Bella of the ball

If there is one thing which is difficult to buy online because of unrealistic and digitally enhanced pictures is coloured contact lenses. Prime example of this are the Edit Twilight Bella Contact Lenses. I expected golden reddened light hazel nut eyes and all I got was slightly more defined brown eyes.

   



I love how the outer darker rim gives my boring dark brown eyes a little bit more edge. I love how it gives bigger eyes, a little bit like a doll but in the grand scheme of things, I wish I didn't bother with these lenses. They are a bit pointless in the sense that the change is not dramatic enough.






If you are going to go to the expenses of buying contact lenses and through the MASSIVE faff of putting them in, you want them to be really noticeable. I wore them yesterday on my trip to Nando's and none of the 4 people I was with noticed any difference. This is how subtle they are.

But since I had them in yesterday, I decided to keep them for a few (ahem) drinks round town. I seem to be in a red phase at the moment. I gave my red clip in extensions another outing and I decided to adapt my moulin rouge makeup, get rid of the fake lace, the feather and add a little glitter. Red eyeliner was made with snazaroo red face paint mixed with Ben Nye Liquiset mixing medium.






I was so scared to wear face paint as an eyeliner on a night out, in case it would smear but the eyeliner lasted remarkably well. I was really impressed. To make it more durable, I added a little bit of red glitter on top which I stuck with eyelash glue. If I wear glitter on the whole lid, I would usually rely on my trusty splash, but since it was only a small area, I decided to use eyelash glue instead.



  





As predicted, people didn't notice the lenses, but the makeshift red glitter eyeliner coupled with the red extensions got me some compliments. Woo :) If I lack inspiration for the makeup for my staff Christmas do, I might do this one again.

  

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Aaa-ooooooo. Look into my eyes

Hello again, my little pumpkins. I hope you are well and that you've had a nice time around Halloween. This should have really been part of my previous post but I was on a tight deadline and didn't want to stand up my friend Rae, for our first blogging date together.


I am beyond excited to tell you about the contact lenses I used for my halloween costume this year. I heard about them from my friend Megan, a lovely Canadian girl whose makeup talent has no bounds. She is better known under the username of NsomniaksDream on youtube. As soon as I saw these particular lenses on her, I knew I needed them in my life.




The lenses are called 'Black Wolf' and they are just perfect for dark brown eyes. Apparently, their recommended retail price is a whopping £40.99 but I got them for £24.99 on Best Coloured Contacts.com. £24.99 is a bit more than I would generally want to spend on a pair of contact lenses but Halloween is my favourite time of the year, and I don't celebrate birthdays, Easter and a whole host of days during the year and, and ... I wanted to treat myself.





I have bought some contact lenses in the past, but these are hands down, without the shadow of a doubt the best looking contact lenses I have ever owned. I can't believe how dramatic and striking they look even on my dark brown eyes. If looked after properly, they can last up to 90 days. I've worn them twice now and I can't wait to wear them again for a special night out, or one of the Christmas Dos I've got coming up.






Unlike my avatar lenses, I found these extremely comfortable to wear. At times, my vision was blurry but I'd like to attribute that to the double JDs consumed on the night!







I am a total newbie when it comes to wearing lenses. In fact, I've only worn lenses twice a year, the Saturday before Halloween and Halloween Day itself. On average, it usually takes me around 40 minutes (per eye) to put my lenses. This year, I thought I would practise. So I practised, practised and practised every day for the week preceding Halloween. The practise was worth it and now I can proudly say that it only takes me around 5 minutes per eye. I can't tell you the number of twitter friends I've asked for advice and the number of youtube videos I've watched to suck less at putting lenses in. I'm nowhere near good enough to give some tips but I wanted to share something which I've read on youtube which finally made me tick. Regardless of which fingers you use to pry your eye open to put the lens in, hold your eye in a way which makes it virtually impossible to blink. If you don't blink, the lens will go in. And it's true! That made such a difference for me to try to do that!
Also, the lens will never drop by itself, you need to give it a little push.    


   
   




I think last year, I might have put one of my lenses the other way round. Youtube videos talk about this bowl shape that your lenses need to have if it's the right way round, but I can't make the difference. Right way round or wrong way round, it all looks like a bowl to me. My friend from work said that, the darker/most pigmented side of coloured side should be on the outside. It's sometimes to tell which side is darker but not with the Black Wolf lenses. You could really tell which side to put on the outside and that made me feel at ease and confident that I was wearing them correctly.


Finally, I just love the free case they came in. They are semi transparent so I can see without opening the case, whether the lenses need a top up of solution. I just couldn't be happier with these lenses and I think they really complimented my outfit this year. You can see more of my devil pictures here or by clicking on the picture below.





I couldn’t finish this post without giving a shout to NsomniaksDream on youtube. Below the collection of all the looks she did for Halloween this year.

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So you're a brunette and want blue eyes, huh?

Many of you will know already about my passion of fancy dress and dramatic makeup transformation. About 2 years ago, I bought some blue contact lenses, I am not quite sure why, now come to think of it but I bought some. They were not suitable for Halloween (I needed yellow ones for the second year running) so I thought what a better time than New Year's Eve to wear them. The lenses I bought were from Colour Vue and the actual model is called 'Solar Blue'.     

 
 
     


I had seen plenty of people wearing some people with dark eyes like me wearing blue lenses but the result had always been a little underwhelming and screaming 'not blue and not dramatic enough.



Were Solar Blue going to turn the same way? Umm, it went pretty much the other way: too dramatic and too freaky looking frankly. In real life, and away from the strong camera flash they appear less bright but still definitely too bright for my liking. In case some of you are into colour contact lenses, here are some pictures of the transformation.




   



So there you go. If you wanted to have a dramatic colour change, this is what solar blue could look like on your dark eyes.










    
In case you’re not into contact lenses, here is an attempt at capturing my outfit of the night. My dress is a very simple dress from ASOS, bought in sale at £10 ages ago but it’s my mock stockings tights which I like the best. They were £4.99 and I bought from New Look. I hate my knees so this is perfect to hide them








The quest for dramatic but less freaky colour lenses carries on. Next I want green eyes



Are you into contact lenses? If you are, and blogged about them, please please please send me a link. Or if you have some funki tights, spam me with your link as well. I am nosy and I want to have a look.


x

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Taking your Halloween costume to the next level...

Do you know what's frustrating? You want to make an impression, take your fancy dress costume to the next level, go and make the effort and expense to buy some fancy coloured contact lenses and they're rubbish: You try them on and they look nothing like the picture, and they are 10,000 times darker and duller. If only you could see it on a real person. Unless contact lenses buyers/wearer start to blog their experiences share their real unedited pictures or videos, buying contact lenses is always going to be a risky business.


Whilst looking for some contact lenses yesterday, I stumbled upon eyesbright.com who have been going the extra mile to show us what their lenses look like on a real person. They have set a whole youtube channel full of normal people like you and me, men or women, showcasing the lenses in a video footage and it's quite simply genius! And and and they really made an effort to create a makeup look around the character to showcase the lenses.

Not all the lenses that eyebrights sell have got youtube videos for them but it's a start.


Fancy, for example, some Alice in Wonderland Mad Hatter's eyes?
This is the official picture and this is the video for it.

Quite a difference huh?








If you're wondering, despite the strong 'advertorial' tone of this blog post, no one has contacted me to tell you about eyebrights. Probably the whole world already knows about them. I didn't personally and wanted to shout over the rooftops about their youtube channel, as I think it's simple, revolutionary and helpful.

Will you be getting some lenses for this Halloween?

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