Year: 2014

Made-Up History: Johannes Van Hoytl the Younger’s “Boy with Apple,” 1669

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Yay, a new Made-Up History—finally!—and one for Wes Anderson Week. This painting played a prominent role in his recent feature, The Grand Budapest Hotel. Called “Boy with Apple,” this painting was credited in the film as being created by Johannes van Hotyl the Younger, but it’s actually a fictional painting made specifically for the film by present-day artist, Michael Taylor. (Read more here.) Not to give too much away, this painting (modeled by Ed Munro) kind of pushes the story along its trajectory after everything is set into motion. Anyway, this was the first thing I thought of to do when I thought of doing Wes Anderson Week!

Rounding Things Out: MAKE Colour New Medieval Palette

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Just an interlude from the Wes posts (I’ll just be posting two more): an actual review! You know when you’re “not collecting” things, but you have one or two things missing from your “non-collection” and it just seems wrong not to get the last one? Well… That’s what happened here. MAKE Colour, a New York based brand that I am pretty much in love with, currently has four palettes, three of which I already had… which left the New Medieval Palette. This was what I originally wanted when I discovered MAKE (though this was the only one they had out at the time, if I remember correctly), so I kind of had my heart set on it already anyway. Sidenote Check out my other reviews for the Aether Palette*, Post-Impressionism Palette, Celeste e Verde Palette*. True to the direction of their other collections, this MAKE palette, created by Faye Toogood in collaboration with Ayami Nishimura, draws inspiration from specific sources, in this case the “Romantic landscapes” of J.M.W. Turner and John Constable. This is probably …

Welcome to Wes Anderson Week

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I’ve been toying around with this idea for a while, but I just couldn’t push through with it for some reason… Until I finally decided to just do it. I think I had a hard time thinking of features that would actually work—there were a lot of potentially fun ones—but sometimes, there are things that you think about too much that you end up not doing them. And I didn’t want that to be the case for this particular series, so here we are. Wes Anderson. I’m sure you all know him by now, or at least, the movies he’s made. Half the population went as Sam and Suzy from Moonrise Kingdom for Halloween not so long ago, after all. But for the uninitiated, Wes Anderson is an American director, and he made my favorite movie, Rushmore. He has a very strong sense of aesthetics and I just think that his work is such a fun thing to kind of merge with makeup, just because it is already so visually strong and distinct. For Wes …

Nosy Beauty Vol. 38: Liz

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For today’s Nosy Beauty, I managed to get someone I admire very much from the beauty blogging community to agree to be a part of this series (38th post, can you believe it?!)—Liz Lanuzo from Project Vanity! Project Vanity is one of the biggest beauty blogs in the Philippines, and I quite luckily managed to befriend Liz over the last few years. 🙂 Aren’t you excited that we’re about to pick her brain about beauty?

September Favorites

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And it’s time for another round of beauty and skin care favorites! I usually am at a loss when I write this feature (30 days is a long time for the mind to rewind back to, it seems…) but since I’ve been on the road for most of September, it was easy to find things in my small-ish stash that I enjoyed immensely. Here are some of them: One Love Organics Skin Savior Waterless Beauty Balm — this is a makeup remover, cleanser, and moisturizer all in one. It is AMAZING and helped my skin out a lot in NYC where it was breaking out a lot. My sister’s been enjoying using it, too! Indie Lee Squalene Oil — I bought this at Space.NK and wanted to try an olive-based squalene facial oil, because it’s known to be great for the skin. I can attest to these claims. This oil is fantastic and I usually use it on my skin during the day, before I put on my sunscreen/moisturizer. MAKE Colour Soft Focus Foundation — …

MAKE Colour Soft Focus Foundation: An Impulse Buy that Worked Out for the Best

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Yeah, yeah, another base product… I really didn’t mean to buy, but ended up trying and liking the MAKE Colour Soft Focus Foundation (I was matched to Cool #4) and impulsively buying it BUT! It turned out to be for the best and I shall tell you why. In an attempt to be supah efficient at makeup-packing, I ended up panicking and overstuffing my makeup bag with makeup. All of which I’ve used and loved having around, mind you, but still—unnecessary. I brought a mineral powder foundation, underestimating just how DRY THE AIR IS IN THE EAST COAST. Man alive, I had so much trouble with my skin for about two weeks… I ended up slathering my face with several moisturizers and oils, and towards the end of the second week of skin hell, I wore this foundation and found that it super suited my situation.

Lazy Girl Makeup: One Shadow Shadows

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Slicking on one eyeshadow on your lid isn’t an entirely new concept for the lazy girl. In fact, before you (we) went off the deep end of the makeup world, that’s what you (we) probably did. So, I’m here to show you some of my favorite singles to put all over my lid when I’m feeling particularly rushed or stumped. Before I begin, here is Liz’s take and here is Bea’s. Here are just a few… by which I mean, most eyeshadows will work for this purpose anyway. I love the type of shades that actually have dimension, though, and these ones are quite effortless to wear. Swatched, L-R: MAC Groundwork, MAC Constructivist, Oslo Vela, shu uemura ME medium brown 885, Rouge Bunny Rouge Abyssinian Catbird, Le Métier de Beauté Alexandrite, & Other Stories Percaline Khaki, Addiction by Ayako Fudge MAC Groundwork – my favorite colored eyeshadow base that, fortuitously, can be worn alone, too. It’s definitely a go-to eye color, both as a base and as a shade itself. MAC Constructivist – darker than …