Showing posts with label makeover. Show all posts

DECEMBER



Y’know how you watch someone do something you can’t, and aside from your first thought being HOLY SHITSNACKS THAT’S COOL, your next thought is, “Oh I wish I could do that”.

Well I get that every time I watch Natasha complete a make-up application.

So at the end of this year, after watching her (not in a creepy way, like, in an admirable/we work in the same space way) talents she asked if I wanted a make up shake up session and I said a wholehearted all capslocked YAS because I have zero chill (literally zero, ask Tash and all of my friends and family).

We picked a day and I went over to her studio/house and we ate pasta with bacon, and then got stuck into changing up the mug of mine.
Natasha created two looks for me; one that was signature Tash glow, and another heavier, smokier look.

I prepped my skin with Eve Lom Hydration Serum, followed by La Mer Soft Lotion.

From Natasha;
SIGNATURE LOOK


 

I’m all about glowy skin and have a less is more attitude towards coverage. To get flawless coverage that looked minimal I mixed 1 part Ellis Faas with 1 part Josie Maran Illuminator (half foundation half liquid gold TBH) applied with a Zoeva flat kabuki.

On areas that need more coverage such as the chin and under the eyes, I buffed concealer using a fluffy domed shadow brush – this allows you to  blend the edges seamlessly and make concealer almost undetectable, it just looks like skin.

The skin always looks fresher with cream and liquid products so I always like to work with cream colours first. Stila convertible colours are my fave because they keep their shine and don’t dry matte and for cream highlighter I can’t go past Copacobana (by Nars). Skin was set with Hourglass Diffused Light (on a fluffy brush applied very lightly), warmed up with Luminous Bronze Light and extra glowed with Mecca Enlightened.

My take;
I still can’t believe that Tash took products I already used and made me look completely different with them. Natasha also gave me a very soft, semi-natural, glowing bronze-based eye that I really loved. It wasn’t overly dramatic but it was a little more lined that I’d usually go for and I loved it. Thought we did have an almost hiccup – Tash forgot I’m allergic to Too Faced Chocolate Bar (I KNOW I’M SO UPSET) and almost came at me with it haha! Luckily we went for Too Faced Sweet Peach instead (palette returning soon, according to Snapchat!) which provided all the warm, rosy-bronze shades you see below. Natasha also used a Stila Smudge Stick along my waterline to create that super sexy, not-too-overdone look.

Natasha’s Take;
DRAMA EYE

 

Black smoky eye using MAC paint pot in Black Ground. It’s super pigmented and dries fast so use synthetic brushes – natural bristles just don’t cut it here. I applied this shadow all over the lid and pressed MAC Black Track shadow on top.

The trick to making a black smoky eye non-intimidating is to blend it out with brown, so I used a medium brown shade by Inglot and Too Faced Natural Matte (Sexpresso and Risqué – mostly under eye) on the border of the eye crease I used the orange shadow in that palette. Warm tones always soften it out and make it much more wearable. Use natural bristles here if possible!
Then I used a Stila Smudge Pot for the waterline and upper lash line – no flick, winged liner ruins smoky eyes and that’s when it becomes a glamour eye.

Amp up the skin with a deeper blush shade and add a bit of contour – Paloma by Nars here!

My take;
Not gonna lie, when Tash was getting her brush worked into the MAC black pot shadow I had a teeny tiny minor freak out because I’ve never ever ever EVER put black directly onto my own lid. Minor panic. Total faith in Natasha, but black is a tricky colour. And my version of a smoky eye almost always involves a wing (that was an interesting moment, I’ve never considered my make up style glam but whaddya know?). All of the layering, blending, dabbing, brushing, smoothing, buffing and smudging was incredible to experience. Natasha made it look easy as anything, never once faltering, even when my eyes pulled their “There’s-nothing-wrong-but-we’re-going-to-water-up-ANYWAY” trick. A favourite for every and any make-up artist I’ve ever had touching my face.

When she had finished I felt like a new woman. My eyes were a different shape, by far more sultry than anything I’d done before, and my wide, big eyes were actually a benefit here, because often smoky eyes lose half their effect when the eye is open. I was a bit chuffed to hear my big ol’ bug eyes were good for something.

Tash popped a Smashbox exclusive lip on me, Phil, a beautiful, perfect pinky-nude and that was beautiful too.

We did a bit of a photo shoot and I gotta tell ya that was probably the best bit. Tash told me to be serious and sexy and sultry and anyone who has a friend knows the minute you try pulling serious sexy faces this happens;



Ten minutes later we had some great shots and a cute Boomerang to boot.

WHAT I TOOK AWAY
I’m on the right track with Ellis Faas and Josie Maran. The way I apply my concealer has completely changed, and whilst I haven’t yet attempted the smoky eye on my own, I have tried the glowy bronze look and I found it easier to do after Natasha’s tips!

THANK YOU FOR JOINING ME FOR THE 12 DAYS OF BLOGMAS! Enjoy Christmas and New Year’s, little birds, and I’ll see you for more beauty-ful adventures in 2017.


Tweet tweet xx

Grow baby, grow!


Hello my little birds!
So I've started a process that I want to blog about and share with you, simply because in my own research and YouTubing I haven't found a clear, billboard like, HUGE sign saying "YES THIS WORKS" or "NO IT DOESN'T". I've only really found "SORT-OFs" and "FOR ME, YES". 

It's called the Inversion Method and I'll admit, when I first read about it I was a little sceptical, and scared. Oil? In my hair? But oil make grease? Greasy hair bad? How...? Then I watched this little clip on YouTube by Evin Yalcin and heard that you actually don't have to use oil, but you can rely on your hair's natural oils instead. I find my hair can get quite greasy on its own, so the idea of putting more oil in there isn't very appealing. 
Essentially you flip your hair upside down, looking down, and give yourself a scalp massage for four minutes. At first I was a bit half-hearted, I mean, standing with your head almost between your legs rubbing your head isn't a daily activity, you know? But then I remembered something about myself -
I LIKE MASSAGES. 

So even if this method doesn't end up working for me, I'm getting a lovely mini-massage each night, and I'm ok with that! 


The reason I want to grow my hair out is two fold. For starters, at the moment it doesn't feel entirely healthy - my ends are splitting, I know I've done too much in terms of colour and bleach to it this year already, and it's just a bit of a hot mess to deal with.
Also, I'll admit, I haven't totally gotten over my love, my obsession... the chocolate brown hair.
I mean the gloss, the depth, the shine, how healthy it looks.... ah!
I already know, however, that I can't do another thing to my hair colour-wise until it's healthy again, and I was considering lobbing it all off, but that won't really repair any of the damage I've done. Also, I don't want short hair! As much as I adore a bob/lob, I know they don't really work for me. I'd feel silly chopping it all off since I've been growing it since August last year. 

 
On the left is my hair circa 2013, when it was still mostly blonde and the longest I can remember it being. On the right is my lob from August 2014. I did love my lob, and at the time it was exactly the style I needed, but it's taken a long time to grow out.

I've been looking up home remedies and other solutions for growing long, beautiful hair, and I've discovered three main themes.

1) OILS & PRODUCTS
2) FOOD
3) WATER

OILS & PRODUCTS
Obviously everything you put on your hair will affect it, its growth, and its strength and condition. I've spoken in the past about using John Frieda products to protect my colour, but I haven't been taking good enough care of my scalp. That's right folks, dandruff. Ick, I know, but it has to be said, and it's one of the main downsides to colouring your hair - a dry, flaky scalp will often ensue. Whilst various shampoos, including caffeine and coconut milk shampoos, are suggested for stimulating growth, I feel I need to get my dandruff situation under control first. Which leads us to oils! Aside from the inversion method, all of my favourite YouTubers rave about coconut oil and its benefits for your hair. Recently Kayley Melissa spoke about using coconut oil as a scalp treatment for conditioner, and said that it was far more effective than any other shampoo she'd used. Other top rated oils include Argon Moroccan oil, jojoba oil, rosemary oil, olive oil, and other essential oils too.

FOOD
You are what you eat, and to get healthy, beautiful hair, as well as healthy, beautiful skin and internal organs (woo! internal organs!), a diet full of rich, nutritious foods and proteins is highly recommended. Eggs, avocado, fish, fresh fruits, and vegetables, are all vital to growing strong hair. I'll admit, my diet is in desperate need of an overhaul (one too many coffees and cakes I'm afraid), so I've already been moving to these changes anyway for my own health. Now as an added bonus, I'll have beautiful hair to boot! A lot of beauty bloggers and YouTubers also recommend taking a multivitamin or hair supplement to boost growth, but I want to try adjusting my diet first before I start adding in any sort of extra pills or potions.

WATER
Water. Water, water, water. Seriously. The human body can't do jack without it. It's important for fostering hair growth as well as cell renewal and all those other lovely things our bodies do for us to you know, keep us alive. The human body is 70% water! It's so important to hydrate, and being exposed to fake air and heavy indoor heating has really taken its toll on not just my hair, but my skin and general health as well. A good tip I find is to keep a bottle of water with/near me at all times. Even just watching TV, working, or blogging, if I have water near me, I'll drink it without even thinking about it. Before you know it you'll have downed your 8 glasses (or 2 litres) without even realising!
Tea is also a good way to get water into your system, and a great idea for winter time when drinking cold water is super unappealing.

So here we are - I've been using the Inversion Method for three days now (it's Monday), so I'll be back on the blog this Saturday to give you my results. An inch to four inches in a week? My hopes aren't high, little birds, but I am a bit of an optimist. Make sure you're following beautybyasparrow on Instagram for updates and inspo!

Until next time,
Tweet twee xx

Back to Basics (and a bit of balyage too)

I bit the bullet and went into my hair dressers last week. The re-growth situation was out of control and Mumma Sparrow let slip at her appointment that I was considering chocolate brown and my hairdresser suggested I come in straight away for a consult before making any major colour changes.

And boy am I glad I did!

I always try to arrive early for my hairdressing appointments, just to make sure I’ve given my stylists all the time I can to get my hair right. I’m also one of those people who prefers to be super early for something than running late, and usually I need to take my hair out of its bun/pony tail/braid and brush it out before my appointment starts.

The colour wheel I'm sticking with
Baby Sparrow - natural colour!
I sat in the chair (same one as last time I think?) and got a good look at all the colours available in the Nak soft colour range. Re-growth is a real pain for anyone, but I’ve reached my point over the last few months where as much as I love my blonde, and I love being a light, almost platinum blonde, I can't deal with REGROWTH. OH MY GOD. NO. Over it, so, so over it. I’ve been doing a lot of soul searching (oh that sounds really douchey, I’m sorry) the last few months and it’s lead me to wanting to be as honest with myself as I can and, funny as it sounds, I want to get back to something like my natural colour, something I haven’t seen in, oh, about five years?




This time around a different team member took my appointment and I’ve got to say, he’s brilliant. All of the team are, and no matter who does my colour it always comes out looking superb, but the end result was so, so perfect, I couldn’t be happier. The base/root colour was a mix of 6.7 and 7.7 with 10 Vol, worked down and painted by hand. The light, almost white blonde my gorgeous girl Prue perfected during the pink period was left alone, and became the ombré tips to the darker shade.




The other wonderful thing about ditching the blonde foils and highlights is the time is cut in half! Anyone who’s ever had their hair colour treated or lightened to blonde will tell you that about three magazine’s worth of time is taken up with waiting, waiting… waiting…
This time around I was sitting only for about half an hour, forty minutes, before I was taken up to wash.

While my colour was being done my hairdresser and I had a good chat about life, relationships, and of course, hair. I was a little concerned about my colour, simply because I’ve done a lot to my hair over the last six months, but he reassured me that going darker would look great, but also wouldn’t do any more damage. I’d mentioned earlier on the blog that I’ve got very, very thick hair, and that has been my saving grace throughout all my colour changes. Whilst he had noticed some breakage, my stylist reassured me that my hair was ok, and would recover. He also talked about how porous some hair can be, and that I’m lucky mine isn’t too much so. The big problem with taking your hair down from a bleach-blonde shade to anything remotely darker is that your hair can turn green. Depending on how porous the hair is, what shades of blonde are involved, what type of dye, what amount of Vol is in the hair – it can all lead to a big, green-ish, unhealthy mess. Luckily when you’re working with an experienced colourist using good quality products, those disasters can be easily avoided!
Blonde hair mid. Jan 2015
Pink hair Feb 2015














As you can see in the above photos, although my hair looked pretty, the texture was quite dry and damaged near the ends, so it was really important to stop bleaching and colour treating my hair for a little while.


Let me tell you guys, it’s hard to feel attractive when your head is piled up with dye and you’re wearing what is essentially a high quality garbage bag.




Once the dye was washed out, my hair was thinned a tiny bit on the right side of my head (the heavier side of my part), as to the left of my part, my hair is that tiny bit thinner, and so much easier to handle! Having the two evened out has helped A LOT in the last two weeks alone. Then my hair was blow dried, and given a slight wave/curl, and voila! Done!




It’s actually quite a subtle change – I wasn’t greeted with the shocked gasps and screams that came with my first attempt at balyage, nor the squeals of going to back to blonde, but a lot of people do love it (including yours truly) and I couldn’t be happier, honestly. This colour is going to be so much easier to maintain, so much easier to style, and it’s got the right hint of blonde to be going along with. Stepping down to a darker shade for Autumn/Winter is also pretty exciting, and I feel a lot more confident going along with this season’s trends now that I have the hair to pull them off.

 




Until next time my little birds,

Tweet tweet xx

Going to the Dark Side

I've fallen in love.

I know, I know. I can already hear what you're all saying. So soon? When? How? Are you already over your last love? 

What can I say? When you know, you know... 


Ash blonde balyage, you will always have a place in my heart, and haunt my dreams, but I can't deal any more. 

I can't deal with the re-growth, the maintenance, the cost, the whole kit and kaboodle. I do love being a blonde and I think it suits me quite well, but a student budget and champagne tastes - and hair! - just doesn't work out. 

So I was trawling through Pinterest (don't we all) and minding my own business, when 
BAM!


Oh. Oh my. 

Luscious, dark, rich, chocolate brown curls. Goodness gracious me. 
I've written before about how ashy blonde-brown my natural hair colour is, and whilst I still believe an ash blonde balyage would have worked with my natural tones, there's something about the richness and depth of this brunette shade that I can't resist. 


Anne Hathaway is bae

Melbourne is quickly moving into more autumnal, wintry weather, and the less sun I see the less I feel summery, bubbly and blonde-like, and the more I'm attracted to auburn, brunette shades. I'm also loving pale skin against rich, mahogany and cocoa palettes, and as we move into winter and fake tanning becomes far less necessary, I think my own pale skin would 'pop' a little more against a brunette shade. 

I'll admit I'm a little scared. Stepping down from gold/blonde to brunette isn't as easy as TV would have you believe. That being said, last February my hairdresser managed to get me down from a brassy-gold to a quite dark, dark almost black-brown without too, too much drama or damage. Even if I have to first go down to a caramel-brown before I can get to the chocolate-auburn shade, I'm more than happy for that to be the process. 


More than anything, I feel I need a change. Going to pink a few weeks ago gave me a taste that I want more of - something different, something new, and something that will hopefully be a little less intensive than maintaining my blonde, currently. I'm overdue for a trim anyhow, so at my next session with my hairdresser I'm going to get her advice and tips for going down to such a dark, warm shade. 
In the meantime LOOK AT IT IT'S SO PRETTY 


I mean come on. And with Easter next week, it's never been a better time to do chocolate! 

I haven't been this obsessed since I found Sportsgirl lipsticks and that's really saying something. Also I'm planning to travel at some point this year, and I know that a darker, brunette shade is going to be so, so much easier to up keep while I'm away than any blonde could ever be. 

"BUT WHAT ABOUT BALYAGE?!" I hear you cry. I know, I know. I do still adore the soft, feminine feel of a well done balyage ombre, but as I said, I need a change, and I know the more that I try to do to my hair at once the more damaged it will be. And just because I'm not doing a balyage immediately, doesn't mean I can't or won't in future. This year's big hair trend is a new technique called baby lights, where, like balyage, whisps of colour are painted, free hand, through the hair, particularly closer to the face, to give them impression of sun kissed, youthful lockes. 

Baby lights with balyage 

And just to confuse myself that little bit more I found these gorgeous photos on Pinterest that have now got me, once more, considering a BIG CHOP



I MEAN IT'S ALL JUST SO PRETTY

I'll keep you posted my little birds, and whatever I decide to do with this crazy mane of hair, I just want it happy and healthy.

Til next time, 
Tweet tweet xx
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