The one and only...

A while ago, I won a lovely little giveaway from Annamax. I was really excited when I won because one of the goodies was Frutti di Bosco by Aromaleigh!

 Frutti di Bosco is a super-glittery 'grape' colour and I love it! Lovely pigmentation, applies like a dream! I sadly came into the indie make-up world too late to buy Aromaleigh and I always thought it was a shame as I know they have a place in the hearts of many beauty bloggers. (I also got two Aromaleigh glitters, Shakeitup and Spooky, from a blog sale Beauty's Bad Habit just had, so now I haz three Aromaleighs!)

A quick looks with it for good measure! If I look a bit ill, it's because I am. Whenever I'm sick and I have to go into work I always put on All The Makeup because I think if I look better, I feel better. Wrong.

Eyes:
Lid - Aromaleigh Frutti di Bosco
Crease: The two matte purples from Wet n' Wild Lust Paletee
Hightlight: Matte
Lower lashline: Lighter matte purple, Aromaleigh Frutti di Bosco

Cheeks:
Accessorize baked blusher in Pretty Pink

Lips:
Evil Shades Deviant Lipstick in Bane

Is there anything you really wish you'd bought when it was available?


P.S - How do you like the new blog look? I know some people hate white-on-dark, so please tell me if it's hard to read, or whatever.

Sleek Paraguya Palette Tutorial

I've never done a picture tutorial before, so go easy on me! I've been asked to do tutorials in the past but I don't feel as if I have a structured routine for my makeup, as I am sure you will shortly agree. So with that in mind, here's a really simple look for y'all. Hope you like!

Here's the look:

And here's how to get it:

 Prime your eyelid using your primer of choice. I use Urban Decay Primer Potion.

 Cover the lid in a cream shadow base to help colours look more vibrant. I'm using NYX Jumbo pencil in Milk. Apply it sparingly and pat it in with your ring finger to prevent creasing.

 On the inner half of your lid, apply Sleek Persian Orange, or any bright orange peach, by packing it onto the lid.

 On the outer half of the lid, pack on Sleek Peach gold, or another reddish peach. Blend a little more of the Persian Orange over the line where the shadows meet. I do this by holding your shadow brush vertically and making side-to-side motions where the colours join up.

 Start adding Sleek Stone, or a dark matte brown, to your outer crease using a fluffy brush.

 ...and blend it towards your nose. Apply more to the outer corner, blend, repeat until you've got your desired colour depth and shape. (If your colour is dragging, you might have applied a bit too much primer/base and it will 'grab' the colour. Keep at it!)

 Along the top of the brown colour, add a little more of the darker peach shade.Apply a matte highlight -  I used Sandstone from the Paraguaya palette.When applying the highlight this will blend in that line of the darker peach you just added. You can also add some highlight to the inner corner of your eye.

 Now add some more base to your lower lid. I applied this now rather than at the start, because I didn't want to get dark brown fallout all over it.

 Add the lighter peach colour on the inside...

... and the darker colour on the outside.

 Line your lashlines with Stone or whatever brown you're using, and join the lines up in the corners so it meets the crease colour.

 ...and add a sweep of black liquid liner with a thin brush and white liner on the waterline if you want - I just don't personally have decent enough lashes to get the definition I want with brown liner alone.

 Add mascara and fill in your brows. I used MUA eyebrow pencil in blonde and set it with a medium brown shadow from Sleek Storm palette. You can finish your eyes now if you want...

 ...But I wanted falsies! Clean up your fall out and do your foundation, concealer, etc.

 On the back on your cheeks (or wherever, it's your face), add a light peach blush. I'm using Darling Girl Boardwalk. Buff the blush in circular motions backwards towards your hairline, and then buff it forwards towards your apples to blend it all in nicely.

Add a peachy lip -I mixed GOSH Velvet Touch lippie in Darling and Shiro Cosmetics Intertubes in Rickrolled -  and I then added a wee bit of orange gloss on top of this.

And you're done!

That was fun! Thanks for reading.

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!

Candy Yum Yum Dupe?

Haz I found one? A couple of you asked me to compare Sleek Amped to Mac Candy Yum Yum. Someone lovely sourced CYY for me when London refused to provide it, so I did some swatches for you.

Top to bottom - Direct sunlight, flash, no flash.
Left is MAC Candy Yum Yum, right is Sleek True Colour Lipstick in Amped.

 

Top is Candy Yum Yum, bottom is Amped.

What say we all? In the last skin swatch picture, I think Amped looks a little bluer, but from having worn both, I think CYY is more opaque and that may have something to do with it. From the lip swatches (both with flash and both hastily applied, sorry!) you can see CYY looks more neon. They're close, in my opinion, but it's nowhere near a perfect dupe.

As for wear... the problems I have with mattes are the same for both lipstick. They don't adhere well to the centre of my lips, and after a while, my lips will dry out to the point where I have to take the lipstick off. With Candy Yum Yum, I applied it around 9 and had took it off about 5. It faded after eating at around 2, but I could have just about got away with not touching up. With Amped applied at about 9 in the morning, I felt I had to touch up more after eating and I felt like I wanted it off about at about 4. CYY feels nice on the lips when I apply, and I *do* like the nommy vanilla scent, so I'd say out of the two, I probably prefer the MAC.


I dunno guys.... It's not a dupe in my opinion, but if you just want the hot pinkness,  I'd say get the Sleek if you're a Brit - £4 to £14 is a bit of a no-brainer if you don't desperately want the exact colour. If you ain't a Brit, or you don't have a UK CP'er, get the MAC if you can find it.


Reckon I can pull it off, kids?

Quickie Review and Swatches: Evil Shades Deviant Lipstick

I really need to give up on the 'quickie review' crap - they're never quick! I think I just like saying 'quickie.' Anyway, feast your eyeballs on the Evil Shades Deviant Lipsticks in my collection.


Silk Stockings:




The last picture captures the colour of the base well, but it shows up like the top photo normally - the sparkles/shift are a soft blue! Really awesome unusual nude.

Fateful:



Fateful is a black with purple shimmer. For a black lipstick (which are tricky buggers) this is freaking ace - no rubbing it over your lips 10,000 times to get some colour to show! The only downside is you need to wear lip liner, as you can probably see, but that's the case with all blacks I've ever tried.

Primrose Path:

Such a perfect day-to-day shade - a peachy pink with subtle green shimmer. The green shimmer makes it unusual enough that I think I'm cool, but it is very subtle and wearable still!

Devilista:


One of my favourite reds! I really think this is a knock-out shade and I like its not-too-sheeny, not-too-matte finish.

Obscurity:

 

 

A deep metallic blue. I have trouble with this one - it takes a bit of effort to apply it opaquely, but it's not like it takes ten minutes or anything.  I'm going to try it over concealed lips and see if that makes a difference.

Mage:

It's green. What more can I say? I got a sample of this with an order and I love it! *Probably* wouldn;t wear it out, but we'll see...
  
Bane:

Bane is a really pretty light pink with a blue shift and I think it's a nice addition to anyone's colection. The formula of this one is really light and balmy and as such is sheerer than the others. Great for layering.

Corruption:

Corruption is a metallic purple with blue glitter (you can see it if you click the bottom picture, it's more obvious in real life). A really cool and unusual shade! This is a bit of a funny one - it is pigmented, but I have to really warm it up first to get it to show on my lips. Bit odd, but once it's warmed up, it applies nicely and doesn't budge.

Corset:

 

A beautiful wine colour. I love these shades but often find they're too red or too black - this one has a lovely berry juiciness to it. Do you have lipsticks that whenever you put them on you make kissy duck faces at yourself? (No... just me?) Well, this is one of those lippies!

Fearless:

Errrr. How awesome is this? It's quite hard for me to describe - it's very bright but it's sort of... a neon undertone than rather than a omg-my-retinas bright.The best thing about it is it's UV REACTIVE. I can't wait to see how it glows under blacklight. Funnily enough, I don't have one knocking about to swatch it under but I will update this post soon as I've got a UV shoot coming up.


Boring word time...

What to say about these? Well, the first thing I love is the price. They're $4.25 each, so about £2.60, and they're quite often on 3-for-2, so they're a freakin' steal. They wear very well - I worse Primrose Path the other day and it lasted through a picnic and beyond, which is no mean feat, I tell you, and they're not drying, although some formulas are slightly drier than others. I'll reiterate that they're cheap as fucking chips, because I still can't get over what you get for the price.


I should also mention the packaging. Here's the new tubes:

 

Versus the old tubes:

 

The old packaging was a bit bothersome - I find it hard to neatly apply some of the colours with the big chapstick round tubes as I have a skinny upper lip (not complaining, of course, as I'm sure the packaging has a lot to do with that awesome price) but the new slimmer ones solve that problem and look pretty swish too. Love the new labels as well - look how far they've come along since the original white ones!


Have you tired these lippies? Any reccomendations?