LOTD: Modeling is work

Last night I covered a shift for my friend and boy do I now understand why she hated what she had to wear for it! Unfortunately I was given my attire for the night upon arriving at the venue so I don't have photos of it, which is a shame since it was a relatively nice gold dress. Although if you are wearing a gold dress (with a sash that says 'REWARDS') and walking around a casino...well you get a lot of comments along the lines of "ho ho ho, whoring out tonight" or "hooker" or "I'm getting rewarded tonight for sure!" and other obscenities. Luckily I was working with a very nice guy so needless to say I stayed by his side towards the latter part of the night.

Anyway, the look I decided to do was a purple look with no hint of black (other than my eye color, hair and heels, d'oh) - I wanted to be different as I keep doing a black liner, eyeshadow look every time I model or a neutral look so I thought color would be good to go with the gold. Plus it had to be OTT - ah, casinos, they are such interesting places.

Blog sale results!

 

 
When Dee aka Miss Prissypants held a blog sale recently I may not have made it in time to grab some of the more coveted items (staring down Stacey and Celeste...) I still grabbed some of the items that I knew I had to have for my daily wear collection.

 

Everything came so securely sealed! Dee is so amazing for ensuring all items came safely and I thank her to no end for doing so. It really made my day to get this package....

...and to find that not only with the lipsticks and eye shadows I got off the blog sale, Dee had also thrown in four loose shadows! I was so ecstatic over that, they're neutral colors and will be so loved.

 

First off is the Revlon matte eye shadow in 009 which is a very dark looking brown but the color is not as intense as I thought it would be.

I was a little disappointed but at the same time I quite liked it nonetheless since I can see it being a good softer dark shade for day looks and I am quite fed up of using only very light colors during the day and looking like a wannabe vampire when I use darker shades that are better suited for the night. So this will probably work out better for my day looks.

Next is the Revlon Colorstay in 02 Coffee Bean which is literally all the neutrals you would ever need. I rarely find - if not rarely, never - a good highlight shadow to use under my brows so I was pretty excited when the lightest shade in this turned out to be the perfect highlight.

The intensity of colors is the same as the matte so nothing exciting but I found it quite lovely when worn, it was nice having a soft, subtle dash of make up on and still feeling pretty without needing primers and bases and what have yous in order to make colors pop.

The claim is that it is a 12 hour eye shadow and I can see how it would be but at the same time I wonder whether it would fade. I will definitely test it out on a day I run around university a lot and come back to this claim...

Too much flash (:

I was so very glad I got to pick up the final NYX colors! I think everyone might have been intimidated by how dark they would be but I am in love! I think it is also because I have tanned considerably so it is certainly easier to pull off these colors (also, Mummy who is much darker in skin tone than I am would always be able to wear these so I might actually give these to her since she loves lipsticks). They are beautiful colors in their own way.

Saturn  is a pretty metallic reddish-brown, I feel it might be a bit too drying though so I am working out ways to wear it without destroying its true color since I find even clear glosses or Vaseline makes it a bit duller. I might have to get a good balm under it but I find balms tend to make these lipsticks move around a bit making application that much more tedious. Hmmm...

Fusion is definitely my going out, having a wild night of clubbing (er...if ever) color - it is such a gorgeous purple-pink! I love it, it is very retro and the best pop of color you can use to brighten up a dark outfit.

Gardenia is just your average color...neither here nor there and I do not have much to say about it really. Enough said as it is. But it is a good lipstick.

I love the extras I got, especially since Femme Fatale is my first Sassy Minerals product ever, even if it is a sample! And of course, Heatheresque is always awesome so I'm quite pleased!

The swatches speak for themselves really, I did these with Evil Shades Evil Eyes in Naked as a primer. The matte color was not as partial to the primer but the shimmery shades held well. I think the matte color (which is Dream Big Dreams) will hold up well just applied on its own as long as it is patted on rather than swiped. Very pretty array of neutrals that are definitely good additions to my growing neutrals collection!

The week of a homesick model

(I vant to suck yer blood a la Hannibal Lector style)

If you follow me on twitter then you will know I am very much alive and have been neglecting my blog since arriving in Adelaide a week ago. Sue me (get it? Get it? No? Oh well...), but I have been busy indulging in my oh so glamorous life of moving back into college, photo shoots and being homesick.

Leaving home was quite difficult (as I have repeated over and over) but I am glad I will at least get to see my family again at the end of the year. I quite miss my little terror of a Prince but at the same time I am quite glad my fingers and toes are spared from his incessant chewing and clawing...

A quick glance at the airport in Malaysia. It was my first time in it and I was quite impressed at how closely it resembled Singapore airport - not at all architecturally but efficiency and atmosphere wise.

I will go as far as so say that I find Malaysia airport's architecture more pleasing than Singapore airport. Is that a crime? I apologize but I was won over by the star-like lighting that looked magnificent as night settled in. The openness of it all with the glass cage effect was refreshing especially when one is in transit for so long.

I was fortunate enough to get free hotel accommodation for my eight-hour transit. While the room may not be up to par with some finicky individuals I found it pleasing that the bathroom was clean and there was a big bed waiting to be laid on. Needless to say, I loved being able to board my seven hour flight back to Adelaide all clean and somewhat rested.

 

Nothing like traveling but from now on I protest at the idea of not traveling with Scott, just because it is convenient having your boyfriend on a long flight to be a bodyguard and pillow. Being completely honest!

I had a photo shoot lined up for the week I arrived back to Adelaide with a lovely photographer from Sydney who flew here to do the shoot. We went with a demon-angel theme and shot at a cemetery and church.

I do not want to disclose much about the shoot until I get the photos but how strange is that plant or shrub or whatever it is growing in the middle of the cemetery?! I was so intrigued by it and it is unfortunate I had no chance to pose with it...albeit it would have terrified me to do so.

So now ensues the photo whoring. What? I got snap happy, you would too if you did your own makeup for a photo shoot and for the first time ever got to do something more than just neutral colors and you also got your hair done in a very Adam Lambert inspired style!

 
The makeup inspiration the photographer gave me used pink in the look instead of gold but L (the photographer) wanted to use gold instead so I used Darling Girl Cosmetics' Plunder which is the most beautiful gold in the world, it reminds me of the gold treasures you find in Ancient Egypt.

For lip color I used Revlon's Colorburst in Raspberry (my favorite wine red color) and slicked on some Fyrinnae Indies on top to dirty it up.

 

Also, I tested out Revlon's PhotoReady foundation in Natural Beige for my other photo shoot (I got a sample packet from a magazine and had no other foundation...criminal yes?) and found I liked it a lot so I went and purchased it for this shoot only to find that it contains...shimmer? What? That was not what the sample was like! So I am a little peeved because I had no intention of channeling - no matter how subtle - a disco ball but in the end I grumpily made do. Given the opportunity, I think I will go back to repurchasing my Dior foundation though.

Unfortunately, upon going to the hairdressers, I realized I had forgotten mascara and some eyeliner. D'oh! But this was quickly forgotten when I proceeded to slam my thumb in L's car door. Ouch. Mega ouch. I had to spend ten minutes outside the hairdressers with my head in my lap as I was on the verge of fainting.

You do not know pain until you either drop a suitcase on your toe (as I did a few years ago) or close a car door on your thumb (as I did a few days ago). If you do not believe me, try it for yourself but do not come running back to me with a lawsuit because I told you and it was your own idiocy that had to test it out.

After much labored breathing as though I needed to give birth and the amazing work of Cherrilee (who will become my future hairdresser in Adelaide due to being able to handle my temperamental hair with ease, hooray!) I ended up with a...very intricate hairdo? And, yes, the whole up-do uses my real hair. No extensions, no additions.

Just a whole lot of hairspray as the sunlight indicates. As well as bobby pins (which the sunlight fails to bring to light).

Upon returning back to college (what? Was not aware of this schedule change...) to wait for L to pick me up for the shoot I thought why not redo my makeup seeing as I originally did a rush job (refer back to schedule change I was unaware of) and mistakenly used She Space's Believe in the Good! which is more blue-black than black.

Plus I had to swipe on some mascara and get some eyeliner on. Still used Darling Girl Cosmetic's beautiful Plunder but used Emily the Strange black eyeshadow which is very pigmented in real life.

 

I quite liked the look with the hair although the makeup was not as dramatic as L's inspiration had been but I thought it worked better with the outfit in the end. Plus, L should have gotten a makeup artist if he really wanted professional makeup!

Also, just to brag a little...how spectacularly angled and not at all sparse and even do my eyebrows look? I tried. Using eyeshadow too. Leave me alone. I normally have a fringe to cover my eyebrows so. there.

So what did I look like when I returned back to college well after 9:30pm and wrestled all the bobby pins and hair ties out of my hair?

Why, like this of course!

How amazingly freaky do my eyebrows look after a days work? I quite dislike filling them in I think, although it suited the concept of the shoot rather well: demonic. They look like malformed triangular slopes...

Just to be creepy and over share, here is my very bare and temporary room at college which also happens to be Scott's former room. No, of course I did not request this room just to indulge in the memories of last year to sustain me for the next six weeks until I am reunited with him...and no, of course I did not sniff around the room trying to find a spot where his scent still lingers...

As you can see, I need to clean up and personalize this room a little more. Seeing as I will only be here for about two more weeks though, I think I will pass on the latter.

What was that in the corner you say?

Of course I got our boys back from my amazing friend who took care of them while I was gone and Scott is working! As you can see, they have developed some bad habits while I have been away. I disapprove highly of the state of their tank every morning...

Before I finish rambling, because this is becoming quite a phenomenally long post (if you are still reading, goodness you are patient!) this will be in a post coming up!

And finally, because the bookworm that I am cannot resist sharing a good morsel of reading, pick up Tobsha Learner's 'Sphinx' if you love a read with a mix of history and modern fixation. I borrowed the book off a friend of mine and could not put it down for even a second! Read more about it (if you are too lazy to hurry to a bookstore) from where I got the image from Paula's blog.

Hope all my lovely readers are having a great start to the year thus far! Toodles!