My personal blog as a 'grown-up' Goth and Romantic living in the Highlands of Scotland. I write about the places I go, the things I see and my thoughts on life as a Goth and the subculture, and things in the broader realm of the Gothic and darkly Romantic. Sometimes I write about music I like and sometimes I review things. This blog often includes architectural photography, graveyards and other images from the darker side of life.

Goth is not just about imitating each other, it is a creative movement and subculture that grew out of post-punk and is based on seeing beauty in the dark places of the world, the expression of that in Goth rock. It looks back to the various ways throughout history in which people have confronted and explored the macabre, the dark and the taboo, and as such I'm going to post about more than the just the standards of the subculture (Siouxsie, Sisters of Mercy, Bauhaus, et al) and look at things by people who might not consider themselves anything to do with the subculture, but have eyes for the dark places. The Gothic should not be limited by what is already within it; inspiration comes from all places, the key is to look with open eyes, listen carefully and think with an open mind..

Sunday, 2 September 2012

Vanity, Vignettes and my Glasses

Black Lips
This still isn't a fashion blog, I'm just proud of today's make-up.

I'm not usually a fan of black lipstick, but I was talking to my adopted little sister today, and she's been a bit down, and so I gave her the option of picking out my lipstick colour, and she chose black. I don't think that black lipstick is inherently 'babybat', I think that it's just often done badly. All it takes to do it properly is for it to be worn with even foundation, lined carefully and for a good quality lipstick with even coverage and good level of opacity and a reasonable finish to be used. Mostly a case of avoiding the nasty Halloween stuff. Personally, I think that that the contrast is often too harsh for everyday use, and is best for photo-shoots  and clubbing.

*Ponders*
I'm wearing what is currently my favourite wig (the red wavy one Raven bought me), but I'm thinking of getting a few more wigs, mostly in black. I started getting an itchy scalp after dying my hair black, an issue that I think may have had something to do with me switching to a cheaper brand, but the problem didn't go away when switching back to my original brand. I changed colours (to a variety of purples) and for a while I had no reaction to the purple, but on touching up the roots recently I had a scratchy scalp for two days afterwards. I'm worried about developing a more severe allergic reaction. Previously I have tried henna and indigo, but never managed a colour much darker than my naturally rather dark brown hair. I'm thinking of keeping my natural hair cut reasonably short and just wearing a variety of wigs. I'd get to have more variety in hair-styles, too, as I could match my wig to whatever outfit I have planned for the day, instead of trying to match outfits to a static hair style. 

"You're all going to die down here"

I generally need my glasses to work the computer, and heck, happen to rather like my glasses, with their swirly frames, but in order to get a good view of my eye-makeup, they had they had to come off. As you can see in the picture above, I added silver to the inner corners of my eyes, and wore white eyeliner in the lower waterline. You might be able to make out the sparkles in the glittery eye-liner drawn over my regular eyeliner. Sparkles are also something that I don't usually wear. 

I am plotting... 
I pencilled my brows in for a tad more definition, but didn't expand or alter their shape. I'm quite happy with how they've grown recently. Previously they were a bit too thin for me not to pencil them in daily, but I think now they are reasonably wide and noticeable. I am not wearing contacts; dark grey is my natural eye-colour and this is heightened by the effects I added in Photobooth/iPhoto (yep, more internal camera pictures! Raven was working all day and I am awful at taking selfies with my point and shoot camera, and even worse at taking them with the fancy Canon.) so it looks like they are almost black. 

...the perfect crime! 
I'm not actually terribly grumpy; I was finding it hard to get a good picture on Photobooth, and it left me with a frustrated expression! Must remember to smile in photographs... It looks like I'm plotting to do terrible, terrible things to people. Don't worry, the only thing I was plotting to do terrible things to was the laptop if it kept making my wig look unnecessarily shiny. Anyway, I need to cook dinner (and spend less time browsing the internet looking for baby-things for my future niece! I finally get to be someone's mad aunt! Hurrah! That's one of my life-ambitions fulfilled.) and suchlike, so I shall be off. Hopefully you're not all too bored of my vanity! I shall be back with more interesting posts as soon as my writer's block clears up. In the meanwhile all suggestion and questions are welcome at the Domesticated Goth ::Facebook Page::, where I am also going to pick (out of a hat, literally) one of the first 100 people to like the page and send them an artistic prize!

8 comments:

  1. Your make up looks great, and I really like the color and style of that wig ^_^ I feel the same way about black lipstick- it can look great when done right (as you've done here) but usually it's too strong for daily wear.

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    1. The wig is a bit darker in real life; I altered the contrast and colour balance on the photos. Black lipstick certainly has its place, but it just seems a bit too harsh a contrast to wear as everyday makeup, for me at least.

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  2. Try to use dye that are in shampoo form, scalp friendly and much cheaper ^_^ but only last for one week. Red is much of a classic statement in contrast with the black. So gorgeous!

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    1. Argh, I replied to this, but blogspot ate my comment!

      I'll give the non-permanent dye a go - not sure if it would be practical for me to re-dye my hair each Sunday night, but it's certainly something I would consider if, say, I wanted my hair black for clubbing, or similar.

      Thankyou :)

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  3. The black lipstick looks gorgeous on you! Especially with the red wig - super pretty.

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