A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...

Oh, yes! Last night myself and the GTGs dressed up in our Coruscantian finest and hit a very fun Star Wars themed birthday party.

 We all had to come up with our Star Wars names.

 My last minute costume pulled entirely from my War garb.

 Edible Millennium Falcon...

 Rebro Dechu, the birthday Jedi.

 What a rebel!

These are not the girls you're looking for....

I went for a sort of Padme inspired vibe. Even though the makeup came off a little too clownish for my taste, I was still  rather fond of my outfit- and it finally gave me a chance to wear my new moresca gown.

 

And the headdress I make earlier this year.

Plus an extra 2 lbs of fake hair!

A Review and other things-

So, I figure it's time I got around to those products I bought a while back and how well (or not) they turned out. As I mentioned before, all natural or organic make-up is a crap shoot for me and while not all the little goodies I picked up lived up to my hopes, most surprised me in a good way.

The things I was most excited for was the foundation and primer. I've got very odd coloring to my skin being both olivine under toned and splotchy red. The fun of mixing Italian and Irish genes I guess. So, I'm always on the lookout for a product to even out the red. I had hopes for the color changing mineral foundation by Mojo Spa to be a lightweight makeup that wouldn't be unbearable to wear during the summer. And while it feels fine on, the lightest color offered is way to tan for me.

As you can see, it looks like a bronzer and let me point out that my hands are much tanner then my face. I looked a bit clownish with it on my face. 

However, the primer and concealer worked better for me. The Iluminata under my everyday make-up gives a pretty glow and while the white concealer doesn't cover up things like a traditional one, it does take away redness. But I've found it's unsung virtue is making blemishes disappear. Truly.

The lip products I really like- the scrub works well and even though I'm not a big fan of honey scent, it's not overpowering. And I really liked the tinted balm. That is until this morning when I accidentally washed it with my work jeans and now have a melted tube of tinted mush. But I have a photo of how it looked on before I kultzed all over it.

Beware of big eyes! Yow.

My absolute favorite buy was the unfortunately named Twilight perfume. Despite it's tweeny vampire connections, the perfume smells like heaven and I can't stop wearing it. There's something very warm and sweet about it without smelling like frosting. Adore. 

And that's this rounds foray into natural makeup. I think I fared better then I expected to. I was planning to blog about some other stuff as mentioned in the title but I'm hungry. Next time...

The house smells like cookies and beer and hippies

Blessed Friday- this weekend couldn't come soon enough!

I'm celebrating the start of the weekend with a Fat Tire and I have a cookie dough candle going cause it smells just awesome. I'm also in the midst of a literary explosion in my room. Literally. 

It started as a desire to reread The Silmarillion ( I found out that day that War would not be happening and I figured a little Middle Earth will have to do) and ended up with my bookshelf scattered about the room as I searched. It turns out I never actually owned a copy- I had been borrowing one copy or another from various ex boyfriends all these years. I decided it was time to jump on amazon and secure my own book.

And speaking of online shopping, I got a nice little surprise on my doorstep when I came home- a package of make-up fun I ordered from Mojo Spa last week. See, I have this nasty habit of buying hoards of beauty products on the merit of "they look nifty" and usually end up with a drawerful of nifty looking, no-use serving lotions and lipsticks. In my defense though, Mojo gets rave reviews from their costumers and they use natural ingredients without any nasty chemicals or synthetics. So, at least it's environmentally conscious reckless shopping.

A primer, foundation, lip scrub, tinted balm, concealer (yeah, the white stuff. funny huh?) and some all natural deodorant. Just cause I've always ever used the aluminum filled stuff and maybe it's time to try out some clay based stuff. It smells like hippies but less then other natural deodorants out there.

I also trimmed up my bangs using a tutorial CJ found and sent me. She's cutesy. Take a read.

Wedding Prep

Yesterday was spent getting ready for the great Cass/Johnston wedding. The whole day. Since I was lazy and didn't set my hair the night before, I had to use hot rollers instead. Which meant I had to put them in around 10am and leave them in all day to get any sort of lasting curl. Awful. But it was kind of a relaxing day. Moisturizing, tweezing, make-uping. And of course, dorkily documenting my routine with photos.

 The outer two I use daily, the middle is an every other week luxury. I normally have red, sensitive skin which gets worked over if I use exfoliants too often.

 So very charming.

 

 

 

 

 

 As you can see, even after 7 hours in curlers my hair fell before the ceremony was over. But who cares about hair when you've got love to celebrate!

 

 Bubbles to send off the new couple.

ReVamp; The Art of Changing

Ok, so since my vacation started, I've been lagging on preparing for the trip. Been too preoccupied with drinks and parties and days spent recovering from drinks and parties.

But now it's countdown: 3 days and I gotta get on this shit. Washed all my laundry last night and set out the clothes I'm planning to take. Got a hair trim and found another silver hiding within my coif. Which is good for two reasons.

1. I love silver hair.

2. Loving silver hair means not dying since it will cover up lovely sliver hair.

So, the dye job I was planning to do is off which means one less item to tick off my list. And now I am currently killing time (and dealing with a flooded back room!) until the shops open so I can buy things. Suitcase and books for the plane and maybe some new makeup.

Ah, segway. Another little thing I needed to do was figure out how I was going to take along my Airspun loose powder, that time tested holy grail for vintage ladies. The best face powder on earth (and also maybe the cheapest) doesn't travel well so I decided to press it. With a little help from some makeup blogs and The Fedora Lounge, I was surprisingly easy.

 You need cosmetic powder, mixing bowl, something to press your powder into and alcohol (I used rubbing alcohol or surgical spirit) I've read use of vodkah and other drinking alcohol but why waste good liquor?

 Throw your powder in a bowl. I ended up using about half the powder in the container because once you add the alcohol, you lose a lot of volume.

 Add the alcohol a bit at a time and mix until its at a pasty consistency. At this point, I got a little nervous because the color changed so darkly. No worries, it dries back to it's original color.

 Scoop the paste into your pressing pan. I'm using my Stratton compact (with a broken mirror!) Goop it in, then wet your finger with the alcohol and use it to smooth the paste into the corners and even out the top.

It took mine overnight to dry. Halfway through, I took some scrap fabric and pressed it into the pan and applied pressure to help even out the surface. I added a little stamp of a Fleur de lis cause I'm corny.

Voila! Instant pressed compact. This works for any powder make-up and is especially helpful for eyeshadow or blushes that have busted and crumbled to dust.

Edit!

I don't know how I missed this post by Vixen Vintage but she has a tutorial for pressed powder that rocks. It looks like I just copied hers photo for photo (promise I didn't!) but her post is much prettier and more detailed then mine. Check it out!