EOTD: The Cut Crease

I meant to post this look the other day when I actually did it, but then never did. Better late than never eh?

I wanted to practise my cut-crease, and get the technique down so I could do it on a client/model if needed. This isn't perfect by any means, but I think I'm getting there. What do you think?

I don't remember exactly what I used as I was experimenting, but it was something like:

Nyx Jumbo Eye Pencil in Milk
Claire's hot pink body art crayon
Black pencil liner
88 palette pink
Too Faced Glampire
Helen E hot pink glitter
Kryolan liquid liner
Urban Decay Naked & Buck
Sleek black eyeshadow
MAC Vanilla pigment

Hope you like it, let me know in the comments if there is anything in particular you want to see me write about or do. I get a bit stuck sometimes!

MAC Chocolate Brown Pigment: Possible Dupes?

I know how popular the MAC Pigments are, and while they are a fantastic product, I believe there are many other companies that make loose eyeshadows of comparable quality, at a much lower price. MAC Pigments currently retail on their UK website for £16.50 for 4.5g/0.15oz of product. I thought I would look through my collection to see if I could find a dupe, or anything very similar, to Chocolate Brown Pigment, which is one of my favourites. It's great to find a cheaper alternative whenever possible I think!

I picked out the closest things to it I could possibly find, but it wasn't as easy as you might think!

From L-R: MAC Chocolate Brown Pigment, HiFi Cosmetics Yuletide Carols, Barry M Dazzle Dust in 53 Chocolate, Sue Moxley brown from Famous palette.

As you can tell, they are sort of similar, but nothing quite matches it. I thought I would've found several dupes for it as I have a lot of browns, but these are the closest to it, and side by side they do not look alike.

Yuletide Carols is more bronze-toned, perhaps a more yellowish brown. 

The Dazzle Dust has a much darker, blackened base, despite having a similar chocolatey brown shimmer. 

The Sue Moxley colour is much more taupey when swatched, with more grey tones. It also has a chunkier texture, with less pigment.

So, sorry I couldn't find a match for MAC Chocolate Brown for you, but I hope that helps you if you were looking at any of these as a possible dupe.

Recent Favourites

I didn't make a 'favourites of 2011' post, but I just wanted to talk a bit about some of the things I've been enjoying using lately. 

1) Superdrug Vitamin E Hot Cloth Cleanser

I'm currently on my second bottle of this. Usually cleansers seem really 'meh' to me, and I either don't bother with them (just cleansing wipes), or don't stick with them for more than one bottle.

2) Neutrogena Visibly Clear Spot Stress Control Moisturiser 

My skin has been an absolute nightmare for the past three months, so everything I put on it makes me break out in spots. This has salicylic acid in, so it doesn't clog my pores. So far it's working really well, and is quite mattifying too.

3) Shiro Cosmetics Intertube in Yo Dawg

I'm not normally one for bright or dark lip colours, but this one is a perfect dark fuchsia for Autumn and Winter. Plus the name is geekily awesome.

4) Illamasqua Intense Lipgloss in Temper

I got this at the Clothes Show Live back at the start of December, and along with 2 other shades of this, and 3 medium pencils, it was the first Illamasqua purchase I made. The pigmentation is insane, and it stays on so well. The other shades I got were black and silver so I haven't used them, just put them in my kit for the crazy looks I've got planned.

5) Models Prefer Automatic Eyebrow Pencil

Recently, I've been introduced to the joys of filling my eyebrows. Haha. I always used to think it made me look like a tranny, but my college tutor has changed my mind. This pencil is really easy to use and has a spooly brush on the other side for grooming the hairs and blending out.

6) Evil Shades Blush in Gossamer

This is such a pretty blusher, a soft candy floss pink with blue shimmer. Really flattering on my cool toned skin.

7) MAC Vanilla Pigment

I just have a sample of this, but I love it for highlighting my cheekbones and tearduct. It's so so pretty.

8) Makeup Whore Necklace from Tequila Star

Got from the Clothes Show Live. Self explanatory!

9) Haus of Gloi Sugar Exfoliant

Nice and scrubby, and very moisturising. Gets rid of those little bumps on my skin. This is something like my 4th or 5th jar, I love it and all the scents I've tried from them are great.

Honorable mention (because I forgot to photograph it): Philip Kingsley Elasticiser. Awesome conditioning treatment, which is completely non-greasy, doesn't make my hair flat, and makes my crunchy bleach-fried ends look smooth and lovely. Tried it in the Glossybox, but now I want a full-size, so I'm waiting til I see a good deal.

Hope you found this interesting!

EOTD: Christmas Cut-Crease

Hi everyone, I hope you've all had a good festive season and that you are well. I've been so busy, with working  on Christmas Eve, back on the 27th, then a wedding to attend. Phew! The last couple of days I have had a well-earned rest. Anyway, this is a look I did on the 23rd for a Christmas meal with friends. I've only just got round to posting it!

I'm really enjoying this kind of look lately! I like pushing myself :)

What I used:

Too Faced Shadow Insurance
Nyx Jumbo Eye Pencil in Cottage Cheese (lid)
Nyx Jumbo Eye Pencil in Rocky Mountain Green (crease)
GOSH Effect Powder in Steel (used wet on the lid)
The Body Needs Glitter in Snow Flake (lid) - doesn't really show in the photos
Sleek Acid Palette greens
Urban Decay Mildew (from Ammo palette)
Sugarpill Midori Pressed Shadow
Sleek black eyeshadow
Black liquid eyeliner, can't remember the brand, but it's not great
Sugarpill Tako pressed shadow
MAC Pigment in Frozen White (inner corner)


I like this look, it reminds me of Slytherin haha! Hope you do too :)

FOTD: Living Dead Dragon

This is a look I wore last weekend when I went out for a friend's Hen party. I wanted to do something slightly 1920s inspired, so I went for a dark eye with green tones, which was darker at the inner eye area.

Sorry I look so miserable in the full face pic, I hate taking them haha! Anyway, here's what I used:

Eyes

Too Faced Shadow Insurance

Nyx Jumbo Eye Pencil in Black Bean

Spellbound Cosmetics Dragon Scales

Hi Fi Cosmetics Living Dead Girl

MAC White Gold Pigment

Urban Decay 24/7 Liner in Zero

Illamasqua Volume Mascara in Harness

Face

e.l.f. Flawless Finish Foundation in Porcelain

Illamasqua Powder Blusher in Sin

Lips

Collection 2000 CreamPuff Moisturising Lip Cream in Angel Delight

Dragon Scales is the main colour in this look, it's a MAC Club-esque brown/green duochrome which, as usual, looks awesome over a black base. For this look, rather than my usual smoky look with this type of colour, I brought more of the dark colours into the inner eye area, quite high up which reminds me of the silent movie stars. I hope you like it!

Experiments: Cut-Crease Attempt #1

Hello! I've been obsessing over makeup by Lauren aka queenofblending lately, and she is an expert in the cut crease look, so I wanted to see if I could do it myself! I've had a go using just simple colours and some glitter. Hopefully I will be able to do a modified version of this over the Christmas period, as I feel dragalicious makeup is totally appropriate for works do's, family gatherings and the like...

Aaand the obligatory blurry omg sparkly picture:

I'm actually really pleased with how this turned out. The lid looks a little dirty, so I would probably use a different colour other than white next time, and I'd use glitter which is closer to the eyeshadow colour. Cool as this one with reflects is, maybe its not perfect with this look.

I used:

Too Faced Shadow Insurance
Urban Decay 24/7 Eyeliner in Zero
Nyx Jumbo Eye Pencil in Milk
Sugarpill Tako
Sleek black from Curacao palette
Silvery/grey colour and dark grey from cheapo Claire's palette
White/green duochrome colour from Sue Moxley palette
No-name glitter eyeliner (as a base)
MAC Glitter Reflects Blue
Smashbox liquid eyeliner pen
Covergirl Lashblast

Hope you like it!

EOTD: It only hurts when I mauve!

Hello! Just a quick post to show you today's look and one from Saturday night. My skin is quite bad at the moment so full face shots are not looking great.

I just used Too Faced Shadow Insurance, MAC Pigment in Mauvement all over the lid, and Hi Fi Cosmetics My Pain in the crease/outer corner. I used Urban Decay Virgin as my brow and inner corner highlight. Then I used a tiny bit of elf brown cream liner on the upper lashline, and black mascara.

Sorry these pictures are a bit blurry, and the last one is horrible, but shows the makeup :p

I used:

Nyx Jumbo Eye Pencil in Milk
Sleek Acid and Curacao palettes
Sugarpill Dollipop and Poison Plum.
HiFi Cosmetics Morbid Faith
Sleek Suede blusher.

Hope you like these looks!

FOTD: Too Faced Glampire

Today I wanted to use my Too Faced Glamour Dust in Glampire since it's so so pretty but I hardly use it. It's kinda like a flaky glitter eyeshadow, glittery, duochromey goodness! Here it is on it's own:

FOTD: MAC Teal Pigment

I don't use MAC Teal Pigment enough. It's really pretty and goes with a surprising amount of colours.

Products used:

Eyes
UDPP
MAC Teal Pigment
BFTE Truffle
Urban Decay Naked, Virgin
Rimmel Soft Kohl Kajal Eye Pencil in Jungle Green
Mascara

Cheeks
Asda George Cheeky Tint

Lips
BeautyUK Lipstick in Snob
Collection 2000 Lock n Hold Lipgloss in Twisted Disco

Hope you like it :)

My Top 10 Lipsticks: Swatches

In this post I'm going to talk about my favourite lipsticks. Be aware that I don't tend to wear dark or bright lipsticks a lot so they are mostly neutrals and nudes. Most of these are great for wearing with a bright eye look. I hope you like them!

Eyes of the Day - Everyday Neutral

Hey everyone, this is just a quick simple look I did a few days ago. I noticed a lot of people liked the Mac post so this look incorporates some of the few Mac shadows I own. This is one of my fave combos for when I want to look made-up but quite natural. It's the sort of thing I would wear to an interview or something.

 I tried to edit the colour balance to show the colours as they truly are, but it still turned out more purple than they really are.

I used:

UDPP
MAC Malt - lid
Sue Moxley silvery taupe (sorry I don't know the shade number!)- crease
MAC Embark - along upper lashline
mascara

Hope you like it. I have some of the beauty uk pearl eyeliners and a lipstick from the new range if anyone would like to see a review of those. Let me know.

MAC Club Eyeshadow and its 'Dupes'

MAC's Club eyeshadow is a very popular colour that a lot of other companies make 'dupes' of. A dupe a name the makeup community has given to anything which closely resembles or copies a particular product, usually something more expensive, hard to find or discontinued.

Club itself is a pressed, satin finish shadow, which MAC describes as a "red-brown with green pearl". In this post I've rounded up all the colours I have which are similar to this in my eyes. The eyeshadows that I am comparing are: MAC Club, MUA Shade 12, MAC Blue Brown Pigment and a shade from Famous by Sue Moxley which I got in the 'complete face kit'. I believe that the Sue Moxley colour is also available as a single eyeshadow, however I don't have it so can't compare or give you a shade name, sorry!

From the above picture you can see that Club seems to be the least bold, more of a grey-brown, with a very weak duochrome. In real life you can see the green more than in the photo, but it isn't strong like Blue Brown pigment.

Makeup Looks: Bright and Neutral

Just thought I'd post a couple of makeup looks since I haven't posted one for a while! I took these pictures for going out last night and Friday night while just about to leave the house, so they aren't the best.

The first one was inspired by a few pictures I'd seen using orange pink and gold, so naturally I used Sugarpill :)

For this look I used:

Urban Decay Primer Potion
Sugarpill Dollipop, Buttercupcake and Flamepoint on the lid.
Goldilux loose eyeshadow wet on the lower lashline.

This one was inspired by Robyn of Stay Beautiful; she did a look using Fyrinnae Damn Paladins with MUA 12 that I had to copy! I think the combo looks super sexy :)

I used:
Urban Decay Primer Potion
Fyrinnae Damn Paladins
MUA shade 12
MAC Blue Brown pigment to intensify the outer corner.

Hope you like it!

Eyes of the Day - Peach & Purple

Jazziebabycakes did a tutorial with these type of colours recently, so I decided to do something similar.

My eyebrows look so bad in closeup :s Maybe I should do something about it.. hmm not sure. Anyway, here are the products used:


Urban Decay Primer Potion
MAC Melon Pigment
Sugarpill Poison Plum
Sugarpill Dollipop
Sugarpill Tako


Also, if anyone has any ideas about the direction you think this blog should take, please share! I'm not sure whether to keep posting music videos or just stick to the makeup, and whether people would be interested in tips/tricks and stuff like that. Let me know!