Jessica…Dragit? Drag makeup experiment

Netflix added RuPaul’s Drag Race a week or so ago, so naturally I’ve been doing nothing else except watching that! I am absolutely fascinated with drag makeup, and even though I’m, you know, an actual girl, I kind of love doing it. It’s certainly a challenge to do and there’s a *ton* of stuff you can learn from doing it, so I kind of see it as a worthwhile waste of a couple hours!

I apologise for the nasty picture quality , but it’s dark and dingy here constantly, and I have a new camera I don’t know how to use yet. Score!

I went more old school, comedy drag than sexy drag which was fun to do!However, let’s just say there are a lot of things I’d try differently next time! I like how the false brows worked out, but I really need to suck it up and try to cover my own brows properly instead of finding creative ways to draw over them as this didn’t work out so well.  I like how the cheeks worked out (low contour inspired by Divine yo) but I can’t for the life of me work out that frigging nose thing all the queens do at the moment. Boo!

 

Next time I try this I’m not going to be scared like I have been, and I'm really going to pile that face on and let it bake! I just physically can't bring myself to apply that much makeup...yet!

I used a whole bunch of crap for this, but if you’re gagging on my eleganza and need to know what I’m wearing please just say and I'll let you know.

Soft purple glitter LOTD with Sugarpill and Madd Style Cosmetics

Happy New Year, everyone! I barely wore any makeup over the Christmas period, so when I got back from visiting the family I thought I’d go for a wee touch of sparkle. Just to sit in my PJ’s and finish off the Quality Street, mind you.

Eyes: Lid, Hi-Fi Cosmetics Between the Stars (now defunct company), Sugarpill 2am, matte vanilla from Barry M Natural Glow palette, warm matt brown from MUA Undress Me Too palette, Collection 24/7 Pen Eyeliner in Black and Madd Style Cosmetics Glitter in  Nymphette
Lips: Stained pink with Australis mint lipgloss on top.
Cheeks: Benefit Dallas, Barry M blush from the Natural Glow palette (soft, soft pastel pink)

I got a new camera for Christmas and have to work out how to use it, so if my photo quality is a bit wobbly over the next few weeks, I do apologise!  Continuing the ‘being useless’ theme, I’m still getting to grips with using the Lit Clearly Liquid base  – it seems a bit of a faff and I’m sure it’s down to me missing something. I’m going to review it soon as it’s a great budge-proof product for adhering glitter!

I love  a bit of glitter at this time of year, but didn't actually wear any on New Years Eve itself! Do you guys like glitter all the time or just for partying?

Green and Gold LOTD with MAC and Sugarpill

My other half suggested a green coloured look and who was I to say no? I used Sugarpill Midori as the main colour for this, which just goes to show that even though Sugarpill colours look bright as all hell in the pan, they can be toned down really easily as well. Of course, that really goes for all colours – if you’ve got a good neutral palette with colours that suit you, you can make the scariest, brightest shades work on any level.

 

Eyes: MAC Old Gold Pigment, Sugarpill Midori, MUA Undress Me Too palette to blend/highlight.
Lips: MAC Subculture lipliner and Viva Glam Gaga 2
Cheeks: Sleek Suede, e.l.f Gotta Glow

I was so annoyed it was dark that day as I couldn’t capture how nice this look was. MAC Old Gold looks wonderful with greens and I was happy I managed to find a way to make VG Gaga 2 work for me. I really need to step it up with my makeup – I’m not allowed to wear coloured makeup to work anymore and it’s really making me lazy in the evenings and weekends!

What are your favourite green and gold shades?

Quickie Halloween Look with lenstore.co.uk: Mermaid

You know I’m a big fan of Halloween looks that are quick – if Halloween was a public holiday and we had the day off get get ourselves mystical, spooky or whimsical that would be amazing, but it’s just not the case! With that in mind I tried to do a mermaid look with just a few additions to a regular ‘going out’ look!

First up, I have to mention these gorgeous lenses! lenstore.co.uk very kindly sent me some lenses to try out with some Halloween looks and I was pretty keen – I love lenses and I’d actually already bought costume lenses for my Halloween outfit already but I’ve never tried lenses that just change your eye colour before.



These are the Freshlook Colour Blends in Gemstone Green and I love them! I like how the change your eye colour enough to be eye catching but they’re not as in-your-face as, say, the Marilyn Manson style or Twilight style lenses. These also come in prescription strengths, so I think I’m going to try the turquoise next time!

Eyes: Sugarpill Tako, Velocity, Lumi, Afterparty and Darling. KIKO shadestick on the waterline. Brows, Sugarpill Dollypop, MAC Reflects pink glitter. Pearls are nail supplies from eBay and the sequins are from the pound shop.
Cheeks: Darling Girl Spectral Shift in Mystique
Lips: No-brand hot pink liner, MAC Viva Glam Nicki, Revlon lipgloss in Adorned

I’m really sorry for the lack of pictures – I hate doing makeup in the winter when there’s no good light, but I hope this gives an idea!

If you look closely, this isn’t that far off a normal going out look – a strong eye and lip, with a coloured instead of a regularly filled-in brow. Sometimes a bold look is really nothing more than switching up a colour or product, and the time and technique used is exactly the same.

As a Disney kid, of course I love the idea of mermaids as beautiful, fairy-like creatures like Ariel, but I also I really love the idea of mermaids as sea creatures with scales and barnacles and spiky fins, so I kind of tried to combine the two. I chose a girly colour palette, but added pearls to my eyes, overlapped sequins on my brows to represent scales and extended my eyeliner into long, wispy strokes to represent waves or seaweed. I also made sure there was a good dose of shimmer, to represent to sparkle of the sun on top of the sea, and kept as little colour as possible on my cheeks, adding a soft blue-pink highlight, to try and mimic the sort of washed-out look that skin has underwater. I added some bubbles using face paint going down the neck and the side of my face, and if I was going out wearing this and had a decent costume I would extend that down the side of my arm and up my face a little more. If you’re careful spraying it, you can use hairspray to set any small bits of body paint.

Hope you enjoyed this look! Have you tried changing your eye colour with lenses before? What are you going as for Halloween?

If you want to try some awesome coloured lenses, Lenstore.co.uk have very kindly given me a 10% code for you guys – add Robyn_Reader at the checkout before 30th November to get 10% off!


The lenses in this post were provided by lenstore.co.uk. As always, all opinions in the post are my own.

Makeup Roundup!

I have been AWFUL at taking non-camera phones at the moment,  but I *have* been wearing nice-ish makeup. Ah well! Sorry about the filters and so on, but take it as gospel that my skin doesn’t look like this but my eye and lip makeup does ;)

Blue brows! I wore blue brows and a neon shirt to take a makeup trip around London! I user MAC Subculture lipliner, my favourite nude with the MUA Undress Me Too palette on the eyes. For the brows, I used a white pencil as a base and filled them in with Sleek and Sugarpill, finishing off with a Barry M navy blue kohl liner.

Wearing Fyrinnae’s Electro Koi and Superstar… I love, love, love pink and orange together!

Dicking about with Sugarpill and Illamasqua here….



Wearing, again, my Undress Me Too palette with Illamasqua Shard on the lips over a liner to make it extra deep. I’m also proudly sporting my very first fishtail braid!

Busting out the Wet n Wild Petal Pusher palette to add a bit of purple to my liner. Using Darling Girl “Stay Beautiful” on the lips and Illamasqua lover on the cheeks.



Way too rubbish for it’s own post, but here’s my version of Hayley’s makeup from Paramore’s “Still Into You” video I did a while back. No idea what I used except MAC’s Pink Noveau on the lips.


I still haven’t managed to shake off my twelve year winged liner habit no matter what else I’m wearing! :D What’s been gracing your gorgeous face lately?

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?

I put things on my face, and photographed them poorly.

A bunch of random, quick, left-on-my-memory-card looks that are just knocking around. Don’t say I don’t treat you.

Eyes: Maybelline Mossy Green Color Tattoo, Wet N Wild Comfort Zone Palette
Cheeks: The good Lord only knows.
Lips: MAC Viva Glam V

So my hair looks good, my eyes look… all wonky and shit. I still love the Comfort Zone palette, and I still can’t get over how cheap it is for how amazing it is! Bargain town.

 

Eyes: All MUA Undressed Too palette, except the Liner which is Sugarpill Midori.
Cheeks: Not sure, probably Illamasqua Lover
Lips: NYX Pumpkin liner, MAC Korean Candy

Good face angle there, Robyn. Nice work! We had a hot day a few weeks ago, so I wanted something summery. I’ll be cracking this combo out again.

Eyes: All MUA Undress Me Too except inner corner which is Darling Girl Prometheus. Liner is by FAshionista.
Cheeks: Accessorize
Lips: MAC Magenta, Fyrinnae Fan Service

You’re going to see a lot of MAC Magenta because I’m in love with it! I actually wore this look on my birthday because I needed a little sparkle but I had to be super quick in the morning.

Eyes: MUA Undress Me Too Palette, except for the liner which is Darling Girl Obviously a Wig.
Lips: MAC Magenta, MAC Girl Next Door

No full face shots because they’re all horrendous, but I still wanted to share my lip combo again – it’s MAC Magenta again, with a sheer pink from the Archie’s Girls collection over the top. I’ve resolved to start wearing coloured liner more often so I actually use all my 10,000 pigments.

 

So there you go guys, nothing exciting but I’ve been such a lazy blogger recently! I’ll have some proper posts for you soon, I promise!

Sugarpill Sweetheart Palette: Initial Thoughts and Swatches

Writing anything about a Sugarpill palette is probably massively redundant, but I don’t care! I’ve wanted this palette for a long time and it’s the last one in my collection of those that are currently available, so now I have all the current pressed shadows apart from Bulletproof. In general I’ve been super impressed with the Sugarpill pressed shadows and I know they wear, blend and photograph well, so I had high expectations for this palette from the get go.

 

L-R (top over bare skin, bottom over NYX Jumbo Eyeshadow Pencil in Milk: Dollipop, Afterparty, Midori, Tako.

Dollipop was the one shadow I was really excited about as I don’t have a good quality, pressed bright pink. I have plenty of pinks that are poor quality, badly textured and that stain skin and brushes so I really wanted this to be good. It’s smooth, pigmented and bright as balls, so, so far I’m really loving it.  It’s perhaps worth noting that Dollipop left a slight stain on my hand where I swatched it over Milk, which is odd as it didn’t stain my eye area. I will update if I find it stains my brushes.

Afterparty I’m less sold on to to be honest – just a personal preference as it’s not my favourite shade of blue. it has a slight shimmer and I’d prefer it to be matte. Performance wise it works wonderfully, though, and I think it’s a nice accompaniment to Midori.

Midori is simply beautiful! It’s not a complex colour at all but I can’t think of anything else I have like it and I have a lot of green shadows. I can see this one becoming a favourite. Like Afterparty, this has shimmer, but I like it much better with this shade.

Tako is the colour I was most intrigued about. Any makeup fan will know finding a pigmented matte white that isn't awfully chalky is practically an impossible ask! I wasn’t expecting too much of Tako but was going to be happy if it was better than MAC Gesso, which is awful. I’m happy to report it’s much better! It’s not super pigmented – you won’t get it to show up stark white without a base at all – but the texture is smooth and it’s buildable, so I’m more than happy.

This is a very quick look I did with all the colours. I don’t know why I keep doing bottom-lashline heavy looks at the moment, I *know* they don’t suit me and I just wish that they did, basically. Anyway, these worked just as well as all my other Sugarpill colours. They just seem to be consistently good (with the exception of Poison Plum which I find difficult to work with) all round – they blend well, they’re pigmented and not patchy, they don’t seem to change colour on bare skin too much like some mattes can and there isn’t too much fallout. I like!

Like the other palettes, I think the colours are a great combination. The blue and the green compliment each other nicely, and the pink and blue mix together well to create a nice deep purple shade. The white is generally useful and it’s actually a bonus that it’s not ridiculously pigmented as you can use it to blend out edges without having too white a highlight.

Basically if you don’t like Sugarpill, I have only this to say:

Random Makeup Series: Ombré Cheeks

At the weekend I mad two jars full of random words- one all to do with makeup, colour, texture and shapes, and the other with eyes, lips, brows, face and cheeks. The idea is that I pull one from the jar describing areas of the face and one or more from the other jar and I have to do a look based on those things whether I like it or not!

 

For my first draw, I got ‘ombré’ and ‘cheeks.’ FML!

I only did one cheek because I was lazy, and should really have done both. I didn’t like this at all! My thought process – if you can call it that! – behind this was the beautiful shape exposing the models freckles from one of the Illamasqua ImPerfection collection images which I was really taken with when I saw it. I really liked the idea of showing of the shape of the cheek in a graphic sort of way. Anyway. It came out like a candy corn and it looks stoopid, but the idea of the lucky dip is to try new things!

Excuse the drag queen lips, by the way. I’m practising bits and bobs of drag makeup at the moment so they sort of just happened. You know how it is :P

If you want to make your own jar, the words I used were:

 

scruffy glossy textured
metallic powdery striped stippled
colour block ombré applique
messy graphic monochrome
cross-hatching caked-on dotty
girly punk bold messy
glitter icy jagged

Let me know if you give this a try, or if you don’t trust yourself not to keep on drawing until you get an idea you like, I’ll do one for you!

Simple Brights FOTD with Sugarpill, MUA and Revlon

I hadn’t worn anything bright for a while, but I was feeling lazy and didn’t want to do anything complicated or that would involve using a ton of brushes. Having seen a lovely look where JazzieBabyCakes used Sugarpill Royal Sugar as a liner, I knew I wanted to try it.

Eyes: MUA Undress Me Too (lid, crease, lower lashline). MAC Gesso, highlight. Sugarpill Royal Sugar (mixed with Inglot Duraline), liner.
Face: Stila Custom Color Blush in Self Adjusting Coral, Boots No 7 Vital Enlightening Highlighter. Dr Jarts BB Cream, nameless theatrical setting powder, Le Maq Pro Concealer Palette in Light (to contour/highlight), Collection2000 Lasting Perfection Concealer in  01 Light.
Lips: Revlon Fire and Ice

Lo and behold, some photos for my blog where I don’t look like a troll! Hooray! I really, really like this look. I was going to pair the eye look with a neutral lip, but I’ve just bought Fire and Ice and am still head over heels in love with it, so on it went and I really like the result!

 

What’s your favourite pigment to wear as eyeliner?