lipstick - The Seventh Sphinx

The impulse and the will to carry through an unorthodox style are no casual matter.

I finally had a chance to try out a turban look I’ve been mulling over for a few months.

This is just a raw piece of fabric a few yards long that I’ve wrapped and knotted and wrapped and knotted. Nothing remotely special about this technique (I just fiddled about until I liked the shape) but type ‘turban wrap tutorial’ into YouTube and prepare to be amazed.

I love the clean look it gives, similar to the look of a bald or very closely shaven head. It’s austere but can be very striking with angular features and big accents. The austerity is the key to its charm, for me.

We are loving this dress, and for the obvious reason. The view from the side is nice, too, with the cut such that the back is completely open rather than framed.

I opted to go with bold jewelry but the turban is enough of a statement on its own, to be sure. I don’t think I have quite enough eyebrows for this turban. I think I’ve demonstrated, though, how truly I needed this necklace.

Open back maxi dress from GoJane, Kara Ross bracelet, antique necklace and earrings, Gian Luca gladiator sandals, mirror aviators from eBay, on the lips: NARS lipstick in Heat Wave.

♪ ♫ Blackalicious – If I May ♪ ♫

p.s. The winner of the pearl giveaway, chosen via random.org, is Penelope Tree! Penelope, I have messaged you as well, please contact me with your address. Thanks to everyone who participated!

I know I am not alone in often resorting to subpar formulas for the sake of a tremendous color. That is what makeup really comes down to, for me, a straight issue of color. Do I love it? Do I want it? Is it worth it?

Color has powerful effects on us! Or can have. There are studies. I have immediate, often visceral responses to colors, for good or ill.

I’m debating this eyeshadow palette right now, the Kat Von D ladybird palette, just for the sepia color on the end. I hardly even wear eyeshadow! I have no money to waste! But this color…it is exactly, exactly the color I have been looking for. I just want to gaze at it and marvel at it. And maybe I would wear it! If I had that perfect color…(is how it goes in the brain).

You see, on the far right, what I mean? That rusty, burnt sienna color? I have seriously been looking for a sepia eyeshadow like this for years! The rest of the palette is nice, too, conveniently.

Helllooooo…

I have been thinking about makeup this way constantly lately, as a tool for controlling color–hills and valleys of color, planes and angles of color–, and the paradigm works every time. A nice simplicity to it.

Uhh. Where was I? Oh, yes.

Ideally, though, you don’t have to compromise with the formula, and in NARS Heatwave (called ‘semi-matte’ and accordingly matte but not in that unfriendly way) we see a happy confluence of form and function. A brilliant, almost neon red*(which sometimes plays a heavily saturated neon coral) that performs exactly how you would hope. At least, exactly how I hoped. If I’d had it at the time, I would have included Heatwave with my earlier red-orange/orange-red picks.

I was in no way disappointed, and perhaps you begin to gather how particular I am.

*Wearing it here.

Tag: lipstick

the turban

on the lips: NARS Heatwave lipstick