“I don’t wear make-up” make up

I got a few questions about my make-up routine, so...

First, you should put some time and effort into finding the right products. This is an absolute must. If you use the wrong colour or texture products, you can look sick or “mask like”. It can be a good idea to ask a sales representative, but be critical: Sometimes they just want to make the sale and don’t listen to you at all. If you ask for a concealer and the sales girl starts telling you about mascara, tell her you’re going to leave unless she plays by your rules. You have the money, so don’t feel forced to listen or buy if you don’t want to.

The right product will blend effortlessly into your skin and look natural in all lights. If you have to work too long to blend a product, it isn’t right. Also, don’t ever listen to weird ideas of testing a product on the inside of your wrists or something similar: A product needs to be tested where you’re going to use it. It’s the only way to see if it blends perfectly in. Your wrist doesn’t have the same skin type or tan as your face!

Don’t settle for anything that doesn’t feel or look perfect. There are too many great options out there to go for “close enough".

The following is taking you through all the steps I could possible do for a still-natural look. Feel free to skip any of them; I just wanted to demonstrate them all while I was at it.

You will notice I use a lot of Lancôme products. It stems from many years ago when a Lancôme sales representative actually *listened* to me and helped me find and buy the exact products I wanted. I have since then experimented with different brands, but I keep returning to Lancôme because they look and feel natural on my skin.

Other than the products themselves, you should invest in a good foundation brush. It makes a world of difference! With a brush, you can focus on small, troublesome areas, blend and tone out and keep it looking natural. Fingers or makeup sponges just doesn’t have the same effect. (Oh and this is a good thing to use your “leftover” shampoo for cleaning…)

Mine is from Lancôme

A concealer is used for concealing dark under eye circles. It’s a real miracle for disguising those late nights where you just haven’t gotten enough sleep. Usually it will be slightly lighter than your skin and have a yellow-ish tone to hide the violet tones from dark circles (Look at a simple colour wheel to see why) Dot it on and tone it out to cover the dark areas.

I use Lancôme long-lasting softening concealer in 01: Beige pastel

If you like to play up your eyes and cheek bones like me, tone the concealer out up to your eyebrows and down your cheek bones. Sometimes I use a mix I made myself for this: It contains a light eye cream, concealer and some shimmering YSL highlighter. It’s not as “covering” as the concealer and it gives a discrete glow. 

If you don’t have a tendency to redness and irritation like me, skip the next step.

Dot on an anti-redness foundation on the trouble areas and work it into your skin. Tone out slightly in concentric circles from the trouble spots.

(It seems to be a big discussion on the order of which you apply the different products, but I like this order. Concealer first because it’s a lighter, “special” tone and I don’t want mixing foundation in it, then the anti-redness concealer because often that will be enough and I can skip the regular concealer)

I use Lancôme Maquicomplet in 01:Clair Doré

Now for the foundation. I guess for a lot of people, just having a single foundation is enough. I have 3. It can be a good idea to have them in different tones as you change levels of tan during the year and your winter skin can be far from your summer skin. In between, you can always mix two tones together to match to perfection, or use the lighter one on a lighter area like your forehead and the darker on a darker area.

Dot foundation on in areas where you feel you need more coverage and tone it out carefully. Go down your neck and out towards your ears. If you like me don’t have naturally good skin, it can make you feel a lot better about it to spread the “good” areas. No matter what, try to avoid “lines” between non-covered and covered. Brushes are fantastic for this.

I have the following 3…

Lancôme teint idole ultra in 03 (This is the darkest one. It only matches when I have a real, actual tan)
Lancôme color ideal in 010 (The middle one that works most of the time)
Lancôme teint idole ultra in 010 (As one of my friends named it: The atomic winter shade. Thanks Jane, appreciate it. Hmpf)

You can now use a clear powder to “set” the foundation and hide shiny areas like the T-zone if you feel like it. Brush it on lightly.

I use Lancôme color ID in Fair 1

Now for shaping and contouring the face. You can find lots of resources telling you how and where to apply blusher according to your face shape, but I will just share what I do.

I apply a highlighting blusher in a pale pink on my cheekbones, and then tone it upwards towards my temples.

Next, suck in your cheeks and where the hollow appears, apply a darker blusher. This will help shape your face and in my case, break up a jawline that I think is too dominant.

I like using a very pale, shimmering pink from Dior (Can’t find any information on colour or line on this one?) or Wet n wild Mega glow in catwalk pink. It has 4 different colour “stripes” so you can always mix the amount of blusher or bronzer you want to perfection.

The first brush is the one that came with the Dior blusher and the second brush is one that came with a BareMinerals foundation. I liked the brush better than the product.

Finishing touches. Take a shimmering highlighter or a bright eye shadow and dot the product on the very inner corner of your eye, then dot the same product on the top, middle of your eyelid right at the lash line. These two simple dots will make your eyes appear wider and brighter.

I use a palette from Lancôme in 203: Delicate romance. I have only ever used the white one!

Next take a light or white eyeliner and run it along the wet part of your bottom eyelid.  This will make small eyes appear larger.

I use a Helena Rubinstein eye pencil in 08: Moon dust

Last step is to apply a bit of discrete lip gloss.

I use either a Lancôme juicy tube shade (Have like 3) or a lip gloss with SPF.

Done!

(Oh and brush your teeth before you leave the house for an instant face-brightener!)

Introducing ”The Chamber”

My Q & A section has felt thoroughly dead, so I’m making an entirely new section for questions: The Chamber.
I’m deleting the Q & A page and sticking the page here so I can put up new material.
 Questions

Hi,
I am very interessted in how your theory about the self-stabilizing Cinnamon Bun. I still have some trouble holding it with certain hairtoys, so I would be interested in the background of your theory, maybe then we can find a stable-cinnamon-funktion or something like that.
Thank you for your answer
Teufelchen

Hi Teufelchen!

What an awesome question to kick my silly little Q and A off with!

I had my first suspicion about the cinnamon bun when I was just at shoulder length and realised I couldn’t do a proper bun, but more of a lame “fold” before tying it off with an elastic.

Later I tried adding some fake hair that was longer than my own and found helped stabilise the bun. I also found that doing the scarved bun (Instructions found here) allowed me to do a real, stabilising bun.

I found that with my thickness, the cinnamon bun only worked well for me between slightly above waist length and approaching classic.

My theory is that the “centre” where you twist the tail into coils can’t have more than two coils around it. Less will not allow the self stabilising effect where the parts subtly pull on each other and effectively secure itself. Because you have both the twist of the “tail”, gravity and the natural slickness of hair being coiled around, you have a lot of forces at work, all working in different directions. More coils seem unable to “grip” because each coil will subtly slip in comparison to its neighbour. The centre is the only part of the cinnamon that isn’t really able to slip is the centre, but with many coils, you “attach” each slightly slipping coil to another slightly slipping coil to another slightly slipping….

Maybe someone who is better at math than me would be able to set up an equation for this and show how the resistance of the hair fibres and the opposing forces.

(It’s pretty hard to find the vocabulary to describe this lol)

For now, my theory is that there is an optimal thickness to length ratio and that above or below it, it’s increasingly harder to do a good cinnamon bun.

The I’s seems to be able to do good cinnamon buns on just shoulder length hair while the III’s need to wait to around waist length.

My observation has also been that having thinner outer coils will help stabilising it because you can tuck them under the main part of the bun better. This should put the people with layered hair at an advantage. Thicker outer coils are harder to tuck under without pushing and disturbing the centre. Since I don’t have any layers, I found that it helped me to start the bun off higher, so the bottom parts of my hair worked as layers and the top parts became the longest in the “tail”.

Another thought I had, was that in the “outer limits” of the self stabilising cinnamon bun ratio, you can’t mess up the internal structure without the entire thing disintegrating. Practically, that means all hair sticks and forks are out of the question, but clips like Ficcares (and to some degree Flexies) works.

It also seems that very smooth hair will disintegrate easier in all cases and damaged hair holds better because of the higher friction.

Those are my thoughts, observation and theory on the cinnamon bun. I have never heard anyone voice thoughts like that on a bun so I would very much like to hear from other people!


Hi Lady Igor,

I just read your article and although I am at TBL and have taper, due to growing out chemical dye I have very much the same observations.

From Physics point of few, first thing is gravity that plays a role, on all parts it is acting towards the ground. Pulling the hair below the center to downwards and pushing the hair above the center towards the center. Therefore the best position for the ends should be between 7 and 11 o'clock for anti-clockwise buns and between 1 and 5 for clockwise ones. The next thing is friction. It works between individual strands as well as between the coils, as we are considering static friction, it should stabilize the bun. I guess here are less slippery hairs are an advantage. ;)
Then there is tension. Which works against the twisting and coiling, trying to unravel it. Tension is the one you try to overcome with the hairtoy. This is more or less successful depending on the persons abilities and the hairtoy itself.
My Cinnamon stays with a Ficcare only at the moment and I have TBL and 8 cm circumference with lots of taper below waist. Another one that holds is my 7 prong Baerreis Cygnus all other toys fail to hold it for more than 5 minutes.
I guess the easiest would be to try to get more values for stable cinnamon buns (length, circumference, hari type) plot them in 3D and identify the plane they are lying on, if there is such a correlation it should be straight forward to find it by ploting the values.

Thank you for your detailed answer.
Teufelchen

Thank YOU for your detailed geekiness!

Igor

Hello!
I was poking around on uTT and saw that you say that your hair is course and that it doesn't like oil or too much protein. I thought almost all hair loved oil. I have M on the crown of my head and C at the nape of my neck so I guess the would mean I should use more oil on the top of my head then on the nape of my neck?

Elena

Hi Elena,

With age and damage, my hair has become more accepting to oil and protein. Usually the reason given to why coarse hair doesn’t like protein is that it has an extra layer compared to other hair types. This is what gives it the “crunching” ability that coarse hair has, even when completely healthy. It’s an uncomfortable thought that my hair has become so damaged that my ends react fundamentally different than the roots!

There is a lot of knowledge about oils out there. Often I find it confusing and contradicting.

I think that with all the science about hair and all the experiences people share, a lot of times something very basic gets overlooked: If it works for you, don’t stop doing it.

If oiling your hair the way you already do works for you, keep doing it.

However, if your hair is distinctly coarse at the nape, the oil will probably just sit on the surface without penetrating like it will at the crown.

I would do heavy oilings instead of light ones. That way you hair absorbs what it can depending on type instead of going around with unabsorbed oil in your hair all day.

Unless you have problems gently cleaning the excess oil out, heavy oilings should be helpful and damage-free.

Igor

Hello Igor :)

You have an awesome blog. It's so informative and I like it very much. I also need to thank you - you have helped me in determining the right sizes for Flexi8 clips :) (We have similar hair types.)

Right now, I find that L and XL Flexis work for my classic length hair. I'm still experimenting with them, though. But I'm curious about Mega Flexis. May I ask... what is your opinion on them? Is there a big difference between a Mega and an XL, in terms of styles you can do and overall comfort? And at which length have you started employing Mega Flexis?

Thanks in advance :)

Ohtawen

Hi Ohtawen
Aw thank you for the sweet compliment!
I’m glad I could help you with Flexi sizing. It can be very difficult to find the perfect size.
I bought my megaflexies about… 6 months ago? So somewhere between mid thigh and knee? I don’t “feel” much of a difference between them, they feel about the same to work with. I honestly thought they would end up feeling less stabile, but that didn’t seem to be the case. But when you put them side by side; wow! Those babies are truly mega
I could just exactly squeeze my hair up in a braided nautilus and hold it with an XL flexi, but I later traded my XLs to Little Orca. Of course now I have learned I can make a stabile figure 8 bun and the mega flexi feels just a bit too big for that one, so now I might need to buy some XLs again! I also have two larges for pinning braids up on my head :)
I think you need several sizes for different styles…

Lemon water

For years I have made a lemon-ginger-green tea water mix to take my supplements with. I started making lemon and ginger water after reading about how it’s an ancient Chinese kidney and colon cleanser and found I liked taking my supplements with it, since not all pills taste very pleasant. Since then I have added green tea to the mix for flavour and green tea is good for… Well, just about anything?

Today I stumbled upon this little picture and thought it was pretty cool with even more arguments for my “supplement water”.

Argh, no! Part II

My toenails have looked absolutely pathetic since I took the last, failed nail wraps off. Cracked, peeling and splitting in all directions. I have been wondering what to do to them and decided the best would be to cut them short, then apply “protective covering” and leave them alone for a month to grow out.
Today I cut them down as much as I could, filed them thoroughly and applied two undercoats before adding nail wraps.
My assumption was that the pink nail wraps failed so hard because I used hubby’s ancient hair dryer on them instead of the improvised towels and oven-combo I used for the leopard ones, so I spent a good 5 minutes with my feet inside the oven, resting on the oven mitts.
Hubby “coincidentally” stayed completely out of the kitchen for the time. I guess he realised any snickering would not be tolerated. Good boy.
Well, after the heating, I wanted to do the last, careful trimming.
*Sigh*
I can see that they’re already “crinkled” at the edges and slipping upwards from the nail plate.
Damn.
Well, I guess it’s a good thing I used the last of them and wont be tempted again?!
I still find it super weird that two colour options from the same brand and same line are still so completely different: The leopard ones were so amazingly easy to work with and the pink ones pretty much fail within a few minutes.
Meh. I think once they start peeling off, I will just cover the nail with a white polish or maybe pink to go with the leftover wraps on the other toes.
      

Webcam frustrations

My mini HP has a built in webcam, but no program to take still photos with. I guess I would never have noticed this, except that I’ve been receiving some questions that would make it convenient to use it for demonstrations.

A quick sidetrack: I don’t want to be an ass here, but it’s annoying to receive questions about my blog on other places like my Facebook and on UTT. You can leave a comment on a post or even contact me on the mail belonging to the blog. I even made it possible to leave anonymous comments, just to get out of people asking me about my blog in other places when I have a blog specifically for my hair.

Anyways. Finding a webcam program turned out to be really difficult. I just wanted a normal, simple program to take pictures with. It seems 95% of all programs out there come with all sorts of crap.

Want a “like totally cute and funny” picture of yourself with bunny-ears to show how cute you are?

Want a “like totally cute and funny” picture of yourself on fire to show how totally funny you are?

Want a “like totally cute and funny” picture of yourself with a funny hat to show how free-spirited you are?

I don’t. I just wanted a [Bleeping] webcam picture.

I thought I struck gold with a program called Photobooth that takes simple, normal pictures. It even went “3…2…1… Click!” It seemed perfect until I found that I couldn’t find the saved pictures. Anywhere. Huh? I made hubby take a look at it too, but he couldn’t find it either. So yea, I guess we discovered the most useless program ever made?

Well, I ended up with a 30 day trial of Webcam companion. It can take normal, simple pictures, but also comes with a whole lot of crap I don’t want. It will have to do for the next 30 days though.

In 30 days the hunt continues. Sigh.

No, I’m not an Aquarius, I just took the picture for fun

Webcam programs suck! Screw it all, I’m going to the gym…

Argh, no!

One of the reasons I love Sunsilk (Other than it being cheap, available and just working well) is that it’s good to mix other products in. Usually I will have something mixed into it: Sunscreen or more expensive products like the Argan oil treatment I got from Little Orca.

Well, I mixed some of the new Schwarzkopf Gliss leave in conditioner in it and started shaking it around. Immediately I could hear something was very, very wrong in the bottle.

I unscrewed the bottle and found the contents being lumped up and completely separated. Half of it being a grainy lump and the other being milky water.  

Damn!

It’s not the first time it has happened. It seems to happen once in a while when I mix two leave in conditioners together, but I have no idea what causes it or what ingredients to avoid mixing. Does anyone know?

I’m really annoyed at having ruined an almost full bottle of leave in conditioner.

Murderers!

Score!

Aka “Public service announcement for the Swedes!”

I went shopping at Nova Lund with Chemist friend and we went to ÖoB located right outside the mall. Chemist friend had heard from someone at her department that it was a good place for those minor repairs around the house- kind of things. To my surprise they had a load of V05!

<3 !

I’ve been lucky to find a few bottles of V05 here and there in Denmark and Sweden, but it looks like ÖoB might actually stock it!
It was really nice and cheap in general, so I stocked up on conditioners and a single leave in-conditioner. They had only two left of those and since I got the Chemist hooked on the wonder of those, we picked one each.
The Gliss leave in conditioner seems to be around normal price, but its not every day I stumble over a leave in-conditioner in a supermarket so I was happy! The two Respons products would also be around normal price, but the V05 was definitely cheap
Non hair related I also got a regular kitchen brush for brushing on facial masks and distributing them evenly

Today’s outfit

Aka “All the other bloggers seems to be doing it!”



Makeup: Foundation and concealer from Lancôme. Blusher from Wet n wild

Hair: Figure 8 bun from the figure 8 tutorial and a Flexi 8. Headband from Accessorise I believe?

Headphones: From Creative. They fold up to a wonderfully bag-friendly little ball

Shirt: From CTRL

Jeans: Versace

Sneakers: Asics

Bag: From H&M

Laptop sleeve: From HP. It matches my pretty, girly mini-laptop!

Scent of the day: Pure purple from Hugo Boss

Playing on the iPod and having been stuck in my head for like a [Bleeping!] week…

Figure 8 tutorial (Igor’s variation)

Start with your hair in a ponytail. I know some longhairs can do this without the starting elastic, but I have never been able to (And yes that is this Flexi 8 in my pocket)

Start twisting your hair at around 9 o clock

Make about 1½ coil of the bun

Flip the first coil upwards. This is what my “variation” does differently. Usually figure 8 tutorials tells you to finish a bun and let it bee-butt before flipping it, but I find it much easier to control coil and tension when I know how much “give” I need for the flip.

You don’t need to be very accurate with the shape, you can fix it later.

Coil the rest of your hair around the bun like usual…

…And tuck the tail under. Mine is poking out here since I didn’t have a mirror around to spot it and hubby of course only replies “It looks great, honey!” when asked.

Fiddle around with the shape a little until you’re satisfied with the “8”

When sticking the Flexi 8 through, I find it easier to keep it horizontal when I “mark” the in and out spot with my fingers to guide the stick. Put the stick through just where the top of the “bun part” underneath the “8” ends

And done! The Flexi is a little too flexible here, so I would usually fix it up a bit using a mirror, but I didn’t have one around at that moment. But you get the point!

My XXL Flexi is just a bit too big to hold the tension I like for a figure 8 bun held like this and I’m considering if I should buy an XL just for Figure 8 buns…