Coco Rocha: Modern-Vamp in Glow Magazine

  The canadian model Coco Rocha ditched her beautiful red hair for a "Dark Angel" photoshoot in the November 2010 issue of Glow Magazine. The beautiful Coco once again amazes me with her chameleon-like abilities. 
  She rocks short 20's-flapper-style jet black bob, red pot, smoky eyes and black nails. All of the above are big fall/winter must-try trends. I'm loving the eye makeup in the shoots. However I don't encourage you to try them all at once during daytime.

Lily Cole's Dark Hair: Makeover or Makeunder?

Lily Cole attending a Dior Private Dinner at the Mayfair Hotel in London, Nov 25th

Lily Cole with  her newly dark hair.

Lily Cole with her signature red hair color.

 The beautiful model/actress Lily Cole traded her signature red for dark brown hair color. With her pale skin and light blue eyes she reminds me of Snow White. With a red lipstick it would be spot-on. She looks pretty and going dark is totally "in" this season.
 But still - her almost fire-red hair looked so gorgeous on her.

What do you think? Is Lily's dark hair a makeover or a makeunder?

Spring In The Winter: Purlple and Green Makeup Tutorial

 The weather might be cold and the sky dark, but my eyes will always stay bright.
  If you feel the same way, try this easy and pretty look.

You need:

• Eyeshadow base. I used Art Deco's mineral base. A good option is Urban Decay's Eyeshadow Primer Potion or some of MAC's paint pots.
• Smashbox Muse Palette or your favourite purple(e.g. MAC Fig), light purple(e.g. MAC Stars ‘n Rockets), shimmery green( e.g. MAC One Off or Juxt) and light green or shimmery white eyeshadows. 
• Dark purple / eggplant eyeliner. I used Smashbox Muse Cream Eyeliner in Imperial.
• Your Favourite mascara for volume. I used Bourjois Volume Glamour in Ultra Black.
• Tools: an angled shading brush (I used Sigma E70), a large fluffy brush (Sigma E50).

Steps:

1. Apply a thin layer of your base all over you upper lids and put a little on the lower lids.
2. Put a drop of water-based mixing medium (or water) on your angled brush and apply Dark Celery Green from the Muse Palette or your green in the inner corners of your eyes, continuing  a little up towards the inner end of the brow. Apply some more green close to your lower lashline on it'd inner half. 
3.  Using the same green, cover the inner half of your upper lid till you reach the crease.
4. Now with your brush cleaned up from the green and freshly wetted, apply Deep Orchid from the Muse Palette or another deep purple in the outter half of your upper lid, going slightly above the crease and going in the crease,above the green, stopping a little before the inner end of it. If you arent't pleased with the color's intensity try applying another layer.
5. Use the same purple to continue the green line on the lower lid.
6. Blend slightly the purple and green on the upper lid with your fluffy brush.
7. Using the fluffy brush and Sheer Lilac from the Muse Palette or another light purple, wash out slightly the puple in the crease, going almost till the brow bone.
8. Now dip the shading brush in Soft Green from the palette or your highlighting green/white/gold and apply it below the brow bone, blending it with the light purple.
9. Use the eggplant eyeliner/pencil to draw a thin line above your upper lashline and on the waterline of the lower lid.
10. Finish with a coat or two of mascara for voume.

Now smile and you're done :)

Smashbox Muse Collection: Review and Swatches

"Muse" is the Spring 2009 Smashbox Collection. It contains  Artist Eye Palette ,Cream Eyeliner Artist Pencil Set, Lip Paints and a blush. I am reviewing the palette and the pencil set.

MUSE Artist Eye Palette: 

Applied wet, no base.

• Price: Retail is $48, I got it on eBay for $20 last year, now you can find better offers.
• Packing: it looks like watercolor palette so I find it pretty, but because it's white every  accidential smear of color is noticed. It includes a decent brush, which is a little too stiff.
• Colors: There are two rows with 5 eyeshadows each. The upper one has the lighter colors and the lower one is like a darker version of the upper. The colors are (left to right): 
• First Row: Biscuit - slightly shimmery and almost invisible light gold ; Soft Green - shimmery light minty green with good pigmentation ; Light Silver - nice light bluish silver with shimmer ; Sheer Lilac - my favourite, it's soft purple, more on the pink side, with pretty bluish shimmer ; Rose Copper - the name pretty such sums it up; it is one one of the most pigmented colors. 
• Second Row : Chocolate - it is the darkest color, but it's not really chocolatey; the brown is more on the green\blue side ;  Drak Celery Green - it's bright apple green with nice pigmentation and shimmer ;  Dark Bule - it's not really dark and it is more gray than blue ;  Deep Orchid - bright purple shade, almost matte ;  Coffee - very pigmented brown on the warm side.   
• Texture: buttery and smooth
• Overall:  I like the texture and the colors, but most of them are not very well-pigmented so I have to apply them wet and the shades are pretty similar so there aren't much different looks to create. This is why I think $48 if definately not worth it, but $20 is just right.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

MUSE Cream Eyeliner Artist Pencil Set

• Price: retail is $36, I got it for $16 on eBay.
• Colors: Imperial - dark eggplant, almost dark borwn; Lapis - dark navy blue with shimmer; Antique Gold -  dark old gold;  Slate - plain black 
• Texture: very smooth and soft, but not too much.                                                                                                    
• Overall: I really like these - the colors are very pigmented, they are soft so the application is easy and I often smudge them when I opt for smoky look. Used alone, they smudge quickly but with base the color stays. All in all, here I think the retail price is more reasonable - $9 per pencil, but I  would still recommend you to check them out on eBay.

Amazing Animated Fashion Stories

 Matthew Rader and Pamela Reed -  Reed & Rader have created these stunning fashion "stories". They took the photos and combined them in GIFs - the file format we usually relate to emoticons and avatars. The clothes are by Davidelfin, the styling is by Jessica Bobince and the makeup - by Jenny Kanavaros. I wish all adds looked like this:

Rihanna in Interview Magazine

 Rihanna looks edgy and glam in a shoot for the December 2010 issue of Interview magazine. The photos are inspired by the 70's and are obviously and quite unnecessarily photoshopped. The interview in the magazine was taken by Kanye West so the questions are naturally pretty wierd. Check it out,the last question/answer is my favourite:

Rihanna: “I love to combine femininity with a kind of extreme masculine egde, and I felt like the tank is just not a typical thing that you think of when you think of a girl — or in any kind of relation to a girl. Then we made it hot pink. We just added that touch.”

Kanye: “I mean, people really need to see a photograph — the entire tank was pink. That was a great piece of commercial pop art. Was the idea of that to kind of portray an American Dream — like the fantasy of a this hot black girl sitting on a top of a pink tank?”

Rihanna: “I never actually thought of it like that.”

Kanye: “How does it feel to know that you could have any man in the world. Or woman. How does it feel to know that you can turn straight women gay?

Rihanna: “Is that a real question?”

Kanye: “Yeah.”

Rihanna: “Well…Thank you. I don’t know how to feel about that. I guess that’s flattering.”

Kanye: “But just to have that level of power. How do deal with it? No one woman should have that much power”

On motherhood…

Rihana: “I don’t really plan on the age. It could be a year from now. It could be 10 years from now. Whenever is right. I mean, I have a lot of other stuff to accomplish before I get to kids. Whenever the time is right, I’ll just know.”

On how she got signed…

Kanye: “How did you get signed?”

Rihanna: Well, I met Evan [Rogers] and Carl [Sturken], these two producers who live here in New York. They are both married to Barbadian women, so they go there to vacation all the time. My friend introduced me to them, and I sang for them, and we talked, and they had me and my mom come back a couple of days later. After that, we started traveling to New York, working on a demo. Within a year, it was done, and we sent it out. Def Jam was the first label to call back. We got other calls, but they were the most enthusiastic. It was so nerve-wracking, though, the whole experience.

Kanye: “Why?”

Rihanna: “I mean, I was 16. From Barbados. Like, you would never…the chances of ever meeting somebody famous or ever being signed — that was just a deadly combination. Like, I had to meet Jay-Z and audition for him at the same time.”

Kanye: “Do you know any famous people now?”

Rihanna: “Huh?”

Mila Kunis Graces Nylon Magazine

  Mila Kunis, currently promoting her newest movie "Black Swan" where she stars along with Natalie Portman and Vincent Cassel, looks pretty in a black and white shoot for the January 2011 issue of Nylon. She rocks knits, over-the-knee socks with denim shorts and animal prints. 
 Did you watch the ''Black Swan'' trailer? Are you planning on watching it? It seems very promicing to me.
  Here are some snippets from Mila's interview:

• On spending three weeks contemplating a career change, as she felt overwhelmed by having been working in TV since she was 9 years old: ‘I was like, ‘Alright, this has been a god run, but I’m done’. I wanted to rethink my life for a minute because I didn’t think acting could be a career. This is the worst industry you can put yourself in because there’s no security whatsoever. I mean, none… The whole thing is based so much on opinion and nobody is wrong. That person can think I’m great, that person can think I suck, and they’re both right. I was like, ‘Can I really do this for the rest of my life?”
• On finding job security in television: ‘What a lot of people don’t realise is that you make more money in TV than you will in film; it’s a very steady salary. An obscene amount of money gets given to you for, like… what? So I was 20, and I looked at my bank account and realised that I was secure for the rest of my life. I was like, ‘I’m okay. I can go do other things now.’
• On becoming financially-secure: ‘I had been happy being poor, so having money made no difference to me. I know people with money say that, but it’s the truth. Of course, it’s a blessing to feel like you have a roof over your head and not having to worry about where your next meal is coming from. But that blessing, I realised, comes at a price.’
• On realising that continuing as an actress was the only way she could be happy: ‘I was contemplating whether I wanted to keep doing this or if I wanted to go and explore life. And I realised that acting is the one thing I love to do… I asked myself, ‘What else could I do that would make me happy? What else could I do where I wake up in the morning and think, ‘I get to work and do something great and have fun’? I couldn’t think of anything else. So I was like, ‘I’m stuck doing this because I actually, truly love it.

Topshop Christmas Lookbook 2010

Not long after H&M's camaign, Topshop has also released a holiday lookbook. It's got many looks and includes a lot of different styles. Most of the current runway trends are embedded  in the collection in wearable and affordable pieces. Everybody could find some chic garnment to put on their wish list. I know I've got my eye on quite a few.

•  Styles: Grunge, Boho Chic, 50's , Rock Chic, Gothic. 

•  Colors: Black, Red, Patels, Brights.

•  Materials & Textures: Leather, Faux Fur, Feathers, Shearling, Knits, Chiffon, Sheers.

•  Key pieces: knee-high socks, black leggings, bulcky coats, chunky knitwear, blazers & short jackets, wide-leg pants, mini skirts & shorts.