Spring make-up trends from Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar: Less is more

April 15, 2015 ~ Emmie Reve ~ Leave a comment

There is no greater fashion authority than Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, at least that is what I feel. These giants are the leaders of the industry and always know what will look high-fashion, and what will look pedestrian. Their knowledge includes hair and make-up. However, I still get annoyed an any fashion authority because of how trends come in and out at a snap of the finger. Or seeing trends that seem to mirror the things us girls were doing all along, but all of a sudden, it is accepted as stylish! Read this spring’s Vogue and Bazaar articles and you will know exactly what I mean.

Trend 1: Bare faced, no make-up, fresh and clean.

This is a really really hard look to pull off! That is why this trend is annoying. Most girls are not blessed with perfect, glowy, dewy faces. Believe it or not, this look actually takes work. My suggestion to get this? Use a heavy moisturizer, then thinly sponge on bb cream or foundation. Use face powder sparingly. This is how I used to do my make-up for errands day or groceries. Turns out it is now high fashion…who knew? I think bare faced and no make-up looks best with clean flawless skin, and undone, unruly hair.

See how this look is done. It is unpolished in the face, so the hair has to match this to pull off this undone look.

Trend 2: Air dried, slightly wavy hair bordering on bedhead…

This is a trend I’ve been rocking all along and feeling quite bad about its lazy look until now, that is. Apparently, because Vogue and other sources say so, it is stylish now. This look is one of my favourites in that it is effortless, and celebrates how hair looks naturally (aka kinda weird). No curling irons, hair spray or straighteners necessary. My tips for getting this look? After washing and conditioning hair, let it air dry until almost dry. Then twist it up into one or several buns. Let it dry some more. Undo, and then blow dry the rest of the moisture out on low heat. You should be left with barely there waves. Finish with a moisturizing pomade on the midshaft and ends of hair. Effortless and a bit messy.

See how the hair is a bit frizzy like it was air dried? Also there is a barely there wave. Super cool and effortless is the feeling. — See how the hair is a bit frizzy like it was air dried? Also there is a barely-there wave. Super cool and effortless is the goal.

Trend 3: Liquid liner, thin and barely there

This one ties into trend 1 of having a minimal make-up look. What will spoil any “no make-up look” fast would be overly thick liquid lined eyes. Even if you’re a natural beaut, the graphic nature of boldly lined eyes makes a make-up look stylized, planned and over done. Get away with wearing bold liquid liner while still looking “au naturale” by thinly, and I mean thinly painting on the lines as close to the lashes as possible. This way your eyes still pop, but it still looks as if you’re wearing little to no make-up. A nice addition to this would be to skip lining the lower lid liner but to use a light to medium eye shadow to line the bottom lid softly instead!

I love the make-up on the top eyelid. So defined but delicate in the thinness of the black liner. Bottom liner is a bit harsh, though. Soften with barely there shadow. — I love the make-up on the top eyelid. So defined but delicate in the thinness of the black liner. Bottom liner is a bit harsh, though. Soften it by lining it with eye shadow instead.

In Summary:

Clean and fresh faced is in for this spring. This is a hard look to rock, because too little make-up and a girl can end up looking slovenly, too much and the effect of being effortlessly pretty is gone. What to do? Take care of your skin, moisturize, and use your make-up sparingly. This has been what I have been doing casually for a while now and it seems as if the fashion industry this spring is ironically jumping on this bandwagon of common sense.

This is my take on the spring trends. I try to keep it minimal with lighter eye shadows and soft thin eye definition. A nude lip pulls this all together.

Curling irons fail at giving effortlessly natural waves!

December 1, 2014December 2, 2014 ~ Emmie Reve ~ Leave a comment

I read an article a while ago about how to achieve waves in your hair that didn’t look super perfect, and avoided the “glamour shots” look that is so not desirable. For those of you that didn’t grow up in the subarbs around Toronto, Glamour Shots was this boutique/salon/photo shop that briefly set itself up in malls in Canada I believe during the 90’s, or sometime near there. This was when looking like a model or actress was a female fantasy, and getting done up at the photo boutique was supposed to be as close as you can get to “looking” like a Hollywood siren. Only the makeovers were very laughable. Just overdone make-up, and very tight spiral curls, and unflattering bedroom clothes that seemed to add ten pounds to your body and face. Maybe because 10 pounds is close to the amount of make-up they smeared on a client.

Anyways, getting back onto topic, for many years after the fad, I’ve adored texture and wave, and have used curling irons to occasionally fulfill my need for wavy hair drama. I resorted to using a thicker barrel curling iron, so that the waves would seem more natural. But the results were still quite done up, and larger curls sometimes meant less defined pretty waves. What I craved was that look you get with hair that is naturally wavy, like you had just gotten out of bed, and it was effortlessly full of texture and drama. Mermaid waves, as it is called. This is impossible to get with a hot iron. The only way I could get mermaid waves was to use sea salt spray (I make my own), then tie my hair into tiny little buns and wait for them to dry. The problem with this was that it took a lot of time to dry without damaging heat from a dryer. The solution was to get curls while sleeping, when no one would see me in this altered state of scrunchied strangeness. By using soft small scrunchies to hold my hair in buns, I was able to sleep after sea salting my hair, and I would wake up with gorgeous flow-y curls that were messy and natural.

How to use scrunchies for natural heatless waves:

1. Use them to hold your buns! After spraying sea salt spray evenly in you hair (check out my homemade sea salt spray recipe), twist your hair into a couple of tiny LOOSE buns. I usually do four buns for more defined curls, but you could also do one big bun…tie down your buns with your scrunchies!

Not a pretty hairstyle at all! But do at at night when no one is looking! I made my own scrunchies!

2. Go to sleep and let the night do its wonders. Because of a looser bun and soft scrunchies, this curling way is actually comfortable enough to sleep in.

3. In the morning remove the scrunchies to reveal a natural curly wave, not overly done up and hot-iron looking at all! I feel this curl looks best after 2 days, when it has had time to relax. Enjoy the texture and wave, and don’t let anyone know your curls aren’t natural!

After a few days, the curls relax and look uneven and undone. Like you fell out of bed with wavy hair!

Bold lipstick colours are fashionable but also kinda gross…

April 15, 2014 ~ Emmie Reve ~ Leave a comment

There is something that is not often talked about in the make-up world, or actually should I say, over looked: and that is the sad fact that almost all bold lip colours are made up of heavy toxic chemicals and metals, some trace, and some not so trace. The bottom line though, is that it’s in there, and that wearing a fashionable shade of red, or the current trend of fushia, is probably loaded with not so great stuff.

Lorde made fashion waves with her bold dark lips recently... — Lorde made fashion waves with her bold dark lips recently…

When I was younger, say ten years ago, I would always wear lipstick. After using the restroom, I would wash my hands and reapply that creamy stick, covering up my natural lip colour. It looked good, so I did it, ignoring the fact that lipstick gets everywhere, on clothes, on coffee cups, on ciggy butts. But the place that it was probably getting into the most was my stomach when I inadvertently ate it. There are statistics out there about the staggering amount of lipstick a woman ingests over a year, and over her lifetime and it’s gross. But we don’t need statistics to use our common sense and know that we are eating it. Anything on our lips eventually makes its way to our stomachs. It’s on our mouths after all. Which is why these fashionable bold lip colours are kind of scary to wear if you want to think about it. You don’t ever want to eat lead, or mercury, or cadmium, but it’s in almost all lipsticks. Just do the foil test to see this in your favourite lipstick shade.

My suggestion is is that if you’re not going to a red carpet event, do we really need bold lips on a day to day basis? Probably not. Why not wear a tinted lipbalm? Sure, it’s usually very sheer, and less noticable, and less fashionable, but it’s healthier for your lips. Since I stopped wearing lipsticks, my lips have naturally turned more pink, meaning I don’t actually need thick lipsticks to put colour into my lips. Also, I barely need chapstick because my lips stay so moist, even in the winter! I’m a bit of a crafter, so I made my own tinted lipbalm made with coconut oil, cocoa butter and beeswax, coloured it with a bit of fushia mica, and what I got was this:

Lot's of colour in tinted lipbalms, without all that gunk... — Lot’s of colour in tinted lipbalms, without all that gunk…

So pretty, no?

Am I going back to toxic lipsticks and stains? Yes, it is fashionable, and unavoidable, but for day to day, I got this moisturizing tinted lip balm to carry me through!

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