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.