Midnight Muse: The Magpie’s Nightlife Glam Guide

Shining a spotlight on style references, artistry techniques, and makeup products that accentuate the party brat in all of us.

Part One

Isamaya Beauty Wild Star Collection

Isamaya Beauty is my first stop for subversive and innovative products that make decorating your features feel cutting edge. Isamaya Ffrench, founder of the Isamaya Beauty brand is known as beauty’s “edgy girl” with her background in fashion editorial imagery, she’s created a range of capsule collections that very much capture the essence of things like rave culture, industrial beauty, and twisted glamour. Whether you’re adding a sparkly pop of color to your look for a night out, or making yourself up like Grace Jones moments before jumping in the shower at the end of the night, Isamaya has something to suit you.

I happen to love all 3 Isamaya eyeshadow palettes. They’re not without their learning curves, but they’ve been a mainstay in my professional makeup kit since they launched.  The palette I’ve acquired most recently “Wild Star” is described as a “rhinestone studded Prarie Glam eyeshadow palette for the wild at heart.” Housed in gilded cases topped with diamanté horse statues, this collection of flashy pinks, bronzes, and teals are all flecked with a coating of golden shine, just like the packaging. I find that many of these colors tend to fall out quite a bit because of the amount of glitter in the formulas. Although color-wise, I’d say “Wild Star” is the most beginner-friendly of all Isamaya’s eye color palettes. She’s taken a group of fairly easy to wear shades and turned up the volume in terms of texture.  She also included 4 very buildable skin native matte shades to help contextualize the main character, rhinestone, multi-colored, glitters. As long as you do your eyes first in your routine, I find these colors and textures to be completely complementary and amazing for a party look.

I also acquired a couple of the “Lucky Kiss” lipsticks from the “Wild Star” collection. Unfortunately, I had a little bit rougher of a time with them than I did the eyeshadows (pun intended). For about the last year or two, I’ve slowly observed metallic lipstick trying to creep its way back into fashion.  Thrilled by this, I assumed Isamaya’s iteration of this 90s reincarnation would be the one to have. I’m afraid not babes.  Although I absolutely love the colors she released and the packaging is over the top in all the best ways, the formula of these lippies is just off. Upon application, I can feel the rough gritty texture of gold glitter overspray scraping across my lips. These glitters tend to bunch up in lip lines and create a less than desirable look and feel on the lips. Although Isamay’s Wild Star lipsticks were a bust, I refuse to give up on metallic lips’ reentry into the beauty chat. Foreshadowing…

Meiki on beauty