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Saturday 28 August 2010

Holy Giveaway, Batman!

Have you SEEN Blix's super awesome glittery giveaway? No? Wtf are you waiting for?! There's FIVE winners!

xxx

Surpise Swap Package is Suprising :D (And some bargains, woo!)

While me and 'im indoors were heading out the door to visit some friends for the weekend a week ago, I discovered ANOTHER swap package from Wendy aka Cydonian, who is awesome and sent me more stuff, on the doormat! Yaaaay! To Jon's disgu...amusement, I took it with me and opened it walking down the road, like any of us would, I'm sure.

I didn't take a pic of it all together because I opened it walking down the street, but she sent me:

Wet n Wild Color Icon palette in Cool as a Cucumber
Wet n Wild duo eyeshadow in Tequila Sunrise
Wet n Wild duo eyeshadow in Skys the Limit
NYC Blushable Creme Stick in Pink Flash
Claire's Mood polish in Calm/Wild
Claire's Mood polish in Moody/Shy

OMGWTF. Srsly girl, don't think you're getting away with this. I WILL find you equally bitching products. Anyway, behold le swatches:



Obviously the blush isn't blended at all, but loook how pretty! I see it as somewhere between bubblegum pink and coral, which is probably the most useless blush description ever, but hey.I've not worn creme blush before and its so easy to use! I also like the size of this - I rarely pack a make-up bag unless I'm going away for the weekend, and this is nice and slim while actually containing a lot of product. On the left is the Wet and Wild Cool as a Cucumber palette, which contains three shades. I adore the lightest green - I love highlight colours that are actually colours.



And thats just a really quick look with the palette - you can see how the darker green and purple are slightly greyed... lovely! I wore this palette....wait for it... two days in a row. Yeah.

The two Wet and Wild duos I'm also super impressed with:



The top two are the Tequila Sunrise duo and the bottom two are the Sky's the Limit Duo. OMG. That bronzey colour, I am informed by it's lovely sender, is similar to MAC's Amber lights. Sooooo pretty. And I was pleasantly surprised by the Sky's the Limit duo, too, though I haven't used it yet. The deeper blue is really pigmented and the lighter shade is a lot more complex than you'd think to look at it - it has a really pretty aqua sheen to it. Again, I love coloured highlight colours! I'm going to use this with my Milani liner next time I'm feeling a blue day :)



Here's another quickie with the Tequila Sunrise duo. I put the Amber Lights-y colour over Urban Decay 24/7 in Bourbon on the lower lashline - sweet, huh? - with a little MUA shadow in No 4 on my browbone. I think this duo is gonna get a lot of use.

And onto the polishes... I know plenty of UK beauty bloggers who are doing their nut wishing Claire's stocked these over yeah. Yeah, yeah, matte polishes for less than £3, whatever... These kick ass.




This is the Moody/Shy polish, which was matte before I put my top coat on. You can see the tips are darker because my nails are long and that part of them is cooler - the effect is more pronounced on longer nails. When you put your hands in hot water, the polish goes all the lighter colour but for some of the day it was so cold my nails were all the dark colour! These polishes will turn you into a total geek.



I couldn't get a picture of the Calm/Wild with its colour change, but its pretty well blogged. I thought it would be a cool idea to Konad an image in a near identical colour to the darker shade of the colour change polish, so that as your nails changed during the day, you can sometimes see the image and sometimes not. It was pretty cool :)


So thats it for the post. Girl, I love everything, you are so awesome. If you guys aren't following Turtle Beauty, then stop reading and go now :)

I also wanted to send out some thankyou's to Kat O (my little sister loves your blog, if you're reading, Kat!) and Beauty's Bad Habit for inadvertently helping me find two awesome bargain lippies. I'm not on a no-buy anymore, I am however on a low-buy, so no being silly for me.

Kat informed me that Beauty Base in Westfield London (which is where I work, sadly in a pub there and not MAC or Inglot or one of the 10,000 Benefit counters there) had a Milani stand. So when I trotted off there after work to check out what they had, I found Milani Rose Hip lipstick:



URM. OMG. This picture does the brightness no justice at all - I shit a brick when I tried this on. Fuck a duck, it's bright. And it was £2! Don't let me kiss you with joy when I see you, Kat! I've been wanting it for yonks ever since I saw MonroeMisfitMakeup (what happened to her?) wear it on YT. I was really missing a pink like this. I can't wait to try this with the Milani lipgloss I got in my first swap package from Wendy, as it has hot pink sparkles in it!

And here is my second new beloved, MUA Shade 11:



Oh, beautiful opaque creamypeachybrownyness for £1, how I adore thee. I saw this shade in this post by Beautys Bad Habit which rather helpfully compares some of the MUA £1 lippies to MAC, Clinique, Barry M etc. Anyway, this shade is really lovely, and its formula I think is the nicest of the MUA lippies I have. I just WISH they would have given them names! I mean seriously, how much do you have to pay someone to give something a name? Peach Cobbler, that's peach and brown. Done.


Sigh, that was a big one! (lolz) Hoping to do a victory rolls post tomorrow so wish me luck!

Robyn xxx

Monday 23 August 2010

Robyn's Rockin' Retro #4: Pin Curls.... fail?

I looooove the look girls get when they pin curl their hair. I can never get that look with curlers, and I do try not to use heat on my hair much because it's not good for the colour. So following this tutorial by the utterly stunning hollywoodnoirmakeup, I tried my hands at pin-curling!

I didn't take photos during, but the process was a bit of a pain in the arse. My hair is different lengths at the back which made it hard to tuck the ends into the curls, and I also found it a pain in the arse keeping the rows uniform. Anyway, here is the result - bear in mind this is my first try!






Looks okay in these pictures, I think...




... but you can see here how the sides have gone a bit weird. I think my hair is either too long, was too wet or got crimped by the bobby pins I used to pin it. I have some of the flat alligator-style clips but not enough for my whole head. I'm going to buy some more and try it with my hair drier than this time and see if it works. Anyone have any idea?

My camera died at this point, but obviously I couldn't wear it to work down. I tucked it up and under to one side of my head, which looked pretty, and luckily at work the man came to change the flowers so I left work with orchids pinned in my do!

Shall I try victory rolls, girls? I've semi-successfully done it once, ha ha! Please let me know if you try pin-curls, they're surprisingly comfy to sleep in!

xxx

P.S Swap post tomorrow or the next day...Wendy sent me lots of goodies AGAIN :D

Friday 20 August 2010

Robyn's Rockin Retro #3: Cheaters Pin-Up Hair

I'm sure we're all familiar with Rosie, yes?



Thank the Lawd and Baby Jesus for Rosie the Riveter because I am shit at hair. Thankfully, a couple of bobby pins and a bandanna have given me something to post about.









This is sooo easy to do, and if you can get the little curl at the front nice, then you can have a stab at doing pin-curls, no problem. All you need to do is section off the hair at the front of your hair and make sure it's all nice and smooth. Then making sure the ends stay tucked in, and that you don't let go, wrap the ends of your hair around two fingers and roll under, towards your hair. When you reach your head, twist the roll back on itself and pin in place! Done! You can do more than one but my hair is quite thin and doesn't look so good with two. And then you can do whatever the hell you want in the back - a french twist, a high pony tail, pigtails, whatever. The last pic is me attempting to do sort-of pin curls, but I started from a pony-tail which was a bit of a fail. Anyway, bung a bandanna on and you're set! Instant Rosie! I've been wearing this a lot lately - good for greasy hair, ha ha!

I also tried my hand at a pompadour, using this tutorial by ilovegerado on YT, who is freakin' awesome.





Anyway, I hated it. I look like a fucking egg. My head, as my lovely "friends" repeatedly tell me, looks like a thumb and I don't think this did me any favours. Still, it was pretty easy to do and it only took me 5 minutes if that. I think that if I had spent some more time I could have got it perfect. I also think that I should have done a higher pony.

I'll be doing another post documenting my troubles with pincurls and if I can face it, attempting to do some victory rolls. I *can* do them, but only if I don't have to go anywhere, and that is a fact. If I'm going out, then guaranteed they'll look like ass. Also going to be posting some retro-themed manis and a 60's look :D


Off gallavanting this weekend, see you soon!

Tuesday 17 August 2010

Any Fyrinnae suggestions?

More pin-up stuff tomorrow, but I'm ordering some Fyrinnae stuff in the next couple of days and I just wanted to know if you girls wanted to add any of your must-haves to my list, which currently consists ooooof:

-Pixie Epoxy

-Shadows

Chrome Loose Eye Shadow

Crimson Ghost Loose Eye Shadow

Damn Paladins Loose Eye Shadow

Dressed To Kill Loose Eye Shadow

Selkie Skin Loose Eye Shadow

Tapir Loose Eye Shadow

Wicked Loose Eye Shadow

Parental Advisory Loose Eye Shadow

-Lip Lustres

Glitter Kittiez

Meloncholy

Lolli-pop Pop

Visual Kei

Whatever the blue/pink one is!

Merci buckets!

xxx

Saturday 14 August 2010

Robyn's Rockin Retro #2: Dresses!

Yeah, I have some more make-up and some hair posts coming, and hopefully some retro nails too if I can find the time. But while they're in the making, I thought I'd show off some of my retro/vintage dresses! Yay! Sorry for the quality of these pics, obviously you can't use a flash in your mirror and it is dark as hell today!



-Sailor Jerry style tattoo dress.

My mummy bought me this a couple of years ago down Portobello as an earyl birthday present. I think it was only about £15, which is a bargain as I've seen identical dresses in Camden for about fifty. Anyway, big love for this dress, I've worn it both clubbing and just around and about.



-Vintage Sailor Collar Dress

I think this is my favourite dress ever! I bought it in a vintage shop in Vancouver for about $50, I think. A little expensive for something old but it was my birthday! I'm not sure what period its from, probably 70's, but the sailor collar and the colour scheme means it goes great with a pair of anchor earrings and my Irregular Choice sailor shoes. Ahhh, I just love it :D



-Embroidered Sailor Collar Wiggle Dress

Again, this dress is a present from my mummy. I love sailor style collars and this one is huge, going into two points at the back with another identical embroidered part. I haven't worn it yet because it has a maaaaaaaassive slit up the back and its a bit...well, a lot cheeky. I need to get a slip for it and then I can wear it on my next night out.



-Collectif Poodle Dress

Dang, I love this dress, even though it's super heavy and clashes with my hair. The skirt is enormous! I wore it to a retro bowling alley. for my birthday this year. I also like that it had poodles all over it as opposed to just one big poodle.



-Leopard Wiggle Dress

Everyone needs a dress like this in their wardrobe! Oddly enough grey is one of my favourite colours when it comes to clothing, and as this has teeny little leopard spots on it I love it even more! My sister got me this dress when I went away for a year so I'd have something nice to wear if I needed to, so I rocked it out in Vegas. I need to wear a waist belt with this, though, as I am blessed with a tiny waist (in comparison to my arse, anyway) and so wiggle dresses often don't fit me well there.



-Velvet and Lace vintage dress

I've had this dress for years and years, since I was about 12 and it hung off me! I used to be a bean pole. My dad bought it for me for a Rocky Horror Party from a charity shop (Yes, my parents took me to Rocky Horror Parties - there were a lot of kids about, and who's supposed to look after them at a massive party? And why wouldn't you want to scar your kids for life by subjecting them to bikers in gold lame?) and I've grown into it. A bit slutty but looks great with tights and Docs. Not really pin-up, but it's old so whatever :D



-Spotty Puff Sleeved Vintage Dress

And this is probably my second favourite dress, which I also got in Vancouver for about $50. Again, no idea what period its from, but I love the brown and black colour scheme -it has tiny little brown polka dots all over it - and the cut. Some seamed stocking and I'm done!


I have other bits and pieces, like pencil skirts and a vintage ballgown, but I'm a very busy woman (:S!) so that's all from me for today. Make-up and hair soon, I promise!

Thursday 12 August 2010

Robyn's Rockin' Retro #1: Easy Pin-Up Eyes

Pin-Up eyes are the easiest, most simple eye EVER. When I decided I was going to do the retro theme, I initially thought, aw, crap, and spent about 10,000 hours on YouTube only to discover pin-up eyes, at least, is pretty much what I do for my can't-be-arsed/omfg-got-to-leave face - 2-3 shadows, black liner and mascara and white eyeliner for your waterline is optional. Even so, I've learnt a few things the last couple of days, its like I've been giving myself homework! So to kick this series off, here's some dead, dead easy pin-up looks:


Super simple, neutral:





Gold isn't a typical pin-up colour, in my opinion, but for me its something I class as neutral, and therefore works well as an all over lid colour for this look - I also find it softer than a stark white colour, which allows the focus to be on the red lips. Just darken it with a medium brown in the crease and a little on the lower lashline and you're done!


Snow White:





Marilyn Monroe often used a shimmery white shadow as her lid colour. - she was awesome and always did her own make-up, and she used loads of cool tricks, not that she needed them. This is the 'sexy' look out of the three, I think. Normally with a shimmery white, I would use my Milk pencil as base, but I left it out this time as it would have been too stark. I would have loved to have worn this with a red lip but I was facing a ten-hour shift and it would have been impossible to re-apply. Pigmented gloss it is!

Think Pink:





Whenever I think of a pin-up eye, pink and brown is the classic one. I don't know if its just me, but it seems the most retro and it's so pretty! Again, there is a little more colour here which is good if, you don't always have time/can't be arsed to maintain the perfect red lip. This is nice and matte, too, on the lid at least, which always seems more authentically retro to me, even though I know that is bollocks!


Lessons learned:

1-Take your time over the liner! Went too fast for the white look and the wing wasn't right. I also think I could stand to go a bit stronger with it.
2-Pluck your damn eyebrows. Look at my brows between the first and second look!
3-Related to no 2: buy some bloody brow gel, woman!
4-Also purchase an actually pigmented white pencil!
5-Can't go wrong with falsies. Less is more on the eyeshadow front for a reason :D
6-Red lipstick is awesome, but totally non-wearable for a busy waitress.

Well, basic eyes are done, something more exciting for the next installment I promise!

Wednesday 11 August 2010

Spamspamspam (Milani review, LOTD, blog theme...)

Sorry to throw two posts at you in one day, but my last one was a contest entry which deserved to be posted on its own, and I wanted to get a couple of looks off my memory card before they got deleted and forgotten and do a quick review of the Milani liquid liner I got too.

So a couple of posts ago I asked you guys what theme I should do, and typically, Pin Up/Retro, Comic Book and Hogwarts all got three votes each :| Hogwarts is only going to be four, perhaps five looks, so I'm going to save those for when I have a couple of days off. Comic books I'm waiting to see if another blogger is going to do a collab with me, which will get that out of the way, so there's going to be a Pin-Up/Retro theme! Yaaaaay! I'm really excited about it. I'm going to try and dedicate a post a week to it for a while, but in all likelihood its probably going to be more. I'm thinking a basic pin-up look, a twenties look, a sixties look, a couple of psychobilly looks, a Dita Von Teese look, a Patricia Day look and maybe some retro hair and nails looks too! Dead excited - I love, love, love pin-up looks, I just am rubbish at them, so hopefully this will be a nice project for me.


Anyway, I really wanted to use my Milani Infinite liner, but to be honest I've been scared shitless. Pixie_a_la_mode lovingly warned me that it never comes off ever, and I'm all out of make-up remover.... Oh well. Here it is in its lovely blue glory:






Eyes:
Evil Shades Whooo R U (green in crease)
Pout gold shade from Miss Barbados duo
Hi-Fi Mornings of Gold (Lid)
Milani Infinite Liner in Infinite


Face:
Almay Blush in Peach

Lips:
Wet N Wild lippy in 903C (blotted)

I really liked this look, and I looove this lipstick, too! The liner itself is a really thick consistency, which is both a blessing and a curse. I find thinner liners can bleed on the inner corner of my eye where my skin is quite wrinkled, and obviously this won't, but it does take ages to dry and it did get all over my lashes. The brush is lovely and thin and I made a nice little wing with it, which made me happy :). Now, as for the longevity = it rocks. It didn't budge at all during a ten hour shift at work, where normally I would have to touch up such a thin wing. When I got home, I carefully washed off all my make-up except the liner, and went to bed. (Save your scolding, this is science, yeah?) I woke up in the morning to see it had some slight creasing and flaking, mostly on the outer wing. This stuff would survive an A-bomb, I swear. However, it came off really easily with olive oil! So hooray and kudos to Milani.

And secondly, because I'd never done one before and I think its a really pretty colour combination, a brown blue look. Oooooh! It was a lot more vibrant in real life, but if you're in the UK you will know that we have been denied any sunshine whatsoever so I couldn't get the best snaps.





I don't remember what I used for this apart from that it was all 120 shadows and UD 24/7 pencil in Bourbon.


Cheers if you stuck with me through two posts today, girls. Get your poodle skirts out and give me some retro ideas!

Second Mask Entry for Julissa's Masquerade contest!

If you don't know about this, guys, you so check it out! Julissa at Rebellious Make-up is having an awesome contest/giveaway with a masquerade theme! There are THREE prizes, which is totally awesome, and they all include something cool Julissa is going to make, which I think is rad. First prize includes stuff from Fyrinnae, OHWTO, Make Up Forever... ah, its awesome, go enter.

Anyway, here is my look. I really, really wasn't happy with it all, but not close up, it looks ok. As per, I gave up halfway through when neither my Kryolan nor regular ol' eyeliner wanted to cooperate for drawing the lines. I was 'inspired,' if you can call it that, by both the cool mask Bayonetta wears at the start of the game and the mask scene in the Labyrinth a bit, and Labyrinth in general, hence the shape of the eyeshadow.







(only closed eye pic I took, sorry judges!)


Eyes:
Hi-Fi #1 Hit Single (lid)
MUA Shade 3(I don't bloody know, the grey shade - crease, winged shapes)
Hi-Fi Between the Stars (inner corner, Highlight)
H-Fi Another Day, Another Drama (liner)
Eyelure Girls Aloud Festival Lashes in Nicola (<3)

Mask:
Collection 2000 Glitter in Shake It Up
Kryolan AquaColour in Black/Collection 2000 Fast Strokes Liner
Purples from 120 palette

Cheeks
Top-right hand fuschia from Sleek Circus

Lips
NYX Round Lipstick in Medusa
No-name clear gloss with holographic glitter

What do you think? It was fun to do and I got to put a posh dress on (thems the rules!) If anyone wants to know, the massive flower was £2 from Primark and the earrings I bought years and years ago at Accessorize.

I just loved the winged shape I did for this, so I decided to do it for the wearable look too. I just did a toned-down version, with some lilac-ish blush and blotted my lips with a lighter purple lipstick to keep the overall colour scheme. I always do a less heavy look after I've done a face with loads of slap, I can't help it!








Eyes:
Hi-Fi #1 Hit Single
Hi-Fi Between the Stars (inner corner)
Whatever the MUA shade is for the soft wings
Collection 2000 liner in Shake It Up

Cheeks:
Pink/Lilac colours from 120 Palette
NYX Mosaic Highlighter


Lips:
NYX Round Lipstick in Fusion


Give the contest a go!


<3 x

Saturday 7 August 2010

Swap goodies and LOTDs

Today I was rudely awoken from my lovely lie-in with the missus by a knock on the door. After flapping round in the buff like a complete twat looking for a dressing gown, I ran down two flights of stairs to discover that the bastard postman had just posted my stuff through the door anyway! ARGH! Anyway, the reason I was so excited was that I've been waiting for my swap package from the gaaawjus Wendy, aka Cydonian of Turtle Beauty. So I bounded back up to bed and proceeded to demolish the package:



Squee! I asked Wendy for the Wet N Wild coloricon palette in lust, Milani Infinite Liquid Liner in Infinite, and she suggested the Milani 3d Glitzy Glamour Gloss in In Vogue. I've been dying to get these, I've especially wanted the palette and one of these glosses for a while. And as previously noted, I think we may indeed be sister from another mother because she gave me a gorgeous Sinful Colours polish in Purple Diamond and a Wet N Wild lipstick in 903C, which is a gorgeous bright peach. I've been looking for a lipstick like this for a while - peachy shades are hard to come by in my opinion - and I have nothing like this polish in my collection. I've heard great things about both these products on blogs, too. To cement my opinion girlfriend is psychic, she also sent me some berry Skittles. OMG, I love these things. The selection of Skittles flavours in the UK is sorely lacking - we only get the red ones and the Sours, and not the Sours with all the sugar on the outside, either. No berry, no tropical. Needless to say these provided us with breakfast in bed. Omnomnom.

A few swatches and then a few LOTDs....




I'm really, really pleased with this palette. The shades on the left are all matte and the shades on the right are all shimmery, so it's really versatile. The sheer colours you can't see very well, but there's a pale skintoney-pink matte, an ivory with silvery shimmer, a deep, almost aubergine matte purple, a shimmery gun-metal shade, a matte blackened plum and a shimmery blackened plum with red and gold sparkle. Lush :D



This is the Milani liner. Such a gorgeous jewel tone, slightly metallic. I'm scared to wear it because I swatched it this morning, had a shower and it didn;t even nearly come off. But I guess thats a good thing, as I've had problems with metallic liquid liners in the past flaking and wearing off so I have high hopes for this one.



I apologise for the suckiness of this picture but it shows the colours best. Unfortunately it doesn't show the hot pink glitter in this gloss - it really is sexy! I have tried in on my lips but like the conscientious beauty blogger I am, I didn't take a picture. Cydonian tells me these are very similar to some MAC glosses, but I don't own any so I will just say its awesome and I want more of them. The Wet and Wild lipstick is also really nice, too, its an almost salmon-y peach colour, and its lovely and opaque. It reminds me a bit of Lime Crimes Cosmopop (but a little darker and less orange) which is something I would never in a billion years part with my cash for, for various reasons, but a shade I really like.

Anyway, swatches over, a LOTD with the lust palette:







Not the best - the blending is a bit poo but I was in a rush because me and the boy had 103818309 things to do this morning and I'm trying to get used to using my 224 for blending. But gawd, I love that purple. Dead chuffed with this palette, going to be great for travelling. Next up is a smokey orange look:







I think this was all 120 shadows with the exception of Barry M Orange Dazzle Dust. The black from 120 is shit and I wish I hadn't used it, but I liked the look all the same. I'm getting better at doing smokey looks - much better than my last fail of an orange smokey anyway. And last up is a minty green look using Hi-Fi Sweet Dreams, a minty green I made from 120 shadows to dark the crease, MUA Shade 12, MAC Gesso, Nyx White Pearl and eBay glitter. I was envisioning using more brown when I sat down to do this but hey, green is good.










That's all from me, kids, hope you have an awesome weekend!

:) xxx