FASHION Magazine

I have a seriously difficult time making my nail polish look nice when I do an at-home manicure—my non-dominant hand always ruins it! Any training tips?
Since few of us are ambidextrous and gifted at polish application, I wouldn’t sweat your skill set. Leeanne Colley, Revlon’s nail expert for Canada, recently recommended one simple solution for this exact complication: start by painting the nails on your more difficult hand!

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Last night’s Lucian Matis show was an exhibition of super-bright embellishments worn atop sheer champagne bases but, if you ask us, the bona-fide delights were in the digits. Spotted on the runway was yet another certifiably insane—as in amazing—nail art design by Leeanne Colley from Tips Nail Bar, Toronto’s infamous cool zone for manicures. Before the show started, we snuck backstage to preview the custom almond-shaped nails decorated in a vibrant watercolour pattern. “We did a base of Revlon‘s “White on White” nail enamel, then CND‘s “Anchor Blue” and “Electric Orange” and Hard Candy‘s “Yellow and Splendid.” We dabbed a pin-sized amount of each colour onto the nail using a tiny brush, then dropped a smidgen of acetone on top to make it disperse and look transparent. Basically, we made all the colours run into each other,” Colley explained. Well, basically, Colley just inspired us to ornament our nails with similar show-stopping designs.

Introducing our brand new video series, DIY Nails, where we will be taking the average manicure to the next level by including an element of nail art. From emulating the most difficult runway looks to resurrecting some cool vintage styles, we’ll give you the tips you need to get the look at home. First up: […]

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Topknots⎯the unofficial hairstyle of last summer⎯are alive and kickin’. It’s perched high on the head of the Pink Tartan lady for fall 2011 to be exact. “There’s lots of military pieces, so we wanted a hard/soft aspect to the woman,” explained L’Oreal Paris’ Lead Hair Artist Eric del Monaco. After spritzing hair with water, he made a high pony, split it into two sections and twisted one into a loop and wrapped the other one around the base. Creative director Veronica Chu called the style “organized chaos” saying it was “contained and controlled”. Surely the inescapable mist of Elnett that seemed to hang in a cloud over the area ensured that. Lead Makeup Artist Eddie Malter gave models a hard edge with a dramatic dark eye done in black shadow that extended out and was purposely done not to look “clean” and avoided mascara altogether. He used his backstage MVP product, Wear Infinite Eye Shadow in “Morning Light” to add highlights down the nose and on cheekbones and took down brows and lips with a bit of concealer. The final touch was gloss added to the lids right before the girls took to the runway.

“The makeup has a cold feeling,” said M.A.C Cosmetics Senior Artist Melissa Gibson backstage at Greta Constantine on Friday night. Fitting since, “backstage” was actually the frigid basement of the Audi dealership. With references that included Tibetan children and Tilda Swinton in Orlando, Gibson created what she called “almost a non makeup, but there’s kind of this wind burnt lower cheek.” In addition, pictures of Renaissance women that she found online as part of her research compelled her to put “some redness around the eye,” but was quick to disassociate it from the kind one develops from too much partying. “It just gives a pure look to the face.” To mimic the “really ruddy, great skin” of the Tibetan tots, Gibson mixed M.A.C Cream Colour Blush in “Premeditated” and “Movie Star Red” and deepened it with “Root”. On lids, she applied M.A.C Eye Shadow in “Coral” and “Orange”, layered it with “Sushi Flower” and softened it with M.A.C Mineralize Skin Finish to make it look more “fleshy”.  Lashes were left bare, and lips muted out with a touch of concealer.