Festive Make Up Ideas

Hello there!

I'm sure we are all feeling very full and probably a little ashamed of our eating habits yesterday. As usual I ended up eating a massive Christmas dinner with cheesecake to finish and then following it up with a second round later on in the evening along with chocolates and nibbles....the guilt is unreal.

The last thing that is on my mind right now is getting ready for my next night out, particularly New Year's Eve as it seems so far away and another eating/drinking session seems a bit vile. However the planning necessary for the hair and make up element of the night seems a nice and easy task right now.

I've been looking up some inspiration and instead of trying to create my own to show you I thought I'd leave it to the more capable hands of Pinterest. All of these images have come from my account if you'd like to view them (username is 'thecsigirls' you can find it by clicking in the toolbar to the right)

So yes, to double clarify, none of these are my own just purely some inspiration for some simple and some more extravagant beauty ideas for the end of year party.

Get Ready with Me - Dinner Date

Evening All

Another late post from me. I seem to only find time in the evenings to write lately! This weekend was an action packed awesome one!! I'll share more of that later on in the week.

My favourite type of posts lately seem to be get ready with me and face of the day! I love seeing these posts from people as you can pick up little tips and get new ideas!

Today's get ready with me was for a dinner date, I wear this look quite a lot as it's quite classic and easy!

My hair was straightened so I started off by putting in my lauren's way rollers pre shower! When my hair is straight if I'm doing something in the evening I like to pop the rollers in for an hour if I have time so my hair has a bit of body. I find doing them pre shower helps speed up the process as the steam slightly dampens the hair!

For my eyes I used a combination of palettes. I used Urban Decay primer potion in eden to start (I'm in love with this and use it all the time if I need my make up to be long lasting or more vibrant. As a base colour I used a combination of bootycall from naked 2 and strange from naked 3. As I wanted a slight bit of colour I blended Benefite Raincheck? through my crease and outer V. I Then applied Buzz from Naked 3 under the eye for some shimmer!

I was feeling classic make up so went with a black flicked eyeliner!! I love winged liner but I have to be in the mood to do it. This nights wasn't that tidy. For foundation I used Illamasqua Skin Base which is my all time favourite foundation for flawless skin. For concealer I used Nars Creamy Concealer. Another big favourite!

For my brows it was of course browzings! They are horrible unruley as I was letting them grow pre brow arch march wax! For masacara I used They're Real but I was having a bad mascara day. My lashes weren't playing ball as I hadn't got it all off post shower!

For bronzer it was none other than my new bronzer love of Make Believe! I can't stop using this beaut! It's so easy! I contour my cheeks and nose with this!

On my cheeks I used the blush and highlighter from naked flushed. I'm in love with the highlighter as it's finer than MSF so much easier to wear! The blush I love for days when I want more than dandelion gives!

As I was off to meet the guy I'm seeing I opted for a soft neutral lip. If I was out with the girls a red lip would have been a must here! I opted for Revlon Kissable balm stain in honey! I love this shade for easy to wear colour on the lips!

I love how the rollers when applied to my hair straight just give it soft bounce and body. After being in for 45 minutes they give the perfect result for me.

I had to share my new dress as I'm in love with it. It was a bargain £5 from Asda kids range. this is a age 12-13 and I'd say it was an 8 -10 so if your a 12 I think the age 14-15 would fit. I love the bright daisy print and I was instantly sold with the cut out back! I really love a cut out back and as I don't have a whole lot of boob I love to show back instead of cleavage.

My necklace was a bargain my mum found in boots at Christmas time and was only a £1! As it has gold and silver it's a great piece. Boots have amazing jewellery and great discounts when they go in the sale so I'd highly recommend checking it out.

I finished off the look with my ever faithful Primark coat and black tights!

What do you wear on a dinner date?

Love M

xxx

Reviews of products mentioned

Naked 3

Naked 2

Naked Flushed

Benefit World Famous Neutrals

Benefit Browzings

Make Believe Bronzer

Primark Coat

FOTD Red Toned Smokey Eye

So who over indulgded in pancakes last night? Until last year I was never a fan. Then I started making pancakes american style!!! MMMMMmmm so much better. I'm planning to have my pancake day next week. What's your best topping?

Anyway on to today's post. I've decided to do another step by step FOTD. You can see my first one here. That one was my go to every day make up. A few people said they preferred the step by step way so here is another post.

Here are the products I used.

I started by applying a base of  Revlon PhotoReady Perfecting Primer (here £11.99) mixed with Stila One Step Correct Primer (here £24). I love the combination of both of these and regularly mix products. Especially foundation. When I want a flawless finish I always grab my Revlon ColorStay Foundation (here £12.99). I find this foundation perfect. It applies well doesn't look cakey and really lasts. I use my Real Techniques Expert Face brush (here £9.99). This is by far my favourite foundation brush. It's soft but dense.

To conceal under my eyes and my spots using Benefit Erase paste (here £19.50). I love this concealer. It's thick, covers everything, lasts but doesn't settle. To set my make up I'm absolutely love the Natural Collection Loose Powder (here £1.99). I love this powder. It's really soft, fine and looks natural on the face. I use my Real Techniques Setting Brush (here £8.99) for under the eyes and around the nose. I find using a smaller brush makes such a difference to how my make up looks by the end of the day. Then I use the Real Techniques Powder Brush (here £12.99). I love how soft and big this brush is.

On my brows I used my Benefit Browzings (here £22.50) I really like this but even though it's the light shade I do find it a bit dark some days. I'd love to find a product with a lighter coloured wax.

On the lids I used my mini Urban Decay Primer Potion (here full size £15.50). I do like this but I feel like there are other ones just as good for a lot cheaper so I'm just trying to use it up. I've been waiting ages to try out my Illamasqua Pure Pigment in the Shade Fervent (here £15.50) I love this shade. It's the first pigment I own. It's red/brown in some lights with a green/turquoise shimmer running though. I'm impressed with how these apply. Not at all messy as I expected. I really want more now. How do the Barry M dazzle dusts compare? Have you tried either?

I blended Mac Cranberry Eye shadow (here £12) I seriously love this eye shadow. I never thought I'd use a red eye shadow so much but I actually use this most days. It's surprisingly wearable. This was my first mac eye shadow and now I want more. I'm turning into such a brand girl. Believe it or not until last march I didn't own a high end make up item. L changed all that for me!

To smoke it out a bit more I applied Blackout  from my Naked 2 Palette (here £36). This is a perfect Matte Black, Natural Collection have a really good matte black shade too. I'm so excited to see MUA bringing out a version of this palettes. I will definitely be picking that up once the spending ban is over. I applied it the outer third of my eye and blended it. I also applied it under the eye.

To finish the eyes I applied a slick of black gel liner. Of course the Maybelline one (here £7.99) This is the best gel liner in my opinion. It's so smooth and lasts amazing. Mines getting low so I'm trying to use up normal eye liners and save it for when I'm going out. Stick eye liners just don't compare. I can't wait till the spending ban is over to pick up the other black shades of this. Especially the purple. I added 2 coats of  Lancome Hypnose Doll Eyes Mascara (here £21) I really do love this mascara but I don't honestly know if it's worth the extra £13 over my beloved Maybelline Colossal Volume.

I won a twitter competition before with Bourjois and was lucky enough to win some of there lashes. These are the Faux & Fabulous Lady in Black (here £7.99)

I've never used a half lash before. I love how these add subtle volume to the outer corner. I was worried you'd really be able to tell but they nicely thickened the outer lashes. I'll be picking up more half lashes to try. They also have black crystals on so are great for special occasions.

For cheeks I used my favourite duo Benefit Dandelion (here £23.50) and Liz Earle Healthy Glow Bronzer (here £19.50). I have reviewed both of these recently so won't say much about them. If you missed those posts you can read them again on this link.

I finished with Mac Angel Lipstick (here £14) with a smokey eye this is a perfect pinkey nude lip. It's subtle but still looks done. I feel strange without a lipstick now.

I really love a red smokey eye. I think it's a little different to the normal grey's and blacks. I want to try more colours from my collection and smoke them out. I want to get back to being brace with eyeshadow.

I really like the lashes on. I can't wait for a night out so I can wear this. 

Wow long post. Hope you liked it. I included links and prices to all the products this time. Let me know if you prefer posts to have links to all the products. I'd love to know what you think of posts like this as I'm enjoying doing make up looks but they make for long reading.

I love playing with my make up, I need to do it more and experiment. What's your favourite eye look for a night out? Do you stick with what you know? I think I need to buy a big palette after the spending ban.

Love M

xxx

Halloween Make Up Ideas

Last Sunday me and M decided to give some Halloween make up a go.

You might have seen us talk about our actual Halloween plans on twitter, if not, then we're saving our costumes for another post as we've been looking forward to this for months!

We got together and spent a few hours playing around with make up.

As we didn't have any halloween make up and only normal stuff we were limited but it was definitely a lot of fun!

Here's M's look:

I was looking at YouTube videos for inspiration and went with one for the Black Dahlia. This is a great look for Halloween if you want to look good. It can be easily recreated with make up you own and most likely clothes you have. Black lace top/dress and black tights. It would look great finished with a black piece of lace for a veil. For this I used a pale foundation and dusted white powder over my face. I still contoured my cheeks as usual so that the face has shape.

For the eyes, darken the eyebrows. I used black eyeshadow for the brows. It looked very scouse brow and was so strange looking at myself with dark brows! I then piled on dark purples around the eyes, using a set from Boots Xmas range and one of L's Mac eyeshadows. I then used black eyeshadow in the crease of the eye and blended.

I lined the eyes in black and extended the purple under my lashes a little. I loaded on mascara but false lashes would be best for a night out. The tears. This was tricky. On the video it said to use glycerine (available from supermarkets in the baking aisle) As L and I were just testing out looks I tried loading my bottom lashes and making myself cry watching sad YouTube videos. Much to L's amusement. Surprisingly it didn't work. Soldiers coming home usually has me in floods much to my other halfs amusement. After trying a few other things L dropped some lense solution in my eyes to create tear stains. 

For the lips I used a bright red and then lined the edges with shadow to darken it. The New Matte Kate Moss for Rimmel Lipstick in 107 would be amazing for this look. I also accentuated my cupids bow for a more defined lip.

Here's L's look:

I decided to go for a scary dead person.

It went against everything I know about make up to make my face look like this but it was a lot of fun and I look so scary!

First of all I applied the white shimmery Barry M dazzle dust all over my face.

This came out a weird and deathly grey colour on my skin which was perfect.

I then used a matt grey eyeshadow from an unknown brand to hollow my cheeks and eyes and temples, pretty much the same way that you would if you were to contour in the style of Kim Kardashian.

I also applied concealer to my lips to whiten them out a bit, and applied the white dazzle dust on top to blend them in a bit better.

I then did the same with my eyebrows as they're so dark that they stood out and didn't look right.

You can see the hollow of my eyes has been made darker with the grey matte shadow, and then I applied black very heavily around my whole eye, even thickly underneath which is normally a no no!

I definitely think the contouring helps to make your face look more defined.

Here are our final looks!

What do you think? We both love playing around with make up. Are you dressing up for Halloween? We can't wait!

Love L and M

xxx

Everyday Eye Make using MUA Heaven and Earth Palette

I'm not lucky enough to have the naked palette, I love it and regularly admire it from afar. I think I will purchase the original one soon but for me at the moment my MUA palette is brilliant. I saw this in Superdrug and wanted a neutral palette and thought for the price I might as well try it not expecting much. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality. It's £4 for 12 shades which is an amazing price. The eyeshadows have a brilliant pigment and a really nice texture to them with barely any fallout. Sounds almost perfect right?

My favourite shade is number and since taking this photo I have hit pan on it. Does any one know if you can get these shades individually?

I tend to use 4 and 9 for most looks as a base coat and use 2 and 8 in the crease of my eye. Depending on how strong a look I'm doing I'll use 5, 10 or 12 for definition. 

I decided not to do swatches as I'm sure most of you have seen them though I will add them if people would like to see them. I want to try and use 3 and 6 more, I'm not really much of a gold person so these haven't really been touched.

1 is a brilliant highlighter for the inner corner of your eye or under the brow bone. All the colours blend seamlessly into each other.

Onto the looks

My go to look

This is how I do my make up most days when I want something simple. I use 4 as a base coat, then blend a mixture of 2 and 8 into my crease and add 12 to the outer corner of my eye to give my eye shape. I like this as it gives my eyes a bit of emphasis but looks pretty natural still.

The black eyeliner look

I like using a slick of black eyeliner, my personal favourite is the Maybelline gel eyeliner. I like how it shapes the eye and think the little flick gives make up a more 'done up' appearance. For this I used 9 as my base shade and blended in some of 8 to my crease, even if it's only a little I always apply a bit of shadow to my crease as I think it really shapes my eyes.

A darker smokey eye

This look is a little darker but I still think it's not too much for day. For this I applied 10 all over the lid and used 12 in the outer corner and into the crease to add shape and definition to the eye. For this look I also applied eyeshadow under my lower lash line.

I love having a nude go to palette and this one is amazing, I'd definitely pay more for this I think it's really good quality and a good selection of colours that can be used for day and night.

Do you have this palette? What do you think of these looks? What's your go to palette?

Love M 

xxx