Some Friday inspiration courtesy of Illamasqua

I'm going to put my hand on my heart and apologise for being shit this week. Life is crazy and all that jazz. Seriously. But nowhere near as crazy as the hair Brad Ngata did for the Myer show last night. And considering Illamasqua have a reputation for doing mental, dramatic makeup, their makeup for the show was quite tame all things considered.

I got the chance to chat to the very talented Nicola Burford (pictured below) who was the co-director of the makeup (the other co-director was Natasha Severino, who I couldn't get a decent snap of because she was moving a hundred miles an hour). Nicola explained there was one basic look, and then three different sub-looks with the addition of colour (so four looks in total, for those of you not so good with math). The inspiration was based on the desert - colours, lights, landforms and the way the reflection plays off against surfaces. Mirage magic - glassy and shimmery.  

This look is prime for reproduction (in fact, I'm rocking a modified version today). The base was Illamasqua Cream Foundation, highlighted with Lies cream blush and a layer of sheer lip gloss for what Nicola called "a glassy, white heat effect". We saw similar glassy looks at a lot of AW2011 shows (Balmain, Alberta Ferretti, Costume National, Donna Karan) and it's as easy as a quick slick of gloss/vaseline/papaw on the cheekbones. But I digress. 

The eyes were haloed in a beautiful contour powder blush called Disobey, which is total star product (want. need. now) - it gives structure and form to the eye while also being very soft - think desert sand. The lips were muted and nude with Sonnet lipstick to keep the focus on the eyes and skin. 

The colour accent came from the pops of bright colour - we know brights are going to be bigger than normal this spring/summer in clothes, nails, accessories and makeup. For the girls who wore colour on the eyes, it was either sunset pink (Nymph powder blush), sunburnt orange (Excite powder blush) and really white heat (Sex eye shadow) . Eyeliner + shadow + glitter = mirage effect. Add clean brows and a single lick of mascara for a slight tint, and you have a beautiful look that will work for everyday (minus the glitter). It was all very soft focus and muted - word of the day is ombre.

As for the hair...well...Brad Ngata did a doozy on the poor models. I can only imagine the bastard of a time they all had getting that glitter out! It did look spectacular though. Pink eye shadow = red to pink ombre glitter. Orange eyes = gold to brown ombre hair. White eyes = white hair (complete with white hair spray - see below). Nude = clear hair, which looked like scales from a distance, and each clear sequin was painstakingly applied into the hair with tweezers.

For all the glitter and shimmer, the nails were quite pared back - check out the round up on The Nail File.

Enjoy a little visual candy and try out this makeup look yourself this weekend! I'll pop some pictures up on twitter of my interpretation.
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