Full Face coverage - Before and After

It's true, all foundations are not made equal, and it's even more true that you do get what you pay for. If I had to suggest one area to 'splurge' in your makeup bag over all the others- I would hands down say go in big on your foundation and loosen the purse strings a little. Eyeliners and blushes, lipsticks and mascara are very tricky to distinguish the £6 from the £16 or the £26! But the foundation is the foundation for your makeup, your face and your look. The foundation is out under the most pressure and has the toughest job to do, create a seamless, flawless natural looking canvas that can withstand it all. Cheap foundations, like the cheap foundation on a house, may look okay at first but the first sign of a grey cloud it crumbles and melts away.

I have dabbled back and fourth with all sorts of foundation and concealer combinations but often return to the Revlon Colorstay in the oily combination skin formula and the Mac Studio Sculpt concealer.
However, not wanting to miss out on anything better out there I am currently using:

Mac Studio Fix Fluid in NC15

Kryolan Dermacolor Wheel Rainbow Circle

The proof, as they say, is in the pudding, and this is the completely unedited, as-it-is, result that this little combination gives me!

The foundation I have gone back and fourth with, it's full coverage with a matte finish and I wear shade NC15 to even out my complexion, with the Kryolan colour wheel I use all of them, mostly a combination of the two palest colours for under my eyes and the rest I darken according to the contours of my face. The formula of the concealers are almost on the dry side as they are very thick, and feel like face paint. Although on the skin they do not look cakey like you might imagine face to paint to look, but it is the fullest coverage that I have ever gotten from a concealer and super resiliant to wear.

Sometimes straying from what you're used to is a good thing!

A little shop called Mac...

For the very first time I visited the Mac shop instead of a concession, and it was quite something!
Having just had Christmas aswell as ordering myself the Urban Decay Naked 3 Palette, and some Nyx treats I was trying to only buy what I 'needed'.
One thing that I needed was foundation, and that was a complete need, A foundation is of course essential and I can justify buying a good one as the foundation has to be good to make everything else look good on top! I got the Studio Fix Fluid in shade NC15

N.B - I got colour matched by the girl in Mac and it all began well until the old chestnut came up as she began removing my foundation, she wanted to give me skin care advice. I understand she is of course trying to help, but it was irritating to me as everything she suggested I was of course already doing- she told me about using a toner- Really? I've dealt with problematic skin since the age of 13 and She does not think that I am
1. Using toner
2. Using a good skin care routine

I found the whole experience quite insulting, but of course she wasn't meaning to be rude and only trying to be helpful. But it did make me feel dirty, as though she did not think that I was washing my face and that was the cause of my breakouts.

So, to the counter I marched with the foundation feeling proud that I'd walked past the new stock, the Mac Pro Section, the paint pots, all without being swept in, until...!

A Bubblegum pink lipglass, well this is the very thing missing from my collection, the thing that I've been longing for, it will make my lips look fuller, it will match so many outfits, so many eye looks and people will say 'wow where did you get that bubblegum coloured lipgloss' and I'll say 'It's Saint Germain by Mac' and how much fun that would be...

So I had to get it and what a treat it is! It even smells of vanilla cake, oh I just love it!

Finally, my mum told me about a lipliner that she proclaimed 'incredible' and a 'Your lips but better' look. So I came home with that too. It is 'Nude' by No7 from Boots and is warm toned with a little bit of orange in it. It looks brick coloured swatched, but on it just looks lovely although it's smell is waxy and kind of putrid - but I think that I can overlook that for how practical it is.

Candy Yum Yum

This is a little peek at the candy stash that I was bought for Christmas. Sweets in the UK are becoming increasingly influenced by the states which is of course lots of fun! Pop tarts in the UK becoming a mainstream snack or even choice for breakfast? Who thought that day would ever come?

There are still some specialist shops in a few areas, mostly large malls or cities that stock imported American candy and it is always priced at around four times more than what is 'reasonable' but the novelty makes it feel worth it.

I am honestly not too sure which of these are UK or USA, but I'm pretty certain the Hershey's are a USA exclusive, I am reluctant to eat them yet as their packaging is too awesome, and I think to start my day on a bowl of anything that is cookie flavored would just send me into a sugar melt down.

I also have this fun Hello Kitty lollipop (the Hello Kitty theme is strong across every Christmas and Birthday of mine) and it is covered in sugar crystals, it looks way too cute to eat!

Sweeties like this are more and more common in Supermarkets which is fun as a treat, but also a little depressing as the UK is #1 in Europe for obesity, that in itself is worrying, everything in moderation- even Pop Tarts!

This is mostly irrelevant but I am making it relevant, Candy Yum Yum is the trickiest lipstick from Mac that I have ever tried to get my hands on, three different stores have been out of stock and one Mac girl actually said 'We cannot keep it in stock! That and Ruby Woo'

So who knew? It's not a classic shade, or a neutral that is Macs best selling lipstick, but good ol' highlighter pink Candy Yum Yum

New Video: Grungy 'slept in' eyeliner makeup tutorial!

Not living the 'Rock and Roll' lifestyle but wish that you were?
Want it to look like you were out partying all night with a glass of low inhibitions?
Girls, wish that you could wear 'the walk of shame' every day?

If that sounds like you, then why not try the grungy eye makeup look!

For whatever reason, this look has really caught on so I thought that I would share it with you guys

I created a video that teaches you how to master that in under a minute!

I am more a fan of 'polished' looks myself, but I figured that there is no harm in trying new things and sharing new tips and trick with you.

I used Macs eyeliner in 'Smoulder' which is a really smudgy formula so pretty much ideal for this kind of thing- I thought I would mix it up a little this week to take a little break from all my glitzy gold holiday makeup tutorials!

Urban Decay Festive Gold Sparkle Makeup Tutorial!

Woohoo,
Getting my Christmas groove on because lets face it, winter makeup is about 100 x more fun than summer makeup which is quite often 'no' makeup makeup looks (I have a few on my channel, just in case you were interested...)
I've created a very very glittery eye, golden glitters for that matter- and added some brown glitter and brown eyeliner accents to keep it all very warm.

On my lips I am wearing Mac lip liners in Cherry and Chestnut, I only ever use these liners together- No exceptions! It creates a velvet lip look with a whole lot of festive POP
There's plenty more where that came from...

The many faces of Mac Fix + - Review

Mac Fix + is the unsung hero of many-a-makeup look for me. I often don't include it in tutorials or blog posts but nonetheless it has been a aprt of my kit for over a year now, and I love it dearly.
Mac Fix + to some is essentially an overpriced spray bottle of water, which in some cases I would sort of agree with, yes it is mainly water. However, for particularly aggravated and unsettled skin like myself it has green tea, chamomile and cucumber extracts which are especially known for their skin calming properties. On this alone I think it is worthwhile.

There are a few ways that you can use Mac Fix Plus, here are the uses that I have found, let me know if you have found any more:
1. A finishing spray
Mac Fix + makes for a wonderful finishing touch to your makeup, I do a light spritz, around three pumps all over the face, it doesn't make my eye makeup sponge like you may assume that it would from a product made of water, and it doesn't cause your foundation to run, but what it does is give your foundation a more natural finish. For oily skinned folk like myself, we tend to use a lot of oil free face products including lots of powder, the result can sometimes be cakey and powdery. A few spritzs of this and you get that dewy glow back that makes your face look like skin, rather than foundation and powder.

2.To make eyeshadow more pigmented
This is where you could just use water over Mac Fix +, but one spritz on your brush and a dip in the eyeshadow pan makes the shadow that much more pigmented looking. I've used Mac Woodwinked to demonstrate the before and after here!

3. Turn powders products into eyeliners

Likewise, spray your eyeliner brush, dip in a pressed or loose powder shadow and you've got a foil effect liquid eyeliner, yippee for versatility!

4.Make that eye makeup HOLD
The combination of water with a powder gives it a hell of a lot more staying powder than a powder by itself. I rubbed my hand back and fourth with equal pressure over the swatches, the left side swatch with no Fix + faded away in two swipes, but the swatch combined with Fix + is still gripping on for dear life!

It feels good to get my secret love confession off my chest!

Makeup brushes: The essentials

If you're looking to start out with some makeup brushes it can be a bit confusing, there are so many different shapes and sizes and brands and colours and hairs and fibres!

Here I'm going to share with you what I would consider to be the 'essentials' this is for the face and the eyes because it is true that your fingers, sponges, and sponge tip applicators that you get with some makeup is sufficient. Investing in some brushes is the next slightly more serious step in your makeup collection.

First of all, I will always recommend synthetic (man made) hairs over natural (animals such as ponys and goats) haired brushes, they are more durable, often cheaper and to be honest, kinder. My initial brush set came from BareMinerals which uses only natural hairs, the brushes are good but knowing what I know now, if given the choice I would purchase all synthetic

The brush breakdown:

1. A foundation brush. If you're a liquid user then a flat foundation brush will work a treat. Mine is from Boots No7 range and I used a money off voucher aswell. If you're more of a powder foundation girl then a kabuki brush is the way foward

2. An 'other' powder brush. It will often be called a face brush, or a bronzer brush. Its just flat and fluffy and is a universal tool to apply bronzer, blusher, highlighter and finishing powder.

3. A flat eye brush, this one is fluffy and broad enough to cover the whole eyelid in a shadow easily, but used on it's tip it can get into the crease aswell. It's a universal brush and you will always have a need for it. This is called the 'Contour shadow' brush by Bare Escentuals

4. Finally, the best til last and my favourite brush of all time, my 'desert island' brush is the MAC 224, although there are plenty of cheaper alternatives. This is the mother of blending brushes. It turns a smokey eye that looks like a black eye into a Beyonce makeup look. Where it's bristles swirl, the world is a better place. I use this brush every single day, and I've not found another I like more. It blends a lot, it blends a little, it tones down colours, brightens eyes, softens edges. Gah! I don't know what it's made of, but it must be filled with fairy dust.

The brushes really do the work for me, I don't consider myself to be especially talented over anyone without brushes at makeup, the brushes to me are kind of like cheating because they are so good, it is very hard to go wrong. They erase all mistakes and blend all flaws and I just swirl the handle in a logical way hoping for the best.

New video: Tropical Merrmaid Makeup Tutorial

Fresh from the tropical sea... I present to you my newest makeup tutorial. It's tropical, summery and reminds me of mermaids!

I used the W7 palette for the first time in ages, and to tell you truth I had forgotten why I'd hidden that palette away for quite some time. The colours are very talcy and crumbly, there's a hell of a lot of fall out on the cheeks, not good unless you like blue blusher. But on the other hand the colours do blend very easy as they're not particularly stable even with pigment. Nonetheless the result is still mighty pretty.

 

Eyeliner Mix and Match Mash up

Finding 'The Perfect Eyeliner' is no small task.
You get a great formulation that sticks, but the brush won't go as thin as you'd like, you get a crumbly formula with a terrible flimsy brush, you get a unpigmented formula with a fab brush.
It's tricky to get everything you want which is why people get pen eyeliners, gel liners, brush liners - it goes on and on!
Here's my little eyeliner tip to trick that I do all the time to get the look that I want, it includes the following three products:

 From left to right
Fast Stroke Eyeliner (pot with brush) Collection 2000
Dipdown Gel Eyeliner (just the pot) MAC
Automatic Eyeliner (pen) W7

I like all of these products but for different reasons, so this is where the mixing and matching comes in

With the Fast Stroke Eyliner, the formula is crumbly but the pen is good although it doesn't go very fine, so when I want the finer eyeliner I remove the brush that comes with the Fast Stroke Eyeliner and use the Automatic eyeliner which has long dried up.

Dipdown is the best formula of the bunch by far, it's a dream to work with but doesn't come with a brush, I do have some eyeliner brushes but none are as good as and give as much control as the Automatic Eyeliner, so the end is dipped in brown from using it in Dipdown

The W7 Automatic Eye Liner, before it dried up, had terrible pigmentation as a product, it needed a lot of layers, the ink was kind of watery it just wasn't good at all, but drying up was a blessing as it's now my universal wonder tool that I not only can use in these eyeliners but in the eyeshadow to apply wet as eyeliner too!

That's my eyeliner 101 and if you're all eyeliner inspired now but don't know where to start, watch this video featuring my Fast Stroke Eyeliner and 6 different eyeliner styles!

Mac Nude on Board Pro Longwear Bronzing powder

I picked up a little treat from the MAC store and wanted to share with you my thoughts on it. I love my MAC Matte Bronze powder dearly but it's on it's last legs, the poor thing, so I decided a replacement would be in order. The girl in MAC really pushed this product into the palm of my hand and as they never ever normally do that I decided that well, it must be really really good.

It's a lighter colour bronzer than I normally go for, I like a dark bronzer, some might probably say too dark as I am of a fair complexion, but it's what I like as my face is always in need of a lot of contouring. Anywho, my initial thoughts were good, it's a medium tan brown colour in the pan and is not totally matte, is has a subtle sheen to it. This is all new to me, I'm usually a girl that loves matte everything, the matter the better!

The next thing I loved was the texture, it's very buttery and smooth to the touch, and the colour payoff is in no way chalky, it almost sits like a cream on the skin, despite being a powder. The above swatch shows one swipe in the pan and across the inside of my forearm, to give you an idea of the colour tone, it has been in no way edited.

As for uses, I would say that to use as a bronzer, it does need to be built up, luckily it is very buildable but it depends if you are willing to put that little bit more effort in, or would you prefer to jut buy a darker shade. On the other hand, if you are fair (like I am) and especially if you have yellow undertones to your skin (like I do not have) then this is absolutely ideal for all that subtle contouring, so that people will think you just have wonderfully high sat cheekbones and a beautiful slim nose, and perfect shaped face - all of these things I need! Finally, it's part of the pro longwear collection, so fading won't be an issue, at least not for the first six hours of wear and forget about the need for touch ups.

Ruby Red lips!

I feel like I should have saved this look for the 4th of July, but I wore it today instead, since I was wearing a Mickey mouse jumper and it matched Micket mouses red outfit!
The lip liner is Cherry from Mac, with Chestnut lightly used around the edge to create that gradient look that is so popular, yes I'd like to point out that it's still appropriate to wear a jumper in mid July in England, anywho, onto the look!

This is my best Marilyn Monroe pose, it's still pretty awful, but there you have it, I very messily curled my hair too as I felt it matched the look

For makeup I'm wearing my Revlon Colorstay foundation in shade Buff, filled in my eyebrows with the Maybelline professional eyebrow pencil in shade Hazel, Creamy milky eyeshadow with a Color tattoo Bad to the Bronze blended in the crease, and a brown eyeliner on the upper lash line and the waterline. I finished off the eyes with a Maxfactor mascara.

Tangerine Dream - Mini MAC Haul!

I picked up some fabulous new treats for the 'hopefully' warmer months to come.
I can't get enough of nudes at the moment, so everyhting is heavily 'nude' based.

What do we have here?
Lipstick in shade Pretty Please
Lipglass in shade Myth ( I love the lipstick so now I have the Myth gloss to match
Mineralize skin finish powder in shade Soft and Gentle
Powder Blush in shade Style

 

The swatches are as follows:
Far left is Myth Gloss which is a warm, nude based colour. The colour is thick and payoff is great on the lips too

Next along going left is Pretty Please lipstick which is a nude sheer lipstick with a frosty look, it's in the lustre category

Then the golden swatch is the Mineralized skinfinish, it's great for adding an all over glow to the face or just to highlight the high points on the face.

Finally, on the far right is the bright coral blush Style with a frost finish

Summer makeup essentials:

Sorted!

New Video: Adele Classic Smokey Eye Makeup Tutorial

Adele's makeup has that wonderfully classic feel to it that everyone can pull off. Sometimes she mixes it up with a red lip or more dramatic winged liner but here I use a nude gloss.
My original picture for inspiration to work from was this:

But I ended up with something a little warmer on the eyes, softer on the eyeliner and sweeter on the lips


I use a lot of shadows from Mac because their nudes are hard to beat, but the essentials on a budget are a medium matte brown, a soft champagne and liquid eyeliner.
I hope you love it!

Revlon 24 hour Colourstay - does it really last for 24 hours? Photo results!

I recently purchased the Revlon 24 hour Colourstay foundation in the shade Buff which is second to lightest.

I of course bought the formulation for oily skin and went home with mid expectations about what it may be like, I wasn't expecting 24 hours but I was hoping for something close!
I wasn't dissapointed.
The foundations coverage is medium to heavy, I only need to apply one layer and at first I was using a flat foundation brush but ended up using a stippling brush which I think gives a much more even effect, no brushstrokes and a more flawless finish.
I put my foundation through it's paces, not to mention the fact that is slips and slides all over my face, I'm also a eye rubber, a sweater, a face toucher etc
I'm taken aback as it's really stood the test of time.

Here is how my foundation looked at 8.30am

This is how my skin looked at 11pm the same today (I'm in my pink pjs!)

 Here's a photographic comparison of my skin at 11pm with the foundation (right picture) and without the foundation once I had washed my face (left picture) So this is about fifteen hours of wear, that's not just sitting in one place all day it includes going to classes, going shopping and all that.

I think you can see why I'm persuaded, this has 100% replaced my MAC Studio Fix foundation, this lasts much longer and applies nicer, plus I think the colour shade is more accurate to my skin tone. You can see my blush and bronzer has all but worn off but my foundation is still sticking around!

This is my absolute new foundation favourite, I hope that it never gets discontinued! If it does I will stock up about six bottles of this!

Wedding Day Trial Makeup

Today was a super special today as my sister and I went for a makeup trial for her wedding day!
She went along with a picture courtesy of Pinterest and added our own little twist to it. This is all I'm able to share of the look at this stage:

It looks like I've made my sister into some kind of voodoo doll, I hope you like the Tippex style hearts!
We came home and made our own amendments to this look including a brow colour, different lashes, different eyeliner, different lip colour, adding some highlighting dust etc.

That's your little peek! We are going for a dress fitting tomorrow but I can't even risk a little peek at this because it's simply too special!

On another note- my sister made me the most wonderful cheese on toast I have ever had! It looks like something you might get in a restaurant!

Video killed the radioooo star!

Yay it's new video time.

It's a very hands-on direct experiment between the Urban Decay primer potion, and MAC paint pot.

I rub and pull at my eyes like there's no tomorrow, to deliver you the most scientific and accurate experiment ever! Sort of...

We've got high tech wind machines, rain, see me shed a tear, persistant blinking, and all the eye traumas that you could ever imagine- all in the name of fabulous looking eyeshadow.


　

Who do you think won?

I think MAC has the edge on the before and afters but it's a close one

Pinks and Browns ~ Eyeshadow Tutorial

I've been playing around a lot with pinks at the moment, they have a reputation as a difficult colour to wear as eyeshadow, but I love them and find them really versatile making them easy to work with. I've tried pinks with greens, pinks with blues, pinks with whites and now pinks with browns. I think the key to avoid looking like you've got a bruise on your eyelid is to apply the pink slowly, build it up layer by layer. Another thing that makes a big difference is to make sure that you fully line your eyes on the top and lower lashline, otherwise your eyes can get kind of 'lost' and look smaller and maybe even make the eyes look a little tired.

Here's how it went down:
For the eyes-
Painterly Paint pot by MAC
Pale pink, Glamour Girl all over the eyelid by Fashionista
Bright pink, Brave eyeshadow on the outer corner of the eye by Fashionista
Dark brown, Folie along the crease, blended backwards and fowards by MAC
Shade 001 Time Resist White by L'oreal on the brown bone and inner corner of the eye
Brown gel eyeshadow along the top lashline by MAC
Folie by MAC along the lower lashline, so that it's not so harsh and heavy on the eyes
White eyeliner along the waterline - Fascination by MAC
Black Mascara by BareEscentuals

I finished it off with a frosted lip by using a pale pink Lovelorn by MAC and pressing Shade 001 Time Resist White by L'oreal in the centre of my lips and then pressing them together