Christmas Makeup

I normally do lots of green makeup for Christmas because I love green and have flaming red hair, but this year I went a different route. I like the outcome a lot more than I expected to.

I started by using the Foil Me to cover my eyelids with Glamour Doll's Lover's Lane. I just put a coat from my lash line to the crease (I had to be really careful, any imperfection in the line was obvious once I put the shadow on). Then I used the foil me on my lower lash line. Then I used Sugarpill's Goldilux (I have a sample bag, probably going to buy the full size sometime soon). I blended it in around my crease then just kept it going towards my eyebrows. I also used a liner brush to put the gold on the inside corner of my eyes and a little along the bottom lash line. Then I finished up with black liner on my inner lashline, mascara, eye brow pencil, foundation, blush and some flavored lip gloss.

Happy Holidays!

Foil Me

Foil me with Phyrra on the left, Vigilante, Veteran and Blueberry Lush on the right.

Today I received my second order from Glamour Doll Eyes. I wanted to order some Dear Mom (because I loved the sample so much) and I wanted some Foil Me. The foil me seems to be a great product and definitely helped my eye shadows look brighter. I re-did the swatches of my Glamour Doll and Sugarpill eyeshadows. I also did swatches for my Make Up For Ever Star Powder.

With Flash

Without flash

Vigilante, Veteran, Blue Ribbon, Petticoat

Blueberry Lush, Mingles, Melancholy 

With Flash

Without Flash

Martini Olive, Olivia Green, Island Chic

Victorian, Chocoholic, Lovers Lane

With Flash

Without Flash

Dear Mom, Masquerade, Phyrra, Tattooed

Disco White, Jailhouse Jumpsuit

Without Flash

With Flash

Steampunk, Circus, Cashed Out

With Flash

Without Flash

Starling, Absinthe, Decora, Dollipop

Royal Sugar, Tipsy, Hysteric, Flamepoint

Goldilux

Without Flash

With Flash

Make Up For Ever: Yellow Gold, Copper, Iridescent Orange, Iridescent Fushia

Celadon, Purple, Pastel Blue, Periwinkle

Black Gold, White Mauve

A Few Glamour Doll Looks

Here's a few things I did with my Glamour Doll Eyes shadows. I'll apologize now for the crappy picture quality. I took them with my phone and it isn't great.

Pink and Purple look. I started with purple eyeliner by Sephora Collection. Then I just brushed Dear Mom by Glamour Doll all over my upper lid and lower lashline. It was a quick way to have a soft, romantic look.

This is a teal look I made up real quick before going to dance class. It took less than 10 minutes. I lined my eyes with Deviant by Urban Decay. I find their eyeliner goes on smooth, but the color isn't even enough to leave alone. Then I blended Island Chic by Glamour Doll into the eyeliner. With the eyeliner I made a small cat eye, then I added another line below that with just the eye shadow. Finally I used a black pencil on my inner lower lashline.

For this look I used the same Urban Decay eyeliner as before to start. Then I blended Blueberry Lush into it. Next I blended Tattooed around the outer corner of my eyes. This added just a slight purple shimmer to the blue and made the look complete. Then of course I put black pencil on my inner lashline, as always.

Reader suggested topics

I had some suggestions for a post the other day but I ended up busy and didn't get around to posting. The ideas that got my attention the most were the "how much is too much" and "how to not look too 80's"

I dance right on the line of too much makeup sometimes. Obviously I wear a lot of eye makeup. My personal guidelines are to judge the event I'm going to, the time of day and what I want to do with the rest of my face.

• Event- If it's a formal event I'll usually wear more makeup. 
• Time of day- If it's daylight I'll either wear just a little eye makeup (just liner) or I'll do an all over color that's neutral or bright and sunny. In the evenings I'm more likely to do an all over shadow and use darker colors.
• The rest of my face- If I want to do a bright red lip then I'll use very little eye makeup. Maybe a neutral shadow and mascara. 

These three things are what go through  my head with every event. I'll break down some of my thought processes here.

Christmas Parade- I was recently in the Parkersburg Christmas Parade with my dance studio. So the event was a performance, essentially. It was during the day and I didn't want to wear lipstick (wanted to keep chap stick on because of the cold). So, I decided to go with an all over shadow of a bright color. I decided against matching our shirts and went with a christmas-y bright green. It was over the top for just going out during the day, but since it was a performance it didn't look ridiculous.

My sororities semi-formal- This was an evening event and a formal one. I wanted to do bright red lips to go with the vintage hollywood feel of my outfit. For my eyes I just put on some translucent power to soak up any oils then heavily applied mascara. Then I lined my lips and went through the process of applying the red lipstick (I'll do a post about that sometime, although I admit I'm not great at it yet). A bright red lip and basic eyes can also be worn easily during a daytime event. Red lips almost always work.

Thanksgiving dinner- I visited my family on Thanksgiving. It was an all day affair and by no means formal. I decided to go with a neutral look all over. I chose browns and coppers for my eyes and a coppery lipstick. This translated perfectly for my daytime meal and my slightly more formal meal in the evening.

After all this I would like to say one more thing. Being able to pull off some of the looks I do has to do with confidence. I can wear neon orange eye shadow because it's me. I'm confident I can wear it and look good, and so I do. If you're insecure in how you look then other people will pick up on it. Obviously not every look is for everyone so just being confident won't instantly make you look fantastic, but it certainly helps a lot. 

One of the other suggestions I had was about buying makeup products as Christmas gifts. Personally, I would LOVE makeup as a gift but I love makeup. I would strongly consider who the gift is for first of all. Are they likely to take it the wrong way? Then I would consider their personal style. If the makeup you choose doesn't fit in with their style then it may come off as weird. I would avoid anti-aging/wrinkle products unless they are specifically asked for. No matter how well meaning that may come off as "you look old, here's something to help". The only makeup I've given as a gift is lip gloss. That's usually a pretty good bet. I was given lip gloss I hadn't heard of before by a friend several years ago and it ended up being my favorite lip product ever. It helps my lips heal and be soft  but it's also very pretty and tastes good so it's just a fun gift. It'd be hard to find it insulting. 

Neutral/Brown Look

No Makeup



First I covered my whole eyelid and under my eye in Urban Decay Blaze.

Then I lined my eye with a brown pencil liner from Sephora.

Next I went over the brown liner with a brown shadow to set the liner and even out the color. The shadow I used was Urban Decay Twice Baked.

After that I used the same brown shadow to add shade in the crease of my eyelid. The first pic shows where I placed the shadow before blending it out.

After blending and adding more as needed

Finally I finished up with some powder foundation, blush, eye brow filler, mascara and a little Urban Decay Cherry on my inner crease and brow.

Here's what I used in tonight's look

Urban Decay shadows in Blaze, Twice Baked and Cherry

Urban Decay Eyebrow Enhancer

Sephora Brown Eyeliner

Maybelline Powder Foundation

Maybelline Blush (couldn't find a link)

Random Picture Post

I just wanted to share pics of my makeup from the weekend. The first two are what I wore for Varsity Night. After then I ran to Erik's and coated myself in glitter for our rave. Just a little eyelash glue and glitter and I went from a wearable look to outrageous in 10 minutes.

Basics

I thought I'd make a quick post about some basic things I always do when applying makeup.

I always start with my eye makeup. This way if some of my shadow falls onto my cheeks it's easy for me to clean/cover up. I mentioned it before but I also always put powder on my eyelids to soak up any oil. If I use primer I'll put the primer on then put powder in it. That sets the primer and makes it a little easier to blend your colors. Primer on its own can make blending a little tricky.

Once my eyes are done (except for mascara) I'll do whatever needs done to the rest of my face. Powder foundation, blush and eye brows. I save the mascara for last so I don't get powder stuck in it.

I don't always do my lips but when I do I try to use a lip liner. I only have 3 liners- clear (which so far I find completely useless), a pink close to my natural lip color (I use this most often) and a bright red (absolutely necessary when doing red lips). I'll line my lips then fill in some color before putting lipstick over it. I also occasionally use a lip venom and a primer under my lipstick. I got a free sample of lip venom awhile back and it works alright. It burns a bit but does make my lips appear fuller. The lip primer (Urban Decay) works wonderfully. I don't do bright red lips without it.

The biggest bit of advice I can offer is to get a pencil eyeliner and just play around with it. Try out different types of lines and shapes to figure out what works best with your eyes. I do this all the time and I've discovered that I have to do a little bit of a cat eye or my eyes look sad. A little bit of a flip at the end of my eye makes them look more open and happier. Some advice says to not line all the way around your eye to make them look bigger but I've found that I can't pull that off. I just look silly so matter how much I try. So, get a pencil (easy to smudge, remove, etc) and start playing. If you need suggestions you can check out my pics or just Google image search makeup ideas.

Glamour Doll Eyes

I finally got my first order of Glamour Doll Eyes. I haven't had a chance to play with it much but I did do some swatches to show everyone. So far I absolutely love them.

My new shadows plus 2 free samples.

I did these swatches over Urban Decay's Eyeshadow Primer Potion to make the colors pop more.

First row: Tattooed, Mingles, Vigilante, Olivia Green, Blue Ribbon, Lovers Lane
Second row: Veteran, Island Chic, Melancholy, Petticoat, Masquerade, Victorian
Third row: Phyrra, Blueberry Lush, Martini Olive, Chocoholic, Jailhouse Jumpsuit
Last row: Jayne (sample), Dear Mom (sample) Cashed Out!, Steampunk, Circus

Blue and Orange

I tried 2 different looks tonight just for fun. I wanted to try out my new Sugarpill stuff and see how it faired in actual use.

Blue!

I started both looks by putting some powder foundation around my eyes. I have oily eyelids so I need the powder to absorb the oil and keep my eye shadow from becoming blotchy. 

Then I brushed a bright blue by MAC all over my lid and under my lower lashes. I would tell you the exact color but I don't know the name and I do know they don't sell it anymore *sadface*. It's basically a bright, cerulean matte blue.

Next I brushed my new Sugarpill Royal Sugar over it. This created a bright, sparkly blue. I did it in little dabs because there was a lot of fallout. That's not surprising since it is a loose shadow.

Then I added some black Star Powder by Make Up For Ever. I carefully placed it into the crease of my eyelid and around the outer corner of my eye. Once I felt it was dark enough I got the excess out of my brush and blended the blue and black together a little bit.

Next I used the lighter blue from Sugarpill called Starling in the inner corner of my eye and on my brow bone. I used it to blend out the outer edges of the darker blue to make a softer look.

To finish the look I added some black mascara and used a black pencil eyeliner on the inner edge of my lower lid and a up to my lash line on my upper lid.

And ta-da!!

What I used

Orange!

I started by lining my eye with Sugarpill's Flamepoint.  I made a cat eye by starting at the lower edge of my eye and lifting the line towards the end of my eyebrow. Then I filled in towards my upper lid.

Next I went over that with orange Star Powder by Make Up For Ever. This made the orange pop and sparkle.

Finally I added black eyeliner to my inner lower lid and black mascara.

What I used

Soon I plan on doing a post about the basics. I have a lot of tricks I use under my makeup to make it all work. With the basics you can always look great.