Pink and Purple Smokey Makeup Look

I've got a mid week post for you all because I have a little bit of catching up to do, due to my lack of posts around the holidays. I thought it would be a nice idea to do a makeup look which is a bit more subtle and suitable for everyday wear as I know I tend to do a lot of night time, dramatic looks.

I started with Bourjois Healthy Mix Foundation which is quite light and dewy, although build-able. This is one of my go to foundations for everyday wear, its very smooth, easy to apply and isn't bad for your skin. I paired this with Rimmel's Wake Me Up concealer for my under eye circles and blemishes. I wouldn't recommend this concealer for people with oily skin as it's very dewy and shiny so would probably slide off your skin. I added my trustworthy MAC Mineralize Skin Finish Natural Powder on top to keep all the liquid products in place. 

As per usual I used Hoola by Benefit to contour. I went on top with the blush and highlighter from my Sleek Face Form palette. I blended both the blush and highlighter together because they look beautiful mixed and I prefer blended colours rather than two block shades.

Sleek Face Form Palette: I used the middle and right shade

For eyes I used the Naked 3 palette, which is perfect for any pink or purple toned makeup look. On the lid I used Burnout which is a very shimmery light pink/peach shade - perfect for blue eyes. For my crease I added Nooner, which is a matte medium toned pink. This blended well with Burnout to create a shadowed smokey effect. Very lightly, I dusted Darkside into the corner V of my eye. I spent a lot of time blending out these colours doing a process of adding more product and then dusting it out for a smokey finish. For eyeliner I went with a thin winged line, using one of my favourite pen liners from Soap and Glory and used Lash Accelerator from Rimmel for my mascara. This mascara is great for separating my lashes and adds plenty of length. The only downfall is that this mascara does transfer throughout the day, so it's best to add a waterproof coat over the top.

I recently bought a new brow product and decided to use it in this tutorial. It is Soap and Glory's Brow Archery in the shade Hot Chocolate and in the pencil form. I find this product helps me achieve natural looking brows in no time at all. I love it!

For lipstick I applied MAC's Rebel which is such a stunning pink toned purple shade. It's a satin finish so not matte like many of my other shades. This lipstick does possess a lot of matte qualities though. It's long lasting and doesn't have a shimmer to it. This is one of my favourite shades at the moment.

And here is the finished look:

Makeup looks are definitely my favourite posts to do at the moment, so that's why there may be a lot. I hope you enjoyed reading this post and like this look. Be sure to check out some of my other posts if makeup tutorials aren't for you.

Gina x 

How To: Wear Purple Lipstick

Today I've got a makeup tutorial for you all, featuring as the title says a purple lip. There are a lot of beautiful purple lipsticks in makeup stores at the moment, but I know a lot of people tend to avoid them because they can seem too daring and a purple lipstick is tricky to feature in a makeup look. I've chosen to do a makeup look that isn't too difficult and really helps bring out the purple lipstick without you looking like a witch or a crazy person!

This is just my interpretation and some people may feel like this sort of look wouldn't suit them or that they would prefer to try a different approach, which is totally fine! There are so many different ways to style a purple lipstick, in fact I love observing other people's makeup looks - as it's where the majority of my inspiration comes from.

When wearing a bold lip, I like to have a flawless face so here I've chosen a medium to full coverage foundation - Estée Lauder Double Wear Foundation in the lightest shade which is 1W1 Bone. This is my all time favourite foundation even above my trustworthy MAC foundation. It doesn't budge in the slightest, I've even slept with this on and when I woke it was still in perfect condition with a full coverage. It glides on smoothly and I use my Buffing Brush from Real Techniques to blend this in. There is also a vast shade range, so there shouldn't be any struggle when searching for a shade to suit you. The only negative thing I can say is that this product isn't cheap and ranges in different shops from £25 - £30. Saying this it is definitely worth it and it has lasted me a while because I only wear it for special occasions and parties. I teamed this with MAC's prolongwear concealer which I also used to highlight my face and MAC's mineralize skin finish powder. 

I have concentrated heavily on contour with brown and beige undertones rather than a more fluttery blusher. I used Benefit's hooler bronzer as it works perfectly with my my skin tone and unlike many it doesn't contain orange undertones. I used a blusher from Sleek but I only applied it lightly as I wanted this look to be very matte rather than shimmery. 

The eyes in this look are made up of neutral and subtle colours. I used shades from the Naked Basics and Naked 3 palette. I used Venus for my lid and to highlight my brow bone. I put Naked 2 in my crease and dusted Liar and Blackheart together over my crease and at the corner of my eye. One of the main features to this look is a strong winded liner. I didn't necessarily make it thick but concentrated on the sharpness and neatness of the line. I brought it very close to the inner corner of my eye and kept the line the same thickness all the way along. I used mascara but because it's a glamorous eye look you could wear fake eyelashes too. I also added a strong brow but using my usual brow products.

Finally the lipstick itself! This is a colour I've been eyeing up for such a long time and I finally have it! It's a lovely matte shade by MAC and it's called Heroine. It has a slight pink undertone but it clearly a strong purple shade. I've been told also that this applies nicely with MAC's magenta lip liner underneath. However, I applied it alone and even then the pigmentation is thick and covers the lips just perfectly! Because I know MAC lipsticks are more expensive, Sleek have a cheaper version called Mystic. 

I did use artificial lighting for this photo so the colouring may be slightly off, but the photo of the lipstick itself gives a better example of the colour.

I usually style this with plain colours or dark colours as I'd like for the lipstick to stand out and for the clothes to not take all the attention away from it.

I'd just like to leave you with the confidence to wear a bright purple lipstick. A year ago I would never have the nerve to walk out the house with such a bright lip because I'd feel anxious about what others thought of me. But I've realised people are always going to have something to say and if they do it's usually because they find you or something about you interesting, or that they're jealous! The only person you need to impress is yourself because at the end of the day it is your life and you only go through life as you. Remember you can't change other peoples opinion's only your own. Oops, I didn't mean to get that deep.  

As always, thank you for reading! Now that the holidays are over and I'm back into the swing of things so I'll try to post regularly of once a week. 

Gina x

GRWM Christmas Party or Dinner / Elegant and Feminine

Hey guys! Today is another GRWM and I love writing and photographing these posts. There also some of my most viewed posts.

Every year my friends and I do Secret Santa and have a meal where we give out our presents. Not only that, but we see it as an opportunity to dress up nice and seeing as it's Christmas we can go full out! I thought one of these looks would be useful given the time period, if you're going to a Christmas party or meal then hopefully you get some idea's from this post.

Now traditionally on Christmas a lot of people wear Christmas colours like greens, red and golds teamed with sparkle for a Christmas party, but I wanted to do something a little different and slightly more girly. I don't often dress up girly, but I do love trying new looks and styles out so I thought I'd team an elegant girly look with a bit of Christmas spirit!

Firstly, lets start with my hair. I aimed to go for a glam curly look. Before I started with the heated products I sprayed a bit of heat protectant on my hair after I showered. I don't often mention this but I think it's really important to protect your hair and especially with mine being blonde it can become brittle quite easily. So now for the fun part. Going for a different method, I used my Babyliss hair rollers in medium and large to get a smooth loose look. I curled them towards my face, and although that's not my usual technique, it's creates a classy style. I left these in for 20 minutes.

While the rollers were in I moved onto makeup. Because of the girly glam theme, I went for a shimmery pink look with golden and warm undertones. As well as contour, I concentrated on blush and highlighter to make sure my face didn't appear too sharp and defined. I added a lot of mascara to make my eyes pop and used a nude/pink lipstick to go with the eyeshadows.

Onto the outfit! You won't be surprised that my outfit is from Missguided because they literally have everything at an affordable price. Going for classy but cute I wore a pink high neck crop top and the sweetheart neck line made the look more feminine. The grey scuba skirt is a very flattering shape which I find really helps my body. For shoes I went with a different colour completely of a dark burgandy purple. I think this helped break up the colours and made the look more seasonal. These were from New Look.

I chose to accessorise with some gorgeous gold earrings (a gift from my sister for my birthday) from Topshop and a gold watch from River Island(a gift from my Dad also). The gold really helped bring out the warmer tones in my makeup.

Finally I sprayed a little bit of perfume. I chose LeeLee from Benefit as it's feminine but sweet!

Here are a few photos including makeup, outfit and hair:

Thank you so much for reading! I hope you all have a great Christmas and New Year. I should be doing another post before them but I'm not the most reliable and organised person, so we will see.

Gina x