Quick & Easy Autumnal Nails

Following on from my last post, these nails are an easier alternative and something fun and relatable to Autumn. I chose to involve warm colours, like the deep pink, along with the basics of black and white. The black nail varnish was in fact from a set of nail art pens and polishes called 'Igzo Nail Design.'

Again, Kyoung-Hwa kindly did my nails for me, but these can be achieved by almost anyone.

She firstly did two coats on each nail of each colour, and for the ring finger started off with a simple plain white coat.

Because Kyoung is a nail artist it was easy for her to paint the black stripes with the same black varnish used on the thumb and a normal sized nail varnish brush. However, if you aren't too confident with doing nail art (I know I'm not) then there are a lot of tools or nail art pens that you can buy that make doing things like stripes really easy and simple to do.

To finish she did a final coat of 'Rimmels Nail Rescue Varnish' to hold the colour and make my nails stronger. I used to forget this step when doing my nails, but I find now that it is really vital, as it is what creates the difference between my nail polish lasting 2 weeks rather than 2 days.

I think these nails are perfect for the colder months, but even so the colours could be substituted for pastels and brights in the spring and summer. I find that this is a really simple nail look to do for the less confident, however, it still looks moderately detailed and is more fun then a plain colour.

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this post and maybe even try this design out yourself! Be sure to check out my previous nail post which was slightly more creative.

Gina x

Clown Nails

For Halloween this year I decided to dress up as a clown and I chose to go full out and paint my nails accordingly. Fortunately for myself, my brother's girlfriend Kyoung-Hwa is a nail artist and lives in the same house as me, so she kindly painted them for me. I looked at a couple of photos on Pinterest and came up with the idea of colourful spots on each nail and a clown on my ring finger.

Apart from the clown, these nails are actually pretty simple to re-create. All you'd need to do is paint a white background on your nails and preferably do a couple of coats so that the polish is nice and thick. Then using any tool or object you can find of a flat circular shape you can begin to add the dots. The size of the tool you use depends on the size and diameter you want your dots. Some common house objects you can use are the bottom of a paintbrush or pencil and even the small ball on a hair grip.

I chose blue, green, yellow and pink for the dots as they all complemented one another. We didn't have a yellow nail polish at home so we used some paint instead, which worked just as well.

If you're feeling adventurous or have a very steady hand then you can try and recreate the clown. Kyoung-Hwa used a very thin paint brush for the lines and used red and black paints rather than varnishes. For the red colouring which was used to fill in gaps she used a minute nail tool which made sure every gap was coloured in.

After my nails were painted she added a hardening coat to ensure the colour lasted on my nails and it also prevented chipping. Some people like to use a base coat, but I find that varnish lasts a long time on my nails so I didn't feel that it was necessary.

Although these nails were created for Halloween, they could be painted for any fancy dress party, a carnival, festival, for an event involving any bright colours at all, and even on a normal day to add a bit of fun and colour to your nails.

Check out my next post which will feature a more casual, easy, autumnal nail design.

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this post or took a few ideas from it!

Gina x

Zoella's Autumn/Fall Makeup Look

Today's post is something slightly different. I wanted to do a makeup look, but I was so inspired by Zoella's Autumn/Fall Makeup Look on her beauty channel, that I thought I would do my interpretation of it. Her look was based on a berry lip colour and gold eyeshadows.

Zoella has been a big inspiration of mine when starting a blog and I've been subscribed to her youtube channel for a few years now, and I'm proud to say I was with her at 300,000 subscribers. She's become a huge star recently, having had her book 'Girl Online' released, her beauty range 'Zoella Beauty' make an appearance in Superdrug and she's even hit 6 million subscribers!

    Check out Zoe's video here!

I'm going to guide you through how I recreated this look, however I made a few personal changes and used some different products.

Firstly on my skin I used the 'Simple Light Moisturiser' and Benefits 'Porefessional' to prep and prime my skin. Although Zoella didn't include this step in her look, I think it is really important to prepare your skin for makeup, not only to protect it but to keep your makeup lasting all day. This primer especially helps reduce the look of large pores and it helps to even out the colour of my skin.

  

Next up, I used MAC's 'Prolongwear Foundation' in NC15 which gives a matte finish, and lasts a for a good 8 hours on my skin. Zoe used Nars sheer glow foundation, which unlike Prolongwear it gives a dewy finish. However, I prefer more of a matte finish on the skin in the colder months. The concelear I used is also MAC and again is Prolongwear in NC15. I find the concealer and foundation work well together and both give off the same finish. This concealer has a very thick consistency, so is full coverage, but for me its the only concealer (of the ones I've tried) that does justice and covers my under eye circles. I used the Real Techniques 'Buffing Brush' to blend these in together and into my face. I love this brush as it gives an airbrushed effect, making the face look flawless. Real techniques brushes are also not too expensive and they're are so many- theres one for everything! 

On my cheeks, I only used one product which was Sleeks 'Face Form' palette in the shade 'Light.' I used the brown shade to contour my cheekbones with Real Techniques 'Contour Brush.' Zoe used this brush to blend in her concealer, which I have also tried previously, and it works both ways because of it's versatile shape. I then took her advice to do a rosy cheek as I am quite fair, and I thought this would add more colour to my face. I used both the highlighter shade and the rose pink shade, as they blend well together and complement one another. The highlighter added a soft glow to the top of my cheeks which shimmered when it caught the light. I used Bare Minerals 'Flawless Face' brush, which packed on the colour nicely. 

On to one of my favourite parts - eyeshadow! Before I applied any eyeshadow I primed my eyes with Urban Decay's 'Eyeshadow Primer Potion' and although I forget to use this sometimes, it really helped keep my eyeshadow in place and prevented any shimmer or glitter falling onto my face. I used three shadows from MUA's 'Heaven and Earth Palette' which are similar dupes for Zoe's MAC eyeshadows. This palette only costs £4 and with the primer I find they work just as well as eyeshadows from the Naked palettes aswell as MAC. On my lid I used the top far right shade and I used ECOTOOLS 'Large Eye' brush (bottom) which ensured that my whole lid was covered. In my crease I went for the colour next to the one I'd previously used. This was a dark brown, shimmery shade, and although Zoella wasnt too heavy on contouring her crease, I decided I would go full out with more of a brown smokey eye. I used ECOTOOLS 'Highlighting' brush (second down) which is the perfect size for my crease. I then ran this same colour under my eye in the corner and outer half of my eye with ECOTOOLS 'petite eye shading' brush (top.) Finally I added the top left colour on my brow bone to add more dimension to my eyebrows, using the ECOTOOLS 'Angled Crease' brush (third down.)

Although Zoella didn't add liquid liner, I much prefer it and thought it would complete my look. Using Urban Decay's '24/7 waterproof liquid eyeliner' in Perversion I created a basic wing and followed the line all the way across my upper lash line. After curling my lashes I applied 'They're Real' mascara by Benefit, which has always been my #1 mascara! To fill my brows in I just followed my usual routine, with 'Professional Eyebrow Pencil' by Rimmel in the lightest shade '002 Hazel.' Then to make sure there were no loose hairs, I gently applied 'Brow This Way' brow gel by Rimmel in '001 Blonde.' 

Now for lipstick! I decided to use 'Diva' by MAC as it's one of my favourite Autumn lipsticks and it has a gorgeous berry undertone. I took Zoe's advice to line my lips first and using the same lipstick and ECOTOOLS 'Smudge' brush I went round the outside of my lips and started to fill in at the sides. I then applied the lipstick all over, but dabbed at it a little with my fingers. This is because 'Diva' can come off as a browny, deeper red, but when wiped off there was a really lovely berry red shade underneath. This lipstick is also a matte finish which worked well with my matte skin and contrasted with the shimmery eyes. 

Last but not least I sprayed my face with the 'All Nighter Makeup Setting Spray' from Urban Decay, which helps keep my makeup in place throughout the days and nights. Honestly when I use this my makeup does not budge! 

Here is the final look! I also decided to do my hair as Zoella did, as it completed the look. 

Thank you for reading! I know this may have seemed really long winded, but there was so much information that I wanted to get in. I hope you have found some products you want to try out, or I've even convinced you to try this out yourself! If not then I hoped you enjoyed this post. 

Gina x