Where to go makeup shopping in London

One of my favourite things to do in London is, naturally, makeup shopping. I do this shopping walk over and over again and love it, and it covers most things you could ever want from a makeup shopping trip. Makeup can be had in any department store, shopping centre or area of London, but I stick to this little route a lot and it covers everything. I've also listed some other stores elsewhere in London that are worth a visit.

I'm super lucky to have met some wonderful bloggers from around the country and abroad and I always enjoy shopping with them. This weekend I met up with the lovely Sam from Kiss My Sparkle and our friend Jade and off we went!

Face charts at Illamasqua, prettiness at Benefit and pigments and glitter at Makeup Store.

Starting your stroll just off Carnaby Street, the Illamasqua store is an absolute must-stop for makeup lovers. The store is absolutely beautiful, and it's normally quieter than the stand at Selfridges so the MUAs there can give you their full attention. Jade and I spent a good time drooling over their beautiful face charts, the studio at the back of the store where they hold classes, the quirky Gothic furniture and of course, all the beautiful polishes and makeup, while Sam was matched for SkinBase by a lovely, friendly MUA.

Snippets of prettiness from the Benefit parlour.

Heading back onto Carnaby Street, the brand-new Benefit store is so girly and worth a stop by! Sam and I picked up some of the Creaseless Cream Shadows and I was actually pretty impressed by their new blush, Rockateur. Downstairs they have a full-on beauty salon for waxing, nails, spray tanning and blow-drys, complete with a champagne bar! It's definitely somewhere I'd take my sister or one of my besties for a pamper day and I can see it becoming a popular hen-do spot with it's cute decor and central location.

Continuing down Carnaby Street you'll see the Swedish brand Makeup Store on your left. I absolutely love the Makeup Store - the glitters and pigments are amazing, and they have a gorgeous home spa section as well. If you buy something, you get a discount on thier own magazine which I always pick up. It's absolutely stunning and as good as many editorial makeup books I've paid ten times the money for!

 

Treats at Choccywoccydoodah! Not makeup, but whatever.

Coming out of Makeup Store, head straight across down Fouberts Place to MAC Pro on the corner. As well as carrying all the usual MAC products, they carry lots of other fun things for professional use, like acrylic body paints and the Chromacakes. MAC Pro is conveniently right next door to Choccywoccydoodah! I stopped in here with the girls for the first time and ordered a white hot chocolate and a dipping pot with lots of little bite-sized version of their treats and left in a full-on sugar coma. This is a really nice, quirky place with lovely kitsch decor and fun music to stop off at and rest your feet, and the staff were absolutely lovely and made us feel very welcome.

 

Back off to Carnaby Street and off to Liberty! This is one of my favourite shops in London as it's so beautiful and easy to get lost in for a couple of hours. Head through the chocolate shop and you'll come out into the perfume department - I love it here as there are so many posh and unusual scents in a posh-Great-Grandma’s-house setting. There's lots of nooks and crannies to explore in the beauty department. - the Hourglass counter is worth a browse and if you head up a couple of floors, the bath and body section is always decked out beautifully. If you’re into candles, this is where you wanna be.

 

A long line of pretty at the YSl counter in Selfridges

Leaving Liberty and heading back onto Regent Street and then Oxford Street, turn left and keep going until you reach Selfridges! You will pass a (newly refurbished but Art Deco-less) Debenhams  and a John Lewis, but Selfridges beauty hall kicks their butt. I freaking love Selfridges beauty hall. Hooooooooo mama! As well as favourites like MAC, NARS and Bobbi Brown, I love going to the Shu Uemura and Armani counters, and I always stop off to drool at the crazy expensive Tom Ford products! I noticed the new Charlotte Tilbury stand was super popular too!I took some advice from the lovely guys at Kiehl’s about some male skin care while the girls drooled over the Suquu range. Heading to the back of the beauty section you'll find all the polishes and less high-end brands like OCC and Bourjouis, as well as quirky brands like Paul and Joe.

If you're a real hard-core shopper, you can go to Carnaby Street via Regent Street, and stop off at Penhaligons, an absolutely beautiful per fumier, and LUSH for all your favourites. Then go through all the shops above, but instead of continuing down Oxford Street from Liberty, nip into Topshop to check out their own range of makeup and the huge Barry M stand. Before heading into Selfridges, there's a large Boots on Oxford Street - skip all the counters as you'll see these in Selfridges, but it's a good chance to pick up UK brands you can't get elsewhere, and a Body Shop or two as well. Similarly, take a right as you leave Selfridges and there's a huge Superdrug for even more UK high street goodies like Sleek and MUA!

That's usually quite enough for one day, but there are a few other gems dotted about London as well. If you're in Westfield White City, the OPI store and Models Own Bottleshop are great for polishes. KIKO (also at Westfield Stratford) is fast becoming one of my favourite makeup stores and have they amazing products for great prices, as well as great sales. The only Inglot store in the UK is in Westfield White City as well and I could go on and on about how much I love this brand! If you're in either Westfield, the large Boots have a great range of French pharmacie skin-care brands, too. If you’re shopping at the White City Westfield, PAM is a short walk away and has an amazing range of professional and colour brands such as Makeup Forever and Illamasqua, as well SFX goodies galore and amazing brushes from brands like bDellium Tools and London Brush Co.

Central London-wise, if you're in Covent Garden a stop at Charles Fox on Tavistock Street is an absolute must – lots of amazing special effects goodies (buckets of vomit, anyone? Fake beards?) and wonderful colour products from Kryolan, Ben Nye, Illamasqua et al to play with. There's also a SpaceNK a short walk away in Seven Dials along with a MAC, Bare Minerals, Benefit and Shu Uemura.

My modest haul for the day! Thank you, Boots BOGOF!

If you have any London-based shopping questions, please just let me know and I'll do my best to answer! Where do you like to shop for makeup?

No Mirror Makeup Challenge!

It is what it says on the tin…. do your makeup with no mirror, film it, allow people to laugh. It was actually pretty horrible to do, some things feel very strange indeed and the heightened risk of poking yourself in the eye wasn’t fun either! However, I think I did pretty well! I did go easy on myself and choose my simplest, everyday look to do though.

 

See how I got on in the video!

Oh god….

 

 

 

Eeeeee… it looks okay if you look at it really quickly and then look away, haha! I was surprised at my lips, I think they went pretty well except I overdrew the cupids bow a lot on my right hand side. My brows are just awful though!

 

If any of you odd people want to know what I used, the eyes are the MUA Undress Me Too palette, brows are Rimmel Hazel pencil, cheeks are Sleek Suede and Boots No 7 Vital Enlightening Highlighter (LE 2012) and lips are Lime Crime Red Velvet.

 

Have you done this? Link me below!

Anatomy of a Photoshoot

Most of you will know by now that I do some makeup work on the side - it's by no means a full time job for me (yet! Fingers crossed!) but it is something I work very hard at and put a lot of hours into. A friend of mine made a comment last week that made me realise that most people simply don’t know how much work goes into a photoshoot! I did a beauty shoot just over a week ago and this post documents everything that goes into it - from my point of view, anyway! Preparations for models, photographers and stylists are of course all different but take just as much if not more time. Not all shoots involve this much planning, some require more and some less. Each one is different.

My friend Yat Tang was the photographer for this shoot and it was his concept. I’ve worked with him a few times and his work is beautiful. In a more professional setting he would be the client, and everything would need to be approved by them. He sent me this inspiration board:

And then I set up my own Pinterest board to gather my thoughts and ideas as well:

 

Once I'd seen the models Yat had cast, I came up with a rough face chart for each and sent them to him for approval:

 

One of the looks involved making a hair piece which I knew would really help take the photos to a better level.  I spent a couple of hours in the shops searching for bits and bobs for it, and I also went foraging for leaves, twigs etc. I then spent an afternoon making the head piece which was very tricksy actually! I don't always make things for shoots, but if it's applicable I like to add that extra level of my creativity and it often impresses the team as well. Other things I might make include nails and other head pieces, like this and this.

Here I am sewing hair donuts together to get the size and height I want. Hair donuts can be very expensive in some places so I bought el cheapo ones from Primark and made with the scissors!

Halfway there…

And finished! Sewing real leaves together is a pain in the butt! It’s not the most fabulous thing in the world but trust me, it looked great in the photos.

The day before the shoot, I spend up to two hours cleaning my brushes and packing and re-cleaning my kit. It doesn’t always take that long, but if I’ve left it till the last minute and have no clean brushes left, which I do all too often, it can take a while! I’ll double check everything before I leave for the shoot at least twice as I have a huge, huge fear of leaving my brushed behind! I could substitute many things for something else in my kit but no brushes = disaster!

My first model, Donna, was at 9.30pm and we shot with her until 1pm. She had a pretty simple, soft look with oranges and pinks. Her hair and makeup took perhaps an hour and a half, maybe a little longer. This sounds like a long time considering the look but it's important to get it right. Her headdress was made on the day as we were using fresh flowers. Here's a timelapse video and some BTS shots of getting ready and starting to shoot:

 

 

Beauty Shoot with Donna Time Lapse from Yat Tang on Vimeo.

 

As you can see, Jade isn’t dressed up at all! If you’re only shooting headshots, quite often a model will just wear what they came in or something on the top half. Lots of beauty shoots are just shot in a strapless bra.

I hope this illustrates that behind the scenes things aren't always as glamorous as people image them to be! Lots of studios in London are in unromantic places such as business parks, hidden behind car parks, on industrial estates, etc. When I first started going to studios I wondered if what I’d gotten myself into was dodgy due to the locations!

Finally, here are some of the images:

It seems like a lot of work and it is, but seeing a beautiful image you helped create is so amazing. There's nothing like it! After a shoot, there’s not much work for me and the model – obviously I have to clean a lot of brushes and my kit, but you soon get used to doing this all the time and have a little routine so it doesn’t take too long. Small things like packing dirty brushes separately from ones that haven’t been used helps a lot.

Hope this was interesting to some of you - please check out Yat, Donna and Jade's pages, and if you're in the London area, Dock House Studio.

Blue and Green Jewel Toned Smokey Eye Tutorial (For Rachael!)

I said I’d do this tutorial for Rachael and I’m not a liar, so here it is.

 

 

First, use your blackest base and apply that over your lid, lower lashline and waterlines. I used Urban Decay 24/7 Pencil in Perversion, because it’s awesome. Just so you know, this step was my total makeup routine circa 2001. No lie.



Set that with a matte black eyeshadow  (I used Sleek) and smudge out the edges of the pencil.



Next, take a metallic navy and really build that up in the crease so it looks vibrant. I used an Inglot shade.



Do the same on the lower lashline…

…and join up the colours on the outer corner. I used a pencil brush for this and the last step. Take a little more black eyeshadow near your waterline if you got the blue eyeshadow too near it.



Looking straight ahead, apply a metallic green in the centre of your lid…

… and the centre of the lower lashline. I used a colour from a since defunct indie company, but tons of companies make a shade similar. Then, take your favourite shimmery blue or green highlight and apply this to the browbone and inner corner of the eye. Again, I used one from a now shut-down indie company but I’d recommend something like Sugarpill Lumi instead.

Now add brows, lashes and winged liner if you need too and you’re done!

 

Because Rachael wanted to wear this look with Face Lace, here’s the look with some! I just blended the blue colour a little further up the crease so there was more of a gradient inbetween the gaps in the applique.

And I also kinda liked how it looked once I’d taken it off, ha ha!

Many thanks to Charlotte from Lipglossiping for the Face Lace – you can see another look I did with it along with some other awesome bloggers wearing different versions here! Face Lace are really strange to wear… having some stuck over a fairly big mobile part of skin is a really weird sensation, but you get used to it! While I do think they’re expensive, now I’ve tried them and seen that they’re not necessarily a replacement for creativity and that you can indeed wear awesome makeup with them… I’m kind of a fan!

Lush Christmas Goodies!

I was lucky enough to have Lush White City host their Christmas launch at my work this evening and the kind ladies let me come along and play. I used to be a fairly sporadic Lush buyer, but since I’ve taken more of an interested in my skin I’ve been much more of a fan! This is the first time I’ve experienced the brand beyond shopping in stores, and the stories behind each product and their development and the enthusiasm of the staff really reminded me of the care and attention that lots of our favourite indie companies put into their products.

Here's what I came away with:

 

 

Three shower gels! I know, I know. But I really loved them all! Everyone knows about the lovely Snow Fairy – it returns every year at Christmas and has a super-sugary, candyfloss and pear drop scent. I find it very sweet in comparison to my usual choices for perfumes and bath stuff, but a little bottle for particularly girly days can’t do me any harm! Interesting to see it's been given it's own label this year - the only non-gift set item to have seperate packaging which I think is a testament to how big a cult fave this is! Twilight is a lavender-based scent, with a strong malty note running through it – like Malted Milk biscuits! I don’t do lavender on it’s own normally, but I really do like this combination – good for sleepy time! I've had the bath bomb before and loved the scent but the showergels are more pocket friendly in the long run, so I grabbed a bottle instead of another bomb.

My absolute favourite out of the whole Christmas range was Ponche, a new shower gel for this year and I cannot WAIT to get naked with it. The bottle says “with orange juice and a shot of tequila. Inspired by traditional Mexican punch, this shower gel is boozy, fruity and uplifting.” The boozy scent is very subtle, but it’s certainly there and give this a richness that makes it stand out from typical spiced orange Christmas scents. I think this would be a nice unisex scent and it’s a lovely warm, wintery smell without being overtly Christmassy (I know what I mean!)

 

I’m not going to list all the products (Check out Musings of a Muse for the full lowdown!) but there were a couple more products that really stood out:



The popcorn lip scrub was DIVINE. I literally stood there eating it. It tastes like salted caramel popcorn and it’s just scrumptious! I do think that sugar scrubs are always overpriced as you can whip them up with items from your kitchen whenever you like, but nonetheless it’s no more expensive that a posh lip balm, it’s effective and my god, it is yummy in my tummy.



Lush have a North Pole soap this year (it’s bloody massive – about as thick as my neck and it comes in a massive pole) which is basically like a big candy cane! The white portion is peppermint and it was so creamy and sweet alongside being very fresh and minty. Not bad at all, Lush! I'll be going back for this, I think my other half might like it.

 

 

Do you get excited for Christmas collections or do you wish companies kept the same things all year round? Does falling in love with a limited edition product make you a sad panda?

Guest blogger: A Trip Down Memory Lane from Helen of BBFriendForever

Hey y'all, today I'm handing you over to Helen from bbfriendforever.blogspot.co.uk, who's pretty new on the blogging scene. She's taking us back to her teens with the makeup she used to wear! I LOVE reading posts like this - my teen makeup was pretty awful - they're so fun and it's nice to reminisce!

A Trip Down Memory Lane.

Hi there,

First of all I would like to thank Robyn for allowing me to guest post. I haven’t been
writing my blog for very long, but have been reading make up blogs for some time…I
love reading Robyn’s blog, so I hope that I won’t spoil your fun today and that you’ll
enjoy my contribution!

A friend asked me recently where I get the inspiration for my eye make up looks. I guess
that these days I usually choose the colours from the clothes I am wearing that day and
apply my eye shadow using different techniques, depending on my mood. I also find
inspiration from my fellow bloggers, like Robyn, who pulls colours together in a way that
I would never have thought of doing!

This question also made me think back to how I wore make up in my teens. Then I was
influenced by magazines and my friends. Do you remember having to have a particular
shade of lipstick? For me that was Rimmel’s ‘Heather Shimmer’ a colour I still have,
though an up to date tube of course!

In eye make up, as a teen , I often wore the look that I have attempted to recreate for you
today.

 

I used today: (back in the day)
• MUA Professional eye primer. (didn’t exist)
• Silk Naturals 'stick 'em ' lash to brow and under the lower lashline (really no primers)
• Collection 2000 lasting perfection concealer in 02 light (Rimmel hide the blemish)
• NYX JEP in ‘milk’ to lid and blended softly (an ancient Avon matte white eye
shadow- of my Mums, like a lipstick, which would often break and be messy)
• Bobbi Brown 'Ivory' crease to brow (a matte white from a Miners duo eye shadow)
• Bright orange from a warm 120 palette in crease (Miss Selfridge ‘screwball’- a matte
tangerine)
• Bobbi Brown Gel eyeliner in Ink (Boots17 cake eyeliner- I still have the fine brush I
used though)
• Benefit eyebright in lower waterline (Miners white khol)
• Maybelline one by one Volume express mascara in Black (Avon or Rimmel)
• Bobbi Brown eyeshadow in 06 'grey' as brow powder. (not sure I did the brows!)

Do you remember what you loved to wear in your teens?

Would you wear any of it now?

If you’ve time, then please take a peek at my blog, it’s bbfriendforever.blogspot.co.uk

Thanks, Helen! If you'd like to write  a guest post for the blog, just get in touch!

Silver Liner inspired by Liza from Hues n Blues

I love Liza’s blog and when I saw this gorgeous look I knew I had to pinch it. Sorry, girl! But it was too pretty. I’d never have thought to pair silver liner with a peach lid, but it’s SO cute!

Lid: Inglot Matte 368. Crease/outer lid, Inglot Matte 377.  Lower lashline, Inglot AMC Shine 37 over Urban Decay 25/7 pencil in Bourbon. Silver liner, Sugarpill Tiara mixed with Inglot Duraline. Highlight, INglot Matte 330. Wing, Collection2000 24/7 Extreme pen liner in Black.
Cheeks: MAC Peaches.
Lips: MAC Hang Up (cremesheen.)

 

I’m not sure that Hang Up was the right choice for this look or not… I still can’t decide. I love Hang Up so much though, so, if it’s not quite right I’m going to ignore it. Other than that niggle, I love this look! Thanks for the inspiration, Liza!

More Sugarpill coming up soon, I have some Burning Heart looks!

#ZOMGbloggersbash!

(there's a wee NSFW shot at the end of this 'ere post...)

Last night I attended the ZOMG! bloggers bash in London. The meetup was co-hosted by ReeRee Rockette/Rockalily and Zozo/LondonLipGloss and was a celebration of all things social media as well as a bit of a launch of ZOMG!, the new Rockalily colour.

It was a fun night, even though I was terribly awkward! I've never been to a bloggers event before and I went on my tod! I met some lovely bloggers, including the lovely Sparklzandshine, whose blog I have been reading for a while and love. I spent a while chatting to the girls from Illamasqua about social media and thier branding and just how awesome Illamasqua is generally. There were SO many beautiful girls there so I hope people didn't think I was a wierd perv - there were just some great outfits and hair! If there's another event I will need to make more of an effort!

There was a lot going on! We started off with a bloggers bingo, trying to find bloggers who were wearing a certain colour, who did/didn't make youtube videos, who had a twitter name starting with vowel, etc. It was a nice ice breaker!

... gorgeous hats from Little Miss B. How beautiful is the leopard pillbox hat? Gorgeous! There were hats and wigs and you could get your photo taken.

L-R :  Mae Hem, Pompadour Pink, Hot Rod Red, Mans Ruin, Sailors Beware, Mermaid, ZOMG!

Me wearing Mae Hem – I need this colour!
Of course I spent a good amount of time at the lipstick stand - I only have one lipstick from Rockalily and I need more now! It was so nice to actually swatch lipsticks that are only available online. I really want Hot Rod Red and Mae Hem now.

There were a few of these floating around.. everyone leaving thier mark! I kind of want all my friends to do one for me to hang in my makeup room!

I didn't get photos of the amazing hair being done by Miss Honey Bare, or Tigz Rice's pop-up photo booth, or the cupcakes by Temptations Creations.. there was a LOT going on!

And now to the best part... I didn't even realise there would be burlesque dancers! YAY! Below is the amazing Rubyyy Jones, who did a hilarious routine where she was pretending to have webcam sex. Oh, lord, I was in stiches. I'll definitely keep an eye on her and go to watch her again.

And here is my new girlfriend, Miss Banbury Cross. These pictures suck balls because she is honestly the most beautiful lady I have ever seen. She wiggled her boobies at me and I nearly fainted. Go and see her!

Well, that was my night! I'd definitely hit it up if there were another one!

Guest Post: MUA Glamour Night Swatches by Rachael from The Beauty Spot

Hi guys! I’m on holiday, so please welcome Rachael from The Beauty Spot as my guest blogger today! She makes me giggle and has beautiful swatches, so please go and check out her blog :)

Hiya Peeps,
I recently picked up a few MUA palette's and the first one I have to share is the Glamour Nights selection :)
I wasn't going to pick these up until I saw a review on another blog and really for £4 you can't go too far wrong

All swatched dry no primer.

This is a really pretty palette with some really fun pops of colour to keep me happy. The hot pink is especially lovely and refused to be photographed nicely, my other favourite is the green :) it's a real shame these have no shade names but I understand MUA are introducing names going forward and will eventually backdate (they used a number system before) so everything is named which I'm all for!

There were only really a couple of duds in these 12 shades, the 2nd shade on the first row (purple) was dry and lacked pigmentation which is odd as the majority of the palette is very pigmented and easy to use :| Oh well you can't have everything right! Also the first shade (white) could be a bit more pigmented but I guess that is more personal taste.

Would I recommend this palette? Totally for £4 the quality far outweighs any issue with one or two shades. Also if this palette doesn't float your boat there are lots to choose from, I'm trying to collect them Pokemon style :P I have heard rumours that the Heaven and Earth palette is a good Urban Decay Naked substitute but I haven't tried it myself.

MUA now have a website (HUZZAH!) and you can buy from them here they also offer International shipping however it's not exactly cheap but at least the option is there.
Next up will be the Glamour Days palette :)