Beauty Blogging For Bellydancers with Special Guest Liora K!

 

Are you guys excited? Because I'm excited! In case you didn't read about it earlier this week, this past weekend I went over to Liora K's studio and we teamed up to bring you a special edition of Beauty Blogging for Bellydancers! Liora did my makeup and took the photos. I provided the makeup and the words! Together we are an unstoppable beauty blogging team! Above you can see all the things that we put on my face, minus the concealer/powder, and the lipstick which somehow escaped.

 

 Here's my mostly naked face (with the usual primer/foundation/powder routine I discussed last week) ready to get greenified! We decided that since I wanted to review the new eyeshadow pencil and green lip tar I bought last week, the theme would be "How to do a monochrome green look without looking dead" because there's nothing worse than looking dead when you're not trying to be a zombie bellydancer.

We started with the Aqua Shadow Waterproof Eye Shadow Pencil from Make Up For Ever in color 8E. It's a really nice bluey-teal-green, a great compliment to the emerald shades that are in this year. On one eye you can see the basic shape she colored in, and the other eye shows how she blended it out with a pointy eyeshadow brush. This will serve as the base for the rest of the look.

Make sure to blend it out to where you want it pretty quickly, as it will set into place nicely and then if you decide you want to blend it further, you'll have to add more. Once it's there, it stays nicely! I didn't test this product out with dancing, but I did wear it all day and it stayed perfectly. 

 But wait... How about we layer some other colors on top? A little shimmery green from Belle Pierre (a review of their cosmetics is forthcoming)...

 ..and some matte teal from Urban Decay and a little light green from NYX makes for a nice gradated teal-green look.

 I'm liking it so far!

Let's finish those eyes with some golden olive liquid eyeliner from Urban Decay and that green mascara from the Pantone Emerald collection. Now those are some green eyes! Liora also defined my brows with some brow powder she had, and they're looking quite nice, don't you think? Now onto the lips!

 Wait, Liora, you want to put concealer WHERE? On my mouth?

 Oh, ok! It looks kind of like I have a weird milk mustache going on here. Lining your lips with concealer helps keep creamy lipsticks from wandering around your face, and it also makes your lip color pop a bit by slightly lightening the area around your lips. Pro tip from Liora K!

Blend it out smoothly so it no longer looks like a milk mustache. You can also do this before you apply your foundation if you're worried about the concealer looking too obvious.

 Now what to do with my lips? It's really hard to do all-green on lips, it can really wash you out and that's how you get the dead look! So we used that lovely warm brown Minx blastflipstick (hahaha, that name never gets old), then dabbed a bit of Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics Lip Tar in Power Plant on top of it and blended it out. This gives a lovely iridescent green sheen, while still maintaining the warm tones that keep my face looking alive.

 After warming my face up some more with some blush for a youthful glow, Liora decided we could add even MORE GREEN to my lips, and since MORE GREEN is a rule I live by, we went with it! A little dab of pearly green pigment from NYX adds an extra pop to the center of my lips, but as you can see, I don't look the least bit dead. In fact, I look pretty full of life and ready to go out for dinner!

Speaking of which, I did go out to dinner with this look on, and that lip tar stayed put! By the time I went to bed, I had eaten a meal, drank through a straw, from a glass, and from a sport-top water bottle and I still had plenty of green on my lips. This is a really durable product, and I am looking forward to trying it out in a more "normal" color to see if it can be my new go-to lip option.

 Let's have one more look at those pretty eyes. Ahhhh! Love the contrast between the green eyes and the pink of the blush. Of course, if you wanted to make this look even more green, for instance, if you're doing a character piece as a faerie, or mermaid, you could brush a little light iridescent green mineral shadow across your cheeks for extra sparkle. You could also line your waterline with green, or bring more green under your eyes. You could even color your eyebrows green, though that would probably look weird if you're not also wearing a green wig. Just make sure to really balance it out and try to stick with warm colors that bring life to your face.

Thank you again Liora for doing my makeup and taking all these great photos! You rock, lady! If you all aren't already familiar with her photography work, which ranges from fashion shoots to weddings to feminist art, you should definitely visit Liora K Photography and see what you're missing!

PS: If you've got any questions about the specific colors used, leave a comment and I'll dig into my train case for brands and item numbers and whatnot.

Nail Product Reviews, Part 2

As promised, this week's post is about drying your nails in a hurry! I can't be the only one who saves doing my nails for the very last minute before a gig. After all, I don't want to risk chipping them while getting ready, but then they're still wet when I leave the house and I smudge them in the car! So let's look at one actual project marketed for drying nails and two tips from Pinterest. There's ice water, canola oil spray, and Drying Drops from Nicole by OPI. All were applied over Zuza nail polish by Zoya (one of my favorite brands!).

 First, I plunged two of my fingertips into a cup of icy water for two-ish minutes. This is supposed to make the nail polish dry hard and fast and also make it easy to remove the excess bits on the finger. Guess what it actually did? It HURT, that's what! Look at how red my poor finger is. And did it work? No. As you can see, my nail smudged badly while I was drying it off. And hours later, after showering, most of that excess polish is still there. If this was the MythBusters, this would get a big fat "BUSTED" stamp over it.

 Next I sprayed all the nails on one hand with canola oil. The instructions on Pinterest said to wait until they were dry and then wipe the excess off. How am I supposed to tell if my nail polish is dry if there's oil all over it? So I waited a few minutes while my other hand was in the ice water and dried them off at the same time. Look. It also smudged. And my fingers were oily. Also it seems to have given the polish a weird texture on a couple of nails. So no, this one doesn't work either.

Lastly, the product that was actually designed for this. The instructions said to apply the drops 60 seconds after the polish, then it should be dry to the touch after 1 minute and completely dry after 5. I used it on the first three nails of the icy hand. It was easy to apply and seems to have done the job. After one minute, they were dry. After about five minutes, I was able to scratch/dent the polish forcefully with another nail, but it didn't smudge from normal wear.

Over all, as a dancer I feel like if I'm in a hurry, it's probably going to be best to stick with a quick-dry polish or a quick buffing for my bare nails. However, if the color that you HAVE to have to match your costume isn't quick-dry, you should be safe with the drops. It seems like many of the nail polish brands on the market have their own version, so you may want to shop around and see which has the best value, but I imagine they probably all have the same active ingredient and work the same.

As for the polish? Definitely a fan. I tend to be drawn to the unusual colors that Zoya produces (I have a couple gorgeous muddy olive green hues from them), and this one doesn't disappoint. It's a nice teal green shimmer with a smooth finish. Would be great with a mermaid-themed costume!

By the way, if there's a makeup tip or product that you've seen floating around the internets and haven't felt like trying it yourself, let me know in the comments! I'll look into it for a future column... as long as it doesn't involve putting any part of my body in ice water! Brrr!

Things they don't tell you about henna...

Remember this? This is from right after I hennaed my hair the first time. I was so in love with that red color, and I still am!

The last time I was touching up my roots, I was thinking about all the things I've learned about dying my hair with henna that weren't covered in the information provided by the seller, and I thought maybe I should blog about it. Here you go:

1. I think the seller actually said this, but I will restate it just in case. It is a LOT easier to henna your hair with help, especially if you have long hair. I tend to miss spots when I do it myself.

2. Wear something that you don't mind staining. Sometimes little blobs fall out of your hair and land on your clothes.

3. No matter how carefully you apply Vaseline around your hairline, you will still manage to get some henna stains on your face. I like to use an exfoliating facial scrub to make those stains go away faster. I also like to make sure to touch up my roots a few days before a gig or photo shoot so the stains are gone by then.

4. You will get henna everywhere! On the counter, on the floor, even the wall. If you're worried about the surface staining, put down some paper or a tarp or something. Otherwise keep paper towels or wipes nearby and clean up before it can dry.

5. Henna stains nails, too! You will probably manage to get some on and under your nails during the rinsing process, so just plan on giving yourself a manicure after all is said and done.

6. I like to bring a comb into the shower to help work the mud out of my hair. Actually, I don't know if it helps but it gives me something to do.

7. Seriously, if you have long hair it will take forever to rinse that stuff out. Plan on spending about 45 minutes in the shower. You might want to bring some music or a podcast.

8. If there's any soap scum in your tub, it will now be henna colored. Don't clean your tub before you rinse the henna out, because you'll definitely need to clean it after.

9. Now that you're a fabulous redhead, you'll want to color your brows accordingly. I'm afraid of putting mud on my eyebrows, so I just color them in with a nice red-brown eyeshadow.

10. Again, if you have long hair, all that henna-mud is pretty heavy for the several hours that you need to let it sit. Plan on spending your waiting time doing something pretty relaxing, like reading a book or watching movies. If you move around too much, your Saran Wrap turban might come undone and then the edges will dry and you'll get itchy henna mud patches behind your ears.

This may make henna sound annoying, and to be sure it is a bit of a pain to do and maintain. But on the other hand, you get a vibrant, natural-looking red hair color that is permanent and doesn't harm your hair, so I think it's worth the hassle.