just the lip

I love looks that call out one feature and leave the rest of the face natural.

IMG_9084

Especially when that one feature is the lips, and especially when those lips are red.

IMG_9089

IMG_9093

I keep tweaking my new haircut, making micro adjustments. This is the haircut that never ends.

IMG_9168

Charlotte Tilbury So Marilyn lipstick over MAC Brick lip pencil. I find Brick to be so versatile. It’s one of only two red lip liners I have (I have a more cherry one as well from it Cosmetics) and I use it for basically every shade of red. Going crazy trying to match lipstick to liner seems completely unnecessary to me, though this may be because I color the whole lip in with the pencil, not just the edges, and I’m always blending the edges out anyway, just to get the shape and gentle haze I want.

IMG_9126

I do have foundation/blush/bronzer here, but with a very light hand, just enough to take the edge off the red, so it isn’t too stark, and only a light lashing of mascara.

IMG_9073

J Crew tee, marabou jacket (thrifted), Coach knee-high boots (thrifted), Express jeans. I am loving this marabou.

x

 

 

layered

The recent wig preoccupation prompted a good question, something like: do you ever change up, you know, your real hair?

And the answer is…not recently. I was in an auto-pilot growing phase, I suppose.

But what a good idea!

So, I hacked at the previous situation (which was nearly all one length with minor shaping) a bit, adding some rounding layers, until I got this:

IMG_8958

I essentially wanted the widest part of my hair to line up with the highest part of my cheekbone. Or, ideally, with the intersecting point of the eyebrow latitude line and an imaginary line that is the continuation of the upward sweep of the cheekbone. Right around there.

IMG_8965-2

Nailed it.

My face is basically square, or like a pentagon, and it’s large. Somehow my instinct is to have large, round* hair, to put the hair in proportion to the face. This (or a little bigger than this, actually) is the ratio that seems natural, harmonious, and to slick the hair back is to introduce severity via disproportion. Seems like we must all have some sense of this point of harmony, a point where you stop blow-drying or cutting or what have you, and decide it’s just right (or you don’t stop, and regret).

*I kind of like it as an offset pentagon, actually, I realize! The hair is a little boxy as well, but in a way that doesn’t line up with the face. If you follow… I like the squareness of my face, and don’t feel an urge to soften it as one might see in diagrams of hairstyles for different face shapes or something.

On another note, let’s give a shout out to purple eye makeup. This is basically…every purple product I own in a big smudgy mess. Recommended. The key is to keep smudging the color lower than seems advisable. Keep going! This is even conservative. And then I should have blended with a bronzer-type shade to make it even more sultry and massive…but one runs out of time.

Purple looks good on every eye color, though. Especially brown, I think. Certain shades of purple make me long for brown eyes.

IMG_8903-2

Pearls of Joy Tahitian pendant, Charlotte Tilbury Matte Revolution lipstick in Love Liberty (love this shade and formula, more on these later – FINALLY available in the U.S. but only for one month evidently).

IMG_8941

x