Monday - June 27, 2005
Now if only I can get over the name.
Fanny Serrano's makeup line has been around for
some time. I refused to try anything from it - shame on me - because the other
eponymous Filipino makeup artist collection, James Cooper, did not live up to my
expectations, no matter how kind I tried to be.
Part of my discomfort stemmed from putting anything with "fanny" in it on my face. Other makeup artists have non-visual names: Laura Mercier, Francois Nars, Bobbi Brown, hell, even Mary Kay - these are safe names, easily built into cosmetic empires with no backroom giggling. Still, a makeup line called Booty or Bum or Derriere, given enough media attention and celebrity endorsement, would probably work. And Fanny has great product, with humane pricing. So any giggling can be promptly stifled and stuffed back into my bulging makeup bag.
The line seems to be targeted towards makeup artists. That would explain why the blush Artist Box, containing a dozen shades, has no mirror. You are expected to wield it like a palette. The black rectangular palette costs P2,500, a bargain if you consider that individual blushes retail for more than P300 each. (For comparison, a single Shu Uemura Glow On Blush costs P1,650.) There is a good mix of light and dark, warm and cool, matte and shimmery. They are well-milled, and spread evenly on the skin, without particles "catching" onto the surface and creating blotches and streaks. (Shimmer is easy to do badly in lower-priced makeup lines. The unsuspecting woman with bad indoor lighting steps out and has no idea her cheeks reflect light like cheap metallic-foiled car shades.)
My favorite shades are the amusingly-misspelled Geogia Peach (a lovely balance of warm pink and peach, with a faint shimmer - think a paler, somewhat pinker NARS Torrid), Spicy Red (a cool strawberry with silvery shimmer) and Sun Bronze (a slightly stronger version of NARS Silvana, golden with a warm bronze sheen).
Fanny gets my respect for insisting on quality makeup brushes. You can buy the entire set for P5,000, including the soft case. If you're only looking to invest in one, make it the #3 brush - it's an angled dome of soft, firm squirrel hair (dark at the base, light at the tip) set in an aluminum ferrule. It is a great blush brush, even in comparison to Shu, MAC and Shiseido equivalents, and it is only P700. I've been playing with it like crazy and it has yet to shed a single hair.
It's sad to think that most Philippine-origin brands are rarely considered at par with their foreign equivalents. This collection is a glimmer - a rosy, peachy, cherry red glimmer - of hope, that we not only deserve better, but we are getting better.
Part of my discomfort stemmed from putting anything with "fanny" in it on my face. Other makeup artists have non-visual names: Laura Mercier, Francois Nars, Bobbi Brown, hell, even Mary Kay - these are safe names, easily built into cosmetic empires with no backroom giggling. Still, a makeup line called Booty or Bum or Derriere, given enough media attention and celebrity endorsement, would probably work. And Fanny has great product, with humane pricing. So any giggling can be promptly stifled and stuffed back into my bulging makeup bag.
The line seems to be targeted towards makeup artists. That would explain why the blush Artist Box, containing a dozen shades, has no mirror. You are expected to wield it like a palette. The black rectangular palette costs P2,500, a bargain if you consider that individual blushes retail for more than P300 each. (For comparison, a single Shu Uemura Glow On Blush costs P1,650.) There is a good mix of light and dark, warm and cool, matte and shimmery. They are well-milled, and spread evenly on the skin, without particles "catching" onto the surface and creating blotches and streaks. (Shimmer is easy to do badly in lower-priced makeup lines. The unsuspecting woman with bad indoor lighting steps out and has no idea her cheeks reflect light like cheap metallic-foiled car shades.)
My favorite shades are the amusingly-misspelled Geogia Peach (a lovely balance of warm pink and peach, with a faint shimmer - think a paler, somewhat pinker NARS Torrid), Spicy Red (a cool strawberry with silvery shimmer) and Sun Bronze (a slightly stronger version of NARS Silvana, golden with a warm bronze sheen).
Fanny gets my respect for insisting on quality makeup brushes. You can buy the entire set for P5,000, including the soft case. If you're only looking to invest in one, make it the #3 brush - it's an angled dome of soft, firm squirrel hair (dark at the base, light at the tip) set in an aluminum ferrule. It is a great blush brush, even in comparison to Shu, MAC and Shiseido equivalents, and it is only P700. I've been playing with it like crazy and it has yet to shed a single hair.
It's sad to think that most Philippine-origin brands are rarely considered at par with their foreign equivalents. This collection is a glimmer - a rosy, peachy, cherry red glimmer - of hope, that we not only deserve better, but we are getting better.