Lison Styling

Hello blogreaders! I hope you had a nice and merry Christmas!

We’ve had a few lovely Christmas dinners with our family (and with a lot of food - I cooked for 16 people-) and now we’re preparing for New Year’s Eve! We’re going to celebrate it with a group of friends, and everybody brings food, so I’ll be less in the kitchen and more partying this time!

And as promised, here are some inspirational party-make-up looks for New Year’s Eve! These are the holiday pictures from the big designer-make-up brands, by the way.

Chanel:

To create this look, use a matte foundation and apply a black eyepencil on the top eyelid and blend it out to get a subtle smokey effect. On the lower eyelid, use a golden eyeliner (or use a wet angled brush with golden eyeshadow). Then finish the look with black mascara and a shiny raspberry lipstick and nail polish.

Dior:

First line your eyes with a black eyepencil (top lid, bottom lid and waterline) and then blend it to get the smokey effect. After that, take a brown-bronze eyeshadow, and with a blending brush smooth the edges of the eyeliner, and create a soft transition from the black to the colour of your skin. A golden highlighter was used to highlight the browbones and cheekbones.  Black mascara and warm red lipstick and nail polish finish the look.

Giorgio Armani:

For this look, apply a iridescent silver eyeshadow on your upper eyelid. Then use a black gel-eyeliner, only on the top lid. It is important to use a very longlasting eyeliner! (I found one: read all about it in my party-proof make-up article)
If you are planning on using false eyelashes, this thick eyeliner is a perfect combination. When the lashes have a dark ‘background’, they don’t draw too much attention, and that way they seem more natural. In this picture, they also applied a nice dark ruby-red lipstick and an almost black nail polish.

Lancôme:

Kate Winslet is wearing a bright red lipstick with a soft dark-grey eyepencil on the top and bottom eyelids (and again: blend it to create a softer look). I guess you already know my secret for kiss-proof red lips: use a lipstain underneath your red lipstick!

Yves Saint Laurent

This make-up is ideal for a night of heavy partying. If it smudges, it becomes even more beautiful! So you first use a black eyepencil all over the moving part of your upper eyelid, and also under the eyes and in the waterline. Then you fixate it by sweeping over a dark grey eyeshadow. For a very dramatic look: blend the eyeshadow all the way to your eyebrows. When you wear a dramatic smokey eyemake-up, it is always nice to combine it with a neutral lipgloss, instead of a heavy lipstick. Oh, and notice the beautiful matte black nail polish! Instead of buying matte nail polishes, it’s a lot cheaper to just buy a matte topcoat! You can find the fantastic matte Essie topcoat here, on my favourite online beautyshop: beautybay.com!!

Which look are you going to wear for New Year’s Eve? I think I’ll go for the golden eyeliner!
Happy New Year everyone, and see you in 2012!!

I finally found the perfect eyeliner! I decided to do a subtle but longlasting party-make-up with it, as the holidays are coming up:

First I applied an eyeshadow base (urban decay primer potion), but you don’t really need it (the eyeliner is very very véry longlasting in its own). Then I applied the eyeliner (Gel eyeliner - Catrice) with an angled brush. The only disadvantage is: if you make a mistake, it isn’t easy to correct as the eyeliner dries quickly (and then it stays there… forever. or until you take it off with a good cleanser. You can even shower with it! :-D)

As a highlighter under my eyebrows and on my cheekbones, I used the M.A.C mineralize skinfinish in the colour ‘lightscapade’. I bought it today, and what a great product it is! A few years ago, M.A.C. had a beautiful pastel shimmery powder (called ‘Perfect topping’, and purrrfect it was!) and I really didn’t understand why they discontinued it. But now, they have this ‘Lightscapade’! You can use it as an eyeshadow, or to highlight cheeks / cupid’s bow on the lips / brow bone, or you can apply it all over your face to give you a nice shimmer.

The mascara I used, is the Rimmel ‘day 2 night’ glam’eyes. There are two ways to open the mascara, one to apply a lot of product, and one to have a subtle effect.

My lips, I first filled in with the Max Factor Lipfinity pencil, which I reviewed in this article. This lip stain stays on for sooo many hours (that way, if your gloss goes away, you still have some colour on your lips). On top of that, I applied the ‘Nice Kitty’ lipgloss from the M.A.C. Hello Kitty-collection. This pink translucent shade has a bit of glitter in it!

As a nailpolish I took the Rimmel Lycra Pro polish in the colour ‘312 Ultra voilet’. This nailpolish is in my top 3 of all time favourite nailpolishes, as it stays for days (sometimes up to 4 or 5 days) without chipping! And don’t you looove the colour? It has a super-easy brush too!

So, that was it for this subtle party-proof look! I have another (a bit more ’sparkly’) party look in mind, so check my blog in a few days!
A few of my friends said to me it would be fun if I’d make some ‘how to’-tutorials on youtube sometimes… but I am a bit camera shy… What do you, sweet blogreaders, think? Shall I…?

The holiday season is coming up, the puurrrfect time to go a little bit over-the-top with your make-up! So that’s why I’m going to write a few blog-articles about party-make-up!
First of all: Max Factor! They recently launched a few new products, and my favorites are:

The Smoky-Eye-Effect-eyeshadow-stick!
This stick has two sides, mostly a lighter/shinier side, and a darker one.

The texture is a bit creamy, so it is véry easy to blend the colour on your eyelids to create a soft look. To make it last longer, I fixate it by sweeping over a bit of translucent powder, and then adding some more colour on top of it! Oh, and these smokey-eye-sticks come in beautiful colours!!

My second favourite product: the Miracle Touch Creamy Blush. I always prefer creamy blushes over the powdery ones, because the result is much more natural (and it gives you a healty shine too!).

Max Factor’s make-up artist Alex Valverde shows you in this movie how to do a smokey-eyes-look yourself, using these products! Enjoy!

Max Factor Smoky Eye stick - €13,99

Max Factor Miracle Touch Creamy Blush - €10,99

I’ve been receiving sooo many eyeshadow-related questions lately, and according to my website-statistics, a lot of you, readers, are referred to my website with the keywords ‘eyeshadow colours’ and ‘eye colours’.

That’s why I made this eyeshadow-colour wheel!

There are two easy ways to choose an eyeshadow colour:

- Match the colour with your eye colour

When I need a natural eyeshadow-look, I choose a colour that is close to my own eye colour in the colour wheel. I have brown eyes with a bit of green in it (as you can see in the website-header above), so I use a lot of chocolate browns, beiges, bronze and a soft olive green from time to time.
Here are some matchy suggestions for different eye colours:

Blue eyes / grey eyes -> blue, lavender, grey, mint green, turquoise, silver,…
Green eyes -> olive green, mint green, moss green, teal, chartreuse,…
Brown eyes -> bronze, chocolate brown, coral, warm beige, gold, eggplant,…

And some (runway make-up) examples:

- Choose a contrasting colour

An other option, is to pick a colour that is opposite of your eye colour in the colour wheel. That way, your own eye colour stands out more! Ideal for fashion-daredevils!
Some examples:

Blue eyes / grey eyes -> bronze, orange, salmon, honey-yellow,…
Green eyes -> pink, red, coral, burgundy, purple,…
Brown eyes -> blue, lavender, turquoise, silver, sage green,…

I hope these tricks & pics can be inspirational sweeties! Are you a fan of the matching colours, or do you prefer the contrasting eyeshadow colours? Let me know what you think / wear yourself! And of course: if you have more questions or requests: fire away!!

I’ve got a new addiction: argan oil. I was strolling around in Bruges this week, and there was a little artisan market where I found this:

Argan oil is one of the rarest oils in the world, as it only grows in one specific area in Morocco. In fact, all argan oil in the world is produced by a Moroccan women’s cooperative (which exists of 22 smaller factories), so by buying this oil you support these Berber women living and working in the south-east of Morocco!

So… now I can hear you think: this may all be very interesting and all… but what is this argan oil and why should I use it?

Well… because it has a véry large amount of vitamine E, squalane, omega 3 / 6 (anti-oxidants), carotene, etc… it moisturizes, protects and heals the skin, you can use it as a wrinkle treatment, it helps to soften and heal very dry skin (even psoriasis), you can use it on dry hair or nails, it even helps to balance oily skin types.
And on top of all that, you can use it in the kitchen: you can also consume this oil, on a salad or something.

I have been using it the last few days as a wrinkle treatment around my eyes, and I used it a few times on my dry hands and even on my lips (it’s getting cold here in Belgium!)… and I absolutely LOVE it.

I now understand why they call it ‘liquid gold’ in Morocco… (and also maybe because it’s quite pricey )
You can find this oil in different price-ranges. As it is produced in relatively small amounts it is obviously not cheap, but I think you can find it at a reasonable price if you look around a bit.

The brand that I bought the oil from, apparently has a webshop:

http://www.maison-du-savon.com

So dear blogreaders, are there any other argan-oil-addicts out there? I’m curious to hear about your experiences, because I’ve only been using this oil for a few days now. But I’m seriously hooked already! (Don’t tell me I didn’t warn you!)

I am always a bit reluctant to buy stuff in online shops. When buying clothes, you never know if they will fit, and with beauty products, I like to feel the texture and see the colours in real life before I buy something.

I make a few exceptions, especially when the beauty products are extremely cheap or extremely fantastic.

The webshop ‘e.l.f.’ (eyes lips face) is in the ‘extremely cheap’ category, and most of the products are even quite good! I like the nail polishes, lip glosses, some of the eye shadows and some of the brushes!

lipgloss - € 1
eye shadow palette - € 4
kabuki brush - € 5,80
http://nl.eyeslipsface.be/

Another webshop I adore is the Cosmeticary online shop. I LOVE the stores in Antwerp and Brussels, but when I don’t have the time to drop by, I order these fantastic goodies online!
You can shop hard-to-find brands here, such as By terry, diptyque, Laura Mercier, bumble&bumble, Duwop, dermalogica, Essie, … and more.
 

Rosebud salve (for chapped lips and dry skin) - € 10
Nail polish ‘mint candy apple’ - € 13,75 - Essie
Satin oil for hair en body - € 45 for 200ml - diptyque
http://www.cosmeticary.com/

I’ve been testing some new products lately, including a whole lot of nail polishes! But first, here is my review of a new Babor-mascara:

I like the brand Babor. I was in Vienna last week, and they have a very big and luxurious Babor Store over there! I wish we had one too! (preferably in Antwerp! )
But now for the new Super Style mascara: It costs a little bit more than your average supermarket mascara, but is it worth it? Absolutely. It separates your lashes beautifully, and extends them at the same time. I like the fairly liquid and light texture of this product, which coats the lashes thinly and avoids lumps. The brush has two sides: a short side to apply mascara to the base of the lashes, and a long side to separate the lashes. It works like a charm… I found my new favourite mascara!

Babor Super Style Mascara - €22

Check my blog soon for the BIG Nail Polish Review!!!

Yes, the day has come: the American fashion brand Forever 21 opens its store in the Antwerp shopping street Meir. It’s the second Forever 21 store in Europe! (The first one is the store in Brussels, which opened last month.)

I’ve been to the store opening, and I LOVE IT! 4000 m², on 3 levels, full of fabulous clothes, shoes and accessories, for both men and women. And to give you an idea of the prices: I bought a denim dress (€19,75) and a khaki skirt (€15).

Last but not least: the pictures!! Linda Chang, leading lady of Forever 21, calls her shops ‘boxes full of candy’.
I think you can see why:

http://www.forever21.com

Last week I did the make-up and styling for a videoclip of Belgian singer Eva De Roovere.
Here is the result!
I like the song, the text (written by Piet Goddaer / Ozark Henry), Eva’s voice with Piet’s voice in the background, and the fact the song is about ‘my’ city: Antwerp…

Enjoy!

We haven’t seen much sun this summer, and to make things worse, fall is around the corner already…
But fashion-wise, I am in fact looking forward to it! Look at these beautiful warm colours:
a lot of nudes, ochre, oxblood, warm purple, and many other booze-colours (cognac, champagne, winered, …)! Mix these colours with some 70’s vibes and 50’s glamour, and I’m in love…
These are some images of the Fall-winter-collection of River Island… What do you think?