I'm pretty sure this is going to be a bit of a mess, because I basically have a few things I want to talk about which I've tried to group under the umbrella term of "upgrading" beauty products. How it all came about was I smashed (accidentally, not in a rage) my "contour powder" aka eyeshadow which I discussed here. I was sad but then immediately happy because it meant I had the excuse I needed to buy the Kevyn Aucoin Scultping Powder I'd been thinking about for several years like a complete creep.
As you can see - I was right. The two are bloody similar. However, the Kevyn Aucoin (swatched left) is nicer, goes on smoother, is less apt to look like a beard, so if you really love nice things, get that one. But I totally recommend the other one, too (W7 eyeshadow in "burnt sienna" for the fake fans). Is this a dupe? Am I a real blogger?
Anyway, this got me on to thinking of other things I have "upgraded" on recently - in both other cases to something slightly more expensive, but the price difference is nowhere near as alarming as with the contour. Oh, and, unrelated, but Sali Hughes did a great piece for The Pool about why contouring is creepy, so I have some more thoughts on contouring (so deep) which I'll write about at some point.
I may one have said I liked the Rimmel brow gel - I was wrong. The L'oreal one is a billion times better. It's really fibrous and holdy, and I like mad, brushed up eyebrows, so it just serves my purposes more satifactorily. Also, it's more expensive but twice the size so that's good too. And the brush is smaller and less easy to make a mess with. Overall, it is superior in every way. Sorry Rimmel, we're over.
Beach Blonde is BACK! Who's excited?? (Nobody, apart from me, I'm sure.) This is the BEST SALT SPRAY and it smells like coconut, so I'm saying goodbye to Toni and Guy (lol) and getting married to John Frieda. I will use this forever unless (heaven forbid) they ... discontinue it ... again *wails*. If you have £6 to spend on a salt spray, it's not up to me to tell you what to do, just heavily imply it (cough*beachblonde*cough).
I'm forever hoping to one day have to unibrow of my dreams. I know everyone disagrees but I think they're pretty and cool! Here are thee ladies who are keeping me on the castor-oil bandwagon. PS I'm not doing very well at pretending to know anything about pop culture here, because all of these women are dead.
Audrey Hepburn is cool anyway because of being such a all round top girl (see here). Let the record state that there is more to being inspirational than having massive eyebrows (but it helps). What is so great about Hepburn is that everyone in the whole world agrees that she is extremely beautiful and she never apologised for her eyebrowsiness. In fact she made them look even bigger, and therefore better. Everything about her face is all perfect and exquisite and girly, which contrasts with huge, flicky, angley brows.
Frida Kahlo is another all round cool chick. She seems like an unstoppable force of nature, the perfect balance of vulnerability and NGAF. Everytime I think about reaching for the tweezers, I think two things. The first on is "cba", and the second is "WWFD". Firstly she would be an artistic genius and prolific, hardworking, funny, inspiring lady, but also she would grow her eyebrows as large and in charge as she could. In the hopes of emulating some of her other qualities, I do the same.
Even before I very much cared about makeup, I was cackhandedly attempting to copy Edie Sedgwick on the reg. She was a very talented and kind person, and again a deeply unapologetic woman, but I don't really feel good about being too romantic about mental illness or drug addiction. Again she does the whole "I am undeniably beautiful but LOOK I tricked you I have insane eyebrows" thing which is my favourite. If you're going to wear lots of makeup, I think hairy brows are a necessary counterpart, to show you aren't trying to be too "pretty". One day I hope to see the whole world populated with such beautiful, overgrown, bordering-on-mono brows.
