WHat a weekend i had! On saturday I did hair and makeup for a pretty good sized bridal party.... the Bride, 6 bridesmaids, 2 flower girls, a mama and a grandma. And this was Makeup AND Hair! Needless to say i was pretty pooped by the end of the evening! haha.
I will show all the hair pictures probably tomorrow, but i wanted to do a quick review of a new makeup palette (well, it's new for me).
The Stila Smokey Eyes palette... First let me say that it talks to you! Really it does. You push a button on the inside and it says "Thank you for purchasing the Stila Smokey Eye Palette". It then goes on to give you step by step instructions, which i didnt actually listen to. So i suppose I should have done that to give a full review, huh? Well, it also gives a drawn out diagram that i do agree with, so I'm gonna guess that the wording review i'd agree with as well. haha. The talk button will also tell you which of stila's brushes they recommend you to use.
The "base" (lightest color in the palette in the top left hand corner) is pretty darn shimmery. Dont get me wrong, it's LOVELY, just very shimmery. It does not look shimmer in the stila photo... trust me, it IS! You have to be a little careful of fall out. (Fall out is those little flecks of shadow you get on your cheeks or elsewhere on your face from the makeup brush, most common with dark shadows or ones with a high glitter content). Its nothing major, but definitely something you'd want to be aware of. If you are just doing makeup on yourself, you'd probably be fine, but if applying on someone else who will have their photo taken (or you plan on having your own photo taken) be aware that as with all glitter flecks, they can catch the light in a photo leaving the photo with a white dot on the skin.
The 2nd color or your "lid" color (top right hand of the quad) is a gorgeous shimmery grey brown. This color could hold it's own when you you want a much less dramatic look (so no smokey eye) but still a gorgeous color.
The Crease color (bottom left corner of quad) is a more matte version of Espresso but is also more of a warm grey that brown like espresso. Its a great color. In my opinion, adding in this color much more matte than the shimmer of the previous 2 colors really proves that Stila knows how to make a smokey eye! If you use a shimmery dark color as your crease or contour color, you are just going to end up with too much shimmer. It will look ULTRA glam and maybe a weeeee bit um... drag queen. If you are using a dark shimmery color, you should stick no non shimmery all over colors. :)
And last but not least in the palette is your liner color. I used a Stila Smudge Pot in black to get the definition of eyeliner and then smudged over it with this liner color. You could also wet your brush or use a liner sealer (my favorite is by La Femme) to turn this into more of a cream base liner.
Here is a photo of one of the bridesmaids that I used this palette of shadows on...
We wanted to keep her look glam, but not TOO much. She was just a bridesmaid afterall and the bride did not want to be too done up either. I used a sheer foundation to start (Lola Oil Free Foundation in sand mixed with a little bit of wheat since she is fairly tanned). This allowed her freckles to show thru a bit without being very predominate. I used a MAC blush in Canteloupe with a little but of MAC's blunt for contour.
For her eyes, as mentioned previously i used the Stila Original Smokey Eye palette. The nice thing about this palette is by varying the intensity of the shadows provided, you can either create a very dramatic look, or a more subtle yet still glam as I did here. Her wet line was lined a little bit with the smudgepot in black using a liner brush. And the lid color smudged only slightly under the bottom lash line. Should you want this look a little more dramatic and edgy, the lower lid could have been more heavily lined and use the liner or crease color under the bottom lashes as well.
Thanks for stopping by to read up on my Stila Product review!
