Halloween 2015 - My look

I know, I know. Tumbleweeds on the blog, long time no see,  blah blah blah. Who gives a pumpkin about why I have not  updated this blog for so long. I don't think for one minute that your life has stopped running its course because my blog hasn't been updated  so let's cut to the chase and let me share with you what I wore on Halloween, which in case you didn't know, is my favourite day of the year.


I've got a list long as my arm of looks I would like to create  and characters I would like to impersonate for Halloween until  Halloween 2057. I can't tell for how long I have been longing  to have some tribal style paintings on my face so this year I  finally turned myself into a Tribal Warrior, inspired by  "Alive" by Empire of the Sun and some tribal makeup looks from Instagram.

After the trauma of finding a wig that fitted the bill last year  for incarnating Cleopatra and the costs involved, I really  wanted to do a budget look this year and wanted to recycle  what I had in my wardrobe and makeup collection. Minus my  contact lenses (more on that later) everything I wore, from  the makeup, the outfit, the jewellery was recycled from the  past. With putting on weight over the years, and even after  losing 8 pounds for the occasion there no chance I could have  worn my brown avatar skirt so my ordinary multi purpose black  skirt had to do.

Now for the piece de resistance: the most inexpensive,  comfortable, easy to wear and striking even on dark eyes  lenses on the planet. Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce to  the Mesmereyez Xtreme LOUIS One Day Halloween Contact Lenses at £6.99 a pair from Hunt or Dye.
Of course I am never going to be as good as the boyfriend who  pops in his lenses in a micro second flat, because he wears  lenses every day but I don't recall managing putting lenses in  my lenses so fast. I am not sure if it's because they are  designed to last just one day and that the material is super  thin but I found them very easy to insert in my eyes. Another  big help was the colour. There is no way you can put the  lenses inside out. The outside is very obvious from the inside  and it felt so reassuring to be 500% sure they were inserted  the right way.

Other products used:
-Usual bog standard very highly pigmented red Stargazer eye  shadow from eBay, purple and black eyeshadow from the sleek  makeup acid paletteSnazaroo white Face Paint
- Ben Nye Liquiset
- Ben Nye Final Seal
- Lips: La Splash Cosmetics Waterproof "Lip Couture" in  shade "Malevolent"


Did you celebrate Halloween? Did you get dressed up?
Tell me all about it in the comments below, on instagram or on  twitter @tsunimee :) xx

Cliloopatra: My character for Halloween 2014

I can't tell you for how long I had been wanting to travel to Ancient Egypt and  become Cleopatra for a day. I have been putting it for so long, then when Katy Perry released Dark Horse, I interpreted it as a sign so I had to be the Queen of the  Nile this year for Halloween.


I couldn't have made life for difficult for myself choosing to become Cleopatra.  Cleopatra eye makeup, in my eyes anyway, is all about intricate eyeliner work,  which is the last thing you want to replicate on a person with hooded eyelids like  me. And then Cleopatra is famous for her luscious fringe (or bangs as Americans  would call it) so began the maniac hunt for a decent looking wig. Now if you thought there were a  huge reality gap between advertisement photos of, say, burgers or eyes supposedly  transformed by mascara, the gap is even bigger when you buy a wig. The amount of  money I spent buying wigs which looked absolutely nothing like the picture is  unbelievable. Then to top it all off, the finishing touch for a Cleopatra look is  some form of golden headdress which turned out to be the biggest ball ache. Again,  an incredible amount of money was spent in buying all sorts of head gear on eBay for nothing. One week before Halloween, I wish I had broken my leg instead of  wanting to become Cleopatra. In a nutshell, everytime I was trying to wear a  headband over my wig, I looked like an Arabian Sheik, the hair would be stuck to my  head, would ping out at the bottom and I just felt very unpretty and unhappy. Then  I thought getting a headchain would be a good idea. I purchased this very one actually but it didn't work out. On a  wig it would constantly slide about, fluff the hair up and make you nervous the wig would lift off. On my natural mop of hair, it looks actually really really nice but  I looked more like Princess Jasmine than Cleopatra. In the end, I wished I just went ahead, bit the bullet and bought a headdress à la Moloko.


To cut a painfully long story short, decisions had to be made. On Friday Night, I wore the wig without any form of headgear, which made difficult for people to recognise who I am and on Saturday, I wore a necklace, which I already own, under the wig fringe and it added a little Cleopatra touch to my costume. Without further ado, here are some photos of my Halloween week end. A nice blurry one to start the proceedings…






















Last but not least, some snaps illustrating the not so attractive sheikh hair style, pinging out at the bottom, which I talked about earlier on, and why I felt I just couldn’t possibly go out like that.





What I used:
 
Eyes: Two faced shadow insurance, Nyx Jumbo Pencil Collection (2000) Felt Tip Eyeliner, Gold Eyeshadow in the L'oreal HIP Flamboyant Duo, Dark Blue from Sleek Makeup Monaco Palette, 'Atlantis' Blue Eyeshadow from Milani, Katy Perry Eye Lashes Revlon eyepencil,
Lips: Boring Nude Lip (Mac Velvet Teddy)
Wig: This wig From Ebay.
Necklace: Primark. £3








See? I told you the wig looks shorter in real life! Or maybe it’s just because of the model’s giraffesque neck.


What I learnt from doing this makeup: When you see a wig, reality is that it will be 2 inches shorter on you, use double sided tape to secure your wig, wigs and hair accessories are a nightmare when paired together. I am grumbling a lot, but I really enjoyed wearing this look. Most of all, I enjoyed the makeup challenge and trying to be Cleopatra for the week end. Next year, I fancy being something spooky again though. Wouldn't mind having a dab at special effects makeup.


Hope you have had a fantastic Halloween. If you dressed up and did some fancy makeup, let me know in the comments, I would love to see :) xx

Last Minute Halloween Makeup: Webby Witch

You know when you have not been in touch with an old friend for years, you know an email is long overdue but you don't know where the heck to start, how to summarise years of absence,  I am like that with this blog. So I'm just going to go right into it and share a little bit of makeup with you, just like in the old days. About two months ago, I started a new hobby and I have been going to salsa classes every Thursday. So last Thursday, on Halloween Eve, the Halloween Obsessed girl that I am couldn't resist the urge of wearing a halloweeny makeup look. It had to be wearable as I would still need to be able to dance  with a partner, without smearing him with face paint or something like that but most of all it had to be simple, because I knew no one else would wear an Halloween makeup on the night.


Once on new year's eve, I decided to join a fancy dress bar crawl on my own and I turned out to be the only one in fancy dress gear and makeup, bar a lost Jack Sparrow. After surviving that experience, it is pretty safe to say that I've gone past caring whether I am going to be the only one wearing fancy dress makeup. It's too much fun to be had, fancy dress makeup opportunities are too rare and I didn't want to miss out.
So this is what I came up with: a mismatched asymmetrical colourful cobweb look and black lip accessorised with a mini-witch hat on a headband, ideal if you can't bring yourself choosing just one colour symbolic with Halloween.










Although this look can be done last minute and requires very few products, you might want to practise beforehand before your big day. What made all the difference was the  marvellous Extreme 24 hour felt tip eyeliner from Collection (2000). You still require a pretty steady hand but it made my life so much easier. But the product which I had the most pleasure using was 'Sunrise' orange eyeshadow from the makeupstore: fantastic pigmentation, very smooth and hands down the easiest shadow I have ever worked with. It makes me want to throw all my makeup away and buy products just from the makeup store. The green is a combination of the 2 green eyeshadows from the sleek makeup acid palette and the purply brown colour in the crease comes from the 'oh so special palette'.









Originally, I wanted to recreate the gorgeous web look from GoldieStarling but had to declare forfeit after battling with my hooded lids. I have to start so much higher than my crease that I end up with very little space for the web part. The web part under my eye was not much easier, as it gets all distorted every time I smile and laugh. It was pretty much a case of working with what I had (lots of under eye wrinkling action) rather than against it and adapt the angle of the web and the space between the lines to match the wrinkles, so that the web still looks pretty when you smile and move your face.





had so much fun wearing this look. I was so worried the eyeliner would smudge but a practise the night before made me realise I had nothing to worry about: it withstood lots of laughter tears and didn't budge until I was ready to take it off. Oh why can't it be Halloween again next week so that I can have some more play with it?


 

Under the sun series: Still Irreplaceable

Have I already run out of ideas and content to feature a nail polish previously blogged about? Fear not, I have a backlog of posts as long the channel tunnel. Today, I would like to share you a old favourite nail polish of mine, in a different light, as part of my 'under the sun' series. If you are new to the series, you can read about it here. If you can't be bothered leaving this page, it is essentially about giving great nail polishes the love they deserve and giving them a better chance to shine: a chance to see them under the best light ever created by nature: glorious natural sunlight. Essence irreplaceable is a big favourite of mine and I still like it just as much as the first day.


Oddly enough, I have not been wearing it much at all as a manicure but it has been without a doubt *the* nail I have been wearing the most on my toes this season. In fact, apart from a glittery black nail polish worn for about a week, it's pretty much all that I have wearing this summer on my toes. Don't panic, there will no toes on show (I am very much aware that showing toes and feet is very controversial on internet) instead, have a look at this irreplaceable manicure.






I can't stress enough how easy this polish is to apply and wear. Nail polish experts will notice right away that my application is not the neatest and that it looks like I've applied the polish 3 miles away from the edges. But in the grand scheme of things, and in real life, it really doesn't matter. That's the way I wear it. The truth is that Essence irreplaceable is a very forgiving shade due to its subtle colour. On my toes, it will last 1 week before losing its sparkle. After a week, it will start to wear out beautifully, a bit like an antique gold vase.
 





If you're lucky to have a friend who lives in a country which sells bargainous high street wonder Essence products, this is definitely a shade you would like to get your hands (and toes) on. I need a gallon of this stuff and it will be a sad day when I will have run out of my second and last bottle. The closest polish to irreplaceable I own and which is available in the UK is this little sexy number from Marks and Spencers.

Nair Upper Lip Kit

Since an unfortunate episode at the beauty salon, I've been avoiding beauty salons like the plague and I've been taking charge of the unwanted hair on my face at home. I've been scared to get my eyebrows waxed at the beautician (any beautician, not just the one who butchered my brows) so I have been trying to maintain my brows myself with a pair of tweezers. As I get older, removing unwanted hair around my eyebrows is getting easier and easier. My eyebrows just don't grow as full as they used to anymore and I find myself spending more time filling them in rather than tidying them off.


Hair on the upper lip, however, is still a problem. You'd think as you get older, hair on this area will stop growing too but no. Lately I have been trying to control the appearance of facial hair on the upper lip whilst bleaching it. The problem with bleaching is that the hair is still there, less noticeable but it's still there. As I was photographing some stuff for the blog, in my kitchen, on a sunny day, one day, I caught sight of my upper lip foliage and was horrified. The same day, I found myself in the aisles of Boots, purchasing my very first hair removal cream kit.


The choice of hair removal creams was quite baffling for the newbie like me. I remember that there was a product for the face, from Boots own brand at £2ish but I opted for a pricier product and went home with the Nair Upper Lip Kit (RRP: £5.10) formulated for sensitive skin.





The rationale behind my purchase was two fold:


1) A pricier product would mean better quality. If I want to have a memorable first time, I want to give myself as many chances as possible of liking the product. So I might just as well go for a good product, instead of choosing a cheapie one and running the risk of being put off for life from a method of hair removal I never tried before. I also remember the days when I was trying to learn how to put false lashes on and it was only when I spent £5 in a reputable brand like Eylure that I managed to put for the first time a pair of eyelashes with confidence.

2) A product for sensitive skin would be better suited for hair removal newbies.

Do you know where this is going yet? I am trying to write this in the most neutral way as possible, trying to manage the suspense, only to reveal my opinion of the product at the end of this post but I feel like you can already sense where this is going.


I made the effort to read all the instructions but chose to ignore the bit where it says you have to patch test a small area to see if you develop a strong reaction with it. The packet suggests that you do the patch test EVERYTIME you use it. Really? Who does that?








My first impressions were really good. The kit contains 2 tubes: the blue one is for removing the actual hair and the pink one is the moisturiser, to use after you've done removing the hair, to soothe and moisturise the upper lip. The colour coding makes sense in a way. The blue (blue for boys) is tough, like men are tough and strong and removes the hair. The pink (pink for girls) is girlie and adds some needed ‘gentleness’ to the world 






What also impressed me that is that I didn't notice any scent at all, in either the blue or the pink product. It's only after I was done with the product that I realised that it didn't have any scent.


I wanted to leave the product for the 5 recommended minutes but as I tried to sweep some of the hair off, I noticed that it didn't come off easily so I decided to leave it on for 5 more minutes, making sure not to exceed 10 minutes overall. I was definitely ready to take the product after 10 minutes as I could feel the tingling sensation getting more and more noticeable.


As I expected it, my lip felt very tender when I removed the product. I was expecting this feeling to last maybe 4 hours, as this is usually the amount of time  that my lip feels tender after an upper lip wax. The problem is that my lip felt sore for a whole 48 hours. It wasn't red, it wasn't a burning sensation as such but it just felt weird to the touch, so incredibly tender but numb at the same time, like the pain you get after a lip wax, but a pain which would last 48 hours. As the hours went by, my lip felt better and better but the first 24 hours were just extremely uncomfortable. Then 2 days later, when the pain had finally subsided, the hair started to grow back. Hair Regrowth felt quite sharp, a bit reminiscent of leg hair regrowth but at a smaller scale.


It's extremely unlikely that I am going to re-use the Nair upper lip kit ever again. I can't say it's a bad product and Nair did very well to create a scent free product but I think it's this particular method of hair removal which is not suitable for me. It's an experience that I never want to go through again. It's not worth it, 48 hours of uncomfortable pain and when the pain finally subsides, you have to contend with regrowth. To be honest, I don't know how long my upper lip stays hair free when I have it waxed but it certainly lasts longer than 2 days! To be fair, the product *did* mention that it would remove all visible hair, not hair from the root as waxing would but I expected better than that. And if I'm going to have 'sharper' lip hair again after 2 days, I might just as well use a razor and be done with it.






If you're quite accustomed to hair removal products and quite like this method, you will probably enjoy this kit. No need to mix anything, it has a handy slanted applicator nozzle thing, and it has no noticeable smell, from what I can remember anyway. If you're new to the method altogether, I would recommend to experiment with a cheaper product and see how you get on with that, with a view to upgrade in the future. The Nair upper lip kit retails for £5.10. To add salt to injury, it's on half price at the moment: £2.55 at Boots. Grr!

Emergency Lilac

So you're about to go on a week end away, you're all packed but you didn't get the chance to do your nails because you actually started packing at 11pm the night before. You quickly pack some nail polish, before you hop on the train, or you think you did but you can't find the darn bottle.

What to do? Chances are that if you're going on a city break, you won't probably be too far from a Superdrug, when you can pick up some 'emergency' nail polish. Now, 2true nail polish in shade 14 might not be the most exciting shade out there, but it's one of these handy colours which will go with anything and which will quickly make your bare nails presentable enough to visit his parents in two easy coats. More importantly, it's incredibly good value for money (£1.99) and the application is a doddle thanks to the flat brush.







2true polishes (well, the 'creme' finish skinny bottles anyway) are too good quality to be relegated to the status of 'emergency' polishes. In fact, it's almost an insult to the brand to treat them that way. Next time you're in Superdrug, give their stand a chance. Despite its low prices and the young audience that it therefore attracts, 2true has some gems which are 2good to be overlooked.






I particularly cannot wait for the release of the 2true paper lashes, for a funky accent on the outer corner of the eye. Paperlashes are usually so much more expensive that normal so I am really interested to see how much 2true budget brand will sell them for.





What: 2True nail polish in shade 14
How much: £1.99
Where: Superdrug and 2true online.
Purchased the product myself.

You saucy mink

Getting back into blogging after such a long break is never going to be easy. To ease myself gently to it, I'd like to share with you a little bargain which has put a smile on my face.


I've always thought that when it comes to nail polish, and unless you're wearing a truly unique colour, that the general public don't generally notice whether the polish on your nails cost you 20 quid or whether you got it at the pound shop. In fact, there's nothing more satisfying when someone comments on your nails and you can say ‘It only cost me a quid, you know'. This is one of the main reasons I have been enjoying wearing MUA nail polishes. However, there have always been a few things which was spoiling my enjoyment of MUA nail polishes:


1) The terrible brush inside, making the application very laborious
2) The label is 99% of the time skewiff on the bottle, making the whole nail bottle of polish look really really cheap
3) Polishes have a number instead of a name, reinforcing the cheap look of the product.

To be fair, it was the brush which was my main bug bear. I was secretly hoping MUA would improve on their nail polishes but I was scared at the same time that improvements would mean an increase in price.


I had nothing to worry about. MUA listened to all the feedback and came back with 100% improved nail polishes, whilst selling them at the same price.Today, I have a lovely shade of polish to show you. It's called moody mink.





There's your first improvement right there. Polishes have a proper name now and everything. No risk of wonky label anymore, the whole label is ditched for a very sleek 'essie-esque' type of bottle. I won't be mad at you if you think MUA totally ripped off Essie's bottle design, it's understandable. MUA were definitely a bit cheeky there but the new design suits the new bottles so well, it feels so natural. Besides Essie have also changed the design of their bottles so I think there is definitely room for both brands to exist peacefully side by side in our beloved Superdrugs.

Without a doubt, the biggest improvement is the brush. It's nothing fancy, it doesn't fan out like the paddle brush in L'Oreal colour riche polishes but it finally performs its job perfectly.









If you have never tried MUA polishes before, there could never a better time to start. Own too many polishes already? How is a tiny £1 bottle going to hurt? Look at it, it's so cute and there's nothing wrong this new generation of polishes, this time. If you already own some first generation MUA polishes, you could even be a little indulgent, donate your first generation polishes and purchase your favourite MUA polish shades in their new format. I won't tell a soul if you did :)





What: MUA Cosmetics nail polish in shade Moody Mink
How much: £1
Where: Superdrug and MUA cosmetics online.
Purchased the product myself.

Perspective

Looking at the ‘decorations’ on this virtual garden, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the clock stopped and that it’s still Halloween 2012. The clock stopped for a dear friend of mine who decided to end his life in the opening days of November and my motivation for blogging went away with it. I tried to keep the blogging flame burning for a while, having Sunday ‘blogging dates’ with the lovely Sirvinya (we promised each other to blog every Sunday) but it never felt the same: the desire to blog didn’t come from within and writing didn’t feel as spontaneous and natural as it was before. At the end of January 2013, it was finally time to admit defeat and to take a break from blogging. I was still very much interested in the world of beauty blogs, devouring beauty articles like an addict and checking my beloved Google reader multiple times a day, to see if any of my 426 blog subscriptions had new content for me but I just couldn't blog anymore.

When the news that Google Reader was going to be discontinued first broke out, the hopeless creature of habit that I am got in a state of panic and I thought the world was going to end. Little than I knew then that things would get worse, much much worse. Weeks later, the fateful financial climate of my workplace meant that I had to fight to keep my job, and that were only going to be 4 jobs for 6 people. I had the chance then to sign on some kind of redundancy plan, to prepare for the worst but I chose to remain positive and to believe in my potential and in my skills. 

Days before the Easter break, the worst came to worst and I had to depart for an arranged week end in York while all I wanted to do was to crawl into a ball, eat myself into oblivion and mourn the loss of my job. I don’t know what was the worst actually: the awful interview I was subjected to, the atrocious way I was broken the news on the phone (Bad news, I am afraid, you have scored the lowest, this means you have lost your job) or the fact that I had just lost the only job I had ever had in my whole life. I can’t even begin to tell you how destroyed and broken I was. Other than losing a great chunk of my hair at uni, and losing my dad (he also chose to put an end to his life) this is definitely the hardest things I’ve ever had to deal with. Among other things, it made a huge door called ‘perspective’ violently slam against my face and made realise how silly I was to worry about small things like the discontinuation of Google Reader. 

Google Reader is still a big thing to me and come tomorrow I will be a bit lost, but nowhere near as broken as recent events left me. Incidentally things haven’t been all bad. In a struck of fortune, I was lucky to meet a lovely man at the beginning of February and we have been seeing each other since. 

I would love to go to back to blogging again. Not only there’s only so much the poor man in my broken life can hear about exfoliation, lashes and toners without alcohol but I really feel that there is a gap in my life. More and more lately, I have felt the urge to write and share things, express and share my experiences with certain products, to the point that it has been itching me to write: I am in the bath, and things come to my head. I am dying to put them onto (virtual) paper but I have felt shy about coming back, about having lost whatever little touch at blogging I had before. This overdue update is my attempt at coming back. I thought today (Boy, do I annoyingly like to leave things at the last minute or what) might be a good time, since ‘the end of the world’ is happening tomorrow and Google reader is dying and all :P

I can’t promise you that this very neglected garden of mine will be updated every other day like I set it out to be at the very beginning, but I would love to come back, write a little every now and then and if there would still be a little handful of you left still wishing to read my ramblings, life would be even sweeter.

There has been a lot of confusion between Google Friend Connect and Google Reader. Google Friend Connect (GFC for short) is not going anywhere yet, and it will still populate your Google ‘Dashboard’. If reading blogs through the RSS technology is your favourite way to keep up to date with your blogs subscriptions, you will have no doubt backed up your information and probably emigrated to a new RSS reader. I only backed up my data with Google Takeout yesterday (yep, queen of last minute, me) and have yet to find the RSS reader of my dreams. If RSS is all gobbledy gook for you, you can be notified about my posts through the usual channels and I will leave all the links for you at the end of this post. 

I have lost my job and have yet to find a new one. I have put on 2 stones of weight in since January and I have yet to be in the right frame of mind to lose the flab. Life has more downs than ups at the moment but the world has not ended. Life has just been very tough and hopefully blogging will help to add some necessary distraction to it. See you in the next post x

Follow le petit jardin de liloo: via google friend connect: http://www.blogger.com/follow-blog.g?blogID=7349732208940036092 via feedburner; via RSS: just paste http://lilooblog.blogspot.co.uk/ into your favourite RSS Reader. by email; via blog lovin; via hellocotton; via instagram;

10 moments when I like to use a bb cream

I feel so self conscious about the skin on my face (hyperpigmentation, red lumps and bumps, big pores and now visible signs of ageing) that you will probably never see me out and about, in broad daylight without a generous coat of the fullest coverage foundation I own. Asking me to step out of the house without some sort of foundation on my face is the same as asking me to venture out without my teeth brushed and deodorant. I basically could only do it if my house was on fire.


At the same time, I am a massive fan of bb creams and it just doesn't make sense. After all, bb creams are just a tinted moisturiser with a bunch of extra skincare properties. Why would I opt for something with such low coverage when I would usually go for the heaviest foundation I can lay my hands on? Well, you'd be surprised.


I wanted to share with you 10 moments when I want to reach out of my items of my beloved bb cream collection.





1) Going to the gym. There are lots of people out there who like to give you grief if they notice you're wearing foundation at the gym. You shouldn't have to care about what people (and mainly strangers) think about you, but if you're already feeling self conscious about your level of extreme unfitness, I find that wearing a bb cream helps with confidence and gives you one less thing people could give you grief about.

2) Strenuous-ish activities outdoor, for example a day to the mountain, walking pretty much all day. If you're anything like me, you won't enjoy outdoor activities much. One it's always cold outside, even in 'summer' and two, everybody is walking faster like you, like they have some sort of train to catch. The last thing you want is to appear like some sort of high maintenance girl, with layers of cakey foundation and who will cry if they break one nail. Just wearing a bit of bb cream on will make people think 'aww, she's clearly useless at walking, but she's not wearing any makeup, how refreshing for a girl who I thought was so obsessed with makeup.’

3) Beach. It is very unlikely I am going to put my head under water at the beach. I can't even swim. As people would laugh at me if I was wearing foundation at the beach, I find that bb creams are just perfect. And if people catch you re-applying bb cream more often than you should, you could always make it pass as a SPF cream ;)

4) Emergency Chocolate Fix. You need to nip out to the corner shop and can't bear showing your bare face to the world? BB cream to the rescue.

5) He stays over. You've started to see this guy more often. You know he's going to stay over and stay for the night. It's very early days and you don't feel comfortable with him seeing you with no ounce of makeup on. You dutifully take your makeup off, pop on bb cream on the sly right after, he's happy because he thinks you let him see the real you and you're happy because he's not seeing you with nothing on. I don’t condone wearing makeup overnight, but if a bb cream is just a tinted moisturiser, this has got to be better than full on primer and foundation, right?

6) Hungover Days. You went out the night before, have a massive hungover and someone is visiting you last minute.


7) Hospital stays. Foundation would make you look too done up. BB cream on its own (no blusher, mascara, lipstick, bronzer) will make you decent enough to be seen by visitors, will even some of your imperfections and still earn you sympathy and hopefully some non hospital made food goodies ;)

8) Dirty foundation tools. You can't stand apply foundation with your bare hands and all your foundation tools (brush, sponge, etc) are dirty or wet.


9) Rubbish Foundation. You bought a foundation and disappointed with its coverage. The foundation is not very buildable and would look very cakey and horrible if you attempt to apply too much, so you apply a bb cream as a base, and manage to use up your disappointing foundation overtime.

10) Fake Tan. You have a lovely fake tan on your face and don't want to mask with your heavy duty foundation. You apply a bb cream to cover some of your ‘bad’ bits and still let your lovely tan shine through.

What about you? Did you also catch the bb cream bug? Are you still using your bb creams regularly or are they sitting there gathering dust?

It’s Sunday and that means it’s Blogging Date with Sirvinya. If you have a few minutes to spare, please do check Sirvinya’s beauty blog. Thank you for reading xx

The best red eyeshadow in the world

If there is one party eye makeup I love is glittery red eyes. Not wanting to blow my own trumpet, but I have found nothing gets you as many compliments as red glittery eyes. Once, I was coming back from a night out, was a bit naughty, didn't remove my eye makeup (don't sleep in your makeup, it gives you spots) and was stopped (the following day) by the Boots Makeup woman whose makeup is always absolutely flawless and she went 'woah, what's that you on your eyes'. I must say, I loved that moment as for once I was a getting a compliment from a makeup professional.


But my beloved red glittery eyes demand a pigmented red eyeshadow and good quality and inexpnsive eye shadows are VERY hard to find in the high street.

 
When I finished the teeny tiny little red eyeshadow part of famous 'ebay' 88 matte eyeshadow palette (the only shadow I used out of that palette, I had never liked that palette at all actually) I realised how difficult it was to find an inexpensive and good quality red eyeshadow on the high street. Matte shadows in general are harder to find, but blooming heck finding a matte red one really felt like mission impossible.


No point going to Boots or Superdrug, you'd be wasting your time. If you don't want to go through the expensive Mac route, Illamasqua does a gorgeous one (@LizzumsBB aka benebelle has some gorgeous swatches for you) but I'd rather not spend £16 in a eyeshadow if I could and would rather pay £1 more and purchase a pair of stunning lashes. Topshop does a lovely red shadow but 1) it's more a raspberry pink shade of red and 2) topshop annoys me, being so pretentious only selling their makeup in the poshest and biggest shops in England. Sleek finally released a red eyeshadow in one of their eyeshadow palettes but the palette was only a limited edition item, in honour of the Olympics and you still had to fork out £7.99 for it.

  
Ebay once again came to my rescue and you have no idea how excited I was to find a super pigmented red eyeshadow for just £1.76. Now for the confusing part. The shadow is made from the lovely folks at Stargazer. They have, I believe, 2 red eyeshadows. One is disappointing, and is called the 'fluorescent' one. Don't get that one, because it's dry and not that pigmented. You want to get the other one, also called the red velvet one by some sellers. I always wear a primer and a white base to maximise the duration and pigmentation of my eyeshadows but I took some photos for you, without any primer or anything to show you how pigmented this little bad boy is. POW!





I hope you will excuse the abysmally bad outdoor lighting. That’s England for you!









This shadow is everything you want from a eyeshadow: very good pigmentation, soft but not too much fall out, very easy to blend and is £1.76. Why get anything else?






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It’s Sunday and that means it’s Blogging Date with Sirvinya. If you have a few minutes to spare, please do check Sirvinya’s beauty blog. Thank you for reading xx

What: Stargazer Red (velvet) eyeshadow
How much: £1.76 (+£1.44 postage)
Where: Ebay. Seller is called Supply me Beauty.
Link to product here.