Album Cover Inspired Make-up: Days 2, 3 & 4

So this is the album from day 2. I absolutley adore Manic Street Preachers. I think they're a severely underrated and an excellent, excellent live band. This album is one of those ones full of unreleased stuff, B-sides, etc, but it actually has some of my favourite Manics tunes on it. Anyway, I had a very bad day this day, and had to do this album cover very quickly, and it came out, well, shit. I wanted to do really big leopard spots, but this is the crappy look I came up with with the ten minutes I had:






Its not the worst, its just not what I had in mind. Its not even a good everyday look, though I did like my liner. I'm going to redo it.



This album is 'In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3' by Coheed and Cambria who are another one of my favourite, favourite, bands ever. They are very geeky, epic, and pretentious, and I just looove them. I wasn't going to do this for this mini project because its quite a boring cover, but I wanted a little bit of a challenge and I couldn't not include Coheed and Cambria in some way.






Overall, I liked this look. I'm struggling with dark looks at the moment, and the tiny pop of copper I thought looked really good.



DON'T JUDGE ME! I effing love Meatloaf. If you're not judging me for liking them, then you're probably judging me for doing Bat out of Hell II, not the first one, but I liked this cover better, and I always remember my Dad listening to this album. Anyway, I wanted a brown and gold with dark blue cut crease look. This cover called for something bold. I didn't choose the right colours really, the blues are all wrong, and the rust colour I used didn't show up in the pics, but hey, I love the look anyway.







Look at my shitty skin. Can anyone recommend a good UK drugstore concealer I can use under my eyes?! And a wrinkle cream?!


I wish I didn't have to do all these looks on days where I have to go out or go to work, so they didn't have to be LOTD too, but hey, its been fun, and I think I should post even where I screw up or its not right. Guns N' Roses look tomorrow :)

Love and musical kisses,

Robyn x

P.S... I finally decided I'm going to go to make-up school. I can't afford it for at least a year, but I am going to go. I'm looking at courses and going on open days anyway!

Mini Blog Project: Album Cover Inspired Make-up

I thought I would do a mini little project, and every day for the next week, I'm going to post a look that I've done based on the cover art for one of my favourite albums. I've decided to do this for two reasons: The lovely RaeRae asked in her post the other day whether people wanted to see more 'alt' beauty, i.e., tattoos and piercings and things. Now, I was brought up by bikers and hippies, so obviously I looooove tattoos and piercings but I don't have enough to even nearly warrant that kind of alternative beauty post. The second reason is that I'm finding blogging really rewarding and have 'met' some amazing girls, and I think its fabulous we all have something so expressive - make-up - in common with each other, and that it's a great platform for getting to know each other.

So, I thought that doing make-up inspired by my favourite music might tell you all a little bit more about myself personally as well as my style, and that it would be something fun and creative for me to do. Also, if people want to try this idea themselves, they can. I'm going to pick albums I both love and love the cover art to. But be warned, my taste in music is horrific :D

Day 1: 'Razorblade Romance' by HIM



If you've heard this album, you will know it is cheesetastic. However, I love HIM, and I love them even more because they're that little bit cheesy and ridiculous. This is my favourite HIM album by faaaar, and I love the gorgeous pinks on the cover (as well as the gorgeous Ville ;)

So I thought this called for a soft yet bright, graduated pink look, so I used matte pinks from my 120 palette. I used heavy liner on the bottom of my eyes because that would be what I did when I first listened to this album, except I blended it out with pink. I used only contour and highlight, no blush, to echo Villes lovely cheekbones, and added a little balm and nude lipstick. If I were going out, I would have added falsies, a lot more contour and done a glossy orange lip like Villes in the 'Join Me in Death Video.' As always, the pics don't show my vibrant this is and my highlight and colour by my lashes is utterly washed out :|









What do you think? Its very hard to do a graduated look starting from the lashline up. I could have done better, but I love the pink and I was in a bit of a rush as I was taking my friend from New Zealand round Camden for the first time today! (She loved it!)

And as this was partly inspired by RaeRae talking about tattoos, here is my pair.



I modified a Tokidoki bird to make him look happy. 'Bluebird' is a snowboarding/skiing term for a bright sunny day with lots of fresh snow, and I got it in Vancouver to remind me of the lovely year I spent there. We had lots of bluebird days :)



The script says 'Blood and wounds,' and it my totally badass family motto. I drew the rose myself and hope to add at least three more in the near future. This was my first tattoo and its completion is taking too long. I'm just too poor at the momemt.


Hope this wasn't too long a post and that you like this idea :) Please do it yourself if you do because I'd love to get to know everyone better. If you're not really into music, then do something inspired by your favourite books, films, poetry, artists, whatever!

Love and happier-than-last-time kisses,

Robyn xxx

NOTD and a big F*ck You to Urban Decay and Barry M

I bet you can guess why I'm annoyed with Urban Decay. But onto my nails first!





This is my Spring Jungle look. The base coat is Dynasty from Collection 2000 Hot Looks. I love these colours, but they apply a little streakily. Still, they're less than £2 each, and they dry really fast which is great. As you can see, I'm still loving the Fimo sticks, although these pink butterflies popped off really fast. I did this yesterday and they all came off at work. I was watching the London Marathon while I did this mani so its totally my fault. The bigger fimo thingies obviously don't fit the curve of your nail well, so you need to take the time to glue them properly. Sigh. So they're ruined and I have to do new ones today. Shame! :D

As a little bonus for you, behold my gorgeous polish storage!



:D Biscuits are so glamorous!

As I'm sure you guessed, the reason I hate Urban Decay right now is because of their bloody Primer Potion packaging. Just in case you don't know, the packaging for this is a bitch, and when you think you've used it all, there is still a crapload left in the bottle. I guessed people complained to Urban Decay, and they made the doefoot applicator bent instead of straight, so you can scoop more out. Well, this is my first bottle of UDPP and I got the new batch with the bent applicator. I've had this since just after Christmas, and a couple days a go it started to go on me. I thought I'd got a pretty good run out of it, and I really wasn't expecting a whooooole lot in the tube because they've changed the shape of the applicator, but boooooy was I wrong!

Behold:







Wtf? I've seen soooooo many blog and forum posts on this and I was still amazed. I guess the new shaped applicator does get more out of the widest part of the bottle, but there is soooo much left in the top. So if you're thinking you'd never bother with this, do it! I got 3 of these little tubs for 99p from Saver, fyi, and I just painted UDPP on with nail polish to make it a little prettier.

As for Barry M?



Yeeeeeeeeah. I got this brush a week before this happened to it. I bought it because it was only about £7, I didn't have a blush brush and it was nice and pink. Apart from it BREAKING IN FRICKING HALF, it is the scratchiest, most horrible piece of crap,and it deposits colour horribly. You may as well apply your blush with a Brillopad. I can't wait to get the MAC vouchers I asked for for my birthday :|

Love and irate kisses,

Robyn xxx

Nails, Nails, Nails!

Sorry for spamming you guys with two posts today, but I have a lot of pics I wanted to show you and I thought it was best to do one with looks, and one with manicures.

So first up, my 'Grapefruit' mani! This is what I'm wearing at the moment and I just love it!





I marbled Barry M's Yellow and Shocking Pink with La Colours Shock over a white base. I also used some of my new Fimo sticks. If you look closely, there's little grapfruits on my middle fingers, and there are more and some oranges on my thumbs too. I didn't have time to do them on all my fingers, as obviously I decided to do a marble look when I had to leave for work! I always decide to do something ambitious when I am in a rush.



Another fimo mani. This was the first one I did, and I just put a little butterfly on each thumb. The green is Barry M again and I added the silver leopard spots just to give it a little something extra. I'm really liking these little fimo sticks, although I don't have a craft knife at the moment, so they're hard to cut smoothly and thinly. But if you use nail glue, they last really well. I had my butterfly guys on there for three days, and they stuck fast through work and washing up, etc, and only came off because I kept nibbling at them, which I know is very naughty of me.



Sorry for the crappy quality of this and the next two, they're pictures off my phone. This was really simple to do and one of my favourite manis ever. I just sponged pink over a base, white over the pink and used nail art pens to draw the trees and flowers. Probably Barry M polishes again.



Again, this was super easy and looks great on shirt nails. Just a blue base, then sponge a little grey and then a lot of white for the clouds, and then I added a bit of silver glitter too. You can't see, but I drew the little 'v' shapes for birds flying in the distance on my thumbs.



Slimy! I had a psychobilly vision of writing out 'Zombie Girl' across my nails and I'm glad I didn't. Fast dry polishes were not made for nail art. Anyway, this was pretty simple too, and would look cool for Hallowe'en, especially if you swapped the green for red! The two greens are Collection 2000 Hot Looks polishes

Yay or nay on posting my manis?

Love n' that,

Robyn xxx

When You See My Face Hope It Gives You Hell

Haven't been posting any LOTD, so here's a few for you. Also Happy St. Georges Day! Despite my frequently assuring people that England is shit, I'm quite proud of where I come from and I missed the UK a lot when I lived in Canada. No crumpets. I think I'll do a very English LOTD today.


So this is my look of... er, Monday. I've been feeling very uninspired at the moment and luckily Youtube is always there to help me out! JenniseMakeup's channel has this gorgeousOrange Smokey Eye Tutorial, so I had a little go at that.







One stupid face right there! I have no idea why I did such heavy black liner on the bottom. It kind of ruined it and I didn't have time to fix it before I left. I don't remember what I used entirely, the brown liner is a Gosh liner, the orange is Barry M and the rest is probably Sleek. My dress was from good old New Look.








I finally got the Sleek Bohemian palette and I love it! This look was all Bohemian shadows. The purple blended with the shimmery rusty colour is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I'm also really grateful for the pale skin-tone colour. I didn't have a matte neutral that was a decent match for my skin tone before and so I didn't realise how useful it was! This look was pretty dark and maybe a bit too OTT for work, but I've decided I really don't care anymore :)







My hair stuck up like that ALL DAY yesterday. All damn day. Anyway, this one was inspired by xparkages Violet Vixen tutorial. I didn't use any blues as I wanted something more soft and springy and I didn't want the harsh cut crease. Ok, so I suck at cut crease looks. I need more practice. I used Nyx jumbo pencil in Milk and Nyx White Pearl eyeshadow and all the purples are from the 120 palette. I'm very much an aethiest, but THANKYOU, BABY JESUS, for the Nyx pencils. The payoff of a fair few of the 120 palette shadows is pretty poor, but the pencils take care of that. Which is amazing. Some of these colours are soooo pretty.


Right. Thats my face, I'm going to do another post of some recent manis for you :)


Love and Kisses,

Robyn xxx

My NYX caaaaaame!

I bought a few items from shopcraze.com like... four weeks ago. They arrived in the UK in about a week and a half but for some reason, they'd got sent to my boyfriends parents house! My mistake, I'm sure, as I used his paypal. Anyway, the shipping from shopcraze was about £6, which is still horrendous, but reasonable for stuff from the States, so if you're looking to buy from the UK, I'd recommend shopcraze. Anyway, I bought two jumbo pencils in Milk and one in Black Bean, two of the Ultra Pearl Mania eyeshadows, in Jade and in Pearl, which is a very light pearly pink (lovely cheek highlighter maybe?) one single eyeshadow in White pearl and four Round lipsticks. All of that plus shipping was almost exactly £20. I limited myself incase the hype was just that, but I am soooo purchasing more NYX!

Would you like some swatchies? I didn't do the jumbo pencils because, well, you know what black and white look like.



So on the top is the NYX White Pearl. On the bottom is a pearly white single Gosh eyeshadow. Both one little swoosh, both dry, no primer. Um. Yeah. No comparison. The texture is lovely and soft and I will certainly be getting more if they're all this pigmented.



Thats the Jade loose pearl and the Pearl loose pearl eyeshadows. Really pretty, huh? However, I don't know if I'm going to be able to use these. Why?



Look at the packaging! I can barely fit a brush in that little hole. Maybe I can find some more jars for them, because they're really pretty. And they were like... a dollar forty five. And they also sell all of them for abour thirty bucks, if I remember correctly. Maybe I'll wait and do that.

Onto the lippes. I was soooo excited about these!




This is 'Fusion', a gorgeous sheeny purple. I am in love with this one.



This is 'B52.' It was a lot darker than I was expecting, but I actually really like it, and I didn't own a brown lipstick before so I'm really happy with this one.



Sorry about the flash on this one. I just couldn't capture it. This is 'Fire,' and ohhhh mama, this is an amazing red. Its the best fucking lipstick I own. Out of all of the ones I got, I loved this colour the most. It goes on sooooo smoothly and it is one stoke coverage. Amazing.



This is 'Femme,' and again, it was a hard colour to capture. This is pretty inaccurate. Its a bright coral-y red and its just gorgeous. Its going to make a nice pin-up lippy for the summer.

I am buying more lipsticks... er, maybe tomorrow! :D They're so fabulous. I have my eye on Medusa, a deep purple, and a lovely colour called Orange Soda which seems to be bloody sold out everywhere all the time. A word of warning, though, the colour 'swatches' on the NYX website and others are not that great. On shopcraze, Femme and Fire are shown as pink shades, B52 as more of a nude, so search the blogosphere for swatches.


In other recent haul-age, I finally decided to go and get the Bohemian palette, and after searching everywhere and fearing it was finally discontinued, one lovely Superdrug Angel found one for me! And my lovely little sister also bought me the Electro Peach tinted lip conditioner, which is totally gorgeous and smells of coconut ice. It kicks the rosy Vaselines arse. My boyfriend also bought me a lovely (but slutty!) kilt, and my sister let me raid her wardrobe, so I have lots of scrummy new stuff and am feeling very happy about it!


What have you bought recentely?

Love and kisses,
Robyn x

I hate the Postman (and LOTD :D )

Pic heavy post today, kids.

Lets do my LOTD first. Its inspired by Petrilude's Played Out Pink tutorial but I toned it down a little bit. Before I show you, don't you fucking love Petrilude? He's so creative, I'd love to see his drag act! Anyway, onto my face:












Bonus bespectacled shot! My cardi is an old one from H&M with little cats on. They have wierd faces :)

I used Barry M's Apple Green Dazzle dust on the lid, Barry M's Limited Edition Neon Pink in the crease with Cotton Candy to blend it out in the inner corner, and the purple from the Sleek Original Palette applied wet for the line in the crease. I blended it out with the highlighter from the Sleek Contour kit, which I am LOVING by the way. I've also used that on my face, with a bright pink eyeshadow from the 120 palette for blush. I also used Collection 2000 Glam Crytals glitter eyeliner in.... uh, the green one and Barry M gold glitter liner. (They're a bit shit, buy the Collection 2000 ones for sure.) They have great blush colours in there but it is VERY HARD to apply blush using a 5 pence sized pot of product. But whatever. I didn't have the right colours as the lovely Josh and obviously I added glitter, but I think its nice and summery. I wish I blended the purple out more though.




Don't you hate the postman sometimes? I went to pick up a parcel today that didn't need to be signed for and that I know fits through my letterbox because I posted it through myself when I got back. What a bastard. Anyway I bought a whole bunch of fimo sticks to use for nail art and they are soooo cute!

I got 100 sticks for about £5 including shipping off eBay. I can't remember the seller, but it was some generic we-sell-everything store in Hong Kong. Anyway, they said they'd all be different with no dupes AND THEY LIED. I got 101 (yes, I did count them all :|) and I have two of a Hallowe'en witch and three wierd kiwi fruit things. Doesn't bother me as I'm not going to use them all but still. Lies hurt. Anyway, you get loads of different stuff:



Stars, melons, roses, hibiscus flowers, teddies, bows, ladybirds, butterflies, fish, fake Chanel thingy (which, shoot me, I actually think is adorable :S )...



... a cute little frog, yin yang symbol, Santa, candy-corn thingies...




...creepy face, strawberries, easter egg, and OMG PANDA. How cute it thaaaaat?! I'm thinking bamboo painted on the nails over a jade nail, with just a couple of these little guys!

Anyway, I just wanted to show these to you guys because they're super cute, and the pics on eBay are a little misleading, I think. I thought they'd be a lot bigger than they are, circumference wise. But you know, smaller is better seeing as they're going on your bloody nails! (I am a bit thick sometimes.) They're about 5cm long, and you'll have to slice them thin with a razor or craft knife, so they'll last ages if you do that properly. I'll do something with them soon but I'm giving my nails a break from coloured polishes as they're yellow as Homer Simpsons butt right now, and also I'm working on Super Mario false nails too.


Bought anything cute lately?

Love and Kisses,
Robyn xxx