Gorgeous Goths (and me :S)

First off, Happy 4th and a belated Happy Canada Day :D I hit 100 followers today so I'm pretty stoked! I know I've been tagged in a couple of blog awards and I will get round to tagging and properly thanking people soon.


A Small Warning... there is a bit of tit in this post, but fear not, it ain't mine. Its not just to titillate (ahahahahaha! Ha!) its because the boobs are attatched to some awesome make-up.


At risk of sounding like a dorky kid on an MTV show, I wish I was a goth. My mum and dad are bikers and while they look pretty darn ordinary minus all the tattoos, I was brought up surrounded by gorgeous goths, beautiful bikers and pretty Pagans and ever since I can remember I've been in love. In the dark depths of my wardrobe there are big black platform shoes, publicly indecent kilts, pvc, fishnet, coffin-shaped things, skull-y wullys... Sigh. My boyfriend sort of talked me out of it - unknowingly - when I was a teenager in case I pissed off his nan and I tamed it way, way, way down. I amped it up a bit at uni, mostly when I went clubbing and I dressed more goth, rockabilly, punk, blah. Why don't I do it so much anymore? I don't know, I kind of feel phony when I do dress up and am back in my Breakfast Club t-shirt and jeans the next day.

I totally love gothic make-up. The classic pale skin and dark, heavy lined eyes are what most people think of, but there is so much more pretty than that...


















Sigh. Anyway...enough of that. Even though I'm in lust with the elegant eyeliner and amazing brows of the ladies shown above, I wanted to do a real dark smokey red-and-black combo:










I think it looks more Kabuki than goth... Ah well, it was fun to do and I'm going to do some better looks soon. I think I should have done a black or nude lip, but I wanted to try out my new OCC lip tar! Its awesome!

Eyes:

Evil Shades Heartless Queen (lid)
Pout Miss Barbados Duo (dark side -in crease)
Evil Shades Zombie (crease)
Nyx White Pearl (Highlight)
Sleek Black (outer V, waterline)
UD 24/7 Liner in Zero (waterline)
Sleek light brown from Storm palette (brows)
Kryolan Aqual Color in Black (liner on upper lid)
Lancome Hypnose


Lips:

OCC Lip Tar in NSFW
Sleek Black lipstick (inner corners)

Face:

Revlon Colourstay
Sleek Contour palette in Light
MAC Gesso
NYX Mosaic Highlighter


Have a nice day kids! xxx

Water palaver! (How I do water marbling!)

Hahahaha, I'm so punny. Anyway, its been going around so I thought I'd do my own water marbling post. Its such a hit and miss process the first few times you do it so I thought I'd share how I'm doing so far.

Basically, the key is to work pretty fast so your polish doesn't dry on the water. If your polishes aren't spreading well, then check your water. Room temperature is best and filtered water is recommenced by lots of YT gurus - I don't have a filter, but I do have hard ol' limescaly water so I use bottled when I can. Evian doesn't work well for some reason, but Buxom does. No idea why. (Edit: I realise that Buxom is an adjective I normally reserve for bosoms. I meant Buxton.)

You'll need:

-Your polishes and top coat
-Disposable cup/old mug
-Room temperature, preferably filtered or bottled water
-Orange stick/needle/something point
-Tape
-Q-tips
-Polish remover
-An old cloth or kitchen roll to protect your surface and to wipe your orange stick.


Put a base coat of colour on your nails as water marble patterns are pretty sheer. Put the water in the cup (doy!) and place the cup on the cloth or kitchen roll. I use a small round cup so the polish stays in a small area and its easier to draw patterns on (I've used odd shaped yogurt pots, etc, and its just not so good.) Get all the lids off your polish bottles so you are ready and then tape up the nails on one hand like a-so:



One piece of tape goes under the nail and around the finger, and another goes behind the nail and folds down the sides. It can be tricky but the more skin you can cover the easier the clean up will be and the nicer your cuticles will look in the end. Try to make sure your tape is nice and tight and secure around your nails or you can get bubbles when you do your dipping:



Pop these with your orange stick while your nail is in the water or they can ruin your design a bit.


Now you want to start making the target on the water! Drip one colour on the water, let it spread a little, add another, and repeat with as many colours as you want. I've really found that its a total trial and error thing as to which polishes work. I don't own posh polishes like China Glaze or OPI, most of my polishes are cheap ones like Barry M, so cheap ones do work! Theres variations within the brands I have, though, which is annoying. Some polishes spread, some don't, some won't spread with others. I had to ditch this color combo as it wasn't spreading right...



...and try another color combo...



...which worked, yay! So then I could start making the swirlies with my orange stick. You have to go pretty gentle, just kind of skim it across the top. I used to use needles, but orange sticks give you more control. You might need to wipe your stick off on your kitchen roll as you go.



Swirly! Pick a spot you like and slowly dunk your nail in.





Then clean up the surrounding polish with your orange stick - if you see a clear scum, you need to get all that off too or it'll stick to your design and you'll have to do it again! Wipe your orange stick off. Then, slowly pull your nail out at the same angle you put it in to help stop bubbling...




...aaaaargh! Messy! Go ahead and make a mess on all your other fingers now! If your water looks really scummy after a few fingers, change it.




Once you take the tape off it looks so much better! There's a bit on my fingers but its easily removed with a Q-tip soaked in remover. Some people say you can use Vaseline round your nails instead of tape but I've tried it and its just as messy as not using anything. I'd recommend taping up one hand, doing your marbling, then removing the tape before you tape up your other hand or the tape stick to more tape and makes a big ol' tapey mess!


So that's basically it, bar letting it dry! I don't really like Seche Vite top coat that much as I find it chips, but because its thicker its great for nail art and marbling as it doesn't smudge the colours together when you apply it. However I couldn't find my Seche Vite so I just went careful with a generic one.

And the final result!








I thought the colours were pretty 70's so I added the little yin-yang! I used Beauty Uk polish in Soft Green and L.A. Colours Color Craze in Lightning - its super neon and my camera gets confused by it! Maybe it wasn't the best combo but hey, its all about experimentation.

If you want more advice from someone who knows what the hell they are doing and doesn't just want to sound like it, I really really recommend going and checking out the My Simple Little Pleasures blog and YouTube - Colette is seriously awesome!

Hope you liked, thanks for reading all my crap! :D

Little less conversation, little more action

I think its high time I posted some looks and some manis!


Soooo, manis first.



Sigh. I did this really quickly for the England game yesterday. And we lost, so now I have to take it off. If you're English, I don't need to say anything. If you're not, its too hard to talk about it right now *sniff*.





That little mouse on the second one is on my right hand, so I'm pretty pleased with him! I can't take the credit for this one, I totally ripped off an idea from the lovely Nikki at Polish On Digital Paper. Her nail blog is one of my favourite nail blogs and she posts some wicked art.



I suck at doing french manicures without nail guides, but I wanted something along those lines because I went to a black tie do that my fiances work put on (hard life, eh?) This was really quick and easy and a funky alternative to a french. I think it looks a little bit like lace, and I probably could make a more 'lacy' effort if I had the time.


And now for some face:





This is what I wore to said black tie do, I wanted something soft and pretty and subtle (for me) because my dress was both fussy and white. I wasn't too pleased with it, but whatever. Free champagne.





Thought I'd try a cut crease, as I don't really do them much. All 120 shadows - I know matte blues are a bit on the bad 80's side but I think I managed to avoid that judging by the enthusiastic reaction by my work-mate Marcel (Brazilian, gay, adorable.... I want to eat him.)





Quick look using MAC Gesso and Evil Shades Double Barrell and Suffocation - def buying full sizes of these two - really impressed with how well the shimmer showed up as I don't even think I used NYX JEP that day. My face is mega cropped because... well, I had FOUR angry red spots on my chin that day. FOUR. Srsly.





This was inspired by Jazziebabycakes Red Vixen Tutorial. I used Evil Shades Zombie, the red from the Sleek Sunset Palette, black from Sleek Sunset and the gold liner is from Primark! The eyeliner is a little messy because I put falsies on, realised they were too long, took them off and couldn't be arsed to do them again before work. I thought the colour scheme was a bit 20's, hence the goofy headband picture (bad pic, awesome headband - £2 at Primark!)


Thats all folks. Julissa and Jonna have been doing water marbling this week, so I'm going to do a marble post, probably tomorrow. I've been marbling since way before I've been blogging but I have no pics, so I'm going to have to do another one! I need to take my England manicure off....

Luvs x

Giveaway goodness!

Cydonian at Turtle Beauty is having an awesome giveaway! Amazing goodies including the essential NYX Jumbo Pencil in Milk and Milanis infamous Orgasm dupe. I love her lots like Jelly Tots so go and enter :)

More Evil Shades and massive pink lashes...

Oh! Before I begin you've got until midnight tonight (I'd say UK time but... well, till I get up tomorrow) to enter my GIVEAWAY!


Anywoo... In love with my Evil Shades still. I did a kick ass look with Gift, River, Devil's Bonfire and Suffocation yesterday, but did I take a photo? No. That would be sensible. I've been a bit crap with that at the moment, but I'm really not feeling my skillz this week or so.

So... more swatches.



I love Necropolis, its so beautiful irl - dark brown base with tons and tons of copepry shimmer in it. Inferno is a bad ass hot pink with gold/silver sparkles - I find that finding pinks that I like with good payoff is really difficult, especially brighter shades. Souls Torment is AMAZING. It reminds me of Barry M's Oyster grey, but a bit more purple, with loads of blue sparkles. Double Barrel is, as the name suggests, a gun-metal colour, and I see rainbow sparkles in it. Glooming is yet again a deep, true black, with deep blue sparkles in - I didn't swatch this over a sticky base so the glitter didn't show up, but trust me, its crammed in there!

Anyway - here's a simple look with Seraphic all over the lid with a little bit of Zombie blended in the outer crease and on the lower lashline. The copper colour in the crease is er... something else?





I'm really loving Seraphic - it bring out my eye colour really nicely. The next look has Wistful all over the lid, Suffocation in the crease, Reondite in the inner corner and I think a bit of Nola in the outer V and I wore this with the Guilty as Sin Wicked Gloss. Excuse the unblended highlight :S




Anyway, sure you all get it by now: I love Evil Shades, go buy some. Now I want to yabber on about my Fardel UV pink make-up.




Fardel liquid make-up is just what it says it is, and it can be used for air-brushing or painting straight on the face. It was five quid for 30ml, which will last me forever. I picked up a UV pink one and had a little play:










How amazing is that pink? I am such a whore for pink eyebrows, and I don't know why because I don't want pink hair.... hmm. Anyway, I'm definitely going to get some more of these Fardel paints, I think they'd be great for detail work. The lashes are from eyelashesdirect.co.uk, who I totally recommend if you're in the UK. They were 99p! If you'd have bought these from Stargazer or similar, they'd have cost about £7! I'd really, really recommend them, they dispatched my order the same day I placed it! Most lashes are just £2.50 as well! Anyway, thanks to the lovely Jonna of nukleopatra who gave me the inspiration for this look- your Jeffree Star look made me want to play with some pink!



See you soon! x

Weekend Cuteness

Thought I would share some cute stuff that makes me happy! :D


Anna The Red'sBento Boxes! I don't think I would have the heart to eat these! If you're a Studio Ghibli fan take a look - check out this sleeping Totoro box!



I'm not really a big gamer because I am rubbish at games and I don't like being rubbish at things. If you find yourself needing a break from being bored off your arse, check out the 'Grow' series of games ateyezmaze.com You drag items onto the globe/tower and each item interacts with the others, causing it to level up and 'grow.' You have to get them all in the right order to get them all to max level. Super cute, super wierd and addictive!



Pangolins! Pangolins are spiky little anteaters and I love them!




Hello Kitty Doc Martens! Need I say more?



Amigurumi! Amigurimi is a Japanese craft where you knit or crochet teeny cute things! It makes me want to learn to crochet - does anyone do it? Is it hard?










A make-up related post tomorrow, promise :) x

Evil Shades Swatches and Initial Review

WARNING: OVERLY POSITIVE, GUSHING AND SUCK-UPPY REVIEW.

I FINALLY heard the satisfying plop of a package from Evil Shades Cosmetics on my doormat this morning. And then my bastard best friend and arsehole sister came round and I couldn't play with my new goodies (Just kidding guys, I love you ^^)

I had to restrain myself as I wasn't that rich that week, and I was only placing an order because Fyrinnae's website wasn't working. Which, now I have my ES order, makes me feel very disloyal! Because I am in love. Full on, dirty sex but I'll make you breakfast too love.

I got the $14 set option (on sale, I think its normally either $16 or $18, can't remember) which gets you three full size eyeshadows, two Wicked Gloss and one Deviant Lipstick. I also ordered the fifteen samples for $10 and got another Deviant Lipstick sample chucked in for free ^^

Be warned - my colour descriptions suck. Go to the ES site or read Phyrras descriptions!



These are the full sized shadows. Zombie is a beautiful brownish-wine colour with gold and green shimmer/glitter in. It looks more purple here than in real life. It was everything I wanted it to be and I suspect its going to be a staple crease colour for me - screw you, brown. Devils Bonfire is a deep black totally crammed with holographic-y glitter in. This is super pigmented - its BLACK - made a total mess when I was swatching! Serpahic is a beautiful soft peach with golden shimmer. I can't wait to pair it with some blues and greens.

With Zombie and Devils Bonfire, a little shadow go caught in the threading of the jar, so when I opened it, I got shadow on my hands. Its not a great amount, just a minor annoyance, probably shipping related.



Most of these colours look washed out or more pastel than they do in real life - my light was fading and thus my swatches do no justice. These are the only shades out of my samples that I have swatched. Nola is - omg, its aristocracy in eyeshadow form. I had to change my underwear. Its a beautiful dusky purple with gold glitters. Heartless Queen was the only sample I asked for and I will be purchasing a full size. I only have a couple other reds and this craps on them from a height. I think the shimmer in it is gold, but its not an obvious contrast like in Nola, for example. Its all about the red. Wistful is just beautiful - its the colour of chinchilla fur! Glooming is a black base with gooorgeous turquoisey glitter in. Whooo Are U is what I'm going to call a light acid green, and Reondite is an amazing aqua with PINK shimmer.

So yea, I want to do bad things to these eyeshadows and they haven't even touched my face yet. They were all smooth to swatch and all pigmented.



Guilty as Sin Wicked Gloss. A medium-ish fuschia with pink glitter. Fairly sheer when compared to the pot, but still a nice colour on the lips. Smells slightly cherry-ish, feels smooth and moisturizing on the lips. Doesn't taste that nice, but I don't care. Going to look amazing over bright pink lippies!




Suffocation. A duo-chromeish lilac with blue reflect. This is my favourite out of the two as I think it looks more interesting on bare lips. Suffocation is also an eyeshadow with the same effect. Smells more candy-ish than Guilty As Sin, but feels just as nice. Word of warning - these feel most similar to Vaseline. I personally like that texture, and while they're not as greasy as Vaseline, they are a little 'slippy.' I wore them while nibbling things in front of the telly tonight and they did as well as most other glosses though.






Corruption Deviant Lipstick (and underneath Corruption with Suffocation over the top.) A slightly browned aubergine with blue shimmer. Now, I forgot to state which lippy I wanted on my order and was dissapointed I got this one - my own fault, I know! It is beautiful but I don't think I can wear it! But I will find a way - the blue shimmer is to die for though of course, I couldn't capture it.. It comes in a black chap-stick like tube and felt at first quite dry and hard to apply. But I just re-swatched it on my hand to check the colour again and it went on a lot more smoothly. I just reapplied it and it feels much more moisturizing on the lips, so I guess the top layer had a 'casing' on it. I'm going to try this as a base under other lippies and also see if I can pull it off with a neutral eye?!



I also got a sample of Bane, which is similar to Suffocation but more fuschia as opposed to lilac/lavender. I had a swatch of this and I don't know where its gone on my computer :| The lipsticks aren't that opaque - but I think that of all the swatches I've seen of these lippies, Bane is the most sheer of the range and Corruption the least pigmented, and I still really like them so would love to try others.


Boring stuff:

-Glosses and eyeshadow in 5g (I think) clear jars, black lids, label on bottom telling you the company and colour name. 1/4 tsp samples in baggies with same label, lipstick samples in baggies with label. Lipsticks in black chap-stick tubes with label.
-Ordered my goodies on the 6th of June and received them on the 18th of June - not bad for USA to UK!
-Free sample with my order
-Some shades are vegan, some are not. I believe some are mineral, some are not. This is indicated on the site though not everything has a full ingredients list.
-Came in a cute chicken bag with some business cards which I thought was a nice touch.
-No invoice to save the trees :)
-Prices are really good. $0.85 for a sample of gloss or eyeshadow, $10 for 15 samples, $16 for a large and $9 for a mini gift set, $3.50 for a single gloss or shadow, $5 for a blush, with lipsticks being $4.75 each and $1.00 for a sample. Really reasonable imo, and international shipping was reasonable too.


All in all... I want to go find Andrea (who owns the company) and lick her face and buy her cookies. My first foray into indie make-up has got me totally sold.


Sorry for the overly gushing review! Looks soon.

xxx