Hobby Time!: Make-up edition

I love make-up. I don't own a lot or even use very much, but seeing new colour palettes, formulations, textures, products and ad campaigns really appeals to my artsy-fartsy sensibilities.

Here's a visual inventory of all my colour cosmetics!



Temptalia is my favourite make-up blog. Christine is always great about showing previews of new collections and reviews and swatches tons of cosmetics each week. Recently she asked her readers two questions: "Have you ever gone on a no-buy?" (moratorium on purchasing beauty products) and "Do you organize your makeup products by brand or product?" I suppose my answer would be that I organize my make-up by drawing them in my sketchbook and painting them with watercolours!

Whenever I complete an illustration assignment I always get this urge to treat myself. I decided that by documenting what I already have, I could assuage these cravings. And it's worked, at least for now! I'm not sure I'll go on a formal no-buy, but I am content to draw and paint the stuff I want instead of purchasing it. Case in point:

Urban Decay's Naked palette is legendary for being hard to find at Sephora. Whenever I visit a Sephora location I look for it and I've never, ever seen it in stock. Which is probably a good thing because it's not cheap. When you price out how much each individual colour would be if you bought it separately it's a steal, but it's still $48 USD. Temptalia gave it a rare A+ rating which made me want it even more. But sketching it somehow made me want it less -- I feel like after I've studied a product and painted my little illustration of it, I somehow own it already. Doing the visual inventory of the eyeshadows I already have made me realize I already have some similar colours.

One year my sister was going to get me a make-up palette for xmas, so I started doing a ton of research. I read reviews on MakeupAlley to see how highly rated the individual components were. I went to Sephora to see the products in person. I sketched them, and here were four of the contenders:


In the end I settled on Urban Decay's Urban Arsenal, which was similar to the one pictured here (Urban Survival Set) and I'm still very pleased with my choice. Here's the winner!


I've started to share more of my hobbies and personal work on my blog, I hope people find it interesting -- I'd love to hear from you!

**EDIT:
I forgot to mention! In the first two pics of the post I actually swatched my make-up on the pages :P. For the powdery products I dabbed a tiny bit of white craft glue (dries clear) onto the paper then blotted a fully-loaded eyeshadow brush onto the glue. There was glitter, shimmer, and pigment all over my dining table. The brush wasn't harmed during the production of the swatches as the glue grabbed the pigment first. And the glue is somewhat water-soluble.

I was actually daydreaming that a simple field kit could be constructed with a glue stick, eyeshadow brush, and notepad. Don't know how much sales associates would appreciate that, but it'd be a fun way to take a swatch of colour home to compare it to the rest of your collection!