My Makeup Timeline.

I was talking with Lily from Beauty's Bad Habit about makeup crimes on Twitter recently, and she said I should write a make-up timeline (You can see hers here.) Read on for the shame - it's pretty long, so grab a  cuppa.

School and college:

Oh dear. Well, let's just say I had a goth phase. I certainly still lean towards the (and I hate this phrase with a passion) 'rock chick' side of things but I'm too fickle to commit to a 'look' these days.

I am *that* old that I was at school before digital cameras/phone cameras, so I don't have many pictures, but the first makeup I can remember doing on myself looked like this:


Seriously, just like that - Cleopatra liner! I guess I thought it was winged liner. Eeeew. I also remember putting a grey-green shadow ALL THE WAY from lid to brow with over-filled purple lipstick.

I also remember a picture of me and my two best friends, who all did our eye make-up like this, except horribly with (probably) blunt khol pencil:

GOD. Bear in mind we were all probably just wearing jeans and hoodies, too. Day to day makeup was just a LOT of black liner, mascara and nail polish - that's it! When I did wear eyeshadow, my dad used to stop me before I left the house to blend the edges in! I sometimes wore foundation, but no blush or lipstick/gloss. And I am afraid to say I did not wash my makeup off, either!



Around this time, I also remember buying this Stargazer shadow from a goth shop. Fuck knows what it looked liked on - these shadows are chalky as.... er, chalk, and you bet your butt I didn't know anything about eyeshadow bases!


This is my prom photo - my aunt who did a make-up course (she introduced me to Konad a looong time ago!) did my foundation, blush and lippy, which to this day I am thankful for, and I did my eye make-up. Not too bad - this was probably the most presentable I looked from the ages 13-18!

Uni:

Start of uni was little better. This is a pretty prime example:

Sooo... less eyeliner than my teenage years and that's it?! This was at a formal event, people! What the hell? Also: NO EYEBROWS. I wore black liner and/or Collection 2000 glitter liner in Emerald and Bourjois Little Round Pot eyeshadow in Beige Rose every single day for about two years (I only recently threw that motherfucker out!) and my going out look was... er, this?



Right... bad eyeliner again. Nice. At some point during uni my hair went from blonde to this:

I much prefer my hair red but... you gaiz.... this is my makeup for my 21st birthday. I cannot tell you how embarrassed I am when I look at the photos from that night. I was dressed as a fucking mermaid, I should have made more bloody effort with my makeup! As you can see, it hadn't clicked yet that my eyebrows should match my hair somewhat...


Ahhh, that's better! While I didn't discover blush as such, I did discover this:


Benefit 10! I used to wear this religiously, and I still dig it out fairly often in the summer. I didn't own "much" make-up at uni, but I did have some Barry M shadows, a fair amount of Benefit (this was before I knew that a high price doesn't necessarily mean it's good!), a red lippy or two, Chanel/Dior mascara, and of course that bloody Bourjois shadow! Everything fit with room to spare in this:




Canada:

When I was living in Canada for a year was when I really got interested in makeup. I broke my arm and spent 6 weeks watching YouTube videos because when you break your arm in January in B.C, there is NOTHING else to do if you can't snowboard. I didn't really wear makeup much that year, because I was very outdoorsy, but here's a look from when I went out one night in Vancouver with my friend Sara.


A bit draggy, no? I hate my hair this colour - and how much bronzer do I need to wear? Clearly had a lot to learn, still!

1 year ago:

About a year ago, I started blogging. This was my first 'creative' look, just before I started blogging.

I'd just bought a 120 palette, I think, and I decided to copy this My Eyeshadow Is Odd tutorial. Can you tell I didn't own any makeup brushes at this point? I did this with q-tips and sponge applicators.

This is my first 'normal' look I posted on my blog:

Not the worst make-up in the world, especially as I wasn't using primers/bases. I think I had a couple of brushes at this point, but probably no blending brushes. As you can see, I wasn't really sure what my crease was, I guess! I always used to do 'half and half' eyeshadow when I used two colours! At this point, I still didn't wear blush regularly, and I only plucked a tiny portion of my outer brows.

 

At this point I had was using primer, but my brows were still... not the best. But now:

My brows are a lot better, even though they're probably a bit short in the last photo. But I know what my crease is, how to blend much better, the benefits of blush and lip colour and EYEBROW PENCIL.

I also own a bit too much makeup now:

And I even do it on some other people! I still have a looong way to go to get to where I'd like to be, but lets face it, there's a lot of improvement here. I'd love to see 'timelines' if you have the photos so I'm tagging you all!