Still here......honest!

Eeek where does the time go? Over a month since I managed to publish a post. I have a number half written, but life has just been so busy and I can't justify blogging until I'm a little more up to date again. See you soon. x

Artdeco Makeup at Pro Beauty

When Pro Beauty rolled into the ExCel last month I couldn't resist a day out. I do love a good mooch around, seeing what's new and different. This was my third year and it's interesting to spot which brands are regulars and which aren't....there's always the odd surprise. Looking back two years I titled my write up 'Pro Beauty - Not for the faint hearted' . Is it more or less manic two years on? I don't know. It's definitely bigger. Possibly I just got used to the crowds and does help if you go off to a Warpaint Seminar or two in the middle of the day - always the busiest time. The Warpaint Conference sessions were new for 2013 ahead of the magazine's relaunch as a digital publication later this year. It fits in with the gently growing presence of makeup at Pro Beauty as salons look to extend the services they offer.

Which brings me to the main brand that get's me out of bed on a cold wintry morning to make my way to ExCel. ProBeauty is the one place I know I can see the true abundance on offer from German Pro Makeup brand Artdeco. You can find them online, at Beauty Bay, The Garden Pharmacy and Debenhams but Pro Beauty is definitely the place to be if you want to check out the range in full:

The Dita collection has been on my longed for list since images first peeked onto Facebook last year. I could have spent a fortune, but limited myself to a couple of lippies.

Oh Color Mania! Art Deco wowed me greatly last summer with pictures of Color Mania from the different AD European Facebook accounts....still not entirely sure if it was stocked here by anyone...  

The current collection, Butterfly Dreams most definitely is though:

As is Mystic Garden:

Artdeco Pure Minerals

Tribal Sunset has me cooing all over again....not out yet but I see the lippies are starting to appear on Beauty Bay......that and this summers brights collection, which I'm really hoping to get pictures for as soon as they're available.

Tribal Sunset Blush

Also, on the way from Artdeco is the arrival of their own versions of the much hyped BB Creams. Love them or not they are here to stay, for the time being at least. Artdeco isn't a brand to hot foot it down the path after everyone else, without some careful consideration. So they took a step back and watched to see where exactly this path would go, what the BB Cream obsession would morph into before coming up with there own addition to the market. I've always been a girl of extremes, full on slap or none at all, so BB's aren't something I've really investigated, what I saw of these, the texture and coverage was pretty impressive though. Definitely one to check out if BB's are your thing.

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Warpaint Conference tickets received in a Twitter Giveaway 

 My blogging life has become more fractured than ever recently. I miss the days when I could spend a whole day doing a write up after an event, but hey, that's the way life goes.

Illamasqua Nurture - Rubber Brights

When Illamasqua's Rubber Brights Nail Polishes launched as a Sephora exclusive in August last year, I wanted them all! Of course when they finally arrived here in the UK 2 months ago, I realistically had to pick just one. Even then it had to compete with newly launched (I didn't make it to the shop until February) I'mperfection Speckled Nails.

I love all the speckled nail pics I've seen, but I couldn't envisage them looking as good on my short nails and then I saw Nurture in the flesh and all thoughts of Fragile and Mottle went out of the window. I honestly haven't seen one picture that accurately captures the colour of Nurture. Most give it too much yellow and others flatten it's vibrancy. I did have a go, still don't think I got there.

On an Ikea quilt cover

In the garden

On a book

Then with POP Aquatic Glitz after I chipped them - inevitable with my bendy nails - of course you loose the matte / rubber finish, but this type of combo always makes me think of Saris, brightly coloured, with stunning shiny embroidery, heavy at the hem, graduating to more sporadic detailing in the body.

And finally, this one might just capture the colour best....think matte from the top with this colour.

Sadly showing as discontinued on the Illamasqua website, Nurture is still available from ASOS and Sefridges. Suprisingly, the latter is also stocking Aorta! Part of the original Sephora Rubber Brights line up of 6 polishes, I really thought it hadn't made it to these shores as I hadn't seen it in any of the Illamasqua UK promotional materials.

Superdrug Dry Shampoo

These 2 cans have been sitting here insulting me for quite a while now. Insulting me, because I need to throw them away, yet I felt that I needed to be reminded to blog about them and I hate throwing things away.

I've got a feeling I was shopping for bandages for my finger when I noticed them, should have been a warning really - that buy 1 get 2 free offer - but no, I had a senior moment and got the Superdrug and Wilkinson ones mixed up. The latter selling a fairly impressive own brand dry shampoo, the former, well lets just say it took a while to sink in, that every time I used this stuff my hair got greasier. No clean feeling or refreshment here.

I guess it must work for somebody, as Googling just now, to check if it's still on sale (it is) I discovered poor reviews going back at least a couple of years. Surely it wouldn't be on sale if it was that bad for everyone?!

Needless to say I stocked up on Batiste when I spotted them on offer in Boots recently.

Illamasqua's Make up Artist Lock in - Vintage Glamour Master Class

It feel's like a total age since I got to play with make up, so I jumped at the opportunity to visit Beak Street last week for a Makeup Artist Lock in, at Illamasqua's School of Make up Art, with the amazing Clare and Daniel. Many Beauty School Drop-ins have been and gone without me getting in on a Sunday for a look so this was an opportunity not to be missed. Illamasqua's product range has changed quite a bit since I attended one of the earliest 5 day courses in 2010 so for me it's a great way to catch up on how some of the newer products have been incorporated into the line up. For anyone new to the school though, it's also an excellent way to get an idea of what you might expect from a course and meet the Educator's.

Daniel and Clare provided a Vintage Glamour Master Class, a taster - Our educators will demonstrate make-up looks and tips from different decades. Discover the professional way to achieve the 20’s first smoky eye to the 40’s full pout, 50’s perfect liner flick to the 60’s cut crease. - from what they offer on the Three Day Vintage Glamour Course which takes you from the 20's through to the 80's and beyond.

Full of historical snipits on why changes occured, Clare demonstrated a 20's look, followed by the 40's, before Daniel transformed the 40's into the 50's and finished with the 60's. I wasn't quick enough to grab a picture of the 40's look but here are the rest.

20's

50's 

60's

One great tip for applying matte lipsticks was to work a little off the bullet with the stem of a cotton cotton bud and then warm it up by working it on the back of your hand to apply with a brush. It's quite easy to get put off when you're used to the amount of slip that a more moisturising lippie. In a non MUA setting, I for one, usually find myself applying the bullet to my top lip and cupids bow, then using the slip of the product to coat the majority of my lower lip by rubbing my bottom lip on the lower half of the top one, then replacing anything I've lost from the top with the bullet. I guess that may be a habit I can get away with because I have such full lips, but I'm sure we all have little knacks that we take for granted because of the slip we expect from a lipstick.

I bought Magnetism from the Generation Q Collection some months ago and this has that effortless slip we love. Most of Illamasqua's lipsticks aren't like that though and I've tended to avoid them for everyday use as a result. That is, until I fell for Resist the other night. It's a similar colour to Magnetism and I'll probably layer Magnetism over it at some stage as I think they'll work well together. Right now it's all about Resist though, and I've discovered that short slow careful strokes allowing the product to warm as I go works very well for me. It's going to be my go to pink lippie for a good while yet.

If you get chance to visit Beak Street for a Drop-in or a Lock-in I'd thoroughly recommend it!!

I was invited to the Lock-in as a former student of the Make up School, my attendance at which I paid for myself. OK I contradict myself, it was actually Mr Sparklz who paid. Although I did the physical paying because I had to deal with the embarrassment of having my credit card rejected - I think the bank were a bit dubious of the round thousand pounds to a newly set up shop. Mr Horne was lovely though.

...Here's something I made earlier....much earlier...

I'm still not at a place with my coursework where I feel comfortable to sit down and allow myself free rein on a blog post. So this post is really just a quick aside for Sam @MakeupAdviceMAF who said she'd like to  see some of my cards. I haven't made any consistently for about 4 years now so I had to have a quick trawl through our photo archives to find the ones I did take pics of. There are many cards missing, trains and robots and variations on the ones I do have pics of, that I obviously forgot to record. My babes were all much smaller then and there were plenty of Birthday invites that needed cards.

I've always been into simple, non fussy cards......words on the front are pretty rare.

And, nothing to do with cards, but some cake pics I found along the way and thought Sam might like to see too:

For the uninitiated - it's the Gruffalo!

With candle arm supports because I made the arms stick out beyond what was sensible if you want your Gruffalo to keep his arms. He lived in the oven overnight as I didn't have a cake box big enough.

".....He has purple prickles all over his back...." 

Butterfly fruit 'cake' 

or

...I don't want to feed my small child lots of E-numbered icing...

New Hats!

I love my hat's, as well you might have guessed ;p and if one comes along that I love, I might have been known to buy more than one....just in case of loss....it has happened....or fading.....happens a lot.....
This last year though, my usual haunt has been a little lacking in anything that inspires me... that probably translates as no bright colours!

However, whilst I was out trying to replace yet another pair of missing school trousers I happened upon these lovelies in Matalan:

 Red Wool Cloche Hat

Black Matalan Wool Cloche Hat

Pic is over exposed  because I couldn't get the detail without. 

The red one is by far and away my favourite, yet I bought the black one first....because it would go with more things...Got to love logic! Mr Sparklz sent me back for the red one and wondered why I'd bothered with the black when he saw it on me. But affordable cloche hats don't come along that often and it WILL go with more things ;p

Slightly bizarrely, I note that the Matalan pics appear to show the hats the wrong way up. The label is fixed where they have the front so it's not me being daft and wearing it the wrong way round. Perhaps the designers and the manufactures were working on different concepts.....either way a great hat for eight quid.