Bailaoragaditana's Aventuras

As some of you may remember from my early days here in the Sugar-verse, I go to school in a place where quite antiquated traditions are adhered to, and we have lots of black-tie parties, and even a few white-tie ones. The most important of these is the College Ball, which at my particular college takes place every two years in early May. Tickets are pricey (£100 a pop), but the four-course dinner is first-class, and the drinks flow free and freely into the wee hours. Although no theme has yet been announced for the 2010 edition of this event, it's not really important - a good dress will withstand any idea generated by the Ball Committee. My dress last year was brown and possessing of a massive skirt and a plunging neckline. (You can see pictures at http://teamsugar.com/group/88093/blog/1627131) But this year, I have decided, I will begin the search for the perfect dress well in advance.

We begin, of course, with where we left off:

I am on a quest for something dramatically different, and this little feature here will be for sharing my latest ideas and finds... hare-brained and half-baked ones as well as possibly plausible ones. First up: this little do-it-yourself mermaid-style number from Vogue Patterns.

Hard to walk in, probably, and equally difficult to maneuver at the dinner table and on the dance floor. But it's so pretty! I quite like the idea of it in a cerulean blue silk, with gold or bronze-toned jewellery... what do you think?

If you love Latin pop even half as much as I do, you will understand the sheer awesomeness that is this song. Lyrics- and music-wise, it's fairly standard, yes, but the real genius is in bringing together Luis Fonsi (Puerto Rico), Aleks Syntek (Mexico), Noel Schajris (Argentina), and David Bisbal (Spain), four of the best (and best-known!) popsters in the Spanish language. The result is a beautiful, beautiful love song.

Also, I would kill to be the girl in the video...

An icy, wintery look, inspired by the crazy wintry mix that kept us house-bound for a good part of the week, and threatens to make a repeat performance over the next few days. I don't have very many silvery/wintery shades in my MAC palettes (*gasp!*), so I rounded up some other shadows from my eyeshadow drawer to create this look.

Base: Neutrogena Pore Refining Cream SPF15 (moisturizer), MAC Oil Control Lotion

Face: MAC Select Cover-Up in NW15, MAC Blot Powder (pressed) in Light

Contour: Stila Contouring Trio (I used the dark shade in a few strategic spots)

Cheeks: MAC powder blush in Pink Swoon (Sheertone)

Brows: MAC shadow in Dark Edge (matte dark brown)

Lashes: Urban Decay Big Fatty, then a dusting of silver shadow (to look like snowflakes, of course!)

Liner: white pencil from Wet'n'Wild (I can't find UD Yeyo, *sob*)

Lids: pale opalescent pink/purple/white shadow from Too Faced Candy Bar palette in Black Licorice, and Merle Norman shimmer shadow in Silver Lining

Lips: a very old Rimmel lipstick in an ice-blue shade (no idea what it's called), topped with a small amount of Benefit Her Glossiness in My People, Your People

See all the still-melting snow in the background? I'd rather not have my driveway become an ice rink again...

Anyway, this look is not for wearing out of the house, unless it's for a few seconds to take a picture to post on your makeup blog :-p Thanks for reading, and there will be more makeup madness soon! 

Much like blue, one color that I used to be obsessed with - but which I've avoided like the plague since I was a senior in high school - is purple. It was, once upon a time, my favorite shade of the rainbow. I felt that ROY G BIV gave violet the short shrift. But one day, looking in a mirror - as I am often wont to do, being a vain, vain girl! - I realised: "That looks really unnatural and kind of scary." So I ran (figuratively speaking) for the naturals and nudes which were less... clownlike upon my fair visage. I've worn pretty much nothing but neutral tones - from beige to dark brown, bronzes and coppers and olive greens - since I was 17. But I've been feeling that I should venture (slowly) back into the world of color - I've already managed to wear bright orange, gold, green, and blue without scarring myself psychologically. So it's time to give purples another chance.

For this experiment, since I have almost no high-end (read: highly pigmented) purple shadows, I once again turned to my trusty Bobbi Brights palette, which has an array of both red- and blue-based shades of purple.

Brows: Urban Decay Brow Box in Brown Sugar, darker shade

Lashes: Urban Decay Big Fatty mascara (black)

Liner: MAC Kohl Power pencil in Feline (upper and lower waterlines)

Lids: Urban Decay Primer Potion as a base on lids and lower lashline. Wisteria on the inner third of the lid, Bluebell on the middle third, and Mulberry on the outer third; Orchid on the crease and outer corner, Blue Iris above the crease (as a blend/highlight) on the outer half, and Periwinkle as highlight/blend on the browbone all the way across. (Yes, I was determined to use all of the purple shades. I didn't use Ultra Violet because it's a strange shade, has weird glitter stuff in it, and is really hard to work with.) On my lower lashline, I put a line of Wisteria.

Lips: MAC lipstick in Rue D'Bois (medium pink lustre, limited edition from the Euristocrats release last year), and MAC lipglass in Quick Tease (LE, from Brunette/BBR)

Face: MAC Oil Control Lotion, Bare Minerals Foundation in Fair, BE Mineral Veil

Cheeks: Bare Minerals blush in Blushing Beauty (light pink shimmer)

Yes, I deliberately wore a purple sweater to match my eyeshadow. Because I'm cool like that :-p Anyway, thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed!

As a former (and future, once I'm living long-term in a city with an ice rink again) figure skater, I find this video utterly hilarious. While, of course, also drooling shamelessly over... pretty much all of these gentlemen. Enjoy - but don't attempt to eat or drink while you watch!

(Bonus points if you can identify the dude in the long-sleeve brown shirt with the white hat, because I certainly can't.)

After my experiment with bright blues, I felt the need to reassure myself with a nice, familiar sort of color palette. As a challenge, I decided to include a little bit of blue, to prove to myself that it is a color that is, in fact, wearable on a daily basis. The result is a fairly work- or school-friendly look (by my standards, which may or may not be the same as yours) using products from the Brunette portion of MAC's Brunette Blonde Redhead collection, with a few substitutions.

Lids: UDPP first, then Henna eyeshadow from lashline to just above the crease (FYI: Henna is exactly the same color as Sumptuous Olive, but seems to have a slightly different finish, even though they're both Veluxe Pearl... which confuses me. If you have one, you don't need the other, unless you find yourself using Sumptuous Olive a lot, like I do.)

Crease and outer corner: Blue Flame eyeshadow (LE, from Cool Heat; I used it in place of Deep Shade, for which you can also substitute Deep Truth or another dark blue)

Blend/hightlight: Femme-Fi eyeshadow (you can use something like Shroom or even Ricepaper to get the same effect)

Lower lashline: Henna again

Brows: UD Brow Box in Brown Sugar, darker shade

Liner: MAC Kohl Power in Feline (black)

Mascara: Urban Decay Big Fatty (black)

Lips: What a Do! lipstick (frosty neutral-pink-coral - it's a weird shade to describe! - kind of similar to Marquise D', but with more of a metallic finish)

Face: Bare Escentuals Foundation in Fair, Mineral Veil

Cheeks: MAC Mineralize Skinfinish in Blonde (shades of shimmering golden-pink)

Next on my list of things to try are purples and possibly another (!) red lip or twenty... because I am for some reason absolutely obsessed with red lip stuff at the moment. (Someone stop me, please!) I blame Dita. And some fabulous songs to make you get up and dance, plus a new feature devoted to my personal style icons (and no, I won't just post five thousand different pictures of Dita, although the idea is very tempting!). Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed this look, and thanks for reading!

Also, happy Inauguration Day to America! :-)

Blues are a color group I've been avoiding for a few years, after an adolescent relationship gone wrong. I mean, looking at pictures of yourself with teal eyeshadow, turqoise mascara, and violet lipstick is pretty traumatic, and you come to this realisation - OMG that looks AWFUL! But just as in actual relationships, inexperience and immaturity have to be dealt with at some point, and so it is that I have faced my makeup demons by wearing blue eyeshadow once more. This time, via a method other than slapping it on with those little spongey applicator things.

Inner third of lid: Ocean (all shadows are mattes from the Bobbi Brights palette)

Middle third of lid: Blue Denim

Outer third of lid: Pacific

Highlight/blend: Sea Foam

Lower lashline: Cornflower (I really should have used a primer on the lower lashline, because the payout was fairly weak without it - and my choice of brush was pretty poor as well... ugh)

Mascara: Urban Decay Big Fatty (black)

Liner: MAC Kohl Power in Feline (black) - I was originally going to use a blue pencil on my waterline, but it looked kind of funky, so it got replaced...

Lips: Marquise D' lipstick (light coral pink, with slight shimmer - definitely one of the best shades I've found, anywhere!)

On my face: MAC Oil Control Lotion; Bare Escentuals Foundation in Fair, Mineral Veil loose powder; MAC Mineralize Skinfinish in Blonde (shades of golden pink) used as blush

I probably won't take to wearing blues every day like I used to, once upon a time, but I'm now slightly less afraid of them. I'm still working on the proper application of Mineralize Skinfinish - I'm thinking the lighter, shimmerier side needs to be kept away from the apples of my cheeks/anywhere near my nose, because it makes my pores look gigantesque and unflatteringly huge. Ah, well... learn from my mistakes, ladies! And thanks for reading!

Because Sasha Cohen does it! I think this program speaks for itself:

USA Today also had a recent article about Sasha and yoga, as if I needed further inspiration. Now I want my old flexibility back!

Apologies for this brief intrusion of my figure skating obsession into the regularly-scheduled makeup-obsession programming... we'll be back to that shortly. In the meantime, watch that video, and BE AMAZED. And jealous. And inspired.

I've spent most of this week stressing over details of my upcoming trip to Spain - money, visa applications, filling in five thousand forms for everyone under the sun who could possibly have anything at all to do with it, millions of emails and phone calls and just... stress stress stress. Thus why I haven't really been around lately. But fear ye not... I have not abandoned ye! This afternoon, Khorshid Khanoom and I engaged in some serious Thai-food-and-makeup-shopping retail therapy. Tofu panang curry and MAC... the perfect combination! :-D

As you can see, I hit up MAC in a major way, although I didn't get everything I planned to. I picked up the Brunette Blonde Redhead shadows in Femme-Fi and Henna (from the Brunette collection) and Flip (from Redhead). I exchanged 4 products' worth of Back2MAC and got Live & Dye lipglass (from Redhead), and lipsticks in What a Do! (Brunette), Marquise D' (Redhead/Antiquitease), and Hot Tahiti (permanent). I still have enough empty pots and tubes and things to get 2 or 3 more lipsticks, but I haven't seen anything I really must have (aside from Lady Danger, but I really need to lay off the bold red lips for the moment).

I also popped into Sephora and finally picked up a tube of Clinique Almost Lipstick in Black Honey, which I've been debating for a while now. I tend to be kind of cautious about over-hyped products, but I think I can safely say Black Honey's cult status is fully deserved. And then I got out of Sephora before I could buy anything else. (NARS lipgloss in Bloodwork is soooo going on my wish list!) Finally, it was over to The Body Shop to grab a bunch of Cranberry soaps (I use it to scent my dresser drawers) for $2 each (seriously!), and some Tea Tree wipes for my bag, and Seaweed Mattifying Moisture Lotion SPF15, which I got for my walking/running type activities, because my normal oil control lotion doesn't have SPF (boo!) and I would really rather not turn a lovely shade of lobster just because I was trying to get some exercise.

Sorry for the crappy pictures - I've got two dead lightbulbs in my room now, and I am waaay too lazy and cold to leave my coccoon of blankets and change them. I hope to get to playing with my haul shortly (I need to come up with a look suitable for passport/visa photos!), and I think I'm going to order a few more things from BBR online - the Mineralize SkinFinishes were really nice, but I wanted to think it over a bit more before investing. And possibly Quick Tease lipglass, which was nicely sheer. I was kind of disappointed by Chignon lipstick, but Hot Tahiti is pretty much how I was imagining Chignon to be, so I'm pretty happy with that. Anyway, I've probably talked enough now, but thanks for reading!

The woman is, in my eyes, perfection. She never looks bad - even out of makeup. She's glam and gorgeous and makes it all look so easy and fun. (Sometimes, to be honest, it's neither.) Plus, she makes it look cool to be uber-pale. When someone tells me to get a tan, I just smile and think of Dita.

For this look, I didn't have any specific look in mind, not that Dita changes things up all that drastically (why mess with perfection, after all?), but in case you live under a fashion-free rock and have no idea of her style, this is essentially the sort of makeup she wears:

My take:

Face: MAC Prep+Prime SPF50 as a base, then Bare Escentuals Mineral Veil and Foundation in Fair

Cheeks: Bare Escentuals blush in Lovely (cheekbones) and Kiss (apples of cheeks)

Brows: UD Brow Box in Brown Sugar, the darker shade

Lashes: Global Goddess Exotic Eyes Lash-Building mascara in Blackest Black; Sephora Professionel lash comb (metal teeth are much more effective than plastic ones)

Liner: MAC Kohl Power liner in Feline, topped with Carbon eyeshadow (applied with the 219 brush); UD 24/7 liner in Yeyo (matte white) on lower waterline

Lids: MAC shadow in Grand Entrance (lid), Patina (in crease), Shroom (highlight), UD shadow in Stray Dog (in crease and slightly above)

Lips: Revlon Super Lustrous Lipstick in Certainly Red

It's not quite exact, but I hope to experiment more with this look, and maybe even try something with my hair (eep!). Anyway, thanks for reading and enjoy!