Saturday Makeup

Hmm, cascading hair, smokey brown eye make-up and brown lips – seems like I went for a bit of glamour with my makeup today for no particular reason! I think this make-up is perfect for Saturdays though as the colours are pretty subtle for wearing during the day but there’s still enough depth to give a bit of added drama for going out at night.

This is a bit of a “bargain” look as most of the products I used were from low cost brands (although a bit of MAC did sneak in there….)

On Eyes: Essence eyeshadow in Light the Fire, Place! blended with MAC Extra Dimension Eyeshadow in Havana in the outer corner; Essence Sun Club Gel Eyeliner in BBC All Night Brown; MUA Mega Volume mascara in brown.

On lips: B. lipstick in Orchid

Garden Eyes

Today’s a Bank Holiday and it’s sunny – double bonus! I took the chance to sit out in my garden and do a bit of reading earlier, though I didn’t sit out for too long as I didn’t want to get sunburnt. Still, it was nice to feel some sun on my skin and the buds, shoots and flowers in the garden gave me the inspiration for this simple bright look.

Above: one of my fruit trees has flowers on it for the first time, hurray! I have forgotten what kind of tree it actually is but that just makes the anticipation of possibly having fruit in the autumn even more exciting!

I used the same pink on my eyes as my cheeks; it’s actually the blush from the recent Sleek aqua collection in Mirrored Pink. It’s very heavily pigmented and as the name would suggest very shiny. I think I prefer it as an eyeshadow in fact. Which works for me as that means I now have an absolutely massive (8g) pink eyeshadow that I love!

Match Your Makeup to your Handbag

Make-up has always been heavily influenced by the trends at global fashion weeks, so here is my fashion-inspired trend du jour: matching my make-up to my favourite handbag. What do you think? Is this a trend that could/should catch on?!

Trend-setting aside (he he), coral just happens to be my favourite make-up colour at the moment because it matches my thank-goodness-it’s-spring-at-last sunny mood!

I’m wearing a coral coloured Hello Kitty lipstick in the shade Betz Believe, a bright orangey pink from my Sleek Respect iDivine eyeshadow palette, and a coral blush.

I think this lipstick is amazing – but I don’t know if it’s available anymore as the stands seem to have disappeared from all my local Superdrugs! It has a very nice, creamy consistency and good coverage in just one swipe. Hello Kitty, if you are out there reading this, please come back to Superdrug soon – I’m a big fan of your range!

I teamed the eyeshadow with royal blue eyeliner and mascara because I felt that my eyes needed the extra definition of some eyeliner with such an orange shade (to avoid looking like my eyes were just pink because I had an eye infection!) but I wanted something less harsh than black. I know that many people hate coloured mascaras because they find them a very “teenage” look or consider them to be unflattering, but to be honest, I really do think that certain shades can really be an asset in a make-up bag. Today for example I think black would have overwhelmed this look somewhat, whereas the blue lent it just the right intensity.

Chuck out Your Black Liner

Or if chucking out your black liner seems a bit dramatic, at least consider packing it away until the autumn! I love coloured and light eyeliners in the spring and summer.

Today I’ve got some shots of a pink eyeshadow teamed with an antique gold liner. I think it’s a great colour combo for the lighter, brighter days we’re enjoying now that it’s spring.

The eyeshadow that I’m wearing is Magic from the Urban Decay Glinda palette. I like to apply it over a creamy base for maximum colour payoff.

The liner that I used was Waterproof Gel Eyeliner by BarryM in No. 3. I actually picked up this product a couple of weeks back because I thought the colour was interesting but not expecting anything spectacular but I have to say, I think this product is fantastic and I’m really glad I picked it up. It is very long lasting and I just love the colour. I just wish that they had more colours in the range as I would snap up any more slightly unusual colours they came out with. I’ve done another post with more pics here.

Kew Gardens

Hi all, and happy spring! The weather has finally decided to catch up with the time of year and it was actually sunny and feeling a bit warm this afternoon in London – hurray!

I thought it would be nice to create another photo post with some bright images for inspiration now that the seasons are changing and people probably finally feel like playing around with all the bright and colourful colours that have been hibernating in their make-up bags over the long, extended winter.

I visited Kew Gardens with my boyfriend last month which is always a great day out with lots of different sights to take in each time, depending on the time of year and which plants are in season. On this visit we concentrated on the hot houses (of course – too cold to wander about outside all day long!) so there are plenty of cacti and orchid photos to enjoy – plus lots more!

Sleek Lagoon Palette

Note: I applied a colour vibrancy effect in the above photo so it is not a true colour representation of the palette!

Sleek released a spring 2013 “Aqua Collection” at the end of March which comprised of an i-Divine 12 pan eyeshadow palette, a powder blush, and a mini nail polish set of four colours. I’m sure I didn’t need yet another spring-themed eyeshadow palette but I have a soft spot for Sleek so I decided to pick it up. I also bought the blush but I haven’t tried it out yet so I’m not going to mention it in this post – hopefully I will get round to trying it out next week so that I can post some thoughts on it soon.

The eyeshadow palette contains 12 x 1.1g eyeshadows (basically – loads!) and costs £7.99. There are a mixture of matte and shimmer shades. Here are a few more shots including some swatches on my arm.

Top row: Sassea, Deep Water, Reflection, Emerald, Oyster, Black Pearl

Bottom row: Pink Jewel, Sand Dollar, Underworld, Sea Shell, Night Sky, Ariel

Above: top row of the palette swatched

Above: bottom row of the palette swatched

There’s a nice mix of colours in the palette, which will appeal to anybody like me who likes colourful eyeshadows. The consistency of these shadows is very creamy and you might have noticed in the pics above that the surface of the “Pink Jewel” shadow in the bottom left of my palette is looking a bit funky. While it swatches fine I do have trouble picking that shade up with a brush and I’ve ended up gouging tiny chunks out of it in the process, which was a bit disappointing. If you have several similar shades in your stash already then you might want to try to swatch this palette in person before deciding whether to invest in it or not.

The fun thing about this palette though is that you can really play around with it and come up with some funky looks. I went for a splash of pastel colour all over the eye for Easter weekend as the colours on the bottom row in particular reminded me of easter eggs.

I used from inner corner to outer corner: Sand Dollar, Pink Jewel, Sassea, and Sea Shell to create an Easter inspired eyeshadow montage on my eyes.

Easter Manicure

If you’re looking for some Easter inspiration for your nails then I’ve got two polishes to show you today that might be just what you’ve been looking for.

Above left: Invogue feather polish in on the money (£3.49), right: Revlon nail enamel in 260 Girly (£6.49)

invogue is quite a new British brand that’s just launched in selected Superdrug stores and the Superdrug website. They have an assortment of different “special effect” nail varnishes with this one being a “feather effect”. It contains hundreds of thin coloured plastic strands in a clear nail varnish that are supposed to create the look of a feather on the nails. I’m not really sure that it looks like a feather, but I do think that it looks quite cool on. I applied two coats to achieve this opaque finish. Just a quick word of warning – the plastic particles are actually very sharp, so be sure to give the end of your nails a quick file once the polish has dried to prevent any accidental painful scratches or eye poking!

I thought that “Girly” was an interesting concept – different coloured glitter particles suspended in a semi-opaque polish. I applied three coats to get true-to-bottle colour payoff. I love how my nails now look like sweeties – perfect for the Easter weekend!

As you can see from the photos above, my cuticles have been suffering something rotten in the recent cold spell we’ve been having here in the UK. I’m trying to rescue them with cuticle oil but I just never get round to applying it often enough, poor cuticles!

Spring 2013

Well I’ve given up waiting for the weather to turn before posting any spring looks. Yes, with snow in London even now it seems like we’re in danger of skipping from winter straight into summer this year and I could be wearing shimmery silvers and whites for a while yet if I want to continue matching my make-up to the weather, so this weekend I decided to throw a bit of colour in to my look with a bit of lilac and blue.

As you can see I’ve applied lilac liberally all around the inner corner of my eye as the shimmer reflects oodles of light and makes my eyes look more lively and awake.

I love lilac and blue eyeshadow…they are definitely two of my current favourite shades along with lime green and pink. A look containing all four of those colours would be my dream look but using more than three shades together usually involves more effort than I can muster!