Monday 12 November 2012

Swatch It

There's a few things in this life that I have deep love for. 1.God 2.Family/Friends 3.Make-up and 4. Coffee. They may or may not be in that order :s Today I want to talk about my deep love for make-up! I don't always love the process of putting it on but I love the way it makes me feel when I do. It's amazing how a little bit of make-up can be a total confidence booster! It's taken me some time to master what looks good on my face and what techniques work for me but after many hours spent with my good friend YouTube I'm gettin there! I wanted to share my fav products with all of you and it may also resemble somewhat of a starter kit for someone with not a lot of make-up or someone who wants to expand their collection. Shall we begin?

This first ones obvious, every girl should have this in her make-up bag - I'm talken mascara ladies! My personal fav? CoverGirl Lash Blast Fusion (the purple one) in blackest black. Sorry for the poor quality photo, I took it from the interweb seeing as I'm at work and forgot to take a pic of my own at home. I love this mascara because it seems to work the best for me. I love to try new mascara's just to see what's out there but I always come back to this one.  My eyes are more inset so when a mascara flakes it just looooves to sit on my cheeks- not pretty! This mascara doesn't flake or hardly flakes at all, I love the formula to  this one and I also like the rubber brush. The rubber brush tends to work a lot better with my lashes, not to mention makes them look longer! I've been asked a few times if I'm wearing falsies just by wearing this mascara!!


Next up is Primer. MUST HAVE. I cannot stress how important this is. Primer should be applied to the entire face before you put on foundation, this will help keep your foundation on your skin all day and give you a better 'finish'.  I do not have a picture because I've yet to find one that I love but next I will be trying Arbonne's face primer for $45. Before you freak out on me and tell me I'm crazy for spending that much I'd like you to take a moment and slap yourself on the face! How dare you almost lash out on me when it comes to make-up!! First of all Arbonn'es primer is in a huge bottle (30ml or 1 fluid oz.) this will last you forever people. Now take $45 and divide that into forever and you've got yourself a good deal! Also I really like Urban Decay Primer Potion. The purple bottle, not the yellow bottle. The yellow is shimmery and that's just dumb. I only apply this onto and around my eyelids before my foundation to really make my eyeshadow pop and stay put all day.  

Then we've got my good friend Liquid foundation, we go way back. My skin is far from perfect and on those really far from perfect days my face begs for liquid foundation. Lately I've been using L'Oreal Visible Lift liquid foundation. It does have a brush attached to the bottle but I use a stippling brush for the actual application. I've tried a few foundations in my time and this one I find to be my fav as of late. Everyone's skin is different though so find what works best for you. Don't forget, you can return foundation with receipt if you take it home and decide you don't like it. Why would you want to keep a foundation that doesn't match your skin tone and/or doesn't apply as smooth as you'd hoped? You wouldn't cuz thats just crazy! So exchange it for something that better suits you my friend! 


Next I'll be trying L'Oreal's True Match because I've been hearing a lot of good things about it. 


As mentioned previously, I apply my liquid foundation with a stippling brush. I've tried my fingers but hate how it gets behind my finger nails. I've tried sponges but I can't get that down so I end up with streakyness. A stippling brush is my fav and it looks like this: 



After I apply my liquid foundation I set it with a face powder. Right now I'm loving Maybelline's Dream Matte Powder. It give's good coverage, good color and keeps my skin matte. It comes with a pad like "brush" but I like to use a larger fluffy brush to apply the product all around my face. 



Then I'll use a bronzer to contour my face. Contouring can be tricky, my advice would be to look on YouTube to learn the techniques. I usually apply it  under my cheek bones (below where you would put blush), under/on my jawline and on the sides of my nose. Contouring is basically creating the affect of a shadow. You can use it to make your nose look slimmer (my personal fav), your cheeks more pronounced and your jawline more pronounced. The trick is to make sure you blend it all out so to not have any harsh lines. And to use it in conjunction with highlighting, contouring brings it in and highlighting brings it out! I haven't tried a lot of bronzer's but I hear good things about Benefit's Hoola Bronzer. I just ordered this (don't tell the husband) so I'll be sure to let you know how I like it. Just a tip, in store it's really expensive, I bought mine on ebay but I got the old packaging (shown below) which made it cheaper then one with the new packaging. 



To highlight I like to use Mary-Lou Manizer highlight. This. Is. The. Bomb. Diggity. If you do not have it, you should! It is quite pricey, I think I paid $25 for mine on ebay but I use very little of it each day and it still looks like I've used nothing. This baby will last me for years! Here's my swatch, it doesn't really do it justice. If you can see it gives a subtle shimmer look and I apply this above my cheek bones and blend it into my blush. I apply this with a fan brush also shown below. I got my brush from Coastal Scents and if you haven't already heard of them be sure to check out their site! 




And last on the docket is blush. Sadly I've only been wearing blush for the last year, I knew about it of course but I never felt like I needed it. If you feel this way as well then take it from me -> wear blush!!! I love me some blush!! I will not, would not, could not leave the house without it. It completely livens up your face, here I was walking around looking like I was dead! What happens is when you apply foundation to your face you are creating a matte blank canvas, that is why contouring and highlighting and blush is so important, it's bringing out all of your lines to in a sense recreate the bone structure in your face (and by lines I do not mean wrinkles people!)  My personal all time fav blush (which also happens to be the first blush I ever purchased) is Mac blush in Cantaloupe. It's a peachy/coral color and works so well with my skin tone whether I'm tan or pasty white! 


I also really love the blush palette from Coastal Scents, it has a variety of colors to choose from and the pan size is awesome, this little gem will last you a long time. My personal fav is bottom row second from the left, it too is a peachy/coral color. These colors also rival some of Mac's blushes so if your looking for a cheaper alternative this would be the way to go! The colors are gorgeous and very pigmented, you can also mix two colors together on your cheeks to create a different look. If you do happen to order this palette don't freak out when you see the colors- some look very bright but as you can see from my swatches it wont apply to your skin that way. I apply blush with a fluffy angled brush (not pictured). 

I noticed that a lot of these colors look brown
in the pic but I assure you none of them are. 
This palette is full of pinks, fuscias and peaches. 


I apologize for the very horrible quality of this picture,
it definitely does not do these gorgeous colors 
any justice. Also I think my arm skin really
sucks for doing swatches :( boo. 


Hope this was helpful, now go out and spend all your money on make-up and don't tell your husbands! Or don't take my advice and walk around looking dead, it's your choice! 


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