Psychedelic Cyclamen Ombre Lips: Rimmel Color Show-off in 220 Shocking Pink and Lime Crime D’Lilac (plus tips)

Red and lilac ombre lips

When you combine 2 shades that look really vibrant and saturated on camera, you get day-glo Cyclamen lips like the above. 

Instead of going for a typical dark shade to contrast against the pale creamy lilac, I went for a strong red-fuchsia in a matte texture.

Read on for tips for application!

Plum Pastel Eyes with Ballerina Pink Cheeks and Lips

Pastel Eyes: MAC Aqua, with MAC Lovely Lily pigment and Circa Plum pigment

Step 1: Pack a matte pastel aqua over the inner half od the lids (MAC Aqua).

Step 2: Apply a sift shimmery pastel mauve (MAC Lovely Lily limited edition pigment but there are plenty of soft shimmery purples around) over the outer halves of the lids.

Step 3: Apply a deeper grey-violet (MAC Circa Plum pigment) to the outer halves of the socket line. 

Step 4: Apply a metallic green liner (Bourjois #44 Golden Grey Session) right to the inner corners of the eyes, and a deep metallic plum (Rimmel Exaggerate in #220 Perfect Plum) along the outer 3/4 of the upper and bottom lash line. Do a thicker wing towards the outer half of the upper eye. 

Step 5: Finished with mascara.

Everything else is kept soft and sweet in ballerina pinks.

On the cheeks: 

• Essence Blush Souffle in 01 Ballerina Pink
• MAC MSF in Blonde

On lips: 

• Revlon Colorburst Lip Butter in Strawberry Shortcake

10 Favorite Lipsticks (March 2011)

I've always been obsessed with lipstick. Nothing in the world feels quite the same a gliding a creamy bullet of rich color over your lips.

Here are some of my current favorites.

Group 1

1. Bourjois Sweet Kiss Shine #59 Rose Etincelant
Sweet sheer candy pink with gold highlights makes this a soft peach/nude on the lips (below) that's flattering if you have medium to dark skin.

2. Estee Lauder Pure Color Crystal Lipstick #301 Crystal Baby


3. Sephora Lip Attitude #G20
A more chocolate-y version of Crystal Baby, this is a sheer glossy nude-brown lipstick which feels and looks almost like a gloss. Perfect as a base color to mute redness when wearing sheer tinted gloss. Best thing? It's so inexpensive!

4. MAC Lustre Lipstick in Fresh Brew
A slightly deeper version of Sephora #G20, but I love it because it can look like a nice caramel-y true-brown on lighter skins, and a non-chalky nude on darker-toned complexions. Definitely check this out if you are NC40 and deeper, and can't find nice nudes.

5. Maybelline Watershine Pure Lipstick #B24
A pale pink-based nude which is the pinker and more opaque counterpart of Crystal Baby, but at a fraction of the price. If you like milky nude-pinks with a glossy sheen, this is a great one to try.

___
Group 2

1. Sephora Lip Attitude Star #S22
A flattering, ultra-shimmery caramel, I bought this because it looked so much like a Dior Addict Shine lipstick. It's rich, creamy, sheer, and feels just as luxurious as a high-end lip color.

2. MAC Pro Longwear Lipcreme in Till Tomorrow
Bruised-lip color which stays put for a few hours with normal activity. I'll always find kiss-proof lipsticks fascinating because of Revlon Colorstay, but then there are no Revlon equivalents for this shade where I am.

3. Rimmel Moisture Renew Lipstick #180 Vintage Pink
This quirky and beautiful dusty lavender-pink always makes me think of a scene in Anne Rice's Pandora, where an ancient vampire sits anonymously in a cafe, writing the story of her life wearing a "purple" lipstick. (I somehow always imagined it to be a mauve that is atypical but subtle, rather than dark and dramatic.) On light to medium skin, this is a medium tone, but if you are about NC40 onwards, this will be a lovely cool-toned nude pink for you.

4. MAC Amplified Lipstick in Up The Amp
One more purple. And what a purple! It goes on more blue than the swatch above. This is the loud and attention-seeking rebel of the family. If you have golden or olive-toned skin, this purple looks sooo nice as statement lips, paired with minimal makeup.

5. L.A. Girl Lipstick in Dreamer
I mentioned this before in my Robin Blue nail polish post. This is a lovely, lovely black. I say so because it does not go on streaky or patchy, and is not stubbornly hard to even out (below). Wear this with any other shade you have to deepen it dramatically.



P.S. Some other favorites which I love but are either discontinued or a little easier to duplicate are:

1. MAC Syrup (dupe this with Urban Decay Rush or Etude LED lipstick #10)
2. Revlon Matte lipstick in Really Red
3. Lancome Color Fever Dewy Shine lipstick #258

Love the Look of: Matte Fuschia lips

Creamy semi-matte skin, clean eyes, and subtly-flushed cheeks leave matte fuschia-rose lips the focus at the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Fall 2011. I always wished I had the guts to wear strong lip colors on a day-to-day basis, but my lips are a bit too small to pull it off.

Well, I managed to find a highly-respectable dupe of whatever shade they used.

Meet “Shocking Pink” (#220), from the Rimmel Colour Show Off collection. Although I’m not sure how many countries it is available in currently. They’ve been available at my local drugstores for quite awhile, and I was never drawn to them because I swatched them in the store and immediately concluded that they were:

1. too matte
2. too bright

It was only when I was browsing around 5 minutes before popping into the local YMCA for my evening class, when I saw what looked like it might just be the perfect fuschia.

I couldn’t find a really good representation of the shade online. All the pictures, including the one above, look too blue or too red.

There isn’t really anything that “shocking” about it in real life, despite the name. It’s a rich, rich demi-matte rose-fuschia with an underlying current of warmth and electric heat that never quite shows up until you’re caught in the camera flash.

The texture is demi-matte, but not uncomfortably so, even for Ms. Flaky Lips here. And as the name suggests, the pigmentation is EXTREMELY high. One swipe is enough to give you a rich swatch of color.

Be warned though. It does tend to stain everything it touches until you can get hold of an industrial strength makeup remover. Plus points for tenacity, minus for stubborn-ness.