Charlotte Tilbury - The best of the best :D

As a makeup junkie, I like to know who's the best of the best at their job as a make-up artist. Who is in high demand and creating the best looks at shows? The answer : Charlotte Tilbury, who is my all time favourite make-up artist. She is renowned world wide for her ability to paint the 'Perfect' face on models at shows and wont stop until she has achieved this perfection before sending them out on to the catwalk. She is also a genius at using colours to create a beautifully made up face, each year she works with designers at shows to come up with a colour palette. The make-up used at each show is extremely important to the overall impression of the fashion collection. Charlotte is in high demand when fashion week comes around, often working up to 17 hour days and jet setting at least twice a week.

Says Tilbury; “It’s high pressure because you have to achieve a look sometimes within minutes. But it’s one of the exciting things too. It’s never boring, that’s one thing about fashion.” Too right. Tilbury has her own make-up line at Boots called 'Myface Cosmetics'. The idea of this collection is that the guessing game of 'which foundation colour is right for me?' is solved by the collection having a 'fair, medium, dark' category. In each category there are three shades to choose from, making choosing a LOT easier. The range also has the right blush, concealer and powder for your skin tone. The only product not categorised are the eye shadows which, as Tilbury claims, are the products that will suit everyone no matter what eye colour. As long as the foundation, blush and concealer colours are right, you can run with whatever eyeshadow colour you want! I love the range, especially the 'Bling Tone' eye shadows which, true to their name, are very 'bling'.

Tilbury has recently covered many spring/summer 2011 fashion shows, including the New York fashion week doing the Donna Karan line. The inspiration for the look was 1930's photographs entailing bronze and gold on the eyes and very matte skin.

Some more of my favourite looks created by Charlotte :

Fashion week spring/summer beauty looks - Tres Jolie!

Paris fashion week for spring/summer 2011 had a lot to offer in terms of beauty. The bleached eyebrows at seen at Giambattista Valli and YSL offer's a fresh, modern, structured look that was feminised at YSL by adding a glossy deep burgundy lip. Perhaps model Lara stone with her bleach blonde eyebrows was an inspiration? One of my personal favourite make-up artists Pat McGrath was going for a 'fresh and strong look", which she achieved with the lightened eyebrows and no mascara. I think it works exceptionally well with the bold lip. However I'm not sure I'll be digging out the bleach anytime soon, best left to the catwalk...

Also at Paris fashion week, dark lips featured at Emanuel Ungaro, this time paired with a bold eye as well. Hairstylist Guido Palau went for a heidi-inspired braided headband look to accompany the bold make-up, it gives an innocent yet mischevious and playful look, "There is something very innocent about this style, but once the girls have their makeup done with dark lips, she turns into this very sexy, decadent, Helmut Newton woman." says Palau. YSL went for a similar look but this time the hair was invertedly rolled around the head. "The designer wanted a very structured look, so we went with a style that is very close to the head," says Palau. "And the shine adds a bit of drama."

At Milan fashion week Charlotte Tilbury (my absolute fave) worked on the models at Etro and produced an amazing purple-lavender look, smoking out the eye and producing “smoked lavender purple that’s universally flattering”.

More fashion week beauty looks to come!

Have our lives become black and easy to wear?

One of my newest and perhaps strangest new hobbies is to sit on the tube at the end of the working day and look at all the surrounding travellers whilst making up stories about them in my head. Who are they? What is their job? Why do they look so down beaten and miserable? Usually by this time of day I am drunk with tiredness, and generally so is everyone around me. This makes it easier to stare at someone as usually they are asleep, staring at the floor contemplating their Asda value microwave meal they will later consume and probably regret , or they'll be pretending to read a fascinating article on M&S's new range of eco-friendly underwear. Today whilst participating in my new hobby, I was struck by an appalling thought brought on by the excessive amount of people wearing black clothes...Have our lives become black and easy to wear? Are we going about our banal daily work lives and throwing on the first black, clean-ish garment that our floor-drobe has delivered? It’s a depressing thought and somewhat reminds me of Nuns putting on their habit's everyday and going about their daily gardening and praying.


However, it seems incredibly old school to suggest that wearing a pop of pink or a racy red might improve our lives, but perhaps it could lighten up a somewhat cynical Britain? There could be a section on it on News night, 'The government suggests that we should all start wearing colour and then everybody will be happier, obesity levels will drop, it will rain money and we can all dance in it wearing rainbow clothes declaring "Huzzah! The recession is over!"'. But really, why do we all wear so much black, grey and navy blue? Are we all reaching for the easiest choice in order to make way in our minds for the harder things in our lives? Perhaps we are all just feeling a bit fat after copying Nigella's peanut butter cheesecake? Or maybe it's the Twilight movies making us all feel a bit vampish and cool? Whatever the reason, I am certainly not one to step away from the black uniform. I have even had 'you're a Goth, aren’t you?' comments, invoking my inner cheerleader to squeal 'NO, black isn’t JUST for goths!’ No, it certainly isn’t if the rest of Great Britain is anything to go by.

It isn’t just our clothes that have become easy to wear. We now have easy meals in the form of take-away's, and supermarkets have provided us with the 'shove it in the microwave for 5 minutes and enjoy your authentic home-made Italian lasagne' easy meals, (lovely, IF you can ignore the taste of burnt plastic and occasional lump of frozen beef). Sadly, even our friendships have become one hop, skip and a click away from socialising. All we need to do is log on to facebook, twitter or any social networking site and find comfort in each other's status's, e.g.: Martha : 'crappy day at work, spilt tipex down my black dress' , by clicking the 'like' button we can acknowledge said persons disappointment in their day, thus equalling what used to be deemed as a 'conversation'. Information is at our fingertips, we no longer need to go on a quest to the library to find out why third nipples exist. What can be done about this laziness, this lack of motivation within our lives? Hold on, I'll Google it!

Korres - Natural make-up.

Korres naural products – release your inner natural goddess!


Let’s get one thing straight before I start; I am definitely not a ‘minimalist’ girl when it comes to make-up. In fact, sadly, it’s quite the opposite. I’ve tried to do a Jen Aniston approach and do barely there bronzer, lip-gloss and mascara. Trust me, I tried. It just doesn’t work for me, sorry. It makes me feel naked, unkempt and unpolished. Yes, it’s sad that I feel this way without the slap but that’s the way I am. I’ve learned to accept my inability to be a bare faced goddess. My friends and family have also given up on the whole, ‘You should wear less, you don’t need it’ thing and have also over come and understand that make-up is my dear, dear friend, my daily crutch. However, in order to rectify this disability I intend to wear the most natural make-up ingredients as possible, to the point where I am using red currants to stain my lips and mud to define my eyes. Perhaps that would be slightly over stepping the natural mark, but I think you understand what I’m getting at.



You’ve heard it before, make-up is BAD for you. Perhaps they started telling you when you were 10 and took your first innocent interest in pale blue eye shadow. Outraged teachers and parents alike took it as a serious mis-conduct and told you that you are too young to wear make-up, ‘it’s bad for you’, they said, and ‘your natural beauty already shines through.’ (aka they were worried you were becoming a little tart and wanted you to look like a baby for as long as possible) but we all started wearing it eventually, and all came to know the evil list of ingredients on the back. The never ending list of chemicals that we hoped would go away if we ignored it. But let’s face it, there they are. Look on the back of any typical drugstore foundation and you’ll see it, ‘Paraffin, mineral oil, talk, oxide...’ I’ll be the first to admit, I’ve been shovelling this concoction of chemicals on my face daily for ten years (more if I’m honest), it can’t be good for me surely? As someone who watches what she eats, shouldn’t I also watch what I put on my face? I’m not saying make-up has to be so natural that its edible, I just want to look good with minimal chemical reaction. In fact, I’d like my make-up to actually benefit my skin, provide a decent amount of minerals and vitamins that aren’t pore blocking. Enter Korres, the famous Greek brand of cosmetics that focus on using natural ingredients found in your back garden....well, in Athens. This is about as close to Greek goddess status as you’re going to get. My personal fave is the bronzer which comes in two shades. The bronzer feels weightless on the skin, it is non-itchy and non-irritating on my acne-prone skin. Not only does it feel good, it looks fantastic too. It provides a glowing, golden, natural bronzed look that doesn’t scream ‘Hey everyone, I’m wearing bronzer, aren’t I tanned?!’. It simply looks healthy, natural, and without sounding too much like a QVC shopping channel, I highly advise you give it a whirl.


The mascara is another gift from Mother Nature of make-up. Enforced with whey proteins to nourish your lashes and help them grow, it also defines and lengthens lashes beautifully, with no clumps. I almost wish I could tell you that the chemical tripe we’ve been smearing on for years is of better quality despite the chemicals. Truthfully though, it really isn’t. In fact I’d say that Korres products produce a better finish faster, and doesn’t end up down my face by the end of the day.