What was the last thing that inspired a makeup look?
Fall! I wanted to do something fall-ish and broke out my Sydney Grace x Temptalia palettes to create a smoky, plum eye with a bit of taupe.
— Christine
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I don’t know…..it’s getting harder and harder to find inspiration from magazines and makeup collections have been lacking badly. Have you looked at “fashion” magazines lately? Where are all the beauty sections (and fashion, for that matter). I used to look forward to all of the September magazine issues because they were packed with the newest shoes, boots, clothing, makeup shades, etc. Now they’re just ads for expensive jewelry or designer clothing that is way out of reach for me. It’s all ads. So, basically, thank goodness, I know what shades look nice on me so every season I set out to do my own searching at makeup counters or online. I miss the days of fashion magazines where they actually talked about fashion and beauty…..not politics or celebrities.
I was shocked to look at People magazine at the hairdresser’s (and not by the prices, seeing a woman pay over 150$ for a ?color and blow-out in a lower middle class suburb of Boston.) There was one, I mean single story, a comparison of celebs wearing the same dress and the % of votes for ok or better. If you can call that a story. All form, no content. Most pages were on a theme, photos and blurbs about cooking, out with the kids, or gardening, etc. by x, y, z celebrity.. Of course mags adapt to what sells. In this case a short format that I attribute to changes brought by TikTok. Such as no attention span for content in entertainment. I’m already used to knowing only 20% of the public figures, because I’m old, but I would never have guessed which magazine had the cover been torn off.
I wholeheartedly agree. It is so hard to find inspiration in magazine’s that I use to love. I can remember looking at Vogue and once even called an I Magnin in San Francisco and had them hold a dress for me and drove down to get it after work. I was living in Sacramento at the time. It wasn’t until a friend and I were on our way back to Sacramento that we heard on the radio that it was actually the anniversary of the SF earthquake in 1906. I have to say, I don’t know that I would find much inspiration in a magazine even if it still carried fashion and beauty. I haven’t seen a lot of things that I would want bad enough to drive several hours after work to buy, and then have to go back to work the next morning.
I absolutely agree with you Leslie – even here in Aus all the magazines are about celebrities and lots and lots of ads. Occasionally in one Sunday supplement you might get a page about taking care of your skin, but that’s about it. Oh and lots of fitness ideas – and clothing to go with it.
Yes, I do miss the fashion mags, now that you’ve mentioned it. Seeing the latest styles.
It’s not the same now, I think.
This is because magazines have been replaced by social media (IG, YT, TikTok) and brands are spending their advertising budgets on influencers, where they get a better ROI than they did from magazine ads. Magazines as a whole won’t survive because ppl don’t want to pay for a subscription, even a digital one, when they can get the same content for free directly from brands’ social media accounts. Yesterday’s beauty/fashion editor for Vogue or Cosmo is today’s social media manager, brand ambassador or beauty/fashion Youtuber and as someone that grew up in the late 80s & early 90s, I’m also sad to see the magazines I received in the mail flounder or fold altogether.
You hit the nail on the head, advertisements for everything that are so over priced that only celebrities can afford. I don’t subscribe to any magazines any more, I like value for my money not ad after ad after ad. Sad that that’s what they publish nowadays. I guess with everything on line now there’s no point putting together a good fashion mag.
The September issues of the fashion mags were so disappointing this year. Remember when Vogue was almost as thick as a Sears catalog?
Christine, do WE get to see the look you did? It’s things I see here that inspire me! We had Orange Shirt day last week and as much as I steer away from orange “anything”, I did use some coppery-orange shadows from the KVD Monarch palette along with more “subduing” brown. No orange lippie for this gal, though!
I didn’t take any photos! 🙁
My nails are currently bright orange sparkle (for Halloween), so I used my Huda Gemstone Obsessions palette (Topaz), which I hardly ever use, to create a brown/orange look.
Something that I haven’t seen or been to in 19 years: The ocean and seashore! And I created the oceanic look with, of all things, the Old West themed palette by Nomad Cosmetics called Ghost Town USA, LOL!
Obviously, I dearly love the beach and ocean 🌊🐚🌅
Honestly.. some yellow face cream that doesn’t quite all wash off/out in the morning. I used it last night and I love the ingredients but I have to plan a warm-toned look for the next day because my fair skin is going to be a little more yellow as the day goes on.
Other than that I usually just browse my makeup collection for something I haven’t used in a while and plan a look around one or two products I get excited about again.
Sometimes if I have a breakout I’ll plan a bold look in the area away from the breakout; for example, chin breakout? Nude lipstick and bold eye. Nose breakout? Bold eye *and* lip. Skin’s looking good and I’m not looking tired? Perhaps I’ll dare a more-natural look. Whatever’s going to make me more comfortable with my look that day.
PML x Star Wars Midnight Sun Palette. Its colors are perfect fall-with-some-oomph.
The flowers on the Dior Millefiori packaging but I chose the deeper hues and not the more pastel hues. I used a Dior palette, Chanel blush and Charlotte Tilbury lipstick. Actually, I used the old Bond girl that I have. I apparently just purchased the new rendition of Bond Girl, thank you Helene! That will keep me from buying it again so that I have newer tubes of my favorites. I really like the CT Matte Revolution formula and was thinking about getting backups to all my favorite shades, not realizing that many of the new shades were old shades with new names. That is what happens when you take a break from makeup for several years. I will have to do some research and figure out which ones are just the same colors under different names. You would have thought that I would recognize Bond Girl especially since I have worn it several times in the past month. Several of the CT lipsticks are my fall go to’s.
That new Lancôme louvre palette’s peachy tones. Love the buttery texture and that highlights melts into your skin it’s so smooth. Wore it today for the first time
Sometimes it’s a new season – especially autumn for me (a welcome reprieve from the heat of summer), sometimes it’s a new top that I have bought that will inspire me to be more creative with my makeup looks.
The other day, when I was meeting up with my former teacher colleagues, I wore a new top of smokey blues, with dashes of white and coppery colours. I used Guerlain’s Les Gris colours and added a dash of SG Temptalia’s Phoenix Awakens across the crease. It just looked gorgeous.
This may be a bit of a downer, but the last thing that inspired a change in my makeup look was chemotherapy. I lost all of my hair (even nose hair, which hadn’t occurred to me as a side effect until it happened) and my complexion went from rosy to pale-as-a-sheet white. Prior to treatment, I had overly-thick eyebrows, so I now had an opportunity to work with eyebrow pencils (first, to fill in the thinning brows and later to actually draw brows on my face, which was more difficult than I had anticipated without at least a few hairs to show me where to draw 😆). I had never been able to use eyeliner without it irritating my eyes, but I found that I could use certain brands once my eyelashes abandoned me. It was fun to use blue eyeliner to set off my eye color and purple and pink eyeliner to match my outfits; with no eyelashes in the way, there was no subtlety about color! I stopped wearing foundation because I couldn’t find a shade light enough for my skin, but also because my skin was now just one tone throughout my face (and acne hadn’t been and still wasn’t a problem). I purchased new, softer/lighter shades of lipstick and blush because the bold shades that I normally wore made me look ghoulish. These were shades that just didn’t look good on me with my skin and hair color before treatment. Playing with new shades of makeup and playing with eyeliner was a great source of joy for me during that time!
Patricia, I know exactly what you mean. I went through chemo many years ago and lost all my hair, including brows and lashes. I had never needed to use brow products before and had to learn quickly! I had to change my entire makeup routine during that time. It’s many years later, now, and my brows are somewhat sparse, never getting back to the way they used to be, but I know how to fill them in now. I hope you are doing well, Patricia. 🙂
Definitely not a downer! Thanks for sharing, both of you, on such experiences with makeup that one may never ever think they’ll have to go through, but may. As our bodies change whether through illness, age or whatever impacts them, you don’t really think about how you’d have to adapt your makeup routine. Reading your experience awakened me that you can still find joy in something you have long enjoyed despite physical changes, you just have to adapt. Much appreciated! Pray you’re both better and healing (in and out) 😉
Sadly, nothing lately. 🙁 I need to visit around here again and perhaps just look at some artwork. I want to return to origin my eyes, but haven’t been as enthralled by what I come up with lately.
origin (an odd autocorrect) that was supposed to be “doing”.