How To: Create an Eye Look With One Eyeshadow

Oh yes, one eyeshadow my friends! This is a really, really simple basic tutorial. Like, super simple. There are a couple of tricks you can do to make one shadow look better than just slapping it on alone, especially a shimmery, metallic or duochrome shadow. It’s great to able to do this in a rush or if you’ve got limited space to take makeup with you and you still want to create an impact. Also if you’re *just* starting out in makeup, or struggle with blending, this is a good one to read because one shadow applied well is never a bad thing! Also if you’re just staring out, you can do this look with one brush!

 

 

As always I try to go into detail in these ‘how to’ posts but if I’ve missed anything, please just let me know. You can use a loose or pressed eyeshadow for this look.  A shimmery, duochrome colour or one with different coloured sparkles to the main colour of the eyeshadow will look really good as well.

Step One: Grab an eyeliner pencil – any colour will do as long as it’s dark – the darker the better - and has no glitter particles. All my black pencils are AWOL so I grabbed a grey one. One that can be smudged out easily is good.

Draw a rough winged shape with the liner (see here for tips on how to draw a good wing)  and then smudge it out a little (you can use your finger for this.) The reason we’re doing liner first is it’s going to add depth to your shadow, but you don’t have to be super precise with it. Also if you have a duochrome shadow, it’s going to help bring out one of the colours in the shadow more than the other, so it will look like you’re wearing more than one colour. You can do a little patch test with your eyeshadow over your liner on your hand to see how the liner will affect the shadow first, if you like.

Step Two: Now take your shadow - a shimmery eyeshadow is the best to use. Pat it all over the lid, taking care not to go past where you drew your wing. (If you do, clean up under the wing with a cotton bud soaked in makeup remover.) If you have trouble placing your eyeshadow and not making it too ‘big’ for your eye, apply it inwards from each corner of your eye, don’t sweep it outward. Pack it on all the way up to the crease of the eye – again, you can use your finger for this. You can see that where it’s applied over the liner, you get more depth! This adds more dimension and definition and is much for forgiving than using liquid or gel liners if you’re a newbie.

Then, using with a blending or fluffy brush, take a small amount of the shadow on it and use little circular motions to blend the colour out just above your crease. Add a little more eyeshadow if you feel you need it, but try and take care to make it a nice soft line. No harsh lines please! If you’re just getting started, choosing a brush can be kind of hard, but this brush is my most recommended brushed to newbies because it’s fluffy enough to blend with, but dense enough and a good shape to pack eyeshadow on with too. Plus it’s only £1.50!

Before you finish up, add a little more colour right in the centre of your lid. Look straight on in the mirror and apply the colour right over your pupil. This just intensifies it a little bit and makes your eyes pop a little more – there’ll be more of a reflective surface on the centre of you eye and that’s going to make it look nice and big and round! If you like, you can dampen your brush for this part to make it extra intense.

Step 3: Finishing up time! The basics are done, it’s up to you how you want to finish it. I chose a *really* shiny colour so I chose to leave my lower lashline bare. I think it makes more of a statement but make sure you conceal any darkness under your eyes well. Adding false lashes that sweep upwards will help compliment the slight wing shape, but if you’re not good with false lashes just curl your real ones and add a good two coats of mascara.

 

If I was going out, I’d pair this with a nude cheek and a really bright pop on the lips – probably pillar-box red.

 

I know that was super basic, but I hope it helped someone!

What a Drag!

This is the first time I’ve ever done a drag inspired look, so go easy on me ;)

It was a Sunday, I had nothing to do, you know how it goes! I went to an amazing drag masterclass at Illamasqua Beak Street a few weeks ago and learned loads of tricks I’d been waiting to put into practice! I’ll explain a few bits and bobs as I go along. I’m

Standard before and after shot!

Brows are always the bit everyone seems to ask about with drag makeup and I kind of both did awesome and screwed my brows up. Daniel at Illamasqua used Pears Soap (a transparent soap) combed upwards through the brows to cover them and make them lay flat against the skin. I used the same soap but didn’t use enough and as it dried, the hairs started to peek through, which is my stupid mistake for not slowing down and taking my time. Lesson one learned! My favourite trick he taught us at Illamasqua was to use a white or very light concealer to sketch out your new brow shape. (I used Illamasqua  It’s more forgiving and helps you skip a couple of steps – drawing out your brows in a darker colour, and adding a highlight as you’ve already got one with the white border. Neat, huh?

I started at the natural base and inner corner of my brow and drew my new arch above my real one – definitely use your real brows as a reference point if you can and it’ll be much easier.

 

I then simply filled the gap in with Sugarpill Dollipop and 2am, mixed with Inglot Duraline.

Mad contouring… Obviously I’m not trying to create a more feminine face as, you know, I have one, but I did concentrate on the contouring the forehead to push it back and trying to do a button nose (even though the tip of my nose is pretty round) as theses are things that a lot of guys would do to make their bone structure seem more feminine. I wish I’d gone more over the top with the contouring – it did look stronger in real life than in photos, but I should have made it much much more obvious.

I loved these lips! I used MAC Magenta, a  Barry M hot pink and Makeup Store Fluffy lip pencils. After I’d done this, I topped it off with Covergirl Spellbound lipstick. I love that fake-ass cupids bow! Again I need to practice so the gradient sits in line with my natural lipline to help disguise it.

(See how the brows didn’t go so well! Up close, not so good! Ah well, next time!)

A well deserved cuppa!

Eyes: Illamasqua Concealer in 105 as a base/brow highlight. Sugarpill Take, Dollipop and 2am. Illamasqua Beguile to add Sparkle. Barry M Dazzle Dust in 66 (matte black) and Inglot Duraline to line.
Brows: Pears Soap (to cover natural brows), Sugarpill 2am and Dollipop, Inglot Duraline.
Face/cheeks: Illamasqua , eBay concealer palette. MAC Shadowy (contour), Illamasqua Beguile (highlight), Sugarpill Dollipop (blush).
Lips: MAC Magenta lipliner, Barry M pink lipliner, Makeup Store Fluffy Lipliner, Covergirl Spellbound.
Lashes: Eyelure Naturalites Doubles (top), Active Cosmetics Lash Extensions in Razzle Dazzle (bottom)

 

Man, it’s nice having permanent bitch face! I did have the balls to leave the house looking like this and quite frankly even if I did I wouldn’t have the outfit to live up to the makeup! I don’t think I’ll do it again any time soon as I can see it becoming addictive (call me batshit, but I really like it!) but I will be practicing covering my brows with the Pears soap as it seems like when I nail it it’ll be better than faffing about with Pritt Stick or brow wax, etc..

 

Have you ever done a drag look? Are you a drag fan? Would you like me to do a toned-down version of this look?

Quickie Review and Swatches: Kiko Precision Eyebrow Pencils

I needed to grab some more brow pencils for my kit and wanted to try something different. I use powders for brows too, but I do a lot of pin-up and alternative work where the models prefer a heftier brow, so I like to use pencils a fair bit. Now I still like my cheap as chips old faithful from Rimmel, but the shade range isn’t great. I did some browsing online and decided to go and check these bad boys from Kiko out!

Kiko say:

“Eyebrow pencil with micro-precision hard formula and separator comb, The formula contains high-melt waxes ensuring adherence, precision and a long lasting line. The fine point allows the shape of the eyebrows to be outlined or accentuated with a fine, precise line, giving a natural finish. Sharpener included.”

These pencils are tiny:

 

How great is that! They looked great for precision work and sounded like they’d be hard enough to fill in individual hairs as well. Though small, they’re really long, so you still get a good amount of product.

And now for some swatches – excuse my day-old manky mascara and unkempt brows, I’m a busy lady!

 

01 Brunettes. A pretty damn dark pencil, but with a slightly grey undertone that stops it looking too harsh.

02 Dark Chestnut. Cooler than a lot of drugstore eyebrow pencils, and not too dark. I can see myself using this shade a lot – a lot of pencils made for brunette hair is too red, or really dark.

03 Auburn and Redheads. Darker and cooler than I was expecting, but still a little red toned without looking full-on ginger or too warm. Not sure about this one just yet as a colour specifically for red heads just yet.

04 Light Chestnut and Blondes. Personally, this is my favourite – it’s like my brows but better! It may be too dark for very fair colouring.

L-R: 01 Brunettes, 02 Dark Chestnut, 03 Auburn and Redheads, 04 Light Chestnut and Blondes.

 

Well, that was a lot of gumph about something as boring as an eyebrow pencil but they’re something that’s really hard to choose so I thought this may help somebody! I find the pencils to be longwearing and they don’t seem to do that funky thing where they separate and look waxy over time. I’m really taken with the size of the point of the pencil and think that’s a totally genius idea, even if I’m worried about losing the little sharpener! I do think a lighter shade for very fair complexions may be helpful but overall, considering the small colour range, I really really like these.

 

The pencils cost £5.90 each and are available from www.kikocosmetics.co.uk

Quickie Review: Illamasqua Hydraveil

 

Everyone has been going nuts over one of Illamasqua’s latest releases, Hydraveil! There are different things written about what the product actually is, so here’s how it was explained to me by the girls at Illamasqua Beak Street:

-Hydraveil is a base for your makeup that you apply after your moisturizer
-It’s a quick step for flawless skin
-It’s not a primer in the sense that it doesn’t fill in pores, and that it’s not designed specifically to make your foundation last longer, just to provide a smooth, properly prepped base – but this can contribute to longer wearing makeup!
-It has a slight plumping effect
-It’s good for all skin types as it tackles to problem of dehydrated skin, as opposed to just dry skin like many products do.

 

Sounds amazing, right? The MUAs were certainly really excited talking about the product and I’m a sucker for a good sales pitch! All the above makes it sound too good to be true, no? I do have dehydrated skin – as well as dry, oh, joy!  It’s hard to tell, but dehydrated skin is lacking in water, whereas dry skin is lacking in oil, and you can be both – but one way is look for fine, crêpey lines, especially prematurely, which I certainly have. So I was really interesting in trying this product!

 

I love the packaging; as with all Illamasqua products it’s sleek and slightly quirky in an elegant way. This a round, slightly asymmetric tube with a screw-top lid. Inside, there’s a flip top lid which fits snugly, and a tiny spoon which clips in to the top. Very, very smart and practical. The spoon is totally necessary as scooping this out with your fingers is really hard because…

 

…of this crazy texture! It’s like jelly… smooth and shiny, and when you mix it up it goes mad, like bubbles or frogspawn! When you leave it, it settles again. Cool, huh? Because of the jelly texture, scooping it out by hand would be very hard, but with the tiny spoon you can get exactly the right amount. I find a little goes a long way, and one little spoonful spreads really easily across my whole face. It feel wet at first, but dries almost instantly and doesn’t leave any tackiness, or feel heavy.

I’ve been trialling this for a couple of weeks now, and I’ve certainly noticed my skin seems softer and my make is certainly lasting longer than it normally would. I’ve tried it with all my current foundations and they all applied beautifully over the top, and lasted a fair while longer than usual, and my skin felt comfortable throughout the day. I’ve read other MUAs saying it stops foundations they know to separate on the skin from doing so as well, and that it helps prep oily skins as well. So… it does seem to work!  While I’m not sure I notice a plumping effect, over time or on older skin perhaps that might be more noticeable? I’ll be certain to update the post if I notice anything over time!

I’m sure over time there will be dupes for this product - I’m not really an ingredient whizz, but the two main ingredients are water and glycerine (a humectant, something that helps keep things moist/retain water) which I believe is relatively cheap – but for now, regardless of cost, I’m certainly sticking with Hydraveil!

 

Hydraveil is available from Illamasqua.com, £27 for 30ml.

Mini Illamasqua Haul

I recently went to one of Illamasqua's fabulous free classes at the Beak Street store and fell in love with a couple of products during the drag demonstration! If you’d like a post on the demonstration let me know, I learnt some cool stuff!

Pure Pigment in Beguile

Okay, so out of all the amazing sparkly things in the world, on the face of it this isn't that exciting. It's looks white in the jar but as it's made of lots of tiny multicoloured particles it comes off as a 'colourless' sparkle on the skin. It's a real workhorse as it could be used to add sparkle to any colour and I don’t see that I’ll ever run out! It's just really pretty and I couldn't help myself.

 

 Concealer in 105

Left, Illamasqua concealer. Right, NYX Jumbo Eye Pencil in Milk.

I know, I know, I don't have white skin. But this is actually a hugely useful product, especially if you do makeup on other people. For extreme highlighting (as in a drag or Kim Kardashian -style look) or lightening other concealers, it's invaluable but I've been using it mainly as most people would use NYX Jumbo Eye Pencil in Milk. I actually much prefer this to Milk as it's not as stark and the texture is much more akin to actual skin than Milk is. It's much less creamy as well, so should stick around that bit better. I’m basically in love with it and think it’s a fab product.

 

Here's a quick eye look with both the above products as inner eye and brow highlights. You can't see the effect of Beguile as much as I'd like but in person it's so pretty and looks lovely over the white base. You can certainly build them to get a stronger look as well. I’m also wearing Illamasqua’s Lover blusher here, and I prepped my skin wiiiiiiith…

 

Hydraveil

Everyone's been fawning all over this product! I've only worn it a few times so have yet to gather my thoughts but I'm pretty sure my review is going to be nothing but positive! It's SUCH an interesting product, but I’m going to wait till my review before I start rambling. I will say though that I really like the textural theme running through the Paranormal collection – the finish of the polishes is cool, the palette is a fun texture and then you have this frogspawny-ness when you mix Hydraveil up.

 

Are you an Illamasqua fan? What are your favourite products?

Quickie Review: Lime Crime Velvetine in Suedeberry.

A lot of people have been going nuts over Lime Crime Velvetines, with them selling out left, right and centre. I found one on a UK website and curiosity got the better of me!*



The packaging is very, very pretty. I can see the frosted glass getting scuffed up pretty quickly but I like that it reflects that the product itself is matte. The lilac and red colouring is dead cute, and it has a unicorn on the cap of which I cannot but approve! It would make a pretty gift, I think. Here’s what the brand have to say about the product itself:

To me that sounds like a recipe for Sahara lips! I like a matte lipstick, but one that has tips to remove it on the packaging made me really worried these were going to be ridiculously drying. At least I can’t say I wasn’t warned, I guess.
I didn’t want to use a lip liner while I was testing it, but the swatches here are applied with a lip brush. I found it hard to get the colour to look smooth and not streaky just using the doefoot applicator. I applied one coat with a lip brush to get the shape, and then reapplied to get the depth of colour. The product is pigmented enough that one coat will certainly do the trick but I can’t get application nice using one coat. I don’t see this as a problem as I have small lip brushes I use often for lots of products anyway.

Isn’t it pretty? It’s less of a pinky coral than I thought from website swatches, but as I’m an orange fan I don’t mind at all. Lime Crime do have a history of really inaccurate website swatches so googling swatches of any of their products is a good idea. The product itself  goes on like a liquid and dries very matte very quickly. It really is super matte and I’m not sure if that looks great on me or not yet!

Here’s a shot of me wearing it after eight hours of wear. I had one touch-up after lunch, but that was it. It doesn’t look amazing, but the base of colour is certainly still there and I don’t have an ugly ring of colour on my lips, or any icky goopy buildup on the ‘waterline’ of the lip either like you can get with some products.

Whether you the way this wears or not or not is going to be pretty personal – I don’t like it as I’d prefer to apply fresh rather than touch up as I think the result looks better, and it’s really tough to actually remove this product. There’s no way you’re going to remove this on the go! I’m impressed with how much is actually left on my lips though, as I did notice a bit of transfer throughout the day on to cups/boyfriend. I also wore it the night before the application above, where it survived a workout (yes, I am that guy), a bit of a snog and dinner. In the shower afterwards it went smudgy – you really do need a remover for it. Despite the fact that it’s so long lasting, it’s not actually hideously drying on the lips. It didn’t get to the point where I felt I HAD to take it off. If I’m totally honest, I found it less drying than a MAC matte which wears for about the same time on me (with a touch-up).

Overall, regardless of the fact I don’t think Lime Crime are all that, I really like the product and would consider the other shade. I bought this from Cute Cosmetics for £11.50

*I know a lot of you aren’t Lime Crime fans, and I’m not overly enamoured with them as a brand either. While I really wanted to try this particular product, I know a lot of people choose not to shop from them and I’d really, really recommend Googling them if you’re not sure.

Dirty 30’s

I sat down to tidy up my makeup station at home and this happened instead. It was very impromptu so while deliberately messy looking, it’s not as goof as it could be. I really like the outcome though and I might have to re-do it at some point. I was going to practice a proper flapper look but did this instead :D

Eyes: Avon Super Shock gel pencils in Black and Silver, Sugarpill 2am, silver from a Wet n Wild palette, Gosh Light N Shine Lipgloss in no5. Top lashes, no name brand from Savers, bottom lashes from Primark a long time ago but most lash companies have similar. Gems from eBay.

Oh how I love glossy eyes!

 

Have you done any crazy/stupid/fun makeup looks lately?