Tuesday, 7 January 2014

Easy guide to the perfect face makeup...

Hello again!

This is beginning to become a regular occurrence... Once again I'm sick of tirelessly writing about phallocentrism (the world's obsession with penises), so I have found myself wanting to blog about something a bit more lady-friendly.

Forget about this silly obsession with the male genitalia, for however long I can remember, girls have been obsessing over one thing and one thing alone; achieving flawless face makeup. Now I'm going to try and make this blog as simple and as accessible to everyone as possible, but I'm not going to lie to you all, the better your tools and materials, the better the end result will be.

I have always struggled to find the perfect foundation for my skin, and I have literally tried them all and never found one that I was really happy with. They were all either too thick, too thin, too gloopy, too orange, too white or rubbed off as soon as anything came into contact with my face. This Christmas, I decided to ask my mum to help me invest in a nicer and more professional brand. After trolling through Debenhams, I came across the BareMinerals counter and asked the lady to match some of the makeup to my skin tone - I fell IN LOVE. It literally feels so silky and so beautiful, and the coverage for a powdered mineral foundation is astonishing.

So for Christmas, my mum and dad bought me the BareMinerals starter kit, which looks a bit like this:


It includes 3 applicator brushes, a primer, a foundation, a bronzer, a veil, which is basically like a setting/blending powder, and 2 help guides (one is a DVD - how high tech). This all cost £45, which I think is pretty damn good for what you are getting, both in terms of quality and quantity. I think this was a special Christmas offer, but to my knowledge, the kit is usually priced around £50-60, which is still not too shabby. I can seriously recommend an investment!

Essentially, if you have good tools, like the BareMinerals starter kit, then you are well on your way to achieving flawless face makeup.

Where to begin? Well, make sure your skin is clean and thoroughly moisturised before you start - you can't create a masterpiece on a shit canvas! I also use Benefit's pore minimiser, see below, which is great if you have a holey crater face like mine. You don't need to apply much, just a light coating of there areas you feel your pores are most visible, e.g. nose, forehead, t-zone etc.


After applying my pore minimiser, I then use the BareMinerals primer in my starter kit. Only a pea sized amount is necessary to cover your whole face - you don't want to cake it.


That's skin prep done! I know it's a mish, but if you want to look flawless it takes a lot of effort. Next onto contouring - yawn, I know, but if you want to accentuate (or fake) your cheekbones, it is essential. Everyone's face shape is different, and we all want to accentuate and detract from different areas, but I think this diagram is simple enough to apply to everyone:


Basically, the lighter shades are areas you want to highlight, and the darker shades are areas you want to define - a good contour job can work miracles in terms of sculpturing your face. Here is my own personal attempt....


Yes, I look silly and gaunt and ridiculous, but a girl has to do what a girl has to do. I used an old foundation which I found thick enough to fake it as a concealer. I have quite a big forehead, which is why I chose to use the darker defining shades more in that area. To create the darker shading, I blended the foundation on my hand with Primark (yes Primark) bronzer, which I think cost me no more that £2. After a good blend, this is how may face was shaping up:


Notice how my cheekbones are quite prominent and the area above my brow is prepped to create a good arch when I fill them in - this will however come in another blog, sorry!

Now for the application of my BareMinerals makeup. It is hard to sufficiently describe application in words alone, so I filmed short snippets of myself putting it on; think a lot of buffing and brush strokes:



Next for bronzer. The application is again similar to the foundation, but we want to concentrate on the darker areas we previous contoured. I find the best way to apply this is using a sweeping number '3' motion down the side of my face. Here is a video to demonstrate:




Finally, we need to apply the veil to seal the makeup, and then we're good to go! I always spray a cheeky bit of hairspray on my face as well just to make sure it's all concrete!

So thanks for reading guys, I hope this helps some contour novices out there; it really does make a world of difference! My next blog should cover the rest of my makeup regime (brows and eyes) so keep a look out for that! x

Monday, 6 January 2014

How to cheat your way to the perfect henna tattoo...

Hello all!

Sorry I have been away for so long, I have been extremely busy getting back into the routine of University and lazy/drunken student life. So, in a terrible fit of essay procrastination, I decided I would write a cheeky little blog entry about something I have become a weeny bit obsessed with over the past few months: henna tattoos.

So, my obsession began in September when I went down to Nottingham to visit my good friend Amelia. I had wanted a henna tattoo for such a long time, and after doing a bit of research, I (strangely) found that there was a woman in Nottingham who did henna tattoos in the main shopping centre. This was the beautiful result of her labour:


She literally did that freehand in like 5/10 minutes and it only cost me £10; I was in awe really! I watched this woman at work, thinking: 'Man, this is easy! I could definitely have a good crack myself!'... haha, no. It is NOT easy. AT ALL. I think I must have taken for granted the fact that this woman was obviously of an Asian persuasion, and I am a cocky white girl from a wool province of Liverpool. So I had ordered some henna cones from eBay (I think they cost me around £5 for 6), and after several embarrassing attempts (which I am not even willing to share with you), I gave up. THAT'S IT. I will never be cultured.

But fear not! After a few weeks crying into my dirty henna stained hands, I finally stumbled across a solution: henna stencils! Oh my god! Perhaps the greatest gift the Asian continent has ever given to the hipster white girl. I discovered this glorious invention in Urban Outfitters, where I was waving a pottery henna hand ornament around the shop, moaning about the fact I was unable to achieve such an affect. A lovely woman with a gorgeous pixie haircut obviously thought I was embarrassing myself, and came over to me and told me about henna stencils! What a doll!

And here they are:




 You can get loads of different styles and patterns from different sellers on eBay, all ranging from about £2-£4 inc p&p. They are a bit fiddly, but once you get the hang of it, they are quite simple. You peel off the stencil, stick it on your hand, or wherever you want to paint, with the sticky side down and then you're good to go. I squirted out some henna from the cones and painted it on with a small makeup brush, as I found that was the best way to fill in the stencil. I found some of the hand stencils were quite small and didn't fit my hands, so I had to modify them slightly by cutting off the fingers (the ones on the stencils, not my own....) and sticking them on individually.

The application of the henna is really easy (and smells a bit like hair removal cream), but you have to let it partially dry before removing the stencil; henna is incredibly easy to smudge, believe me! But here is how it came out after my first attempt:


See! It looks flawless!... Apart from the remainders of my freehand attempts.... It even fades to a really nice colour too:


Henna does flake and crumble off after application to leave a more faded appearance as above, so don't panic if the paste comes off. The crumble is a pain though, my bed is now permanently covered in fake tan and henna crumbs. It is also important to carefully clean your henna stencils too if you are wanting to reuse them. The best way I found was to place them back on the stencil sheet and gently wipe off the remaining hard paste with a makeup wipe; that way you don't lose too much of the sticky back!

So, there we go guys! All is not lost for us henna failing white girls. We can look ethnic and interesting (and indie) now too with a bit of extra help! Please feel free to leave me any feedback, or ask me any questions about this or any of my other blogs.

Happy henna-ring!

P.S. I have ordered some loose costume glitters to experiment with my eye makeup, so I am starting to feel that for my next blog! Keep an eye out for that x