Shiro eye week: Purrloin

So I totally fibbed on yesterday’s post (which is what happens when I write things in advance and forget about them) but I promise Pikachu-themed makeup some time this week!  Which you can probably spot, given how Pikachu is not known for being particularly purple.

In the meantime, in honour of attaining the lofty heights of 2,000 Likes on Facebook, Caitlin of Shiro Cosmetics declared a Pokemon Party!

(And while we’re on the topic … have you liked A Large Pink Woman on Facebook?)

Not being the hugest Pokemon fan myself, and living with a reformed huge Pokemon fan who would probably just be perplexed (or at least, roll his eyes and say “Ugh, girls” in a despairing tone of voice designed specifically to wind me up) by questions like “which Pokemon can I best represent with this range of eyeshadows?” I turned to that wonder of the 21st century, the inevitable fandom wiki.

Bulbapedia even categories Pokemon by colour.  So that was pretty handy.

I quickly pinpointed Purrloin as a likely contender.  I mean, look at the cutie.  And here are the results!

Products used:  Napoleon Perdis Autopilot eye primer, Shiro Cosmetics eyeshadow in /kiss and Rattata (since renamed), Avon mousse eyeshadow in Pacific Pearl and black liquid eyeliner, Maybelline Great Lash mascara.  Tools:  cheap-as-chips Avon eyeshadow brush.

It’s definitely not a work look, and it ain’t perfect, but I’m happy with how my skills are improving with vast quantities of practice.  A year ago, this would have looked … not good.

I did end up having to pry the little sifting inserts out of the eyeshadow containers to really load up the colour; the takeaway from that is to make sure you push them all the way down when you’re done or the lids stick and, even if it doesn’t explode in a cloud of pigment, you get really anxious that it might.  Or I do, at least.

Shiro eye week: iShadow smokey eye

My Shiro eyeshadow week continues!  This time I went monochromatic, with an attempt at a smokey eye look using only the three shades in the iShadow set.
These colours go on fantastically, I must say.  I’m always a fan of the idea that practice and a good primer can do wonders, even for bargain-bin purchases, but these really don’t need much in the way of support, as you can see!


The whole look is comprised of:  Napoleon Perdis Autopilot eye primer, iShadow from Shiro Cosmetics in Black, White and Aluminium, Avon SuperShock mascara.

Aluminium is a very nice sparkly silvery grey – not super-flat grey, not super-sparkly silver.  I’m tempted to foil it to see just how sparkly it could get, but used dry it has plenty of applications either for more-subdued or more-outrageous looks.

A small caution on Black:  my gods and pixies it likes going everywhere.  Use tiny, weeny, not-really-anything-on-your-brush-at-all amounts and build slowly.  Unless you’re going for a super-dark look, in which case this is definitely the shade for you.

I’ve been a bit turned off black shadow for a while, largely due to my own lack of patience and just getting too much all over the place – when I’m using browns or purples it doesn’t seem to turn out as badly if I overdo things.  And with cheaper eyeshadow (especially before The Days Of Primer) I’ve had too many experiences of all the colours just muddling together in a shiny greyish mess.

That is soooooo not a concern with these shadows.  I’m certainly better than I used to be (and also did I mention PRIMER!) but I think you’d have a hard time going wrong with Shiro products.

Next up:  can a Pikachu-inspired look really be work appropriate?  I’m almost certain the answer is yes.

Shiro eye week: purple!

This week I’ve decided to go all Shiro, all the time – both to show off the amazingness of Shiro’s eyeshadows but also because I may have just made another tiny weeny order of a small itty bitty number of the discontinued sale products.  So I kind of need to start using the ones I’ve already got.

Plus, in honour of reaching a Facebook milestone, Shiro is running a Pokemon-themed makeup competition – so things could get a little wild.  And then trapped in small spheres and forced to battle.

For my first foray, I broke out the Rattata (now Team Rocket) purple and matched it with the pink /kiss (part of the Valentine’s Day collect, but the lovely Caitlin who runs Shiro says she’ll be re-releasing it at some point, along with the other Valentine’s items, under different names).

(The light was fading rapidly when I was taking these photos!)

Look 1 was for a fancy night out, so big-and-bold it was.  Started with my usual Napoleon Perdis Autopilot eye primer and Avon mousse eyeshadow in Pacific Pearl (basically a slightly-shimmery neutral on a pasty gal like me) then /kiss all over the lid and Rattata in the crease and up on the brow.

It’s not entirely even, but it was a 15-minute look done before heading out for dinner.  And I wear nice chunky glasses.  And it’s my face so I’ll do what I like with it!

I finished things off with basic black mascara and a neutral lippie – either MAC Marquise D’ or Avon Champagne Glow.  I forget which, and they’re roughly duplicates when dinner, wine-drinking, and regular reapplication are going to be on the menu anyway (though Marquise D’ does smell rather more delicious.)

Look 2 is the same colour combination, only mostly-/kiss with a little Rattata on the inner corner of the eye.  This was for work, hence the bathroom lighting rather than natural light.

Current verdict:  I love my Shiro eyeshadows.  They’re pretty, they’re bright, they apply nicely … they retail for US$5 (and $3.50 international shipping!)  Even if you could complain, why would you?

(Shiro Cosmetics have also just relaunched their website.  Check it out!)

Comparison: OPI Black Shatter vs. Avon Mosaic Effect

OPI Black Shatter on the thumb; Avon Mosaic Effect on the index and middle fingers.

Avon recently released the Mosaic Effects nail polish – i.e. their knockoff of a black shatter.  I don’t mean that in a perjorative way – the entire point of Avon, as far as I’m concerned, is that it recreates current trending makeup products at a far more affordable price.

I did already own OPI Black Shatter though, so had to justify purchasing Mosaic Effects (currently only in the one colour) on the basis I could run a comparison between the two for my loyal readers.  Here you go!

The executive summary: There’s not much between these.  Avon gets slightly higher points on application, but otherwise it’s pretty much a dead heat.

I applied both to the same hand to avoid any variation caused by using my dominant hand for one and non-dominant for the other.  The base was two coats of OPI Come to Poppy.  I applied top coat, but after taking these photos.

The comparison – application: The one thing I can say for the Avon is that it’s smoother, maybe a little thinner, than the OPI.  It’s just ever so slightly easier to apply, possibly because it feels easier to control, but it’s not a gamechanger.  Unless you really, really want (a zig-a-zag ah!) the shatter look but the thickness/clumpiness of OPI is too annoying.

OPI on the thumb, Avon on the index and middle fingers, OPI on the ring and little fingers.

The comparison – looks:  I waited some time before writing up this post, and when I went back to the photos I’d taken, it took a bit of hard thinking to remember which polish was on which nail!  That pretty much says it all.

The price issue:  I bought Black Shatter at … Farmers, I think?  For somewhere in the standard $26-29 range. The Mosaic Effect was $13, an introductory special down from the standard price of $15.  On the face of it, that’s a pretty big deal.

However, the difference in retail price is exaggerated by the ridiculous mark up on OPI in NZ brick-and-mortar stores.  If you’re purchasing online from overseas, or even from NZ-based stores like Gracie Lou, it’s much less painful to go for the more expensive brand.

Thing is, as you can probably tell, I don’t think there’s a significant difference.  Even after a week, there was no noticeable difference in lasting power or chipping.  So if you’re an Avon customer, and it’s more convenient, go with Avon; if you’re an OPI fan, stick with OPI if you like having all your bottles the same shape.  No one’s will ever know.

Nails o’ the week: Rosy Rainbow Connection

Following on from last week’s glitter-tastic extravaganza of sparkle, I felt like something a little toned down.

But still glittery.

Inspiration suddenly hit me:  since the main thing people seem to say about OPI’s Rainbow Connection is “the glitter’s not that thick, but if you layer it up/dab it on/scrape it along the edge of your nail …” – why don’t I try taking OPI at their word and using the polish just as it comes out of the bottle?

And just to keep things really dialled back after pairing it with a bright, warm yellow, I picked Avon Speed Dry+ in Adoring Rose.

So it was topcoat, two coats of Adoring Rose, and then, squinting one eye to control my natural put-glitter-everywhere tendencies, I just swept the Rainbow Connection over the top in one clean stroke.

And went back after it had tried to do a second coat on some nails, just to ensure even glitter-distribution.

The fact is, Rainbow Connection is a fussy, inconsistent little bastard polish.  As I went from nail to nail I noticed the glitter seemed to get thicker with repeated brush-dips – except for a few times when all the glitter ran away and hid.  It certainly wasn’t the simplest of processes to end up with a good, uniform result – but it was very pretty, maybe even a little too whimsical.

Compared to the bright yellow and the thicker application, the lighter base coat brought out the different colours in the glitter a little better, rather than being predominantly silver with a few flashes of green/blue/pink.

Verdict: happy!  But still questing to discover the One True Way to wear Rainbow Connection.  My life is so hard!

Wednesday Wanty: The Wanty List

There’s a new page up there (*points*) entitled Wanty List.  It’s fairly self-explanatory, and it’s what all the cool kids are doing, so there you go (plus, as it says, if I tried to write this down somewhere I’d just lose it, amongst the thousands of other Very Important Notes scattered around the house.)

Really it’s only of use to myself, unless I one day achieve such epic fashion/fatshion influence that people flock to see what I deem desirable.  Or I develop such obsessed enemies that they connive to buy all available stocks of things I want just to torment me. That could totally happen.  If supervillains can try to destroy America’s milk supply so its children are weaker soldiers, I can totally have frivolous millionaire enemies.

(I totally admire the long-term planning involved in that scheme.)

But anyway, it’s there!  Now you know!  Your lives will be improved by this knowledge.  Carry on.

Kinda-fat-o-sphere classics: You NEEDNT have

So, a new magical lists of The Bad Foods Which Will Make You Fat has come out in NZ, and bad news!  Fruit juice, honey and milk are now no-nos. Google it if you want to, I’m not llinking to that panic-mongering crud.

The foods are called the “NEEDNT” foods, in possibly the silliest, smuggest use of acronym-generation since the PATRIOT Act.

Fortunately, the listmakers also gave us suggested substitutions, which are heavy on the “artificial sweetener” front – funny, I thought artificial sweetener was also going to make us fat/give us cancer etc.

I’m going to let my own personal goddess Sarah Haskins take it from here.

OOTD: Paint it black

The weather returned to its usual horrendous form last week, so I went monochrome to match it.  And then I threw a little pink over the top so it wasn’t too dull.  And let’s face it, if I’m busting out the checkerboard heels I’m probably not feeling too doom and gloom (though you can probably tell in the photo below that I was hardly in an up-and-at-’em-Adam-Ant frame of mind!)

As mentioned in my wrap dress OOTD, these 3/4 leggings have been a lifesaver.  This dress is just a little short for summer/bare legged office wear, but add a smidge of leg covering and BAM!  The insecurities are gone.

The two necklaces are handmade by myself, all materials coming from the amazing Beadaholic – based in sunny Gisborne, good flat-rate shipping costs, very communicative, always a pleasure.

Both necklaces are your basic glass-beads-on-Tigertail-crimped-ends deal, with the shorter being very sweet and pink/white and the opera-length strand going more messed up and chaotic with some green, lilac, and dark red thrown in to keep it interesting.

Dress – Jacqui E
Top – City Chic
Leggings – Shanton
Shoes – Molly N
Necklaces – handmade

Nails o’ the week: sweet glittering yellow brightness!

This was not my original nail plan for the week.  My original plan involved my supercheap, as-yet-unused pharmacy-bargain-bin MIKI blue shade and some kind of belated celebration of the New York Giants’ well-deserved victory (sucks to be you, Bill Belicheat.)

But as you can see from the pic things got off to a bad enough start when after 3 layers we were not in sight of reaching anything like the shade it is in the bottle, and things went downhill from there.

Ah well, $2.50 down the drain, boo hoo.

*reloads from previous save point*

So.  I must admit to having shamelessly stolen this idea from Astra, but rather upped the ante on vivid cheerful shout-it-out-loud brightness.  Dark-plum-and-glitter may be edgy and gothic (in the literary sense) and stunning and all, but I wanted to show absolutely no restraint.

Besides, my mood was already a tad low from the previous nailfail, so in one of my regular bids to pep myself up through fashion choices, I went with OPI The “IT” Color and tried my hand at some gradient layering with Rainbow Connection.

I think it went well.

Things were definitely helped by the fact that Rainbow Connection applies so thinly if you just brush it on like a normal polish.  To get the tips opaque with glitter, I put the brush perpendicular to the end of the nail and just scraped the glitter off like you would scrape excess polish off on the side of the bottle.

Downsides:  the extra thickness of glitter on the tips got a tad annoying as the days went on (I think the extra thickness there was even messing with my dexterity, and that’s poor enough at the best of times) so eventually I just peeled the whole darn thing off.  The silver lining there is that once you’ve slathered on enough layers of Rainbow Connection, peeling it off is the easy part.  If your nails forgive you.

OOTD: Carly Harris wrap dress

So I paid off my Carly Harris layby!  Can you tell?  It’ll probably be easier once I explain that that marvellous wrap dress I am wearing in the photo is from my Carly Harris layby.  It also included another dress, but I am not wearing that one in the photo because that would be silly.

Ahem.

Size-wise, though?  A serious brava has to go to Carly for making an XL that’s, well, XL.  Same goes for the other item.  There’s some good stretch in the fabric and the arms have been sized up with the dress which shouldn’t need to be italicised for emphasis but sadly does.  There’s ease in this shit.  And the skirt flutters adorably.

(Carly Harris also does a number of items in less-forgiving vintage fabric, which I’ve previously found I have to go up a size in to accommodate the boobs.  But if you’re a bigger peep, the stretches are your dearest friends – because they will have stretch but still come in awesome patterns.)

The second most exciting part of this outfit is my dirt-cheap 3/4-length black leggings from Shanton.  Bless Shanton, and their great range of basics interspersing the floaty fashionable stuff.  Their microfibre stockings alas are just not the right size for my size, but their leggings are great.

Thing is, it’s just not stocking weather at the moment, and I’m still in my post-actual-winter stocking-hating fug.  But this is Wellington.  Extra layers are advised.  Plus, wearing a wrap dress, especially as a wrap dress novice like myself, carries certain falling-open-and-exposing-oneself-to-the-elements risks.  It’s great if that’s what your going for, but my workplace frowns on such freespiritedness.

Add a colourful top (something like $10 at the Max outlet store in deepest Tawa) and some basic black heels, not to mention straightened-the-night-before-cause-I-was-too-lazy-to-wash-my-hair hair, and frankly I think I look damn fine.

Dress – Carly Harris
Top – Max (outlet store in godforsaken Tawa)
Leggings – Shanton
Shoes – Molly N

Also, have you liked my Facebook page yet?  I am powered by mouseclicks, you know.  Also, I have a Tumblr, on which I post the same pics as here only they’re mixed in with awesome radical fat acceptance stuff and the occasional amazing kitten gif.