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 3 March 2013

Purple Lipstick, Cyber-Goth Makeup and Goggles

I am terribly sorry for being late in participating in Sophistique Noir's Monthly Theme!
I had forgotten that this month's theme was purple. Well, when I first read it, I was going to showcase my lovely plum and black flocked bedding (as opposed to my black-on-black flocked bedding, or my charcoal and black 'damask' patterned bedding, or my piles of black cushions... I am one of those Goths whose preferred aesthetics are applied to most of what they own.) but then I forgot about it entirely and did not get around to photographing the bedroom. 

Oops.

So, something else purple! Here is some Cyber-Goth style makeup I did last summer. I'm wearing my micro-braid wig, which has a few purple braids down one side, and my goggles have purple lenses (made from an old translucent document wallet that I cut up!). 



As you can see, terrible selfies taken on my onboard webcam, again. This is what happens when I want  pictures of me and Raven is out working! All selfies taken either in the mirror or with funny out-stretched arm movements look even worse, and as Raven is quite possessive of his photographic equipment, and I'm too polite to touch his tripod without asking, I haven't got around to just mounting a camera on a tripod, sticking a cushion where my head will be to focus on, and then running back around to where the cushion was with the camera set to take a picture via the timer. 

Anyway, the micro-braid wig is self made, and the makeup was done to match. The lipstick is a metallic purple that is almost iridescent made by Stargazer. The eyeshadow is actually black and silver, but with a touch of purple under my eyes. I don't have purple eye-liner, sadly, it just looks that way in the photograph.



I like drawing elongated corner on my inner eyes, but rarely do I get them as neatly done as here. I almost always get them wrong, however much I practise. I did decorative shapes around one eye in eye-liner, and as per usual I didn't do both. This is because a) it's really hard to get the symmetry exact, and b) I think that it becomes too much and looks cluttered if I do both sides. 



I am actually wearing a 'spaghetti straps' tank top! With my braids obscuring the straps, it looks like I'm not wearing a top, but I am. You can just about see a purple goggle-lense in this last picture, and it shows the dots and lines and suchlike around my right eyes. I'm so used to doing foliate designs and swirls; the angular design and dots were a bit different. I also like how this picture shows how the silver eye-shadow goes right up to my nose, but the eyeliner from the inner corner is brought upwards with a bit of black eye-shadow to the crease, to give a more distinct eyelid, and to make my nose look narrower.

I think this post also shows a little of how varied my style can be. One day I can be all black curls and lace and frills, and another day I am all spikes and goggles and purple lipstick! I wear things because I think they look nice, and I refuse to get pigeonholed into one specific style. 

12 comments:

  1. this is awesome! I was kind of surprised at how few cybergoth purple-related posts there were this time

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    1. I always think that alongside neon green and red, purple is one of the more obviously cybergoth colours, so I'm surprised too.

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  2. Your bedding sounds cool! you have to get around to posting it!

    Also- the tie you liked on my blog is from the cyberoptix tie lab on etsy - there is a link at the top of my post pretty sure you can get there at cyberoptix.etsy.com too! : ) They have cool ties GALORE!!!!

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    1. I think my purple bedding may get re-sown into soft furnishings when Raven and I get our own property and I get my boudoir/craft-room, because while I adore Victoriana and fancy fabrics, Raven is more into sleeker aesthetics, and the plum and black is just too fancy for him, but the charcoal and black print is a compromise between modernity and anachronism we can agree on (he bought it!) so our bedroom is likely to be ivory/cream with black and charcoal and silver accents, and my craft-room will be my mad frills-and-velvet-and-twiddles escape space.

      And I will look them up on etsy. I think Raven would appreciate those sorts of designs (he actually shaves with a cuthroat razor, for a start!).

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  3. I love the makeup and the wig! The purple lipstick is just gorgeous.

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    1. Thankyou :) The prettiness of the lipstick is all down to the lipstick itself; I just applied it neatly.

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  4. Very pretty make up. The details on the eyes are just gorgeous.

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  5. When you say your style is varied, you're not joking around! It's much different than anything I'd seen you do before, but that's probably because I just started following you and haven't seen all you're capable of yet. It's nice to experiment with different looks - this one suits you very well! And I'm not just saying that because there's a lot of purple ... ;o)

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    1. I wore the wig, but with less makeup, and with platform boots, corset, cat handbag, etc. in the photo for the post where I said I would try to report back from my travels more, and there's the picture of me from behind wearing my trenchcoat and that wig on my Aviemore sled races post, and then there's the wig-making post itself. Other than that, I don't think there's any photographs of me looking even remtely similar on this blog. I did a cyber/industrial/goth hybrid photo-shoot in an abandoned building when my Das Klub t-shirt arrived, ages ago. Perhaps I should post the results up here at some point.

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  6. This look works very well on you! Purple is definitely your color. :) Love, love, LOVE that lipstick on you!!

    I used to try doing those nice inner eyeliner corners but never could get them right. Very nice job!

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    1. Thankyou very much. It's Stargazer, but I have forgotten what the colour is called. It is a metallic purple.

      I don't always get them right, in fact I often get them wrong! it takes me a few goes to get my make up just the way I want it.

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