sugarplums

Since every beauty guru out there has come up with a holiday/festive look, I figured it was only a matter of time before I did one haha. It's a gold and purple lid with candy cane red lips. Simple and sweet :)

noir swan

The look for today was inspired by the movie poster for The Black Swan. I am DYING to go see it (if you're reading this jess, we go as soon as finals are done!!). I snooped around the beauty community and found alot of black swan tutorials and the girls are amazing for being able to re create the look to a T. I, on the other hand, put a more wearable spin on it. I used eyeshadows to create softer looking feather patterns and kept the eyebrows. BTW I know I say this in like every look I do, but the lips actually look a lot darker irl. My fail of a camera just decided to steal the burgandy soul out of the lips =/

courtesy of google images :)

Watch out, I might just steal your soul next.

(I realize how creepy my eyes look haha)





It's so much prettier up close!

glitter

I'm not talking about that poor excuse of a movie. I'm talking about this cute little nail trend thats been spreading around the beauty community. I have to credit tiffanyd of youtube for introducing the trend to me in the first place, and all it is, is a glitter accented nail on your ring finger. Now, I normally hate anything sparkly: eyeshadow, lipgloss, blush and definitely nailpolish but for some reason I just had to dip my toe (or finger in this case hee hee) into this trend. I think it's a cute nail look for the holidays, and it's more unique looking than just coating your nails in solid glitter don'tcha think? My nailpolish of choice for the following look was OPI's Coney Island Cotton Candy. Oh and btw, I used actual glitter from the craft store (tiffanyd's tip) to get more opaque coverage. All you do is paint half your nail with top coat and dip it into the glitter, press the glitter in place and finish with a good slap of top coat to seal in the glitter. Fin :)

Please forgive my unsightly paint job!

harry potter is mah fave

Alrighty so Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows comes out on Friday (YAY!) and xsparkage of youtube aka Leesha did a Gryffindor inspired look...and I pretty much just copied her. But I DID change some parts of it, mainly because I don't own any maroon eyeshadows :( Note to self: must ask for Cranberry eyeshadow by MAC for Christmas! Anyway the look is a simple gold lid with a light brown crease with some big bold brows. That was my attempt to look more lion-esque...lion-ish? I kept the cheeks simple because I wanted the lip to be the centre of attention. And as if there wasn't enough gold on my face, I pressed some gold eyeshadow onto the centre of my lips to really OD on the sparkles.

Not gonna lie, it really pisses me off how

much my camera washes out the intensity

of my eyeshadows =/

murky purple, greige, mud?

Well, I call it a dupe for Sephora by OPI's cult fave Metro Chic. It's just slightly less purple with more hints of brownish gray goodness. The color is called Storm and it's by Joe Fresh available in Superstore and online. I don't know if you American folks have Superstore...BUT for you all you Canadians definitely pick it up if you see it because it's only $4! Which is 3x less than the whopping $12 I paid for Metro Chic. The formulation is a bit thinner, as you can probably tell in the swatch below, and I probably should have done three coats as opposed to two but I was obviously too lazy. The photo was actually taken about 2-3 days after application without a topcoat so I'm pretty impressed by the wear. Oh and the bottle is only 6mL but I don't really find it to be a ripoff because I know I'll actually use it up. Who has honestly ever gone through an entire 15mL bottle of polish?

I really need to invest in a higher quality camera :(

make up pet peeves

The make up faux pas' that I see WAY too often that drive me crazy...

1. Sperm eyebrows
what are sperm eyebrows you ask? when girls overpluck their brows
and leave a nub at the front and confuse this for an arch. UGH.

2. Concealer lips
for the love of god, please just invest in a nude lipstick/gloss!

3. Misplaced blush/streaky blush
take the time to find your cheekbones! and don't just stamp
your blush brush on your face and call it a day, blend blend BLEND!

4. Spider lashes
holy batman are 8000 lashings of mascara necessary?
if you're going to slap the stuff on at least layer it while wet

5. Orange foundation
do i even need to explain?

...that is all.

I'm not saying I wasn't ever guilty of at least one of these crimes at some point...but thankfully I've seen the light!

frankie sandford

Today's look is inspired by the stunning Frankie Sandford of The Saturdays, okay so it's not really inspired it's more like a direct copy of what she looks like. I realized that trying to emulate Frankie's look would only hurt my "ego" (rofl did you catch that Saturdays reference?) because the girl is GORGEOUS but that clearly didn't stop me. The eyes are really dramatic - a smudged up smokey cat eye paired with overly bronzed cheeks (thats her trademark so I had to) and a safe nude lip which I think is straddling the line of being a concealer lip but who am I to judge? (well maybe her makeup artist lulz)

The resemblence is just striking innit??

Close up! Damn that friggin strand of hair ...



This shot was purely for the lulz, aka my sad attempt at being "fierce" like Frankie.

i've got the blues

So I got bored today and decided to a FOTD. (thats a face of the day for all you n00bs out theres :)). The look consists of a smokey blue eye, kim kardashian inspired nude-y cheeks, and peachy lips. Sounds absolutely ground breaking, I know. Nonetheless I think it turned out rather nicely.

With flash.

Note how yellow flash makes my skin look =/

No flash.

And some more gratuitous shots of myself...how vain am I?

\

dewy summer skin

Ah, nothing like some late night blog posting... The topic this evening? What every girl strives to have in the summer: gorgeous dewy skin. It's taken me awhile to accomplish such a feat but I think I've gotten it down to a science. I stumbled across a lovely product, courtesy of my lovely mother, by Estee Lauder called Spotlight. It's like a luminizing cream that you can wear over or under your makeup. But I found the best way to utilize its beautiful sheen was to mix the cream with my foundation. Set with some of my Mac MSF natural and I was sold.

Note that what looks like a highlight is actually the result of the estee lauder + foundation concoction. Also note that the bronzer used was a mix of dior bronze in 020 light tan and tarte's park avenue princess. Oh and if anyones wondering, the foundation I used was shiseido lifting foundation I 40 natural fair ivory.

coral lips, kinda?

Coral lips are huge this summer but for some us the bright orangey pink lips are too much of a commitment. But I digress! I love the look of a neon lip in the summer. So here is my solution for slowly easing into the trend. Mix a cherry red lipstick with a peachy lipstick so you can control how intensely coral you want to go. Below are some swatches of my own coral concoction.

Natural light.
Flash.
L to R
Rimmel "Red Hot", Mac "Dressmaker, Dressmaker", final product!

Tip: You can also play with tones of coral by using a darker brick red intead of a cherry red. Brighter reds will give more of a pink undertone.

a newbie with some guilty pleasures

Wow so this is my first blog post ever! Enough of the n00b parade, I'll just cut to the chase. So I've been experiencing a truckload of guilty pleasures lately, one of them being that new teeny bopper show "Pretty Little Liars". I originally slagged the promo off for being another stereotypical wannabe teen drama...and I was right because thats exactly what the show is. BUT what is it that sets this one apart from the rest? I'll tell you what. Two words. Ian. Harding. He's the gorgeous twenty something year old who plays Mr. Fitz the English teacher.

Insert picture courtesy of google images.

Nuff said no?

In all seriousness though, I actually love this show. The combination of a cheesy script, a good onset wardrobe, and cute co-stars is enough reason for me to keep watching. Oh and the girl in the photo is Lucy Hale. She's my favorite out of all the main girls. I think it's because she works the bold brow so damn well. And also because I have no choice but to live vicariously through her since she's romantically linked to Mr. Fitz on the show.