Choosing the right skin foundation

A 4-step guide, tells you how to choose your crème and powder wisely!

Walk into a Make-up store
Choose a brand only after you have visited other stores. Be aware that all brands (no matter how renowned) do not suit all skin types. Be open to experimentation and because your foundation is going to be the closest product to your skin, it will take sometime to find the right one! Lakme, M.A.C, Clinique, L’Oreal, Make Up For Ever and many make-up and skin care brands have stores across the city.

Quit the Guessing Game
Warning: No ‘one’ formula suits all skin types. Talk to the beauty expert or the makeup artist a the salon, find out which formula suits your skin the best depending on your skin’s warm or cool undertone (whether you go pink or yellow in the sun. People have one of these three undertones: pink, neutral or yellow), shade (M.A.C has the largest range of skin shades), type (dry, combination, oily, normal) and needs of a sensitive skin (acne prone, open pores, blemishes, allergies). Especially for everyday wear, ask the consultant for sweat proof, long wearing foundations with an SPF count. Estee Lauder’s Double wear stay-in-place makeup with SPF 10 sustains up to 12 hours wear.

Amongst Clinique’s non-comedogenic (non-pore clogging) products, the Super Moisturize and Super Balanced are for dry and combination skin respectively. Their finest, the Treatment Foundations for extremely sensitive skin are worth every rupee. M.A.C, on the other hand, has a range of foundations that double up as concealers. “For a natural finish, apply Mac studio moisture fix, followed by a Mac prolong wear foundation” said Vimi Joshi, senior artist, M.A.C.

Time is the Best Test
Brands divide their foundations either into numbers or shades. “When selecting a shade, try it on your face. Trying a foundation on your hand doesn't work as your hand is a different colour to your face. Try the foundation on your jaw line, so that the beauty consultant can match it with your neck. Blend the colour and if it disappears, it's the right shade,” advices Lisa Whyte from Clinique. Buy a foundation during the day and judge the way it makes your skin appear in white and day light. Keep it on your skin for an hour and check for, patchiness, grey shades, itching and redness.

Preparing your Skin for a Flawless Foundation
Step one is to exfoliate and hydrate the skin before applying a sunscreen. Step two is to blend in the foundation with your finger tips or using a brush. Step three is to use a setting powder to achieve an even finish. Make Up For Ever’s HD finishing powder is by far the best in the range. Carry a compact foundation or loose powder in your vanity kit for regular touch-ups during the day, Lakme and L’Oreal’s range of compacts work do a fantastic job.

Where to pick up from?

Mumbai
M.A.C: 32 Altamount Road, Tel: 22 2354 1097, Web: www.maccosmetics.com
Clinique: Shoppers Stop 211 D, S V Road, Andheri West, Tel: 9619634254, Web: www.clinique.in
Makeup Forever: www.makeupforever.com
Lakme Salon: J Tata Road, Opp Eros Cinema, Churchgate, Tel: 2204 2104, Web: www.lakmeindia.com

Tales from Samovar

There was a time, there is a time and there will be a time. The time won’t change but everything around it will, and if it wouldn’t it’ll be mighty tasteless.

That’s what happened to an impulsive K, when she strolled out of MB and walked straight into the Jehangir Art Gallery ,turned right and entered Samovar. K, was heavy with expectation, burdened with memories of art love & debates; and filled to the brim with passion of a young adult, who once wanted to spin the parliament around. And Samovar, like Kayani, Sarovar, Metro cafe, Café New York, Café Cadel, Ideal Café, etc… had been a witness to this naïve madness. At times, K thought that it was the place that made her who she was. The environs demanded her to be idealistic and revolutionary, or maybe it was her slowly growing mental age. (Especially the café near Horniman circle, whose name she can not recollect, whose owner hoped that she would write about his café one day, when she got really famous. Well, she will.)

Samovar was a little different. The owner did not care; the waiters always took the wrong orders, and everyone there was pseudo elite – talking Kafka, Monet and Braque. The overheard conversations, the quick notes in the scrap book, the Google(ing) it all in the college library – was then a shameless way to acquire more knowledge. Samovar was also a place where K saw Mushy the first time – years before they actually met. (On random note: K saw Pudgy fingers the first time at Gokul’s, before she met him 6 years later, in his office!)

Sitting there, K mulled over everything - the unchanged, crammed, familiar furniture, the shaky wooden tables, host of oddballs sipping on the lassi, art novices and barons, the mesmerized newbie’s face and somewhere, sitting solitary in a corner, was a woman waiting for her déjà vu moment.

The moment did not come. There was a suspension at the very heart of the experience. As K walked out of the gallery, she knew that she had out-grown the Essel World of ivory tower talks. The books are now back into the shelf on Art and Literary Criticism. Noone she knew referred to the ‘Beauty Myth’ before picking up a copy of Vogue, or a pair of pumps from Aldo.

Beautiful People

For my Torch – who is leaving India in search of ‘interesting pastures’ Happy Journey, you shall find what you seek.

I don’t know anyone who does not like a pretty face, a figure enhancing dress, stunning heels or sparkling diamonds. Esp. in the metrosexual world is just as important to look good as it is to be bitchy. There is nothing wrong about it - we are greedy, selfish, superficial people, for whom the packaging surpasses the quality.

Is acceptance the first step to change? Now, not really. Acceptance is a way of comforting our conscience, accepting the satva with tamas. Being beautiful or ugly doesn’t improve the qualities within us. (The other day while walking down the platform, I brushed across a girl in a too obviously fake Versace; I was on the side of the train tracks and as the train approached I urged her to move in, and when she didn't I pushed her as the horn howled in my ears. She turned to call me a fat bitch just before I decided to turn around and apologise. I refrained, glared at her and called her an ugly mare with a fake Versace! I didn’t wait to see whether she was looking. Point is she wasn’t ugly or mare-like but I found her lack of civic sense, judgement and loose tongue - classless. I don’t think her looks compensated for those 45 seconds.)

But looks are very important and one often can get away with a smile. That gets me to befriending beautiful-looking people. A name in history is ‘Plastered face’; since childhood, we all have our knee jerks - mine was being fat, hers was being short and ‘not fair enough’. She pioneered in calling me names on being the fairest/ prettiest chick in class. Starting with chalk, flour, plaster of paris, albino, tube light, etc… needless to say we never became friends. But the colour bar scarred me for life till I entered college. I have crossed many like me; all of them were pretty but seriously flawed in their own way.

At the coffee-skimmed-milk parlour almost half a decade ago, Century slut claimed that I had the guys I wanted because Indian men dream of a ‘white cunt’ – "it’s the colonial hangover, you know!" I took serious offence to it then, coz it wasn’t the truth. I have since then dumped everyone who wanted anything more than what was in the offing. I have lost some really nice people in the bargain - they were left with large question mark and a ‘u don’t exist for me’ look on their face.

Then I met Torch. She was the only chick I knew my ‘all guy’ friend circle. When I saw her, I couldn't help but stare, she was everything a guy wanted, and everything a girl wanted to be. But Torch being tight arsed, eyebrow twitching, nasty remarks expert - was unapproachable. We sat at the same table and I smiled at her, she gave me her ‘what the fuck are u smiling at’ look but seconds later smiled back.

We have since been friends, and the kind that teach each other about life. On our last pajama party, her confession was a stunner, "K i hate to say it but you my bitch are the most beautiful chic in chicland - and I am so f-ing jealous of you.' Coming from her- it was the most insincere, fake but best compliment I have received under d influence of alcohol. “That idiotic smile u have, twinkling eyes and the happy look - compels one to smile back only to be on the safe side. You have been the best bitch I know, bloody bitch, I am so f-ing going to f- your case to not feel the vacuum” and she loves bitches!! The hugs after that were tight warm and filled with more wine screams!

Torch is the in model of the group. There is a bias - I am beautiful not because I look good, I had known that eons now. When in the bevy, I just wait for my turn as they pick out guys for entertainment tonight. Or wait for all the guys to finish staring at the gang and then turn to look at me. I often end up pimping them through the evening and land up alone on my way back home. (No i don't feel bad about it.)

They are pretty women, like d metrosexual genius is a pretty boy. He knows more about botox than most professionals do, he is not gay, doesn’t swing either! And he doesn’t go out with average looking women. (friends r exceptions, thank you!).

Today beautiful is being Gay and being Gay is in vogue. If u are gay, it is taken for granted that u have an amazing sense of style, looks and oomph. The editors of straight men’s magazines are gay; make that obvious- looking closet gays or single cynical men who haven’t had sex for a decade (in the least)! But they are termed genius; like a pretty face is just a pretty face; a gay writer is just good in the columns of fashion and gossip. I don’t deny any of that, but super straight men are also good at this game.

Torch being in the fashion business laughs at gays –‘they are poor souls – and the worse bitches. You can’t help but pity them – they are on no side of the fence and have to serve on both sides of the fence. Imagine watching a naked woman when you could almost puke at that sight or shave a straight model’s crotch. Also they have to follow the rules of being gay – they don’t have the freedom to be themselves. Once you pronounce yourself as gay, you cease to be everything else after that – including human!

That was my first on the other side of the fence perspective of gays. Torch had sensibilities that changed a lot me. One clear instance was after her first hard earned Charles and Keith shoe broke – she cursed, not cried. ‘bastards can't make shoes for humans, can they? She picked up her keds, and threw strappys in the bin – I was shocked, don’t u want to mend them I asked? K its just a fucking shoe, and it frigging hurts to wear it! It was profound, although it may not sound so.

I will miss all the ten min meets – the tight hugs, the ‘bloody bitch’, the smiles, the beauty treatments and most of all I will miss the classy bitch – Torch, have a great life. And don’t call me! Lol, I ain’t gonna cry.