One to the Machine
One of my friend's recently told me to "shut my vintage face". This was because I was probably mouthing off at him covered in red lipstick, with a nice black smear down the side of my face where I've forgotten I'm wearing liquid eyeliner and rubbed my eyes. I love the vintage makeup look, the classic black eyeliner flick and ruby red lips. I have for years tried to get it right, but one thing has always bothered me. It's not that I don't suit red lipstick as such, but I do think it makes me look older. This may be down to the fact I'm slightly colour blind so frequently mistaking film star red for middle age spread red, but there is something about it that just doesn't quite 100% work on my head.
Now, for the record, I don't care about that and will continue to leave big cliche red kiss marks all over my son and friends and family when they come within 10 paces, but I have been looking forward to sitting down with a makeup artist and seeing if a change of colour really can make me look that much fresher and younger.
Usually when I go to makeup counters I stick to my 2 faithfuls, MAC and Bare Minerals. They both have a track record of not making me look like a drag artist, unlike the likes of Benefit who seem to think it's perfectly acceptable to paint your face orange, then send them out into the street to be stared at by the general public. This time however, I decided to give Chanel a go.
As per usual, I was slightly freaked out by the amount of makeup that the girls on the counter were wearing. I've always marvelled at how on a makeup counter, one human can possibly wear about 80% of the products on sale and their face not be weighed down and dragging along the floor. Chanel was a less is more kind of woman so I was hoping her representatives would apply this theory to my face.
Luckily for me the makeup artist actually did a lovely job. She understood my brief of "I'm on my lunch break, so need to keep it light" and then spent some time looking through the lipsticks to find a more youthful shade than bright orange (which is what I went for the last time I bought a lippy). She clocked on to the fact I was into vintage this and that, and commendably (but I clocked what she was up to) worked into her sales patter that the shade I was veering towards looked very "antique".
The result.. I LOVE it - Rouge Coco Shine in 42 Biarritz, which I though she was calling Beirut (Derelicte anyone?) until I got it back to the office. It does look fresher and younger than my usual darker red so this one is to the Machine. Changing the shade of your lipstick may actually give the illusion of turning back a wee bit of time.. right time to stop waffling and shut my Antique face.
