Ivy Hair Vine - Gorgeous Bridal Hair Accessory!

There are many gorgeous bridal hair accessories on the market these days, but there are styles that I see over and over again.

Combs and pins with sparkles or pearls and they are popular because they work with most hair styles, are secure in the style, and are easily accessible.
Every now and then I come across a bride who has hunted out something really different for her wedding hair style and I'd like to share with you the accessory that I got excited about at Isabel's wedding!
It's a hair vine that can be woven through the hair, bended, molded and manipulated to fit any hair style.
Isabel chose to wear her hair down and the vine worked really well being woven through her curls. It was easy to secure with a bit of backcombing and pinning at the roots which are hidden under the top layers of lovely wavy curls!
These hair vines are available from Camias Jewelry Designs.

New Blood for Tantrum Magazine

Ooooh Exciting!!

Today I have some scrummy new pictures from an editorial that was featured in Tantrum Magazine

Title 'New Blood' it features up and coming models who are poised to take the modeling world by storm!

I was trying out a few products from Illamasqua on this shoot and I have to say I love their products - all the pigments are so fierce and their colours translate so well from package to skin, all good stuff!

Photography & Styling: Charlotte Bibby
Makeup & Hair: Natalie Guest
Makeup Assistant: Katie Wilton

Hello Everyone,

Today is just a short post as I'm still on holiday in New Zealand.
It's actually a bit of self-promotion that is totally unrelated to makeup or hair.
It is about weddings though - my wedding in particular!

If you've stumbled upon this post today whilst researching wedding things, welcome!

I have a quick request of you dear blog reader and it is this:

Myself and my fiance are finalists in a competition to win videography (fancy expensive videography!) for our wedding day and now we need all the votes we can muster to help us WIN!

You can help out this bride-to-be by clicking here or following this link http://bit.ly/Az3NBr to go to a facebook page where you can cast your vote and help us win this amazing prize.... here's why I think we deserve it:


We met when I was still a student and he was not long out of university, in a bar in Wellington, NZ called Goodluck! Since then we’ve travelled all over the world and currently live in London.
With our families on opposite sides of the planet, I always knew there would be times in our life when tough decisions would have to be made, and choosing our wedding venue was one – in fact never mind the venue, we couldn’t decide which continent to get married on!
In the end, the garden in York won over and we’re very happy with our decision and are getting very excited planning our rustic, laid-back, hand-made, garden party style wedding!
We have pretty much all the main things sorted for the wedding, with the exception of a videographer, hence why we’re entering this amazing competition!

We would love love love to have our wedding captured on film not only for ourselves to look back on with future children, but for all our friends and family who will not be able to join us on the day. Gavin’s closest family are coming over and a couple of friends can make it, but there are many people who just can’t do the journey: Three grandparents, aunties, uncles and cousins, friends with children and mortgages… It would be amazing to be able to share our day with them with a film capturing all the moments that you just don’t get from photographs. As we’ll already have to done boring legal bit at a registry office, this wedding ceremony will be quite different from any that most people have been to, so to capture our self-written vows and our jumping the broom would be ace!
Also on my side of the family it’d be amazing to capture 4 generations of the family all celebrating together after a year with some family members fighting and beating serious illness.
So everybody is very much looking forward to a love-filled event and a chance to meet new people, old friends and family members from all corners of the globe – to catch this all on film would be amazing!
We’re crossing fingers and toes!

Foundation Application

A question that I get asked often.....

"How should I apply my foundation?"

Firstly, I'd like to say that there isn't really a 'wrong' way to do makeup. 

There are, however, things you can do to make application easier and give a better/smoother result, so that's what I'm talking about here. 

You can apply foundation with your hands, a sponge or a brush (or a trowel in some cases ;p) and it's mostly personal preference as to what you use, but the type of foundation you use might determine what's best.

So, whichever implement you choose to use, make sure it's clean to start with - you don't want to go rubbing bacteria, crusty makeup and old face-grease back into your skin do you? That's exactly what you're doing every time you use your makeup-encrusted brush or sponge that used to be cream but is now a browny/orange colour! Gross, I know! You should really try and wash your brushes once a week to keep them in good condition and nice and fresh, sponges every few days. Use an anti-bacterial soap, rinse well, gently squeeze excess water out then lie flat to dry overnight on a clean towel.

Applying Your Makeup:

*Gently blend the makeup onto your face, starting at the centre and working outwards - this will help to avoid too much makeup in the hair line or around the jaw line.

*Finish using gentle downwards strokes - smoothing down the tiny hairs on your face so they don't end up pointing in all directions!

If you're using your fingers, the warmth from your hands will warm up the foundation and make it that bit easier to blend into your skin. You can apply cream, mousse or liquid foundation this way. Be gentle, especially around your eyes, and use your fingertips to stroke the makeup over and blend in into your skin, not drag your face around! Using your fingers will generally give a full coverage and can be hard to ensure everything's gone on evenly.

If you use a sponge the same follows: Smooth don't drag the makeup over your skin, not forgetting to blend around the edges of your face. Use a sponge for creams, mousse, liquid or powder. Sponges will suck up more makeup than brushes or your fingers, so they can be a waste of foundation and are harder to control the amount of makeup you end up putting on your face. They are also harder to clean properly.

Using a brush is by far my preferred method - it keeps your hands clean, the brushes are easy to wash and if you look after them they will last a long long time!
The classic foundation brush is great for liquid foundations, especially if you like a fuller coverage, and many have a curved or angled edge that make it easy to get right in by your nose and eyes so you don't miss a spot.
The duo fibre brush is my personal favourite. The black bristles are natural and the white synthetic and it makes a little foundation go a long way. Once you're done swirling the brush round your face you're left with an airbrush-like finish as the makeup has been buffed to perfection! What's more these brushes can be used with any type of foundation, wet or dry. You only need a little on the brush and then using gentle circular motions sweep the makeup over your face.
You can also use a blush brush in the same manner - the soft and fluffy bristles will mean that the makeup is dispersed evenly over your skin and is well blended.

There are a lot of good makeup brush suppliers out there now, and although MAC do great brushes, I can also highly recommend Royal & Langnickel and Crown.

 

Bridal Shoot with Gillian Million Wedding Accessories

A couple of weeks ago I spent a lovely morning with Gillian from Gillian Million Wedding Accessories and Barney from Timeless Pictures for a photoshoot show-casing some of the gorgeous bridesmaid and flower girl accessories that Gillian has in her shop.
She is a very talented lady, hand-making everything herself in the little workshop in her shop on Teddington High St. It is certainly well worth a visit for any bride-to-be who might be looking for hair accessories, jewelry, veils, and many other beautiful sparkly things!
Our models were some very lovely young ladies who I'm sure loved every minute of dressing up in the gorgeous dresses from Little Bevan, and fresh flower head pieces and bouquets from Rosaberg Flowers. The head pieces for our bride in this shoot were also Gillians handiwork.
Here are some of my favourites...

New Nail Love!

I've been getting back into painting my nails lately, in an attempt to stop me picking at them and let them grow a bit (I'm a terrible nail-fusser!)

The is my latest favourite look - bright base with crackle on top.

The crackle nail varnish is not that new anymore, but I thought I'd do a little write up on it anyway since everywhere I go people ask me about it - obviously there's still lots of people who need to see this stuff as it's quite cool!

As my base colour I used Rimmel 60 seconds varnish colour 819 Green With Envy, a lovely metallic turquoise and over the top I used OPI Black Shatter.

I love the Rimmel nail varnishes as they come in loads of cool colours, dry really quickly and are a really good price! They also last quite well on the nail, as long as you use a top coat.

I reckon it looks pretty cool, and I have to say it has lasted well - this picture is after 3 days wear!

The crackle/shatter varnish goes on quite thick and cracks as it dries on your nail. It take a bit of practice to get the hang of it - if you double back over a bit you've already painted it goes a bit funny, but you get used to it quickly. It dries matt, which is quite cool, but with a lick of top coat you can turn it glossy.

To give your nail polish the best chance of survival, use a good base coat onto a freshly squeaked nail*, which gives the varnish something to cling to and protects your nails from being stained.
I always do 2 coats of polish (if I'm just wearing a colour) the first very thin, then follow with a great top coat to prevent chipping. If you want your colour to last extra long you can apply a new layer of top coat each day. I'm loving Barry M's Basecoat/Topcoat/Nail Hardener All-In-One, it works really well on my rubbish brittle nails!

So what do you think?!



* using a cotton pad swipe over your nail with nail varnish remover so it's squeaky clean ;) Even if you don't have any polish to remove this will clean off any natural oils or residue from day-to-day stuff on your nails.

So here it is my latest editorial hair styling work, featured in  C-Heads Magazine.
This issue the theme was wonderland, and our shoot was entitled 'Bird of Paradise'...

photography: Rossella Vanon
model: Kara @ Profile
makeup: Katie Wilton
styling: Marina German
hair: Natalie Guest