December Eye Make-Up Challenge: Day 8, Smokey

I actually did this look a few days ago but I've kept it because I thought it would be nice for smokey!

I don't wear dark eye shadow very often at all so this was definitely out of my comfort zone. I know I should have used more eyeliner/shadow on my lower lid but I feel like it just makes my eyes look so small... I decided I wanted to adapt the smokey look to suit me. I also need to apologise for how uneven the sizes of these pictures are! For some reason I didn't manage to get two equal photos. Idiot. At least the bigger one is the one with all the impact!

I created this look with my elf Beauty Book in Smoky which I will be blogging about in the future. I must say, I was really impressed with the included black eye liner, it was very pigmented and easy to use, and you know me, I never use pencils!

 I used the 3 shadows on the right hand side as well as the included primer. It's the first primer I've ever used. I won't explain too much about this because hopefully you'll be able to read all about it on the elf blog soon enough as I had the opportunity to guest blog for them recently!

Day 1/Day 2/Day 3/Day 4/Day 5/Day 6/Day 7

I really hope you like my interpretation! 

Let me know in the comments which celebrity you think I should take my inspiration from for the next look!

Lauren

December Eye Make-Up Challenge: Day 7, Cool Winter

The lighting was so bad yesterday I just didn't want to do this! It rained all day and the colours looked awful... luckily things were a bit drier and brighter today, so here is Cool Winter!

I was going for a cold ice Queen look with a halo of silver. I'm always a bit nervous with cool colours and I feel that warmer tones suit me better, but I'm really happy with how this turned out!

I use Jubilee as my highlight (a beautiful shimmering silver) Victoria all over the lid which leaned a little turquoise but was still perfect for this! Picadilly was worked into the crease. I could have used some paler colours but I really wanted to get a good test of my lovely Glory Palette! I only have this and the Sunset palette, but it's safe to say I love Sleek. I want so many of their products but my local Superdrug doesn't stock it. So sad!

Day 1/Day 2/Day 3/Day 4/Day 5/Day 6

I really hope you liked my look for today! I'm still loving this series, I've been so much more creative with my makeup and I feel like my technique is improving with all the practice.

Let me know what you think in the comments.

Lauren

December Eye Make-Up Challenge and Tutorial: Day 6, Warm Autumnal

Yet another apology is in order. This should of course have been up yesterday but sadly I received some seriously sh*tty news in that I was given my three weeks notice at work. Essentially, I've lost my job. Being the over dramatic sap I am I spent a good portion of yesterday crying and therefore didn't get to do this look. I'm really sorry it's late but I put some extra effort into this and made it into a tutorial! So you'll be able to recreate this look if you're that way inclined.

A quick disclaimer, I am in no way a make up artist, I probably do a million things wrong. This is just the way that I create this particular look.

This is one of my favourite looks. I've been a bit confused about the colour of my eyes for years but I honestly would really like them to be green and by using red shades for eye shadow I find that the green tones in my iris really "pop." This look is essentially a more intense version of a FOTD that I did recently.
I used my Body Shop Eyeshadow Brush and Eyeshadow Blender Brush with the Sleek Sunset Palette like this:

Step 1.
I start by packing in some of the highlighter in the corner of my eye, across the first section of my lid, onto my brow bone and along part of both lash lines.

This shimmery peach shade is one of my favourites from the Sunset Palette and I'm terrified that I'm about to hit pan!

Step 2.
Add the coppery red tone across the entire lid. I use my crease to create the initial shape and then work down towards my lash line. I can then assess how far to go up and blend it out slowly.

I would probably end it here if I wanted to go for a more subtle Summer "peachy" look. Simple blending out a finish with a brown mascara.

Step 3.
Define the lid shape by working the deep red into the crease and alone the edge of the shadows to create a fairly sharp wing. I also added a little under my lash line to carry the wing downwards.

Of course you can create any shape you like but I find this looks really cool and aggressive. Not for the faint hearted!

Step 4. 

Take a fluffy blending brush and gather up some more of the highlight shade and push it out from the corner of your eye into the rest of the design, blending away any harsh lines as you go. The eyeliner here is completely optional. I feel like without the liner you get a more "editorial" feel to the look but you know how I love my black liquid liner!

Then it's simply a case of adding your favourite mascara! It's easiest to wear this with a nude lip but where's the fun in that?

This is elf lipstick in Sociable and the bright red beanie than my boyfriend's Nan knitted for me!

Day 1/Day 2/Day 3/Day 4/Day 5

Well there we are! I really hoped you liked this look and I'd love to see your interpretation if you try it out! Tomorrow is Cool Winter and I can't wait to play with my elf 100 Palette.

Lauren

P.S. I didn't use any primer or base. Sleek is just that good.

P.P.S. I know I have weird wonky eyes and I need an eyebrow wax. Sorry.

December Eye Make-Up Challenge: Day 5, My Everyday Look

I like to keep my usual make up really simple and quick so that I can always do it in a rush. I don't actually wear make up every day as I'm fairly happy (ish) to go bare faced but if I have the time this is my go-to eye make up.

I know I've done fine with this because I've done it who knows how many times! The most important thing for me with every day make up is flawless skin. I'm quite lucky that I have never suffered from acne (I get about one spot a year) but my skin makes up for it by being ridiculously dry. I have to religiously moisturise or foundation will cling to my dry patches. I'm very self conscious of my dry patches as I used to get teased at school about it which is ridiculous as it's not even that bad! The things people find to use against you are so stupid.
For my eye make-up I make sure to use an illuminating concealer under my eyes and a little on the brow bone (mine is a Body Shop one) and then smudge a little bit of pressed powder over my lids to even out my skin tone. I've been sporting a black liquid flick for a couple of years now and I love the way it defines my eye shape and brightens the colour of my iris. This one is Rimmels Exaggerate Liquid Liner and I love it for it's pigmentation and ease of use. I like to keep my flicks fairly small and I don't flick up to much because I like to create the appearance of a longer eye rather than a rounder eye. (There is enough roundness in my face as it is!) Mascara is as always my Body Shop Super Volume Mascara in black.

I hope you liked my usual look! I'd love to see a link to what you usually wear.

Day 1/Day 2/Day 3/Day 4

I'm really looking forward to day 5's look as I'm planning to recreate this FOTD as a step-by-step tutorial as it's been really popular and a friend has said that she'd love to know how I do my make-up. This will be for you, Bex and Hannah!

December Eye Make-Up Challenge: Day 4 "Shimmer"

I need to own up right now and apologise for this being a day late. I fully intended to do it yesterday but I had a bit of a cold, looked awful and just didn't have the energy! So I'm really sorry for that.
With the shimmer day I wanted to go for pale champagne and gold shimmers. I was looking for something really ethereal and angelic.

This photographed so badly. The lighting is awful and it hasn't really picked up the pigments or the shimmer very well at all. It does not look like this in real life. It's really bright and shimmery and would make a fantastic Christmas look!

This look was created with the fabulous MUA Undressed palette and I have to say, I am seriously impressed. It was a joy to use and I am loving slowly discovering each shade! I must do a full review with swatches soon. These shimmers are beautiful and were really easy to apply and blend.
Mascara here is a single coat of my usual The Body Shop Super Volume Mascara in Black.

I am actually really happy with how this look turned out, and really sad at how the photos turned out! I'd still love to hear what you think though.

Day 1/Day 2/Day 3

Lauren

December Eye Make-Up Challenge: Day 3 "Bright and Colourful"

I hope you're still enjoying this series!

With bright and colourful there was a few ways I could go. I decided to go back to basics with primary colours, taking my inspiration from circuses and children's classrooms.

I'm not ecstatic about the outcome of this! I really needed a nice fluffy blending brush to take away the harshness of the lines. I also really wanted a white liner for my waterlines to make my eyes look really big and have the colours "pop" even more, but I'm trying to work with what I have! This is also the most mascara I have ever worn and it took me a little while to get used to it as I swear it feels heavier than usual? Maybe I'm just paranoid. 

The shadows themselves are really beautiful. The blue has an iridescence to it that I couldn't capture in the picture!

The above are my Sleek Palette in Glory and Sunset. The red's in the glory palette weren't usable for this because one was too pink and the other was a matte and I was worried about blending it with shimmers.

Day 1/Day 2

What do you think of this look?

Lauren

December Eye Make-Up Challenge: Day 2 "Cat-Eye Liner"

I had to think long and hard about this one. I already wear a regular liquid eyeliner flick as my every day make up, so I really wanted to go out of the box and try something I've never done before. The end result was this:

Okay so obviously this isn't your average day-time look! I really wanted to concentrate on the idea of being a cat. I think this is more of a costume look but I could definitely imagine wearing it to a party.
To create this look I first used my Body Shop Eye Definer to lightly "map out" my graphic flicks. I then went over them with my Rimmel Exaggerate Liquid Eye Liner and created two separate flicks coming from my upper and lower lash lines. The hardest bit for me here was using the liquid liner on my lower lashline as it's something I've never done before! I made quite a mess and had to adjust several times. I'm still not 100% happy with the shape but for a first try it's not bad at all!
The shadow used here is the yellow-gold shade in the Sleek Sunset palette. I thought this would add just a subtle pop of colour and I'm really happy with my choice. (Even if it is a bit waspy/bumble-bee like) I did toy with using a green or red but I think the yellow-gold is quite regal, just how cats seem to think of themselves! Mascara is my trusty Body Shop Super Volume in Black.

Day 1

So that's look two all taken care of! I really hope you liked my interpretation, let me know in the comments. I've linked look one above if you wanted to check that out.

Lauren

P.S. Be sure to check out Beth's original version and enter into her competition if you like!

December Eye Make-Up Challenge: Introduction and Day 1 "Something Natural"

I recently came across a really interesting idea for a month-long eye make-up challenge at Beth's blog All Things Beautiful.  Unfortunately it was for October so I thought that I wouldn't be able to enter the competition that she had created around it. However, I wanted to do it so much that decided to email Beth and see if she would allow me to slightly adapt her competition into a personal December challenge. Being the lovely person that she is, she told me that she was fine with letting me do it and would even allow me to enter my creations into her competition for a chance at the prize! Needless to say I'm thrilled as this is just a wonderful perk to my original goal of getting outside my comfort zone and practising my skills. Thank you Beth. So here is my slightly different version:

I'm going to do a look every other day starting today. You can find all the information about Beth's original challenge here. Make sure you have a look around and see what other people have done!

So without further ado, here is my "Natural" offering for December 3rd:

I used my MUA Undressed Palette Exclusively to create this look! I even used the included sponge applicator to see if I could make it look good. I don't think it did too bad a job at all, proof that you don't need expensive brushes to create a nice natural eye look!

This is how I used my palette. Lots of blending later and I'm quite happy with the result! I also added a single layer of mascara using my Body Shop Super Volume Mascara in Black. I realise that it could have been a lot more natural (for example just mascara) but I really wanted to push myself by combining some neutral eye shadows. I hope you like my interpretation.

So that's challenge number 1! The competition is still open at Beth's blog for her original challenge so get entering if it's something you fancy doing. I would love to see some more of these looks!

What do you think of my natural look?

Lauren