Burning in Water

My friend Una got me the “Burning in Water” palette from the Wong Kar Wai x Shu Uemura collaboration…a surprise gift enjoyed over delicious Pho soup :) It’s so pretty I’m too scared to use it! Well, almost too scared, heh heh heh…

Mask

I mentioned the Wong Kar Wai x Shu Uemura collaboration before (here). Here is the gorgeous accompanying film directed by the man himself. Those eyelashes! Those colours! The glitter!

“Wong Kar Wai is a ‘master of colors’, just like Mr. Shu Uemura.
Possessing a unique perspective on femininity, he has specialized in capturing the mystique of women. In collaboration with Wong Kar Wai, Shu Uemura introduces a holiday collection rich in emotions and atmosphere, with beautiful package decoration inspired by his special short film for Shu Uemura, “Mask”. With his distinctive appreciation of femininity and his signature style that is both nostalgic and hip, this collection emphasizes timeless elegance and poetic tones, and takes the Shu Uemura look to a new dimension”.

 

Wong Kar Wai x Shu Uemura

I stared at this blankly for a whole minute before googling Wong Kar Wai to see if there’s more than one filmmaker with that name. But no, it is indeed THE Wong Kar Wai, the revered Hong Kong filmmaker responsible for In the Mood for Love and other fashion-heavy masterpieces, who has teamed up with Shu Uemura for a makeup collaboration.

I’m not sure how I feel about this except that it makes it even more clear that fashion’s love affair with film is only going to intensify.

Thoughts? Will you be buying?

via Wonderland

Freak

I am beyond excited about Illamasqua‘s first fragrance, “Freak” which launches at the end of the month. Frankly I don’t really care what it smells like, I just love the name, campaign, and of course, the adorable little silver snail on the bottle.

Are you a freak?

Lip Noir

I’ve been desperatley seeking a matte, pebble-grey lipstick for a while now, so I was of course super excited to discover that Lime Crime is doing one. It’s called “Chinchilla” and its a soft purpley dove shade that’s being released as part of the Lip Noir collection, which I want all off. The lipsticks are supposed to be available in September, and I can’t wait to try them out. Check out Lime Crime online.

Pop Romance

I am obsessed with Lime Crime‘s new spring shades. Mint lipstick? Yes please. I don’t think I could pull the yellow off but I NEED the other two.

Also, these put me in the mood for Spring and those sherbert pushpop icecreams :)

Makeup Monster

Chanel‘s creative makeup director Peter Philips has created this delightful fashion film featuring Chanel makeup taking the form of adorable robotic characters. Watch “Animating Chanel” below.

(Alternative title; “Tranny Transformers: Fabulous Robots in Disguise”).

via The Nowness

Cruella Devil: Style Icon

Happy 500th post to Drooling Isn’t Pretty! Cheers to the next 500 :)

“But its my only true love, darling! I live for fur, I worship fur!”

Like all the other Mac-addicts and Disney fans, I have been obsessively checking the Mac Cosmetics website for the past month waiting for the UK release of the Venomous Villains collection. AT LAST! It’s here in London Mac stores and department stores.  Unfortunately, Mac makeup is super expensive in the ol’ British Pound Sterling, so I had to choose really carefully. It wasn’t difficult to pick the villain I wanted: Fashion icon, fur-obsessed, pure evil…the obvious choice was the original Devil in Prada, Cruella deVil.

Let me just say first off that I LOVE Cruella, I think she’s the perfect villain and she has such an iconic  look. There’s something about a skunk-haired skeleton strutting around in a massive fur coat and red lipstick thats so comically evil.

I had to get the red lipstick (“Heartless”), of course, and despite my better judgement I got an eyeshadow as well because the packaging was so cute (“Sweet Joy”…its a great neutral frost).

Did you guys buy any of the collection? Who’s your favorite Disney villain?

P.S. I recently read on Dear Girls Above Me “You can’t really hate on Cruella deVil just because she wants a fab coat.” One might point out that PETA can hate on her, but that’s another story ;)

Bits and Beauty Bobs

Here are some bits and bobs I wrote for Beauty Confessional from the past few weeks.

If you ever find yourself at a loss for a chat-up line, you can’t go wrong complimenting a girl’s fashion sense. It certainly seems to have worked for Russell Brand, who’s romance with fiancé and “California Gurls” singer Katy Perry all started with an Alexander McQueen bracelet. In Brand’s sequel to autobiography My Booky Wook…Read more

This year, amongst all the flurry and excitement of London Fashion Week, a dark shadow loomed over the tents. A critical figure in the British design world was missing. On Monday the 20th of September, right in the middle of fashion week, a gathering of family…Read more

Today, Illamasqua‘s Art of Darkness Fall 2010 collection has officially launched online, and come the 16th, will launch at your closest Illamasqua counter. According to their press release, “A feast for the eyes, the Art of Darkness collection is a sumptuous selection of jewel-like shades for eyes, lips, nails and body…Read more

SS11 Beauty Trends

Hey guys, check out my coverage of Spring 2011 runway makeup on Beauty Confessional! Many more of these posts to come.

There’s always a certain point during Fashion Week when I get really burnt out on following all the runway coverage. It’s not because I’m not fascinated by the shows, its that I start feeling glum about the fact that I’ll never be able to own any of the incredible clothes. It is at this point that I turn my attention to the beauty trends…Read more

At Victoria Beckham and Etro, the look was all about a pastel purple eye and nude/golden lips. The looks is girly, fun, and perfect for party girls. In both cases the shadow was dusted up to the brows and hair was kept sleek and minimal to keep the focus on the  eyes…Read more

If you thought orange lips were a stretch for Spring, wrap your head around this new trend for orange on the eyes. Each designer had a different interpretation of this new look, from the winged orange liner at Derek Lam, to the traffic-cone eyebrows at Damir Doma and the soft creamy orange eyes at Maurizio Pecoraro. Read more

Creature of Infinite Dimension

I think Heather Marks is one of the most gorgeous models; She manages to look like a woman, a girl, and some kind of perfect otherwordly fairy all wrapped up in one really tall flawless being. She has also done loads of campaigns for Nars, which is probably in my top three cosmetics companies. Lately Nars has been promoting their Pure Matte lipstick range like crazy, and they’ve come out with a beauty film featuring the gorgeous Heather Marks.

Hey look, more mirror effects! As I’ve said a million times before, I am tired of mirror effects in fashion films,  but here I feel like it works because it actually means something. The film starts out with the text “A creature of infinite dimension”, and then goes on to show Heather’s perfect mug in infinite dimensions. So fine, I give it a pass. It’s also pretty, short, and to the point, and I definitely want one of those lipsticks (Vesuvio, anyone?), so obviously it gets the job done.

Thoughts? Does it work for you, or is it pretentious and trendy?

Nail Tribute

As much as I hate the commercialization of Alexander McQueen’s death-he was a legend, and its sort of sad to make a profit off of his suicide-I do really love this idea of an “All Hail McQueen” nail polish shade by Butter London. Inspired by the famous Kate Moss hologram, its gray with shimmer, and comes in this great little square bottle.

Will you be buying? Via Nylon Magazine.

P.S. If their name is “Butter London”, why the hell don’t they have stockists in the UK? Fail.

Alter Ego

Yesterday, cult British beauty brand Illamasqua released the first of three videos commissioned as part of their ongoing “make-up for your alter ego” campaign. The first video is entitled “Poem”, starring Vicky McClure, and is “a poignant portrayal of Vicky’s transformation into her alter-ego through the art of making-up…” As video lookbooks become increasingly popular among fashion designers, it is only fitting that beauty brands should follow with video campaigns…especially for a brand like Illamasqua that is rooted in cosmetics for film and theater.

What do you guys think? I feel that it suits the brand perfectly and serves its purpose showing us some products up close and in use…although it is a bit literal. Hopefully in the next two films we’ll get to find out who this girl is rather than just watch her apply gorgeous makeup.

I am super excited about their “Art of Darkness” Fall collection, which you can preview here.

Shu Uemura

My lovely cousins gave me a gift certificate to Shu Uemura for my birthday and it didn’t take me long to figure out how to spend it. I’ve kept this inspiration photo on my desktop for quite some time now, trying to find the right products for the look, so I kind of based my choices off of it.

Here is what I got, a beige-pink lipstick, shimmery bronze eyeshadow and a black eye pencil.  The packaging is beautiful and that eyeshadow is the PRETTIEST bronzy golden colour. I am officially a fan of Shu Uemura, there is nothing like a little retail therapy to ease the pain of bronchitis :)

Sui Me

As much as I love living in Europe and there’s no place I’d rather be than London, it does irritate me that I miss out on things that are U.S. exclusive. New Project Runway episodes on Lifetime are North America only, I can’t seem to find Goldfish crackers anywhere, and these amazing Anna Sui lipsticks are only available at the American Urban Outfitters. How crazy is that packaging? And the colours available are gorgeous, check out the rest of the collection, which includes eyeshadows and nail polish as well, here.

Topshop Makeup

I’m not a beauty blogger and I know nothing about makeup, BUT I am a sucker for a) cute packaging b) nail polish with funny names and c) Topshop. That being said, Topshop launched their makeup line this week in the UK so I moseyed on over to the Oxford Circus store to check it out.  The packaging is super cute and sketchy looking, like it was doodled on, and they have a really wide range of colours and products.

I ended up only getting a couple nail polishes since the store was too crowded to have a proper look at everything. I got a milky yellow one appropriately called “bee’s knees”  and a gray one called “cloud”.  (More photos after the jump)

I really like the formula, it dries really quickly and only requires like two coats, so I am planning on going back to get more colours. They have a really crazy orange shade I’ve never seen anywhere else and a bunch of grays and blues. I also want to try the felt tip eye liner, but in all honesty I am a little concerned about some of the ingredients of the face makeup so I don’t think I’ll be trying those.

Any thoughts? Have you guys bought anything from the line or do you plan to?

Bleue a Lèvres

I had been planning to go to the Space NK Lime Crime launch party at the Tottenham Court Road store where Lime Crime founder Doe Deere was presenting her “Candyfuture” range of lipsticks and eyeshadows. Unfortunately, I was unable to get back to London because of the volcano in Iceland so I missed the event :(

I finally made it back by train this week and I was still determined to get the blue lipstick I have been coveting…so I went and picked it up (the shade is called “No She Didn’t”) and ended up really wanting  a gorgeous orange shade called “My Beautiful Rocket” and the lilac one called “D’Lilac”. What can I say, I was smitten with the adorable pink display and all the unicorns. I’ll probably start a collection, hee hee.

I tried to do an artsy-fartsy photoshoot but ended up looking like a goober as usual, but anyway here are my “best shots”.

Criminal

I’m pretty sold on Lime Crime…I wasn’t disappointed with Retrofuturist and now I want to be a little more adventurous with the colours. I want My Beautiful Rocket and No She Didn’t! Love this photo from their website.

(Lime Crime lipstick in D’Lilac pictured)

Sail the C’s

When people buy Chanel it might be for the classic, timeless elegance associated with the uber-brand, or it might be for people’s cultish obsession with brand’s image, specifically, the logo. Those simple little C’s are universally recognized as a symbol for all that is desirable, and therefore its a natural progression for people to start branding their skin with the logo.

Behold, Chanel Pirate of the Legendary C’s; (via Not Couture). I’d rock it if it were an eye patch ;P

Retrofuturist

My favorite lipstick and favorite packaging. The shade is “retrofuturist” by Lime Crime.