life without smiling and laughing is worse than all the wrinkles in the world.

Perhaps as she was singing and talking and smiling on Sunday night, her makeup was creasing. It’s unlikely that any makeup artist or stylist would let that happen, but she was emotional that evening and crying. Perhaps nature was working against her finished look.

Health

Adele recently underwent throat surgery to repair her vocal chords. There was a risk that she may not be able to sing ever again, but she quelled everyone's fears by performing flawlessly on Sunday night's Grammy Awards, her voice at full strength. Because she's been recovering from the surgery, she has lost some weight. Recovering from throat surgery must make it difficult to eat, so that makes sense. She's also undoubtably been on medication. Both a minimized diet and medication can contribute to drier skin.

Sun

Adele was recently on vacation in Miami. Perhaps she did not wear sunscreen and sunglasses and squinted a lot. 

Skin

Adele is naturally fair-skinned. Fair skin is easily damaged by the sun and affected by wind, cold air and other elements. Perhaps her skin is naturally dry or on the thin side. Perhaps her genes will cause wrinkles to form on certain places on her face.

Hair

Adele debuted a much lighter blonde hair colour on Sunday night. Lighter hair can wash out the complexion. I don't think it looks bad on her at all, but if she wanted to soften her look, I'd recommend she go back to the warm red-caramelly tones she has had recently.

Is that enough? Shall I go on? Just watch (rewatch) Adele's Grammy performance here and see if you can see these wrinkles that make her look so much older than 23. See the difference between her makeup in the photos taken on the red carpet and her makeup on stage (more contouring on the cheeks and in the eye area and a change in lip colour).

The thing is, we can't change our genetics. We shouldn't change our lifestyle unless it's a dangerous, damaging one and we certainly should never stop laughing and smiling. We can wear no makeup, a little bit of makeup or a lot of makeup, however you prefer. We can however alter our points of view so that we're not looking through a narrow field of vision. Rihanna and Adele are the same age, but they do not look the same. Nor should they. Nor should we want our pop stars and celebrities to look the same.

I look at these photos of Adele and have seen the acceptance speeches she gave and her performance from Sunday night. I saw a stunning, healthy, talented, charming young woman who has the world at her feet and is yet humble and self-effacing. I felt like I was watching a dear friend, not a pop star and her success is, in my opinion well-earned.

She knows what works for her, style-wise and sound-wise, and she sticks with it. No one else is doing what she is. Without crazy hair colours, over the top music videos, back-up dancers and a camera lingering on every well-lit curve of her body, Adele has won the hearts of the world.

And I'll leave you with this, Adele on the cover of American Vogue for March 2012. Photoshopped? Most undoubtably, but not to the point where she looks artificial. She is 23 years old and her wrinkles, if she has them, are 23 years old. May she continue to laugh, smile, cry and sing her heart out as long as she wants to. Let the artificial popstars continue to scramble to keep our attention with crazy costumes and vocal manipulations. You had us enthralled with one song and one look at those soulful eyes.

Keep smiling, readers. Wrinkles mean experience, not age. Don't fight them. Feel lucky that we get a few different faces during our short time alive.

C.

Adele-inspired FOTD: Pretty, polished and easy

Adele came onto the scene around the same time as Duffy and Amy Winehouse and I don't know if I had overdosed on 60s-style-soul-singers or what, but although I acknowledged that she was an unbelievable singer and songwriter, her music just didn't click with me. Her new album is currently #1 in 17 countries and when I saw this video a month or two ago, I was completely hooked. 

I played this video over and over again, and most plays, I wept, but I still kept watching it. She has the ability to write a song that resonates with people, I hear it over and over again. 'Someone Like You' is heartbreakingly powerful and you feel her pain in every word. 

Yes, I've drunk the Adele Kool Aid finally.

Perhaps another thing that I've responded to this time around with Adele is her styling. She has a 50s-60s-style polish about her clothing, makeup and hair. She looks gorgeous.

When I discovered that Nic from PixiWoo had done a tutorial inspired by Adele's look, I decided to do my own version. The key to the look is to look polished, healthy and retro but with a modern softness.

What do you think?

Here is the PixiWoo video I used as reference - I did almost exactly what Nic does but used some different products. By the way, if you haven't checked out the sisters behind PixiWoo, you must! They're absolutely amazing. 

Here's the Adele-inspired video Nic did.

And here's another shot of me with my Adele-inspired look.

Basically the only difference between mine and Nic's version of this look is some of the products and that I went with cool tones on my cheeks and lips while she went more tan, which is closer to how Adele's look is. I simply don't have a bronzer or peachy lip products that would work for this, so I went with pink. I think it works just fine with my skin tone and hair colour. I am on the hunt for a good peachy lipstick though...

So what I did was moisturizer (Bare Escentuals RareMinerals Moisturizer), a bit of primer on my T-Zone and then buffed on Bare Escentuals Mineral Makeup in Fairly Light. For this look you want a base with coverage. Not what they would have worn back in the 50s and 60s, but something that's not overly shiny. You want natural but covered. Use concealer (I used MAC Studio Fix in NW20 mixed with MAC Select Moisturecover in NW20) under your eyes and on any areas you need a bit more coverage.

Eyes first. 

Blend a creamy highlighter along your brow bone (I used Benefit Moonbeam), on the inner eye and blended softly across your eyelid. Right away, use a bit of MAC Paint Pot in Groundwork (I had a sample I'd gotten to try) and smudge it across the lid, softly. You want the lighter cream shade below and Groundworked to blend a little. Use a broad, flat brush like the one pictured below.

MAC Groundwork

Then blend a combination of the orange (Rich & Earthy) and gold (Skintone 2) shades from MAC's Notoriety palette (from 2009's MAC Make Up Art Cosmetics Collection - Richard Phillips) across the eyelid, focusing on the outer corner. (Nic uses MAC's Woodwinked.) You are looking for a soft, shimmery, warm effect. Use a broad, full brush like the one pictured below.

MAC Notoriety Quad

Next, use MAC's Patina in the crease, blending it above slightly. You want a touch more definition but still very natural and shimmery. You can use the same full, fluffy brush just clean it off a little first.

MAC Patina

And finally, that cat-eye eyeliner flick! I used my MAC Blacktrack and an angle brush, as always.

MAC Blacktrack

Start from the inside of your eye and draw a line along your lashline, extending it beyond the edge of your eye and flicking it upwards. Draw the line again, making it thicker. If you wish to, you can draw two lines, one above the other, just join the corners and make it thicker in the middle. Go over it again with new product if you need to intensify the colour. Make sure it looks as perfect as possible and use Q-tips to help you tidy the line up if you need to.

*Don't curl your eyelashes before drawing your eyeliner line. 

Finally, run your brush along your upper waterline, below the top lashes all along your eyelid. It's like lining the upper waterline. This intensifies the look and if you've got tangly eyelashes like me, this helps to cover any skin in between the eyeliner line and your waterline. 

Curl upper eyelashes and coat with two or three coats of mascara. I used Benefit's Big Lash. You'll want to use mascara on your lower lashes as well. Nic uses a Clinique Lower Lash Mascara in her video - ooooh! I've never heard of this but I want it! A mascara for lower lashes will have a smaller, denser brush than a regular mascara. I have upper eye-length lower lashes so I can get away with using a regular mascara on them, as long as I'm gentle.

I filled in my eyebrows with MAC Sketch and a short-bristled angle brush. You want to have full, well-groomed brows for this look. 

MAC Sketch (the hard, shiny part at the top is from when I've used it wet)

For my cheeks I used two pinky versions of what Nic used, simply because I don't have bronze-peach colours in my makeup case. 

Use MAC Strada blush to softly sculpt your cheeks. Using a fluffy, angled blush brush, sweep it just below your cheekbones.

MAC Strada

On top of that, use MAC Mineralize Blush in Warm Soul on the apples of your cheeks with a fluffy blush brush. Sweep it up to your temples. You want to look glowy and healthy. 

MAC Mineralize Warm Soul

Lips! The idea is a subtle, glossy but sculpted lip. Use a neutral or pale pink lip liner (I used Smashbox in Smashing Muse and MAC in In Synch) and apply to your entire lip. Top it with a pale pink lipstick like MAC Plink! and then top that with a glossy pale pink gloss like MAC Baby Sparks.

L-R: MAC In Synch, Smashbox Smashing Muse, MAC Plink!, MAC Baby Sparks

 If you wanted to, you could use false eyelashes with this look for a more dramatic, glamourous effect. Obviously, more for night than for day.

 And there you have it, a gorgeous, polished, modern retro look. Check out Pixi Woo and Adele!

Here's another of her songs: 

Sam and Nic Chapman, the Pixiwoo girls can be found:
On Twitter at @pixiwoos
On YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/pixiwoo?blend=1&ob=4
On the Internet at www.pixiwoo.com

 C.