Generation Q - Where beauty has no age limits

Last week I went along to Illamasqua's latest blogger event for their A/W 2012 collection Generation Q. It was a big decision for me to go because my social anxiety is really debilitating at the moment but Claire told me ot go and I was fed up of missing out on exciting, fun things I want to do because I'm too afraid. So I had a bit of dutch courage and went. 

(I'm not certain if I will be going to more invents though, while everything was brilliant, the organisers were incredibly welcoming and so on it was just a little bit too much for me to be around so many strangers. Anyway I won't go into it anymore as it was all to do with me and my silly brain and insecurities and nothing to do with the event.)

'Generation Q - is generation you!

It's what they tell you not to do; it's what you see your true self through.

It's what is old and what is new,

What you know and what you knew.

It's what you feel and what is true'  


Read all about it under the cut!

Earlier this year Illamasqua put out a call for people to nominate friends, family or anyone regardless of age, race, sex etc to model for them. This is the first collection of their's where all of the models in the campaign are 'normal' people (i.e. not professional models). And while all of them are stunning they are faces that you wouldn't imagine seeing in a professional photo campaign.

And the person who, to me,  personifies this is Evelyn who, at 72 years old, looks glamourous, elegant and utterly beautiful.

What I love is that, while Evelyn is clearly wearing makeup, they haven't tried to hide her age. You can still see some age lines which give her face much more character than someone airbrushed to perfection to could ever have and her white hair has been allowed to shine through. Evelyn doesn't look young, but she doesn't need to, she's just beautiful. 

Evelyn was present at the event and looked just as dazzling in real life. She was also a fantastic character!

  

Here a MUA touches up Evelyn's makeup. 

Being a greedy podge creature I was very excited by the lovely spread they put out including finger sandwiches, mash potato with sausages or veggie kebabs, scones, flavoured teas, fruit punch and little bowls of glittery popcorn!

 

Unfortunately I was too shy to eat anything :( I did try some raspberry tea though, which was very yummy!

So we had a few talks about the collection including one from a very pregnant Alex Box (who, despite being about to drop, looked absolutely radiant) who explained the ideas behind the campaign. The idea behind using 'real' models was to reflect the idea that beauty has no restrictions, to not let age define you or be dictated to about what you 'should' wear or look like. 

The colour scheme of the range is not as bright or 'out there' as some of their previous collections but it certainly doesn't fade into the background. To me it seems like they've taken classic colours like plums, browns, pinks and gold and then added a twist with duochromes, iridescence, glitters and metallics. 

And one thing you will find a lot of in this collection is sparkle! One of the many boring 'rules' of makeup is that you should only wear mattes over 'a certain age' (how old is that?) because sparkle emphasises wrinkles or some such nonsense and Illamasqua has said 'stuff that!' and gone glimmer mad!

Anyway on to the swatches and product photos. I'm sorry but the quality of these aren't great. The event was in a beautiful little cinema and was quite dark and my camera doesn't cope well in low light!

 

Nail varnish in Creator (black with silver glitter)

  

and Charisma (shimmering deep berry pink)

 

Empower palette:

Blink eyeshadow (neutal matte), Synth eyeshadow(shimmering white/pink), Fervent Pressed Pure Pigment (reddish brown with a blue/green duochrome), liquid metal in Slick (shimmering gunmental)

  

left to right top; Slick, Slick followed with Fervent followed with Synth, Fervent

left to right bottom: Slick follwed with Synth, Synth, Slick followed with Fervent (I forgot to swatch Blink)

Complement palette:

  

Slink eyeshadow (shimmering champagne), Focus liquid metal (metallic browny copper), Forgiveness eyeshadow (pinky brown matte), Queen of the Night Presssed Pure Pigment (deep black plum with bright pink/violet sparkle)

    

left to right top: Focus follwed with Slink, Slink, 

left to right bottom: Forgiveness, Queen of the Night, Focus

Precision Ink in Wisdom (an antiqed gold with hints of green) and Intense Lipgloss in Boost (pinky/purply with blue flash)

Intense Lipgloss in Opulent:

 

This was probably my favourite piece of collection, described as a 'rainbow beige'. it's a sort of goldy sandy colour with amazing multicoloured opalescent sparkles.

I wanted to see what it looked like over the top of my red lipstick. Sorry for a) the bad photos and b) my moustache!  

Lipstick (handmade by me red with red glitter) alone:

And with a light touch of Opulent on top

 

Lipstick in Magnetism (raspberry)

 

Gleam in Aurora (pearly light champagne with hints of gold and pink. This has been reformulated from the old Gleam Cream to have a slightly thicker formula and is packaged in a compact now)

 

And last but certainly not least newpowder blusher in Sophie (a bright coral with golden sparkle)

This is the newest piece in their line of products which donates to the S.O.P.H.I.E. charity. I'm not sure how much will be donated at the moment. 

There were 2 pieces I missed out, Allure powder blush (which is a dusky pink with shimmer) and Underworld lipstick (which I actually have and don't like at all. The colour is stunning but the formula leaves a lot to be desired. Having said that I bought it a long, long time ago, at least 2 years, so it could have been reformulated. It's a not-quite-opaque pinky/purply colour with blue flash).

While personally I would have appreciated a few more garish colours I think this is a brilliant collection. I can see people of all ages being able to use all these products. They seem like good 'everyday' pieces but not at all boring! Everything can be played up to look as bright or dramatic as possible or sheered out for a more neutral look. It's still not 'ordinary' but won't frighten people away. I also love the ideas behind it and hope I can look a tenth as glamourous as Evenlyn when I'm 50 (let alone 72!). My picks from the collection are the Empower palette, Gleam, Sophie blush, Boost and Opulent lipglosses and Wisdom Precision Ink eyeliner.

 I'm really sorry to the lovely ladies who were kind enough to come up and chat with me as I never said goodbye, but I got a little bit worried that everyone was leaving and didn't want to be standing around like a plum.

Finally thank you so much to the lovely people at Illamasqua (particularly Alex and Hayley from the social media team) for inviting me! I'm very very flattered that any brand would want me to come and try out their new collections and especially my favourite makeup brand around!