Plain Yet Maintained

NARS MAKE UP MASTERCLASS AT LIBERTY

So today I attended a 'make up masterclass' in the salubrious surroundings of Liberty, which is my favourite shop of all time. You can find me there at least once a week...actually last week in fact, at Vogues fashion night out where I witnessed the most useless dj ever. It's always a bugbear to watch someone you know is getting paid hundreds on exceptionally expensive equipment who can't even press play particularly well, but thinks dancing around in 'clothes' with 'hair' is just as good. Argh!

Ahem. Anyways, I decided to take part in this masterclass that had been sold to me as a chance to experience one of the top make up artists from NARS doing a virtual one on one class teaching me to create a personalised 'best' look for my features, face shape etc etc. It was a £50 deposit which was redeemable against purchases made on the day, which seemed an okay kind of deal, so I was rather excited about the whole shebang!

Sadly, the class wasn't quite what it was sold as. I turned up and was seated in a beautiful room with eleven other women and six make up artists and a rather stunning array of champagne (which I couldn't drink because of antibiotics) and cupcakes and sandwiches. That was a good a start as any. I got even more excited as I was positioned in front of the below item.

The item above is not available to buy from stores, even the make up artists were gasping over it as it's a very expensive bit of kit that only the artists can purchase, and most hadn't got that much spare cash yet! As you can see, it contains some of the best single and double eyeshadows. Nightclubbing, Night Flight, Lulu, China Blue, there's pandora in there, and the famous Laguna bronzer. It's a veritable FEAST of products to play with!

Anyways, when I glanced towards the 'top NARS make up artist', it turned out to be a man that had served me on the counter of Prescriptives in House of Fraser only seven months ago, and he was rude, moody and abrasive the entire time, as I was having a custom blend made, which I was certain was the wrong colour and texture. I remember I informed him, but he shrugged and said 'take it home and return it if its wrong'. Of course, the counter had disappeared the next week as Prescriptives had shut their counters down. Thanks! So he can't have been long with NARS frankly, and I didn't feel particularly enamoured by this fact.

Then onto the lesson, we were provided with endless bigging up of the NARS products, which was fine, I expected that, and we were told to apply primer, and a pore refiner, which did seem to work beautifully. Then we were told to apply either the Sheer Matte or Sheer Glow foundation (me in Mont Blanc) with our fingers to the center part of our faces and blend outwards, as they don't believe in foundation brushes as the higher coverage covers the 'natural beauty of your skin'. I did my best, and was then handed the Duo Concealer to cover any blemishes/red areas. I ended up feeling rather cakey and scrappy looking. The artists fussed around trying to fix me, but I have to admit, I need a brush, the foundation didn't cover enough for me to just 'press' it in, and the concealer didn't conceal the redness sadly. Then I was told to apply loose powder with a cotton pad and press it in, then dust the loose with the sparse and extremely soft powder brush. So far so....okay-ish.

The next techniques, one of which I really did find interesting, was the use of the Multiples in Malibu and Copacabana. I had always wondered how you used them at all, and for this, they used Malibu directly under the cheekbones, and blended upwards, and then the lighter Copacabana was applied on the cheekbone and the browbone and blended. It created some great dimensions and contouring of the face. Then we were instructed to bronze our faces in a number three motion, from brow bone to under the cheekbone to the jawline in Laguna.

Then it was time for the eyes, all we were told was to take a light base colour to apply all over. Then a darker colour, of which I chose Nightclubbing, a dense dark bronze with a black base and gold pearl. They instructed us to apply it to the socket line, then to blend it with a slightly lighter shadow to take the harsh edge. It wasn't particularly rocket science. Then we were told to use some eyeliner, with a flat lining brush and then some pretty lacklustre mascara.

Last of all I used a beautiful lipgloss in the shade Babe

I did love the shade, as it's virtually the same as my current insane shade of orange hair. However, when I left I realised I'd learnt virtually nothing, and now had to spend £50 on products, which is pretty easy in NARS, but I'd already had a splurge two weeks back so I felt I had to rather than waste the money on nothing.

One wonderful thing that did happen was that one of the make up artists took me to the side and asked whether I was in fact a make up artist there to thieve techniques. She thought I had good skills! I'm such a loser, but it made me happy certainly!

So, in summary. If you know NOTHING about make up, then I would heartily recommend this class, but if you're more au fait with the tools you need to use, and how to do a smoky eye (very basic one at that) and how to contour a cheek, you'll find yourself a little frustrated. However, I have been told that there will be a class themed with the 'Night' eyeshadows, which i'm a huge fan of, so I may consider that if I need to buy some NARS items anyway.

However, to cheer me up I did buy some wonderful stuff from the Topshop Unique A/W 2010 that dropped this week. I LIKE SHORT SHORTS!!!