How to look fab after a long-haul flight: Skincare and Makeup Tips plus Eye Look feat. Chanel Les 5 Ombres de Chanel Eyeshadow Palette

Face it - we may love going on vacation or visiting another country but I don't know many people who enjoy a long-haul flight. 

Besides lack of sleep and jet-lag, you need to deal with dehydrating cabin air that sucks all the moisture out of your skin, a tendency to retain water and get puffy around the face and eyes, and makeup looks terrible on top of all that.

So what if you need to hop off a flight and go straight to a social engagement? You kind have to get yourself looking as good as possible. No easy task.

Here are a few tips (and product faves) that you can consider on your next flight.

FIGHT CABIN SKIN

Cabin air sucks the life out of your skin. Which can give you a crepe-y looking skin surface, magnify fine lines, and compromise your skin barrier and put you at risk of sensitive reactions later on. Always use a product that is a bit more moisturizing than you normally need, even if you have oily skin. Your skin will thank you for it. 

My favorite in-flight skin protectants after trying tons of different lotions and potions over the past 10-15 years are oils, because they help seal and protect the skin surface longer than a water-based lotion will, and they don't contain fillers and additives that might give you a reaction after a 20-hour flight. 

You also get a bit more time to give yourself a good facial massage during application, which can help reduce/prevent puffiness.

For normal to dry skins, try more nourishing concoctions:

• La Mer The Renewal Oil (available from Nov 2015)
• La Prairie Swiss Ice Crystal Dry Oil
• Kiehl's Midnight Recovery Concentrate
• Jurlique Purely Age-Defying Face Oil
• Clarins Santal or Blue Orchid Face Treatment Oil

If you're combination, there are lighter oils that help protect your skin while not sitting in a greasy film on your skin:

• Kiehl's Daily Reviving Concentrate
• Clarins Lotus Face Treatment Oil
• Laura Mercier Rose Infusion de Rose
• By Terry Huile de Rose
• Elizabeth Arden Ceramide Oil Capsules

Even if you're very oily and cannot imagine applying a straight oil to your face, consider an oil-in-water serum like Chanel's Hydra Beauty Micro Serum. It will not feel oily but supplies a dose of calming camellia oil to the skin, along with other water-based humectants.

Some people also like to bring hydrating masks and sleeping masks (Origins and Laneige have some good ones) on flights. Do that if you have something on hand and prefer it to an oil, but I personally just find oils last and work better. You need less to keep your skin supple for hours and it just doesn't feel as sticky and heavy. Plus, you can use oils on your cuticles, on the ends of your hair, etc.

Reapply every few hours, and make sure you drink plenty of water.

IMPORTANT!
Keeping your makeup on for an entire long-haul flight is one of the worst things you can do for your skin. You might be able to get away with it in your teens and 20s, but as you get into your 30s and up, your makeup will look positively leathery, cakey and cracked by the end of a 10 hour flight. Putting more makeup on top of it will not help.

I'd rather have no makeup on for a few hours on the plane where few people will be looking at you (trust me, nobody will be staring at you and thinking "man she looks bad") than spend the rest of the day looking raggedy after touch-down. 

You're better off removing all your makeup after take-off so you can apply all your skincare and lip balm first, and then having a fresh canvas at the end of the flight to apply fresh makeup on.

PRE-LANDING SKIN PREP

About 40 minutes before landing time is about the time I start to prep my skin. You can't just slap makeup on and expect it to look great. Even if you've managed to keep yourself well-hydrated and smooth the past few hours, you probably still want to remove the hours of residue and dirt on the surface.

1. A gentle wipe or a very light and non-drying cleanser is usually sufficient to refresh your face. 
2. Then give yourself a nice gentle massage with a few drops of oil mixed with a brightening primer, like Le Blanc from Chanel. This not only brightens and evens out your skin slightly so you need less makeup, the lighter layer of oil will help your makeup to go on MUCH better.

Tip: In the cold, dry environments, foundations and concealers will all feel a lot drier and be harder to blend out. That little bit of oil on the skin surface is just going to make sure your makeup is not cakey and heavy-looking. If your makeup is feeling really dry, add a single drop of oil into a pump of foundation and it will go on beautifully.

Again, take a minute to massage your face with firm, gentle pressing/patting motions to get your circulation going a bit. It will help to drain some water and helps with absorption. What you want to be left with is plumped, smooth skin that's perfectly primed for makeup.

PACK SMART

When it comes to makeup in your carry-on bag, less is more. Honestly, heavy thick concealers and camouflage creams will not even work well in such a cold and dry environment, so look for creamier formulations. If you have good skin and minimal blemishes, a good BB cream will do fine.

If you need more coverage though, look for one of those multi-tasking serum foundations that either have great coverage, or come with a matching concealer in the cap.

Lancome's Teint Visionnaire is a classic, but La Prairie's launching a anew Skin Caviar Concealer Foundation as well. The added benefit is many of these foundations and BBs do contain sun protection, but it's minimal, so if you're going to be in a sunny environment, make sure you apply a proper sunblock first.

GET YOUR GLOW ON

Heavy thick powder foundations can look dull and chalky on the skin. If you have dry skin skip powder entirely. If you need to set your makeup still, skip the traditional powders and use a lightweight illuminating powder like Guerlain's Meteorites (I have the traditional pearls here to show you but I would recommend the pressed compact or travel-friendly brush-on containers for traveling with. You don't want to accidentally tip these over and scatter your precious pearls all over the cabin toilet floor.)

Guerlain Meteorites in 03 Medium

Many people don't quite know what Meteorites powders are for.

These are actually satiny-matte powders that help correct discolorations and illuminate the skin without looking pearly and sparkly. They are NOT highlighters in the traditional sense. They work more like brightening setting powders, but can be used alone as well.

If you're feeling tired and sallow, the warmer shades in 03 Medium work better to correct discolorations than the cooler-toned 02 Clair, which actually does not correct undertones as well (unless you happen to be porcelain pale).

For me to look alive and rested (no matter how tired I might feel), there are a few other tricks.

• Use darker defining colors around the lash line and a matte shade in the hollows of your socket, rather than pale shimmery shadows all over, which can emphasize puffy blood-shot eyes. Well-defined sockets and lash lines are instantly eye-wideners and can help minimize the appearance of puffiness.
• Redness-relieving eye drops like Visine or Prefin will remove the bloodshot appearance in minutes. Filling in brows (naturally), and applying mascara can also make a huge difference.
• Groom your brows. They instantly lift and frame the face and make you look more alert and put-together.

KEEP IT LIGHT

I'm talking about your makeup bag. Your makeup should allow you to do both more dramatic looks as well as more natural looks. But you shouldn't have to bring lots of it.

Here are some favorites, many of which have been my trusty companion for years.

• My trusty travel companion for brows is Shu Uemura's Hard Formula 9 Pencil (above). One shave in the sword style lasts for weeks and weeks so I can be sure I don't need any sharpening on a trip. It's an investment as these cost more than most pencils. But they do last a year each, so purchase them at Duty Free and save some money.
• Benefit Gimme Brow - these tiny tubes of brow mascara actually hold your brow hairs in place amazingly well. And they're so small they don't take up any space.
• Dual-ended eyeliners like Urban Decay's 24/7 Double Ended pencil in Naked 1 is perfect because it's not only creamy and easy to use, but has 2 shades that would go with most looks.

• A perfect neutral palette that's not too large - not too small, and has both very deep, as well as pale shades in a variety of textures. It will carry you from day to night, and can work with pretty much any lip color you choose to wear.

This gorgeous thing is Chanel's Entrelac palette from the Autumn 2015 collection. It's sadly a limited edition, but again - this is one thing that you should pick up at Duty Free if you see it because it's so much cheaper than retail. (In Singapore at least.)

I love the Naked palettes but this is so much sleeker, smaller, and sharper.

THE LOOK

Urban Decay Naked Smoky Swatches and Demo

It almost seems there will be no end to the Naked series!
The latest item to join the family is Naked Smoky, which for the first time sees the 12 colors grouped by theme, so you can easily create looks using the 3 "quads" in the palette, or by picking balanced trios just by choosing 1 warm, 1 cool, and 1 matte from the palette.

Warm Neutrals:

Cool Neutrals:

Matte Neutrals:

There are plenty of soft colors but definitely more deep shades in here, considering it's a "Smoky" palette. The mattes are slightly more chalky, which is quite common for mattes. They're pretty smooth and blendable though, so you don't need to worry that they'll go on patchy and uneven.

But as usual for Urban Decay, it's really the metallics that stand out. They are smooth, pigmented, and just gorgeous as heck. I'm more of a warm neutral girl, but the grey/plum shades in this palette are just too nice. The warm shimmer shades are beautiful as well of course. (I'm a huge fan of Dirtysweet.) The good news is I didn't experience quite as much fallout with this palette as some of the earlier Naked palettes. In fact, I didn't even need to clean the skin under my eyes after doing the eye look below.

This palette has only 1 glitter shade, Armor, which is good because they have a tendency to fall off the lid and all over the cheeks after a few hours. Still, this wasn't as bad as I remember some shades being in Naked 1.

One of the fun things to do with this palette - since the cool and warm tones are quite balanced - is to do part warm, part cool looks, like the one I did above.

I do feel several of the shades, and the balance of light and dark in this palette are somewhat similar to the Naked original palette, so technically speaking, you don't need both unless you're a collector and fan of all Naked palettes. This has more deep/smoky shades than Naked 2, so you can consider it if you want deeper options. And of course, it is very different from the rosy-hued Naked 3, so it's actually quite a good complement to that palette if you want a good range of different neutrals.

The Naked Smoky palette launches 20 Aug in all Sephora Singapore stores at SG$83.

Bobbi Brown Shimmering Sands Palette Swatches, Review, and Demos (Day/Smoky Looks)

Bobbi Brown's launched their Summer collection, which includes the limited edition Shimmering Sands palette which a lot of people were very interested in when I posted images of it on Instagram. This palette is actually smaller than it might seem in pictures. My palette is a press sample, so the weight of each pan isn't printed on the bottom, but they are much smaller than a typical circular shadow so my guess is they're about 0.7g each or so, as compared to the typical 1.5g.

The good news is this is a very portable palette if you want something quite subtle and good quality, but not overloaded with too many full-size shades that you can't finish.

As you can see from the swatches above and below, there are a mix of textures, from sparkly to metallic, to satin, and matte. That said, there is only 1 truly matte shade and 2 satins that look mostly matte but contain tiny sparkles in them. A usual for Bobbi Brown shadows, I personally find the shimmers/metallics to be the smoothest and easiest to work with. The matte and satins are smooth but extremely subtle.

All the shades are pretty smooth, and pigmentation level is sheer to medium intensity. If you like Urban Decay and Make Up For Ever type intensity, you might find these quite subtle. But if you're more accustomed to MAC and Bobbi Brown shadows, then most of these are pretty good.

Both of the dark browns on the bottom right of the palette are actually those sparkly translucent creamy shadows that work better patted on over other shades. They also work alright on their own as a wash over the entire lid, but they won't work well as definer shades without eyeliner or a dark cream base, as they are too translucent and not nearly dark enough to shade and define.

Compared to the Spring Hot Nudes palette from earlier this year, I actually prefer Hot Nudes. I feel I get a bit more variety; cool, warm, matte, shimmer. While the shades in the Shimmering Sands palette are beautiful, there isn't a huge variety. You will find a single transition shade, and none of the colors are really deep enough or matte enough to make great liner/definer shades along the lash line.

But it's still versatile enough as a daily palette, and can give you some options for transitioning between day and night.

Below are 2 quick tutorials to demonstrate the possibilities to you. Do take note that the Smoky Look was done with a brown liner smudged lightly onto lids as a base. The metallic brown in the palette is nice but not as intense as this without a base.

DAY LOOK

 SMOKY LOOK

Tom Ford Cream and Powder Eye Color Demo in 02 Black Oyster

Tom Ford's Cream and Powder Eye Color duos (SGD$85) are an interesting product that I've not tried before this year, with the Summer 2015 Soleil makeup collection. They've been released previously, and I have swatches of 3 of the 4 duos swatched here for you, as well as a demo using 02 Black Oyster.

Tom Ford Cream and Powder Eye Color Duos in Midnight Sea (black-bronze and marine blue metallic), Peach Gold (peach and champagne sparkle), and Black Oyster (blackened taupe with silver sparkle).

Tom Ford Cream and Powder Eye Color Duos layered

A 4th duo, Nude Bronze, is a re-promote apparently, and the press sample was not available when I was swatching these, so here are the remaining 3.

They're all gorgeous, but I would say if you are going to be spending on a Tom Ford, go with one of the dark shades. Peach Gold is pretty enough, but really nothing spectacular or that different once layered. And it's pretty on the hand, but I always find peach metallics too orange and brassy on the eyelid. It's up to you of course! If it looks good on your skin, go ahead. My 2 picks out of these 3 are Black Oyster for that gleaming smoky "wet" look, and Midnight Sea because the unlikely pairing of the marine blue over the dark bronze is just absolutely amazing.

The texture of the duos are pretty interesting because the cream is not a solid shadow. In fact, they're quite like squeeze-tube cream shadows, and have the texture of creamy bread spreads. They DO set, but not very quickly, so you have quite a bit of time to sheer them out and blend them around. The thing to remember is that even after they set, they don't lock down like solid cream shadows do, so you should probably always pair them with a powder overcoat for best results.

The powders that come with the duos come in 2 textures. Some are metallic (like Midnight Sea), and some are sparkly (like Black Oyster). Both are gorgeous. The sparkle shades are the exact same texture as the sparkle shades you find in some of the Tom Ford quads.

Technically, you CAN recreate the effect using any cream shadow and a sparkly or metallic eyeshadow, and I've been doing it for years, so I would say the main reason to get any of these are the color combinations available.

Here's my preferred way of using it.

I also used other products from the range in the look. Namely, the sheer Rose Soleil lipstick, the Cream Cheek Color in Rose Sand, and bronzer in Terra to sculpt the face.

I'll do a separate post showcasing the cheek and lip products!

Tarte Tartelette Amazonian Clay Matte Palette tutorial: Smoky Neutral Eye with Stacked Liner

I promised I would do some look tutorials using the Tarte Tartelette palette, but I've been having some computer troubles lately, so it's taken a lot longer for me to get to a station to edit all my photos. But here it is!

It's not hard to use this palette; the texures are extremely smooth. You just need to remember this tip:

All-matte looks can tend to go patchy and uneven, especially when you're trying to layer dark colors; to minimize this, dust on a light wash of a light beige shade all over your lid before beginning. Unlike with shimmery shadows, a creamy base can sometimes matte shades go on evenly.

The products I used for this eye look include:

• Tarte Tartelette Amazonian Clay Matte Palette
• Marc Jacobs Magic Marc'er Precision Liner in Black
• Tarte Clay Pot Amazonian Clay Liner in Bronze
• Benefit They're Real Mascara

The shades used from the palette are marked out below:

 If you want to keep things simple you don't have to do stacked eyeliner. I just love the look because you get the crisp definition of black at the lash line, while still enjoying the fun texture and shade of colored liner along the lid.

For a last step, just finish with black mascara!