Musings of a Makeup Mastermind is moving!

There is exciting news in the Kate O’Reilly Makeup headquarters today. This blog shall be no more! If you wish to continue reading my jibber jabber you may do so on the all new and improved kateoreillymakeup.com where I shall be sharing my inspirations, icons and how to tips with one and all! Hurrah!

Cara Delevigne at Burberry Prorsum AW12 LFW

What a magnificent way to open the Burberry Prorsum AW12 show at London Fashion Week. Cara Delevigne looked absolutely smoking hot, complete with my favorite fashion statement; the hair-in-jacket-do! Key makeup artist Wendy Rowe went for a striking and extremely wearable look that works beautifully with the chic understated mood of the collection. Simply stunning!

The gorgeous new Burberry makeup collection is available in:
Harrods in the UK
Nordstrom in the US
and the Online Burberry Store

After perusing the makeup collection online, I reckon Cara is wearing a combination of Eyeshadow in Gold Trench No4, Eyeliner in Midnight Brown No2, and Lip Cover in Nude Beige No1.

GET THE LOOK
1. Apply a matte foundation
2. Use a deep amber coloured eyeshadow under the eyes, all over lids and blend upwards. If you’re extra brave you can bring it right up to the brow.
3. Deepen the socket line with a darker brown shadow.
4. Define brows in a shade slightly darker than your hair. Remember to retain some texture in your eyebrows to avoid the dense “scouse-brow” that looks as though its been painted on with a sharpie pen! Using feathered strokes is the best way to achieve texture.
5. Finish with a cool nude lipstick.
6. To make this look a little more wearable, pop a little blush on your cheeks to liven up your skin tone. Alternatively, swap the cool nude lipstick for a soft peachy gloss. Burberry’s Lip Glow Sepia No3 looks like it would do the trick!

xK

How To… Buy A Foundation Step One: Colour

Buying the correct foundation can be an absolute nightmare. Liquid or compact, which colour am I and what does luminous mean anyway!? There’s so much choice out there it can be a daunting task so here’s my guide to make things a little easier for you.

Image: Prescriptives Design: Kate O'Reilly

First thing is first, what am I using this gloopy brown stuff for anyway?? Well, foundation is designed to even out your skin tone and cover minor imperfections. Unfortunately it cannot:

1. Cover pimples, broken veins of undereye circles.
2. Change your skin colour.
3. Be a finished makeup look worn on its own.

Foundation works in tandem with other products to perfect your skin. If you feel finished after applying only your foundation chances are it’s too dark, too heavy, or you need glasses.

This can be the most confusing part of buying a foundation but to keep it simple, go into the makeup counter on a quiet day and try a few foundations of your jawline. Look at the different shades in daylight and decide which colour blends into your natural skin tone the best. Your foundation colour should unify the colour of the skin on your face, neck, chest and any other skin that is showing. If you apply fake tan, your foundation should match the fake tan.

Whether your skin is pale or dark it will have a specific undertone. Usually called “Yellow”, “Golden” or “Cool” and “Pink”, “Rosey” or “Warm”.

A handy way to determine your skin tone look at the inside of your forearm. Everyone’s veins appear blue what other shade can you see?

PINK toned skin will have purplish blue veins

YELLOW toned skin will have greenish blue veins

… and if you really can’t chose, or insist that its just blue then you probably have a NEUTRAL skintone, which is a mixture of pink and yellow.

P.S. The colours I have used here are a guide only as skin will look very different in the flesh (no pun intended). Also, if you spot a photo of one of the celebrities above with the different skintone to the one I’ve assigned them, don’t despair. Post production and studio lighting can alter skintones, so although Scarlett Johansson looks very English rose above you may see another photo of her with a golden tan.

Check back next week for information about Coverage and Texture!

Guest Post for Film Fatale: Holly Golightly

To get everyone in the mood for their upcoming Breakfast at Tiffany’s event in the Sugar Club on 17th February, the wonderful gals at Film Fatale asked me to share my tips on how to create the perfect Holly Golightly makeup look. Read below!

She survived in her furniture-less apartment by taking $50 tips everytime she needed to powder her nose, but still we all want to be Holly Golightly. Here, makeup maestro Kate O’Reilly shows us how to channel our inner Holly by painting her onto our face!

Audrey Hepburn is an icon of effortless chic. She has none of the glossy red lips or frosted white eyeshadow of more obvious 50’s bombshells like Marilyn Monroe or Jane Mansfield. Audrey’s is a more understated glamour. Here is the best way to achieve her look.

1. Skin should be natural and glowing. Not too shimmery, not too matte. Try Chanel Vitaluminere foundation in a shade that matches your skin tone exactly.

2. Give cheeks a flushed glow with a soft pink cream blush. Try Bobbi Brown Blushed Rose.

3. Highlight undereye circles with makeup artists favorite; Givency Mister Bright.

4. Finish your glowing skin with a light wash of powder such as Laura Mercier Finishing Powder.

5. Define brows in a strong arch using eyeshadow or pencil.

6. Apply a matte slate grey eyeshadow along your lash line and blend upwards. Don’t go higher than your sockets.

7. For a night time Holly look, add some black liquid liner. Go for an angular flick that exaggerates your lashes.

8. False lashes will give that extra Oomph! Eyelure have redesigned their Girl’s Aloud range and Cheryl’s new style is just perfect!

9. Throughout the film, Holly appears in a variety or coral coloured lipsticks. You can go coral red, coral pink or true coral depending on your mood! Keep it pale and not too vibrant.

10. If you’re feeling REALLY brave, why not dye a small streak of hair blonde and chop a ridiculously short fringe! Ah go on, you’ll look like Holly!!

NOM!

Film Fatale’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s event takes place on the 17th February in The Sugar Club, Dublin. Click here for tickets.

If you are in London, Breakfast at Tiffany’s is showing in The Roxy Bar and Screen AND The Prince Charles Cinema on the 14th February, especially for Valentines day!

Guest post for Film Fatale: Barbara Stanwyck

Film Fatale is a twice monthly film event in The Sugar Club, Dublin. Films are hand picked for their cult classic credentials and attendees are encouraged to channel the glamour gods and goddesses on screen with their own hair makeup and styling. The wonderfully glamorous girls that run the show asked me to give a few tips on 1940′s makeup to coincide with their screening of “Double Indemnity” featuring Barbara Stanwyck. Check out my guest post here and feel free to have a look around! Film Fatale is one of the most fun things about living in Dublin and I miss it dearly!

Masacara Bonanza!

It’s the holy grail of makeup, the perfect mascara. Every few months a new revolutionary formula is revealed, promoted by Penelope Cruz or that alien that Christian Dior use. Millionize, maximise, impactify, with advertising techniques that hark back to the 1950s, why are we still falling for it? Unfortunately, it’s because we all love a good gimmick. We want to try that mascara because it has a pink plastic brush, no other reason. We know that it probably won’t work but we’re not buying the promise of better lashes. We’re spending money because we liked the ad, and we are paying in droves. Just look at the budget of most mascara adverts. We are buying enough gimmicky mascara to fund the addition of 12inch computer generated lashes to Eva Longaria’s face!

Tricks to applying mascara;

1. Fresh is best.

It’s a rule we all learned from Mizz magazine back in 1992 but never quite got the hang of. After 2 months, throw it out! Cosmetics are now legally required to print the recommended shelf life of a product on its packaging, so if in doubt just look at the box.

2. Curl!

The humble eyelash curler might seem like a medieval torture device to you but I literally don’t do ANYONE’S makeup without using it. Talk about lengthening, instead of relying on hocus pocus to make your lashes transform, just bend them into shape! Metal curlers are the best, and make sure the spring is working well. Best lash curlers; MAC, Shu Umera, Laura Mercier.

3. Metal comb.

Ok, now this is a little dangerous, but mostly for your fingertips. I have impaled my finger on one of these a few times. However, the best metal lash comb, like tweezerman’s offering, will fold up to protect you from the sharp pins. If you’re in a fix (and are very brave!) maybe you could try a pin ala Julia Roberts in “Charlie Wilson’s War”… although I wouldn’t recommend it!

4. Panoramic lashes.

No, I haven’t gone all Longaria Parker on you. Panoramic is a very good way of describing the shape you want your lashes to sit in. The lashes on the inner corner of your eye should point inwards, towards the nose. The lashes in the centre should point up, and the lashes at the outer corner should point out towards your ears. Check out the HEAVILY digitalised image above you for the ideal (if a bit over-idealised) effect. With all lashes spread out like a fan, they will look thicker, longer and neater.

5. Clear mascara.

A quick swipe of clear mascara after your normal mascara can help to separate and de-clump.

All Hail The Eyebrow Queen

I am obsessed with eyebrows. I love good ones and I hate bad ones. I also hate to love un-obtainable ones (like my numero uno eyebrow envy Kim Kardashian) and love to hate (but actually just love) ridiculously dramatic ones. If eyes are the windows to the soul then eyebrows must be the curtains, but more than just framing and decorating our faces eyebrows communicate so much about emotion, gender and our grooming habits.

My personal eyebrow history is a tale of many ups and downs. I over plucked in my teens, over grew in my early 20s, over DREW in recent years and now quite frankly I am beginning to withdraw from my search for the perfect brows. My eyebrows are not and will never be perfect and this is a fact that I have finally come to terms with. That is why I decided to do my series of eyebrow icons. Technically absurd but beautiful in their extravagance and expression, my eyebrow icons might inspire you to do something out of this world with your eyebrows. Maybe you will dye them pink or pluck them into question marks. If you are a Goth, or a punk, or you just enjoy looking wacky go for it! However, if you just want brows that suit your face shape, read on.

I keep seeing pink eyebrows in London, it’s a legitimate style t’would seem!

The best rule of thumb when shaping your brows is to stay as close to your natural shape as possible. Your eyebrows are built a certain way for a reason. They fit into the overall mathematical scheme of your face. If they were further apart your nose might look bigger, if they were much thinner your whole face could look fat. If they were higher you’d look surprised all the time, if they were longer you could seem morose. We need to relinquish the idea that changing our brow shape will somehow alter what we don’t like about our faces. Grooming and controlling some wayward hairs should suffice. If you look at any of Hollywood’s red carpet glamazons there is one thing they all have in common; natural brows. Sure they pluck, pencil and maybe even professionally thread some of those hairs, but none of them look like they’ve lost a fight with their beauty therapist. I ask you to think of one eyebrow challenged actress or singer worthy of an Oscar’s invite. Even Christina Aguilera leaves her brows alone these days.

Wow, normal brows!!

HOW TO SHAPE YOUR BROWS

Firstly you need to be really strict with yourself and grow your eyebrows out completely. It’s fine to pluck the hairs that end up right down on your eyelids but really leave the main body of your brow alone. It might look like an insignificant hair out on its own in the middle of no brow zone, but if you’re patient and wait to see what little hairs grow beside it, it could turn into a whole new region of your brows!

Grace Jones is permitted to break the rules…

Next step is to rein in what you’ve cultivated. Stay well away from your magnifying mirror until you know what your plan is. Have a good look at your new fluffies from a distance by taking a few pictures, preferably when you feel good about yourself. I don’t want you staring at your makeup free face criticizing everything you see and blaming your new brows (and me), so do your hair and makeup and wear something pretty. What is the overall shape of your eyebrows and what shape do you feel would be more flattering? It might be useful to look at some photos of your brows when they were over plucked also to see what didn’t look right about them and what areas you needed to grow in. Are your brows straight, arched, rounded, or some kind of hybrid of all three? Do they need to be higher or thinner to lift your eyes? Do you need help avoiding the Frida Kahlo look? Are they very light or thin and need a bit of penciling in?

LOOK, uni-brows CAN be pretty!!

Final step is to remove those hairs. The diagram below illustrates the best guide to follow when plucking your brows.

Step 1. The Beginning
Using a makeup brush or pencil, measure straight up from POINT 1 on the diagram to determine the beginning of your brows. POINT 1 is what I like to refer to as the area where you would get your nose pierced. If your brows grow further in towards your nose, you’re in uni-brow territory. If you pluck further out towards your ears, you’ll be like a sad silent movie star. The brow should remain as thick as it is naturally at POINT 1 and gradually get thinner as it travels out.

Step 2. The Middle
The middle point will help you to determine when the curve or arch of your brow should begin traveling down instead of up. Place the tip of your brush on POINT 1 and aim the middle of it through your pupil. Where the brush hits hairs is the highest point of your brow. If your brows are naturally round then they should travel up in a curve until they reach this point, then they should begin curving downwards. If your brows are arched they should travel up in a diagonal line until they reach this point, then they should switch directions and travel down diagonally. If your brows are very straight this may not apply to you.

Step 3. The End
Measure the end of your brow by placing the tip of your brush at POINT 2 (the edge of your nostril) and the middle of the brush at the edge of your eye. Where the brush hits hair is where your brow should stop.

As far a removal techniques go, I prefer plucking as you have more control of the process. Waxing pulls on the delicate skin around your eyes, which can cause premature aging. I have also found that people who wax their brows end up with waxy textured skin on the area in question which eyeshadow refuses to adhere to. Another hair removing method is threading, the ancient Indian art of hair removal that works by catching hairs in thread wound around the fingers. Like waxing, threading should be performed by a professional, although my Iranian friend has told me that her mother threads her own brows using her toe for leverage (how fantastic!). Also like waxing, threading can remove large sections of hair, not just one follicle at a time like plucking. It is the best method for those who have thick brow hair that needs a lot of taming. Done in the right way, threading can look beautiful, but it all depends on the person whom does it so make sure they know their stuff!

Can any of you recommend a good threader, plucker or waxer? Enter a comment below and share the wealth!

The Beauty Myth

In an industry based on illusion and the manipulation of our womanly insecurities, how do we separate fact from fiction?

How many times have you been seduced by one of those ridiculous mascara ads? With constant developments in technology and the maturity of the marketing industry, “revolutionary” products are being pushed on us at every turn. There are foundations that magically transform into your exact skin tone, mascaras that create a false lash effect (“model has been styled using lash inserts” it reads below). Surely with this kind of technology we could just create Homer Simpson’s Makeup Gun and be done with it!

How does a consumer navigate this terrain of exaggerated claims and photo-shopped images? The answer is simple; if it looks too good to be true, you know the rest! As a makeup artist I have found that technique is often more important than technology. Of course there are some products that are better than others, some brands that are more successful than others. Occasionally something truly revolutionary may arrive on the shelves, but if the last WHAM! branded mascara you bought didn’t transform your lashes; chances are that the next one won’t either.

Monica Bellucci rocking some alien chic!

Magazines will often feature “best of beauty” lists complied by beauty insiders that feature the same products, year after year. MAC eyeshadows, Giorgio Armani Foundation, Laura Mercier concealer… these products bag the top spots again and again because they are the real deal. They deliver what they promise and sell in huge volumes, ensuring they maintain their position at the top of the list. So, are there beauty secrets that you have yet to find out? Of course there are! Techniques you have yet to learn, cult products you have yet to discover and the private makeup artist at your beck and call that you are yet to afford.

My mate Sam working her ass off backstage at London Fashion Week.

Makeup counters exist so that you can test their products before you commit. This is your chance to learn about new products and try them yourself to see if they work. Make sure you have an idea of what it is you want before you go searching. A general “I want new makeup” will get you nowhere. Do you need a new foundation? What do you dislike about your old foundation? What would your dream foundation make your skin look like? These are things you need to take into consideration before parting with your dosh. If you don’t know what you want, how can the sales assistant figure it out? Go shopping with a clear idea of what you are looking for and keep your list short. If you get a complete makeover the chances are that you will return home with the emperors new clothes and a new found arthritis effect in your clumsy hands. You have bought the products but it was the makeup artist’s technique that you wanted. Stick to specific products and master their application before moving on to the next phase. Maybe begin with skin perfection, move on to bronzer and blush and then finish with lips and eyes.
Big Biba, Kensington High St circa 1974. The ULTIMATE makeup counter!

The best advice is to get advice. Find sales assistants that you trust, talk to your friends and colleagues about their favorite products and don’t believe the unbelievable. If in doubt, just give me a call!

KATE’S FAVORITE SECRETS

BOBBI BROWN CORRECTOR CONCEALER
For anyone with pigmentation under their eyes, this product will change your life! Pop into your nearest Bobbi Brown counter with your foundation on and find the correct colour for your skin tone and the severity of your pigmentation. My favorite colours are “Bisque” for pink skin tones and “light peach” for yellow skin tones, but you really need to try them on to see what’s right for you.

MAC FLUIDLINE EYELINER
This little pot of black is a godsend for those who like liner. You can create anything from a neat flick to a smudgy outline or a dramatic cat eye. The liner’s consistency is thick and slightly dry, making it much easier to control than wet liquid liners with spindly brushes. Combine it with a MAC #266 angled liner brush for the most precision.

GIORGIO ARMANI LUMINOUS SILK FOUNDATION
Suitable for most skin types, this silky liquid foundation gives a beautiful glow and a healthy dose of coverage while remaining natural. Apply it with a foundation brush and you can control the level of coverage, while also stretching its last-ability. Set with a small bit of powder on the t-zone for dry skin and a more generous application for combination / oily skin.