Forget everything

The ‘rules’ surrounding makeup are made to be disrupted and it’s time to remember the joy of it all, write James Dobson and Andrey SV of beauty platform @beautybendersofficial.

Makeup is hard. Foundation can mysteriously slide off your face, powders can make things start to look cakey or patch y,c ontour can look dirty and placement! The “correct” placement of blush, highlight an dc ontour c an r equire googling and multiple tabs open with various fa ce c harts for reference . Oh , and eyeliner… don’t eve ng e t me started .I don’t think I’ve had an a dult tantrum as large as the one I ha d trying to do winged eyeliner before I threw the brush across the room and resolutely declared that I hat ed c at-eye s an yway.

Ever yT ikT okist elling us what used to b e the correct way of doing things is no longe rth ec orrect way of doing things. We’re inundat ed w ith so much information that it c an b ecom ede bilitating at times. That’s why I ha ve actively tried to forget everything I know.

Is it important to know these basics? A quic ks croll through my photos bac k to circ a2 019 will produce a resounding “Yes it is!” but no wy ou know better, it’s time to erase it all from your memory.

Dazed Beauty recently published an articl ee ntitled Celestial Eyes: the glittery beauty trend that embraces makeup fallout, illustrat ed w ith a model wearing fine glittery eyeshadow in coppers and pinks with bright

silver pigme nts ettling in the tear trough. Th e we ll informed and YouTube/TikTok educated makeup artist in m ew as shocked foras econd… The undereye !We must brighte n an de liminate any sign of hollowness! Eyeshadow fallout! That’s bad and the sign of it being too lightly pressed! They should have put powder down first so it could be swe pt a way … Or done the face afte r th e shadow.

But the nI caught myself and Ir ealised, how beautifully the shadow swirled around the lid and collected like snow in the natural crevice of the eye, and how unexpected th ec olours were together, and how she looked a little (heaven forbid!) tired, but in the most ethereal of ways.

I think back to going through my makeup palettes and how I would swatc hm y favourite glittery or duo-chromatic shades simply for the joy of how they sparkled, how smoothly they applied and th ec hildlik ew onde roft wisting m yw rist and seeing a shadow shift from green to pink… the alchemy and magic of it all.

Makeup used to f eel like I was collecting little gems, or b eautifully packag ed c andy, and Ir esolved, in that moment, to find the joy in makeup again, to put the stre ssofp erfection aside –an d I encourage you to d o th e same.

BEAUTY BENDERS’ PICKS FOR MAKEUP LIBERATION

· Makeup special effects shops – we lo ve B odyFX in Auckland .Ir ecentl yc overed m ye ntire face in Pros-Aide (an adhesi ve c ommonly used in prosthetic san d special effects) and biodegradable glitter from here and it was incredible (not super fun to remove though). Become a magpie and grab some eye-safe glitte r (n ever craft glitter!), a little glitter glue and have fun.

· Tap a little gloss ove ra wash of eyeshadow and embrace th ew ay the gloss will break dow nthe produc tinun expect ed w ays – it’ll look creasy and grungy in the best way.

· Gotoapi ercing shop and play aroun dw ith glueing hardware to your face .Ilo ve small pyramid piercing eithe rsi de of the bridge ofm y nose – it’s hardcore and surprisingly subtle. Cosmic has a gre ats election of piercings.

· Invest in brand s su c hasPatM cGrath, Ma c,A bout Face (musician Halsey’s makeup line, not the local beaut yc linic )an dD anessa Myricks Beauty .Ortry indie brand ssu ch as Kaleidos Cosmetics, Unseen Beauty, Nabla Cosmetics ,w hich produce highquality products centred aroun dc reativity that will naturally nudg ey ou out of your comfort zone.

When it comes to health gains, it matters more how much effort you put in and how breathless you become while working out than how long you spend doing it. That’s the message from researchers at the universities of Cambridge and Leicester who recently published findings in the European Heart Journal that prov ed e xercise intensity trumps duration, for your heart.

Using data on more than 88,000 middle-aged adults who wore fitness trackers to monitor their activity for a week, the researchers totted up the amount of vigorous activity ,s u chasr unning and strenuou sc ycling, they did, compared with the minutes of moderate exercise completed, such as walking. They then tallied this information with the number of heart attacks, strokes and cases of heart disease experienced by the participants over the nex t se ven years.

Any regular exercise has a protective effect on the heart, but the more vigorous, the better, says Tom Yates, professor of physical activity, sedentary behaviour and health at the University of Leicester and a senior author on the paper. “We found that heart disease rates were 14% lower among people who did one-fifth of their total activity at a moderate to vigorous intensity compared with people who managed half that amount of intense physical effort each week.”

For those who hardly broke sweat when they exercised, there was little improvement in rates of heart disease, but for those who increased their time spent doing vigorous exercise b y 20 %, disease risk fell b y2 3%.

“Our message is that you are much better off walking briskly at a pace of at least 100 steps per minute for seven minutes than you are walking slowly for 15 minutes,” Yates says. “If you are time-strapped, then make sure the activit yy ou do entails physical effort and you can cu tthed uration.

“We use the example of walking because it is something that most people can easily fit into their lifestyle. But whether you are running, cycling or doing other forms of exercise, the harder yo uw ork, the greater the return.” Here are some fast fitness options: