Something new from me—a makeup review. After chasing great makeup-free skins for several months, I have succumbed to the lure of the pretty makeups available for some of my favourite skins such as sachi Vixen’s Pandora, Ayesha Bisiani’s Saba, Anika and Ahawi and now also Annyka Bekkers Mellie3. Now, that doesn’t mean I am not still in the market for great makeup-free skins, because I most definitely am (especially if they have lips that look naturally quite dark), but it can’t hurt to branch out, right? Other than my Linden balance, of course, and my inventory size.
So, what is today’s makeup temptation? The newest set of four makeups for Mellie3, that’s what it is. And they’re smoking, or at the very least smokey.
This set is not the new pack, however, but rather one of the two packs that were released at the launch of Mellie3. When I did my initial review of the skin as a whole, I only had the makeup-free version, so I decided to include a quick look at this pack here. I should note that pack 2 also has some great makeups, but pack 1 was my first pick based on the absolutely stunning The Sophisticate makeup.
From left to right, we have Ingenue, The Sophisticate, London Bridge and Town & Country. These makeups all have in common fairly understated eyes, which make them instant favourites with me. That means I can still wear them with period/fantasy clothing and pretend that the darker lips are naturally dark. ;)
Ingenue looks to have the rosiest cheeks and fairly pale, pinkish lips. My favourite, The Sophisticate, has lovely dark shading on the cheeks and darker but not very vivid lips. Sophisticated indeed. On London Bridge the cheeks are similar to Ingenues, but a little less rosy and more shaded. The lips are also fairly pale, but more of a coral than a pink. Finally, Town & Country has the same dark blush as The Sophisticate but quite a bit redder and more vivid lips.
Here we finally have the four new makeups, Screamer, Seether, Sinner and Strutter. The common theme in this set is smokey eyes. Annyka mentioned to me that she had at first planned black eyeshadow on all of them, but decided on varying it by introducing some hints of colour. In several cases, these appear to echo the colour of the lips.
On Screamer, there’s a bit of shading on the cheeks, the smokey eyes have hints of red accenting the black and the lips have an aubergine colour. I tried a demo of this in a lighter tone as well, and I found that it came out a little too strong for my tastes then, but I quite like it against the Cinnamon tone which is my usual pick. Seether looks about the same in terms of cheek-shading, and I think I see a hint of some paler colour around the eyes together with the black. The lips are quite pale and a bit pinkish. Overall, it is not as dramatic as Screamer, but the smokey eyes still give quite a bit of impact.
Sinner features a bit more shading on the cheeks, a hint of red in the eye shadow and quite bright red lips. Sinner is, I think, quite aptly named. Its not a shy colour, but not at all garish either. Finally, we have Strutter. The cheeks are less shaded than on Sinner, but the eyes have quite a bit of purple mixed in with the black. Given the fairly pale lips, the eyes are again the focal point, much like in Seether.
Overall, I am really enjoying the Mellie3 makeups (especially the way the lips are done; the texture and shading make them look real and the colouring blends with the skintone instead of sitting on top of it like some sort of frosting), and I suspect that pack 2 will join pack 1 & 3 at some point. Each set is subtly themed and the four makeups included present nice variations on the theme. The colours are all quite wearable and look like they would work well with a lot of different clothes. And that’s definitely something I appreciate, because while it can be fun to closely match makeup and outfit from time to time, I generally prefer not to have to think too much about that. So, I like makeups that go with most everything in terms of the colours.
While I was preparing these images for publication, I ended up flipping between them in PSP, and noticed that that was a great way of spotting the subtle differences between each makeup. Especially for someone like me who is very not makeup savvy, in SL or RL. I mean, I can spot differences in lip colour and eye shadow colour, but its harder for me to spot the application of blush and shading on the cheeks, or differences in lip shading. It really made me appreciate how many subtle touches go into each of these makeups.
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