Fork, fishnets and fun - My halloween 2012

I need to say it right away. I don't think anything could beat the excitement I had when I  turned myself into an avatar for Halloween. I loved that film so much, for so many reasons  which I won't go into right now and becoming a na'vi for a night is one of my most fun, exciting and memorable Halloween moments of all time. Any character you turn yourself into after feels  a bit boring. But I can't be avatar every year and it took me ages to decide on what I was  going to be for Halloween this year.

  
I don't know how this has happened but I seem to own 4 sets of devil horns in my house and  I thought I could recycle some of them and become a little Lilith for Halloween this year.


Problem: Devils are so popular for Halloween. How can you jazz up a devil's makeup and  costume? What can you do to stand out from all the devils around?  Paint your whole body red? Have eyebrows on fire?

   
This is what I came up with and I hope you like it.











  


  





I wanted to have 3D cartoon lips for the night. I know, I know, it looks like I drunk milk from the bottle and forgot to wipe my top lip but this was intended. Products used my favourite red lipstick of all time, All for Eve red lipstick, Black Barry M eyeliner on the edges and some 17 Cosmetics gold highlighter in the middle.

   






It was fun playing again with  spirit gum, and challenge myself makeup wise. It was the only way for me to get excited about my halloween character, after the anti climax of not being an avatar.



I want to tell you about the contact lenses I bought especially for the occasion and if I wasn't pushed for time and on a #bloggingdate with @raeraemakeup, I would have written about them today. Hopefully, I should be able to blog about them tomorrow. Click here to see what Rae turned herself into for Halloween 2012


Hope you had an amazing halloween! xx

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When an eyebrow wax goes wrong…

This was supposed to be a routine exercise, when I go and have my eyebrows tidied at the beautician, because the arch of my brow always looks neater when they do it. I have been going to this place for years. Today, I was unlucky to be in the hands of a beautician who went a bit overboard with the wax and chopped a whole chunk off my brows in the middle.






It’s horrible and it makes me feel like so crap. Thank you Naomi for messing my brows up. I will make sure never to visit your place again. Bad enough I’ve grown paranoid about having my fringe cut off at the hairdressers in case I fall in the hands of a scissors maniac hairdressers, now I am going to be scared whenever I go for an eyebrow wax. Or maybe I need outline them in white pencil or something, with the white indicating where they are supposed to take the hair from. I look like a knob with these brows which are so far apart, you could park a campavan in the middle.

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A new revolutionary way to cover/block your eyebrows?

Eyebrow Covering or Blocking: now would you want you want to cover your eyebrows? There are many instances when you would be wanting to cover your brows. You could be wanting to recreate a 1920's inspired makeup look, where the focus is on the eyes and lips and the brows usually very pale or non existent:





Or creating a drag makeup look: erasing your own eyebrows and creating instead higher and exaggerated ones:

 


or you could be doing some all over face makeup, where the eyebrows are in the way and where the look would would look better if the eyebrows didn't exist and were out of the way.

  

    


There are plenty of tutorials on how to cover your eyebrows on YouTube and many methods too, from using glue stick, soap, spirit gum etc.. But the general consensus is that it's a very tedious, frustrating, time consuming process and one heck of a skill to acquire and master, especially if your eyebrows are thick and very dark. This process is so irritatingly frustrating, you'd be wanting to shave your eyebrows to be done with it.

YouTube makeup artist/guru anaarthur81 has treated us to many dramatic and extreme makeup looks, many of them involving the tedious need for eyebrow covering and came up with a GENIUS idea which I can’t wait to try myself:

The use of surgical tape as a way to mask
and cover your eyebrows effortlessly.

Why didn’t anyone come up with this genius idea before? It makes so much sense and is also so easy to find, in any country and so affordable.  Watch how she does it, when she transforms herself into a snow drag queen, and the impeccable seamless coverage of her brows:






Have you ever done a makeup look which needed eyebrow covering?

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Sequinning Around for Mardi Gras

As if attempting to recreate deannario’s blaze eyebrows was not hard enough, this time, I took the challenge to enter the “Mardi Gras & Beyond” makeup contest hosted by 4 lovely girls on YouTube: sophiechicken, degreesofshining, anneorshine and tinybubbles1841. I decided to create a very simple light pink masquerade/parade type of mask. I entered the contest mainly to support the girls and as usual it was an excuse to challenge myself and play around with makeup.




I did not plan to plait my hair, but as I was copying what the makeup artists do, and put a blob a eyelash glue on my hand and use it as a palette, it all ended up in my hair!!!

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Makeup Swapping Fun from across the pond

They say the grass is always greener on the other side. I don't know if it is true but I will always be attracted to get makeup I can't get in England.

Conveniently, my lovely twitter friend ashleigh from across the pond in the United States was dying to sample some makeup products from England, to see if they live up to the glorious tales. So a make up swap had to happen.

My 'brown box of amazing' landed today and this is what I had been dying to get my hands on for a while.

1. L'oréal Colour Truth H.I.P Liner in 'Eggplant'. This is a gorgeous cream liner in purpley aubergine colour.
2. L'oréal HIP Bright EyeShadow duo, in flamboyant (538)
3. L'oréal HIP Bright EyeShadow duo, in riotous (328
4. 'Browser' from NYC, eyebrow kit in Brunette
5. 4 Pairs of divine & dramatic Red Cherry Lashes in 102.
and 2 copies of a secret item which I also super excited but that I can't reveal for now. It's complicated :)

Excited does not quite describe it, I am bouncing with joy, like a flea in a shaggy dog and can't wait play with my American goodies. Everything arrived safe, how could they not, all wrapped up in a sea of bubble wrap :P Thank you so so so so much Ashleigh for the swap. Your 'folie blanche' made me chuckle but also go all fuzzy. Will you swap again with me? I hope so, cos this has been so much fun!

My photography skills are very basic. I hope you don’t mind the close up ones below, which I harvested from the web.

So, what other makeup products from America should I get from America next? What products am I seriously missing out on?
Please let me know :) I’m having my eyes on this exclusive limited edition ‘Chowder’ item :P What do you think?

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Reptile at Sunset – Editorial Makeup

Guess what? Yes, I am taking part in another makeup contest on YouTube. The contest is hosted by sweet and talented Hugo aka teporchuchis on youtube. The mission was to create an editorial look, you know the kind of look you would find in a fashion magazine, or on a catwalk, and probably not in the frozen veg section at Asda. First things first, let me show introduce you to Teporchuchis. Now this is the kind of makeup he’s been treating us to, no pressure at all lol :)



If I had a comfort zone in makeup, an editorial look would be totally out of it. I’d like to say that I enjoyed every minute creating this look, but I really had a hard time lol. But I really wanted to take part in the contest, not so much in the hope of winning it, but to support Hugo in his first contest, being a big fan of his.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is my ‘reptile at sunset’ look. Brace yourselves as I try my hands at eyebrow block covering. This was before the ‘reptile pattern’ thingy

The lashes are made up of 2 pair of lashes, the lashes I’ve wearing about 1000 times and some fancy ones from W7 which I bought at TJ Hughes. Here’s me attempting some reptilian pattern. I spare you all the cursing this has caused :P

Thanks for reading. Any tips on eyebrow blocking are more than welcome :) xx

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