Why I Love Makeup

I know, it's been a while.  It wasn't a planned break, it just sort of happened.

To get back in to the swing of things I thought I'd remind myself, and you, why I love makeup so much.  

All of these photos were taken in the second half of 2015 and yet all 16 of them are completely different and transform my face.  White winged liner, silver tears, gems, blue lips, big purple circles; anything is possible!  And the best part is if I don't like it or didn't execute it that well I can just wash it off and try again tomorrow!  Every day I learn a bit more and hone my skills.  Everyday presents fresh inspiration; a new colour combination, a new unconventional material to use or the discovery of a wonderful makeup artist.

If you feel stuck in a rut, or have never experimented before, then this is me encouraging you to play with texture, colour, shape and size!  Go crazy.  If you don't feel confident yet, no one else has to see it.  You can just experiment in your room in the evenings until you feel daring enough to show the world.

Maybe you'll never want to wear colourful makeup, and that's okay too.  I just encourage you to push your limits and keep growing your skills!  

What are your reasons for loving makeup?

I'd love to know which of these looks is your favourite?  I always have fun creating so each of them is a bit special but I am particularly fond of the look with blue eyebrows.

Also, I'm thinking of switching over to Wordpress.org soon and getting my own domain name.  It all seems very daunting at the moment so if any of you can give any advice I'd really appreciate it!

Rachel

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Makeup Staples: Too Faced Better Than Sex Mascara

Just a quick one today to talk about my Holy Grail (HG) mascara which is Too Faced Better Than Sex mascara.  For years my favourite had been Clinique High Impact mascara until I tried this one early last year.  Mind blown.  I got this mascara for the first time in with one of their holiday palettes and fell in love immediately.  

11 Things You Did Not Know About Me (Tag)

I was tagged by the lovely Gul over at Gul-e-Zehra's.  You can see her post here.

If you're tagged, the rules are simple: answer the questions at the bottom, tag some more bloggers and write your own 11 questions.  You can change all of the original 11 questions, or none of them, up to you.

Read on to see my answers.

Giveaway!

I'm very excited to announce I now have a giveaway running.  I thought it was about about time I share some of my favourites with you as a thank you for your support.  Everything I'm giving away are products I have used and loved, many of which have been mentioned on my blog already.

The giveaway is open internationally.

Read on to enter the giveaway.

Mermaid eye look 2.0

Mermaid eye look left: 2014, right: 2015

I was asked this morning on one of the makeup forums I'm on to make a tutorial of a look I did a year ago.  The original look was inspired by one of Vintage Or Tacky's videos and uses very mermaidy colours with the blue, green and duochrome sheen.  I think I only featured the look on my blog in a sort of round-up post.  I recreated the look this morning using all the same products as last year, which I'll list below.

I hope you like the look and maybe find the pictorial I made useful.  I'd also love to know whether you preferred the first or second version!

Details below.

Best of the brand - Essence

Best of the brand - Essence

Essence is amazing, just saying.  For years I saw this wonderfully cheap brand on blogs and wished I could get my hands on it.  Just under 2 years ago the brand hit British soil when it launched in 4 Wilkinsons stores.  None of these were near me so I waited, impatiently at first.  I actually sort of forgot to keep checking and then a few months ago I went to my local Wilko, and lo-and-behold, there was a huge Essence display.  Hurray!  Since then I've tried out quite a few of their products so thought I'd show you my favourites.

London IMATS 2015 - vlog, haul, tips

On Saturday 11th July I went to the London IMATS, a massive makeup trade show, for the 3rd time.

I definitely get more organised each time which helps to make the day even more enjoyable.

If you are an MUA, makeup student or just and enthusiast, then it really is the event of the year.  For just this weekend all of these brands get together offering great discount alongside demos by famous MUAs.  Many of the brands are difficult to buy online in the UK so it's a really good opportunity to stock up.

June Favourites

June Favourites

Better late than never right?  I've had an unexpectedly busy week, I had barely any plans and then suddenly it filled up.  Hopefully I'll get more done this coming week...before everything goes on hold for IMATS (wohooo!).  The hot weather doesn't help, my inner workings seem to come to a halt when too warm.   Anyway, here are the beauty items I've been loving for the last month or so.

Read on for mini reviews!

Look of the day - Purple Galore

Purple galore makeup

Sooooo I just watched a video where the lady recommended not wearing everything purple on your face.  Well, I did it and I'm probably going to do it again.  Purple is one of my favourite makeup colours so earlier this week I wanted to do a monochrome look with it.  I really liked the outcome and am considering doing a monochrome series with a whole host of colours but I'm not sure...would anyone actually want to see a whole look centred around yellow or green etc?

As I was using mainly cool-toned purples I thought I'd warm my face up with some fake freckles, not sure if you can tell above?  There'll be a close-up below.  I do naturally have some faint freckles but they never come out very dark anymore as I don't get much sun exposure ever.  I'm not sure how natural these ones look but I like them, despite my husband telling me it looks like a tub of cocoa powder exploded on me.

Read on for a product run-down and more photos.

5 looks with Shiro's Seven Kingdoms collection

Shiro Seven Kingdoms collection

Finally, here are 5 looks with my wonderful Shiro Seven Kingdoms loose eye shadows (see swatches here).  Sorry this post has been so long coming!  I've just moved house and so had a few weeks of utter chaos.  The chaos isn't over but I've found a smidgen of time to crack on with this.

Look One

A super simple look here.  I used Hodor to blend from my crease outwards, dragging a little under the eyes too.  Then I applied Mother of Dragons all over.  Very easy but MoD is such a pretty colour that it is by no means boring.

30 Day Blogging Challenge PLUS the highlights

You may have noticed I've been updating my blog a lot more frequently than normal the past 30 days.  This is due to me signing up for Sarah Arrow's 30 Day Blogging Challenge over on Sark e-Media.  I was googling some blog-related tips, can't remember exactly what, and a note popped up asking if I wanted to sign up for the challenge.  I thought it sounded interesting so entered my details and didn't really thing anything of it... until 6am the following morning when I had an email spurring me on for Day 1.

What I take in my wedding bag

I've been to a friend's wedding today so this is just a short post to show what essentials I took in my bag.

I used to use a studded Zara bag for weddings but it got wet and the studs turned green, boo.  I'm not really into bags and didn't have any alternatives.  I had bought this Illamasqua makeup bag in their January sale for, I think, about £6.  It's the perfect size for my phone and a few bits and bobs.

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.

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.

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.

Debu(t)ary: NARS Dual Intensity Palette

I've been wanting to try Nars' Dual Intensity eye shadows ever since they first released but was holding out at as £21 a shadow is quite a lot of money!  I was super excited to see they were bring out a palette of these shadows as it included a few I'd had my eye on.  At £45 it is still quite an expensive palette but I was lucky enough to have a gift card and so took the plunge.

The draw of these shadows is that they work really well wet or dry (the clue is in the name).  Unlike most shadows, their quality is not impaired when you use them wet, it doesn't form a cakey top layer.  They are shimmery when dry and highly metallic when wet, so if you are only a matte fan then this is probably not the palette for you.

The beginning of Debu(t)ary: SteamCream - Winter face Rescue

SteamCream

Unfortunately I've not been able to blog much in January.  I had flu for a while and there was a death in the family  To make up for this I'm going to be posting a lot more in February, albeit with slightly shorter posts perhaps.  For the whole month I'll be showcasing items I've bought in the last month or so; ones that are either new out or just new to me and the blog.  I'm going to call this series
Debu(t)ary.

To start off, let me show what has been saving my face in the cold weather.
I heard of SteamCream a few years ago when I received one in my Glossy Box but I used it inconsistently as I had plenty of moisturisers on the go.  This winter I trekked to my local Tesco which has a new, re-vamped beauty section and lo-and-behold, they now stock SteamCream.

A Guide to Primark Mascaras

The 5 Primark mascaras

As far as I am aware, Primark sell 5 mascaras (plus occasionally a waterproof version of the Volumising Ultra Black).  I wondered how they differed in brush and formula so thought I'd give them all a go.  It wasn't too frivolous seeing at they 5 came to a grand total of £9.50.

I must say that I'm probably not the best person so road-test mascaras as I do have naturally great eye lashes.  They are long and have no problem holding a curl, plus it's very rare that they ever transfer down on me after the initial application and clean up.

Also, I should have taken photos of the mascaras without eyeshadow etc on but that would mean removing my makeup at least twice in a day and I have sensitive eyes so didn't want to do that.  So, sorry but you have to see past the rest of the makeup.

Benefit Cheeky Sweet Spot blush set

So good my cat just demanded to be included.

The trouble I had getting this set! Okay, I exaggerate, it was only about half an hour of hurriedly walking around but at the time it seems like beauty life or death.  All the effort was for this, Benefit Cheeky Sweet Spot which contains 6 of their powder blushes and 1 cream highlight.  As soon as I saw the first images of this online I was excited as I've only tried one of their blushes before.  I went to to get it as soon as it came out, at the end of September but it was already sold out in our Boots and Debenhams but I struck gold in House of Fraser. 

Enough babble, see how good it is for yourself.

OCC Loose Colours swatches and look

OCC Loose Colours in Twirl, Obscure, Oberon and Wasabi

About two months ago I bought some OCC Loose Colours, mainly inspired by reviews by people who had bought some of them at IMATS this year.  I am completely obsessed with all things duo-chrome at the moment so three of my four picks have that quality.
I bought Twirl, Obscure, Oberon and Wasabi,  Read on to see close-ups,  swatches and a look using most of them.