March Favourites

March Favourites

It's the end of another month so I thought I'd share my favourite products from the last few weeks.  A lot of them will come as no surprise as they've been featured on my blog already or on my Instagram page.

I've enjoyed wearing a lighter base more frequently this month; MAC Face and Body is the perfect sheer foundation that evens things out a bit and doesn't budge.  My Face and Body is slightly too warm but I can just about get away with it.  When I'm wearing a lighter base I want to spot conceal with something heavy-duty and the Kat Von D Lock-It Tattoo Concealer has been the ideal partner for F&B.

Saucebox Cosmetics Forbidden Fruits palette

SauceBox Forbidden Fruits palette

Yesterday's Silent Sunday was a teaser for today's post focusing on SauceBox's Forbidden Fruits palette.  I've seen so many amazing looks created with their palettes.  Their Etude palette is probably the most popular as it contains eight cool-toned neutrals so can be used everyday and in so many ways.  I have a lot of neutral palettes so I went for something a bit different; their pinky plummy palette, Forbidden Fruits.  

Silent Sunday

Shiro Cosmetics Salt and Stone

Shiro Cosmetics Salt and Stone

Bet you never thought you'd ever see a makeup post relating to Stannis Baratheon!  I made my first order from Shiro Cosmetics recently and bought four of the loose eyeshadows from their The Seven Kingdoms collection.  Each of the colours relates to a character from Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones.  

I'm sure I'll show you the others in due time but first up is what I'm wearing today; Salt and Stone.  Shiro describe it as "Blackened green of House Baratheon, shining with the red light of R’hllor".  I would say it is a deep matte olive with red pearl.  Very pretty and quite hard to capture.

Look down for lots of pictures trying to show how pretty this shadow is.  Lots of pictures because tonight the clocks go forward so I'm racing to get as much sleep as I can before work tomorrow!

What difference does eyeliner make?

What difference does eyeliner make?

Next up in my 'what difference does X make?' series is eyeliner.  For years and year I just wore a thick line of black eye pencil on my upper lash line and lower rim.  I wanted it to be as dark as possible and I thought it was really cool.  It still can be cool but not on me; I have fairly small eyes and it only made them look smaller.  Today I'm showing the difference that 3 different eyeliner looks make to your eyes.  Eyeliner primarily gives the appearance of thicker eyelashes but it can do so much more!

The 1, 2, 3 of simple eye shadow looks

The 1, 2, 3 of simple eye shadow looks

I'm going back to basics today to give neutral examples of some really simple eye looks using either 1, 2 or 3 eye shadows.  No liquid liner, nothing fancy, just three really easy looks.  Great for beginners or if you are rushed for time, however I do looks like this every week as sometimes simple is best.  Admittedly I've used all tones that suit me, so cool, fairly muted shades.  You can swap these out for whatever would suit you.

I might do a more colourful version of this idea at a later date.

Real Techniques Bold Metal brushes

Real Techniques Bold Metals

Like the rest of the beauty community, I absolutely love the original Real Techniques brushes.  Affordable, good quality and with a really good range of shapes, some of them quite unique to the cheaper end of brushes.  From the Buffing brush to the Setting brush to the Accent brush, they are great staples to my own collection and to my kit.  I was very interested to see that Real Techniques were bringing out a more premium range, the Bold Metals.  These feature slimline metal-effect handles and are meant to be a lot softer.

My top 5 mascaras

My top 5 mascaras

My highly recommended mascaras are what I get asked about the most.  As I've said before, I don't have the best lashes for reviewing mascara as they're quite long already, fairly dark and hold a curl.  As such, mascaras aren't my favourite thing in the makeup world but I have endeavoured to compile my top 5 over the past few months, with some being long term favourites.  What I particularly look for in a mascara is for them to thicken my lashes a bit and look really dark black, not just dark grey like some do.  Another criteria I look for is that the mascara doesn't drop down on to my face throughout the day; rather than repeat it five times I will say now that none of these do that on me.

Read to to see my top 5, their wands, as well as how they look on me.

Topshop Contour Cream in Swerve

Topshop Contour Cream in Swerve

As I said two days ago on my post 'What difference does contouring make?', sculpting your face is a big thing right now.  With big brands releasing cream and powder contouring products-a-plenty, it's great to start seeing similar products coming from a high-street shop brand!  Topshop's Contour Cream really gives other brands a run for their money and makes contouring accessible for everyone...should they want it.

Spring Darling tutorial

You know what they say, more is more.  After finishing the look for the contouring post I decided that I actually wasn't finished, and wanted to develop my turquoise winged eye look a bit more with red/orange underneath.  I am really pleased with the results so thought I'd give you a bit of a look and tell you all what I used to achieve it.

What difference does contouring make?

I'd like to start off by saying that contouring is not for everyone, and it's not necessary at all.  Between the influence of drag queens and a certain celebrity, there's been a lot of fuss over contour and highlight in recent years, although it's been around in theatrical circles for a very long time.  I thought I'd just explain what it is and show the difference it makes. 

Contouring is the act of creating light and shadow on the face.  This can mask a double chin, shorten a face, chisel out your cheekbones or narrow your nose.  You use a darker shade where there should be shadow (in hollows), and a lighter shade where the more light would hit the face (raised areas).   

It's fairly time-consuming and not something I do everyday.  Also, as I'm at the very end of the skin colour spectrum, highlighting isn't so affective on me.  I pretty much have to use white for it to show up and so quite often do not bother.

Read on for the before and afters.

My favourite green makeup

My previous post on the greens in the new MAC Toledo collection got me thinking about other greens I have and love.  Most of them are quite bright as you can see.  Green is a more difficult colour for me to use and I don't feel it suits me that much.  I tend to use a smidgen of green in a look rather than green all over as I find that a bit easier.

Outside of make up it isn't a colour I like at all, no green clothes, accessories, stationary and furniture.  Oh no.  But then again, there isn't really a colour of makeup I dislike.

Let me show you my favourites.

MAC Toldeo collection greens

MAC Toledo - Bellgreens and Chlorafill

Believe it or not, it's not very often that I buy from MAC collections, I just happen to have been in recently while interesting things were actually not sold out yet!  As well as the Miley Viva Glam lipstick, my attention was grabbed by all of the greens in the new Toledo collection.  Although I have a fair amount of green in my collection, some that I really love, I never feel like it suits me that much.  These greens look quite toned down and might work with my blue eyes.  I had also seen them used rather beautifully by  Chloemish_makeup on Instagram.

Read on for swatches and a look using everything!

TokyoMilk Dark lip balm review

The winter months are torture to our poor lips and this year has been no exception.  This is particularly awful given than I'm fond of a matte lip, when every little dry patch shows up like whoa.

My favourite lip balm over the last month or so has been TokyoMilk Dark's Femme Fatale Collection Lip Elixir (what a mouthful) in Clove Cigarette No. 18.

Top tips for sensitive eyes

I thought this would be the perfect time for this post on dealing with sensitive eyes as hay fever will be in full-force soon.

Sensitive, watery eyes are the bane of my makeup life.  Almost every day I have to repair my makeup because it got ruined by my eye leaks.  Between hay fever, a fur allergy (I have 2 cats) and sensitivity to air-conditioning, face creams, wind, dust, cold and heat, I don't really stand much of a chance.  

As well as ruining my makeup, I also have to put up with crazily itchy eyes and very puffy eyelids.  Also, I find that oil-based cleansers react very badly with my eyes and can distort my vision for up to an hour after use.

Though it is all still very annoying, I've learnt how to deal with it, so I'll give you my tips for prevention and fixing.

What difference do eyebrow products make?

In short, rather a lot of difference!  I'm sure you've heard it a thousand times before but eyebrows really do frame the face.  When they're filled in, eyebrows make everything else look a little bit neater (but not the mascara smudges, oops) and just finish off a look.

Here I used a light application of Anastasia Beverly Hills Dipbrow Pomade in Medium Brown.  It is a gel product which lets you fill in brows lightly or fully, you can even mimic individual hairs with it if your brows are sparse.

This is a very speedy application as it was a work day and I was in a rush as per usual.  It took less than a minute to do each brow but made a lot of difference, to my eye look and as you'll see below, my whole face.

OCC Creme Colour Concentrate in Discipline

Meet Discipline, a Creme Colour Concentrate by Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics (CCC and OCC respectively from now on).  It's a multi-tasking product, with most of the shades in the range being suitable for use on eyes, lips or cheeks.  This particular colour is described as 'bruised bronze' on the OCC site.  I would say it is a pearlised warm brown.

This product was an informed buy rather than the usual spontaneous purchase.  It came very highly recommended by Phee of Phee's makeup Tips.  I always find her makeup looks inspiring but so many of her eye looks I liked turned out to be using this product.

MAC Viva Glam Miley Cyrus lipstick

I ummed and ahhed about getting the new MAC Viva Glam lipstick.  It looked so pretty in pictures on Instagram but did I really need another hot pink lipstick?  Probably not, but I took the plunge anyway as I didn't get the last Viva Glam (Rihanna 2) and seriously regret it.  This time around it's the Viva Glam Miley Cyrus.  

The full RRP minus tax on all Viva Glam products goes towards helping men, women and children affected by HIV/AIDS.

Read on for more photos and my verdict.

What difference does makeup make?

I am starting a series on my blog where I look at what it is exactly that each makeup product does; what difference it makes to the face.  

My journey with makeup was very gradual.  I started off wearing only eyeliner, then concealer as my skin got worse during the teens and bit-by-bit adding other items as I learnt what they could do for me (see the journey here).  I'm by no means saying that each item is necessary, I'll merely be showing before and after pictures so you can see what how I look with and without the products.

 Read on for the first before and after photos.

Whole Face with One Brand: Kat Von D

Kat Von D makeup

Kat Von D is definitely one of my favourite brands at the moment even though I don't really have that much from her yet.  I had wanted to try her makeup for so long but it wasn't until the UK could use the US Sephora site that I was able to, as Ebay prices are crazy.

It was more of a challenge to do my whole face with just Kat Von D makeup as I don't have blush, foundation etc. so I had to be a bit more inventive.