Showing posts with label flowers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label flowers. Show all posts

Sunday, 8 June 2014

Cosmetics experience...

I had a dance performance yesterday; I made a few serious mistakes in the second set, I was better in the first set. Anyway, this post is not for castigating myself, but is about some new cosmetics I tried out and what I learned from them.

New products: Urban Decay's "All Nighter" makeup setting spray, 24/7 Glide-on Eye Pencil ("Perversion"), and Heavy Metal Glitter Eyeliner ("Distortion"). Too Faced Shadow Insurance eyeshadow primer. Sleek Makeup i-Divine "Original" (#594) Palette eyeshadow and True Colour Lipstick - matte ("Russian Roulette" #795). Barry M's glitter lip gloss (#3 "Strawberries & Cream"). TRESemmé Salon Finish Extra Hold ("4") hairspray.

One: Urban Decay's 24/7 Glide-on Eye Pencils are insanely expensive for 3mm of eyeliner... you can't sharpen the pencil, all you get is the tiny tip, that's it. It's beautiful stuff, but not at £20 for 3mm of material.

Two: the Urban Decay's makeup setting spray worked well, except for my chin, where yes, it did smudge. Guh. I'll still use the fix to help keep things from sliding off.

Three: Urban Decay's Heavy Metal Glitter Eyeliner? Works very well, pleased with it.

Four: the Too Faced eye primer will destroy any brushes you use to apply the eye primer; I use hand soap to clean my brushes and that usually works... or did; it doesn't budge the eye primer and make up remover pads/cleaners never worked well for cleaning my brushes, so I didn't bother trying. I might try them to see what happens. However, it will also make your eyeshadow stick in place, and make it pop/sparkle. Note to self: use a disposable swab or fingers to apply the eye primer.

Five: Sleek Makeup's eyeshadow colours that I used was the purple with some of the pale golden wheat and a tiny bit of the black. The colours weren't named, but it was the first two on the top left, and the first one on the bottom left. I used mostly the purple with a little of the wheat up above and toward the inside of my eyes, and a tiny bit of black on the outside of my eyes. Then I lightly blended, while keeping them distinct.

Six: Sleek Makeup's lipstick, deep and rich, wow! I still use a lipstick brush to make sure it goes in the right places, but wow, the colour! Don't forget to blot so it doesn't coat your teeth or get everywhere else.

Seven: Barry M's glitter lip gloss has a very faint pink tinge to the gel, but the glitter itself is silvery/iridescent and it seems to have stayed on... at least until I drank from my water bottle. Carry with me so I can reapply as necessary. Yesterday was hooooot, humid, but sunny.

Eight: hairspray. I cannot recall when I last used hairspray, maybe thirty years ago when I was mucking around my mother or sister's stuff as a child/teen. Last month, when someone did my hair for me for a performance, they used hairspray on me; but that was someone else. I digress, I used the hairspray *cough-gag-eye-watering* and it held what I wanted it to hold. My hair is just barely long enough for a 'duck-tail'. It's not yet pig-tail or ponytail length, so I couldn't use the smallest hair doughnut I have (maybe my hair will be long enough at the end of summer, we'll see).

End result? This:


Post Dance at Rhiannon's Mystic & Holistic Fair

Blue cotton printed yukata (it's a kimono, but less formal) around my forearms; black cotton choli by Flying Skirts, and M&S altered bra with kuchi dangles. Choli chain (that I've tweaked up since my last post about it); my Blackpowder/Fur Trade re-enactor crescent moon necklace; gilet metal large loop earrings; sterling silver faux septum ring from Tribe Zuza. Sequined black headband and purple, pink, etc hair flowers all by Claire's. Bindi is from IndiaBazaar.net

Tuesday, 27 April 2010

New camera and some photography

Jessops was having a package deal on Canon cameras and I decided to gift myself a new dSLR. So I now have a Canon EOS 450D and two nice lenses.

Late last year, I poked and prodded around the back yard, replanting or redoing some of the surviving bulbs in the pots that haven't bloomed in previous years. I'm discovering that if you plant bulbs of anything EXCEPT daffodils, you need to disturb the ground they're in or they don't come up again... or perhaps I just need to pull more weeds so they don't deprive the bulbs of sunlight >.>

Anyway, because I messed about with the pots last year, I now have tulips this year! I love the colour swirl in this one. I also wanted to get used to using the new camera, two enjoyable things in one go.



Today, the sun was out so I decided to go out with the camera and get cracking with images of local sights and sites that interest me that don't often show up in the tour books. This part of Essex got well hammered by the Germans during WWII so there's not a lot left that's 'old and ancient' in the area.

Behold: Hadleigh Castle (pronounce 'had-lee'), built in the 1230s on unstable clay and chalk the castle pretty much had a short life of under 100yrs use and within 40 years of its initial building had to have major refurbishment. The kings and lords that came afterward basically gave up on it and in the 1500s large parts of it that hadn't already tumbled down into ruin were dismantled for building materials, the stone and lead got recycled.

This is some of what remains. You can see the Thames River Estuary in the background.



Part of my reason for returning here is I'm also scouting for potential locations for 'onsite' portrait photography. I'm building a photographic project of 'book covers for stories that never were' and places that I can use as backgrounds for costumed models is desirable. The more I can do in camera, the less I have to deal with on the pc!



On my drive around for photographic locations, I decided to find a near-to-the-road bunker as several of these remain in and around the countryside near the Thames River Estuary. I also was seeking some antique shops and got two for one. This one is within 100 metres of the roadside of a Rettendon furniture antiques shop.



From what I can conclude, many of the bunkers are on private land, so finding one near the road is useful.

What were the bunkers for? The handful I've seen are similar but different and could have been used as observation posts ('to spot the German invasion') or as gun placements to shoot at said German invaders.

Most appear as this one does, constructed of brick and concrete with a patina of lichen and greenery. Most of them are in farmer's fields.