This Party Season's Makeup? Full of Sparkle

Just like the fashion trend of sequins that I blogged about the other day and so very much love (in case you didn't get that the first time round) glitter's big in makeup this Christmas too!

So how do you achieve those sparkly peepers without looking too much like a Christmas tree? Here are a few tips and pointers if you want to go glittery while you partay...

1. Keep foundation fresh and lips toned down

Your eyes will obviously be the main spectacle for the evening/event so you want them to do the talking rather than anything else as well. Bright red lips added to the mix for instance will make you look far too overdone so keep lips on the subtle, sultry side. You don't necessarily have to go nude, you could choose a beautiful sheer berry shade that adds a pop of colour but isn't overpowering. Whatever the shade, make sure it's light or sheer.

What with the eyes being very heavily adorned in glitter you also want to keep your foundation, or your canvas looking as fresh and fuss-free as possible. Go as light as possible when applying your base as it will prevent your overall makeup from looking too 'perfected'. If you can get away with tinted moisturiser then go for that, if not try to keep the coverage as minimal as possible.

2. Use a base for the glitter to stick to

It can be a gel, a liquid eyeliner or if you have a safe and natural lip balm, use this on your eyelids to allow the glitter to stick to the areas you want it to stick to without falling over your face. Apply the glitter with your fingers to get maximum control of where and how much you put on. If you use a brush you might get too much fallout and it could go everywhere.

3. Pick one colour to focus on

Popular colours for this season are purples, blues and golds. Choose a colour to compliment your hair or eyes - if you have brown eyes purple will look gorgeous on you. If you have blue eyes then golds will really make them pop! Or simply just experiment and find what takes your fancy. By all means go multi-coloured with your glitter if you like but the really fresh, modern take right now is one shade all over the lids.

4. Do your eye makeup before anything else

This is a messy look so it's best that you apply your eye makeup and work on the glitter first, then apply your foundation, blush, etc. afterwards. This means that if you do get glitter down your face you can wipe it all off without worrying about ruining your base makeup and having to start all over again or reapplying in areas and creating an uneven base.

5. You don't have to go glitter-mad!

If you don't want to put glitter all over your eyelids for fear of it being too much for your features or you're not feeling quite that full-on then keep eyes neutral but simply add a lovely line of glitter eyeliner on your upper lash line. Choose neutral skintone shades and brown eyeshadows for your lids and then why not add a pop of colour with a lovely electric blue glitter eyeliner for example? You can create equally amazing impact even with a smaller amount of sparkle!

Now that you have the how-to here's a run-down on what you'll need for your look to help get you started...

For All-Over Glitter

For full sparkle, you'll need the following:

• Choose a base that will compliment your choice of colour of glitter:
  - Going blue, purple or green? Opt for a smoky base like a grey or black. MAC Carbon, Typographic, Print or their Paint Pot shade in Blackground will all work well. Or try one of the smoky shades in the Sleek makeup palette if you're on a tighter budget.
  - Going gold, yellow or pink? Choose to wear browns beneath the glitter - a lovely wash of a light browns will be just right.
  
  
• MAC's Clear Gloss, safe natural lip balm or even liquid eyeliner in a similar shade to your base will make a great ingredient for your glitter to adhere to.
  
  
• For the glitter MAC make a fantastic selection of colours to choose from and whilst the price of a pot is a little on the expensive side (£15.00 a pot) you'll get heaps that will last you forever. If you really don't think you'll get through that much, try Helen E in selected Debenhams stores or online as these pots are smaller and much more purse-friendly.

Just the Eyeliner, please!

• Pick two or three varying shades of brown to create a defined but natural eye. One highlight shade and one midtone will be perfect. Colours like MAC's Brule, Wedge, Shroom or Benefit's Birthday Suit will do the job nicely.
  
  
• You can find wonderful, long-lasting glitter eyeliners from GOSH and Urban Decay at prices that won't break the bank. My favourites are Urban Decay's Catfight, Stagedive and Metal Head. I can't get enough of these brands' eyeliners as the colour impact is to die for and they really don't budge!

Image from Vogue.co.uk

Popping my Benefit cherry...

Hey everyone!

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend - I LOVED the sunshine, I made the most of it on Sunday in the pub garden - true bliss! Oh and I also had a very interesting haul weekend. I swung by the Benefit counter at my House of Fraser on Saturday as I normally do to look at what they have to offer.

I've heard hit and miss things about Benefit's collection, but their counter always gets me looking due to their quirky product names and even cuter packaging and branding! Some people don't like it at all but I think it's very vintage - what's not to love?!

The only thing that's really ever put me off is their pricing - some of their products are two times more expensive than their more established counterparts and I've found that interesting since Benefit have been around for a fraction of the time in the UK. Still I gave them a shot for the first time the other day and I must say I'm impressed! Here's what I bought...

Hello Flawless!

This is Benefit's brand new hot-off-the-counter product so you may not have heard of it yet but go along to your local Benefit counter and give it a go! It is also my favourite buy from my Benefit haul so I have to tell you about this one first :-)

Hello Flawless! is a cover-up powder that really does do what it says on the tin... or box! As I was in the market for a new foundation I thought I'd give it a go. The cover up powder comes in 7 shades so there's a shade suitable for everyone, I'm "Me Vain? Champagne" and each powder comes in a compact with a mirror, sponge and small brush.

The great thing about it is it also has SPF 15 which is something I've been on the hunt for for a while. My current foundation's been letting me down recently and the other downside is that it doesn't contain any SPF in it for that extra mile of protection. More and more of us are being made aware of the damaging effect the sun's rays can have on our skins and after seeing many demonstrations of the damage on television I think it's too late to be ignorant.

The only trouble is my current SPF protection cream that I put on before foundation is a little too greasy and heavy for my liking. It cancels out all of the effort that I go to in eliminating oil on my skin and not to mention the smell - I can't really describe it other than think of the unpleasant greasy smell you can get from some sun lotions, but instead sits on the face all day right under your nose. Bleh. So having the advantage of an all-in-one SPF & foundation is a God-send!

The cover up powder provides 3 forms of coverage:

1) Sheer coverage - for those of you who like your coverage light and just want a quick dusting, use the brush provided and sweep onto your face in upward and outward motions starting from the centre of the face.

2) For concealing spots or dark circles use the sponge and dab the powder onto any, as Benefit call them, "boo boos" :-) Keep building up for ideal coverage.

3) For full coverage use the sponge to apply the powder as you would with the brush.

Because I have a few blemishes and ruddyness in my skin I prefer to use the sponge for concealing and also all-over coverage. I was so impressed as I swept it on, I dabbed it onto a couple of recent blemishes I had and in no time at all and with very little product they disappeared. To finish off my face I swept the rest of the powder across my cheeks and forehead very quickly and easily and I found I was done. SO much quicker than my liquid foundation!

Putting this on seems virtually effortless, it seems so quick and easy and the great thing about it is that the powder doesn't look powdery on the face - it doesn't cake up even where I've layered it on in the blemishy areas! I'm so impressed with the match to my skin colour, there's no clear line/tide marks so it doesn't look as if I'm wearing a mask of foundation. It just looks natural and I love that because it's a powder it keeps the oil at bay for most of the day.

The ultimate test now will be waiting to see if it causes breakouts. It's not non-comedogenic so I'm waiting to see if I get some spots as a result of using it. After only two days of use it's hard to tell at this stage but if it doesn't cause problems I will most definitely be buying this product in future!

The powder retails at £24.50 which I know is a little on the not-so-very budget side but trust me give it a go at least, it's very, very good!

Coralista

This is a blush that I think has been one of their best-selling products for a while now. It comes in a very cute leopard print box with its own small wooden blush brush. The blush, as you can probably guess from the name, is a coral, pinky colour - perfect for someone like me who has a natural pinky blush to my skin anyway.

When I first used the blush on myself I noticed it actually has a scent - it smells a little like raspberries! I think quite a few of Benefit's products are scented, as I tried a bronzing powder of theirs which smells like roses. So it might not be recommended for those of you with sensitive skins who might react to scented products.

This blush is very good however, you can build it up as you apply to take it to the level that you like. I'm new to blush so I'm always a little timid with it as there's a fine line between looking like an English rose and a clown! I'll certainly be adding this to my beauty routine more often as it gives the right level of warmth to the skin :-)

Coralista is £22.50.

Creaseless Cream Shadow/Liner

I've never tried a cream eyeshadow before so decided to get hold of this when the MUA tried some on me to bring out the bluey greens in my eyes. I bought the shade Birthday Suit which is a lovely nude brown or as Benefit describe, a brushed chrome colour.

This stuff is very creamy and shimmery and feels very smooth as it goes on. I was a little worried that cream shadows might feel a little thick and heavy but not this one. It blends great and you can build it up from a sheer sweep of colour to a deeper wash of colour, or use it for contouring in the crease of your eye for added depths!

It mixes nicely with other eyeshadows so don't worry about blending. Plus it can double up as a fantastic eyeliner if you take an angled eyeshadow brush, run the edge of it through the cream shadow and then glide along the lash line for added wow!

I like this shade so much because it seems to be so versatile - it's most definitely a shade to be worn in the day, to work, or when built up and/or combined with other colours is perfect for a night on the tiles!

You can find this cream eyeshadow/liner for £13.00 from your local Benefit counter or on the Benefit website.

Image Sources
All images courtesy of Benefit

Miss K Co Makeup

Hey y'all!

OK for my second and final haul from my Vitality Show visit I'll be reviewing Miss K Co Makeup's Contour brush, Glitter Eyeliner in Blue, Bronze powder in Terra Cotta Blonde Bake and their eyeshadow pot in Green. This haul costed me a bargainous £12 on special offer.

I'd never heard of Miss K Co before so these guys came as a total surprise. Having visited their website since the show I think they must be fairly new as the site's pretty much under construction and sadly none of the products have been added to the site yet so you can't buy online right now. Because of this I can't give you a standard price list of what these products would cost you ordinarily. And I can't tell you where to find their products in the shops as there's no mention of this yet. I will keep checking the website though and if there are any updates I'll let you know!

When at the show however the flamboyant ladies brandishing their brushes kept jumping at us to try their stuff out so I thought why not! I wasn't so keen at their enthusiasm to use the same brush on every person's face so readily but hopefully I haven't contracted an eye infection that's incubating LOL! (It still horrifies me that hygiene still has no place in these events and at some counters, I wig out a little when I see them double dip and happily take the same brush to a thousand faces! However this is another story...)

Contour Brush

This brush has quite a long handle for easy control and the hair is quite soft - I'm not sure if the brush is natural or synthetic hair as there's no info available yet but I assume from the appearance it's synthetic. It's not quite as fluffy or as full-bodied as the MAC Contour Brush (168) but because it's soft on the skin I prefer it to the MAC 168 as that has the potential to be a bit scratchy from time to time. I haven't seen how well Miss K Co's Contour brush would fair being washed yet (as some of the cheaper brushes on the market shed like mad when being cleaned, reducing their life span) but hopefully I won't have any troubles with that.

Glitter Eyeliner in Blue

This glitte eyeliner is quite watery - i.e. there's more gel than glitter pieces unlike glitter eyeliners from high-end brands where I find the brush comes out smothered in glitter lol! At the prices offered though, you can't really expect them to be in the same high-end category.

The blue however is very dazzling, it's a midnight blue and I'd say a great addition to an outfit for nights on the town, or even dressing yourself up for dinner because the blue isn't too bright or offensive. :-)

Bronzer in Terracotta Blonde Bake

This bronzing powder comes in a cake form and as the lady on the counter demonstrated, it has many purposes other than a bronzer:

1. You can use it to gently bronze the key areas where the sun would naturally hit your face, forehead, cheek bones, chin, nose or even the decollete!

2. You can use it as an overall dusting to give you a little glow - gently swirl your powder brush once round the cake and then dust lightly over the face to give yourself a little sparkle for an evening out (or to fake that "Yeah-I've-just-been-abroad" look when really you only went to Skegness!) Please note: don't go heavy-handed with this stuff or you'll end up looking like your face needs a much-needed wash rather than a sparkly fresh diva!

3. Or if you take an eyeshading brush to the cake you can layer up some nice pinky colour to your eyelids. The lady at the counter tried this on me but I wasn't too taken. I have blue eyes, fair skin and reddish hair so I don't think it complimented my features, but if you don't go too heavy or you can afford a reddy-pink wash over your eyelids then go for it! I think if I try this again with a combination of other colours though, this might work for me so I'll have an experiment.

There really is a lot of flexibility with this little number and a little goes a long way. It's also a mineral bronzer meaning that it's kind to the skin and colour impact is great. Unfortunately though having tried this myself for contouring my cheeks I'm not overly sure - the shade is rather red and I don't feel I need that shade of colour for my complexion. I think however I may have taken a little too much on the brush the first time I tried it, so I think a little-by-little approach is advisable, go easy with it and you can always build on the colour as you go! I'm going to keep giving it a chance and see how I go with it.

Eyeshadow in Green

This came in quite a large shaker pot of loose light grassy green eyeshadow. I chose this colour as I love greens and this shade would compliment my hair colour. It's possibly the best green I've ever bought. I think it's also a very flexible shade as on it's own with a little kohl pencil it makes a very pretty look for work or a day out in the sun! Built up with stronger, darker colours it could transform into a wild-child look in moments!

I find I have to use a lot of this to get the desired strength in colour but once I'm there, it's a really nice shade that I know I'll get plenty of use out of in the future. As I'm not sure what the eyeshadows normally retail at it's hard to say if I'd buy again as I don't know the range of colours on offer and I think that would be the deciding factor. I wouldn't really be prepared to pay anything more than £5-6 for this eyeshadow - anything more would be put me off because you have to use so much to get it to show up!

Overall I think Miss K Co, from what I have seen of their collection, have a nice range of products to offer - it's just a shame that you can't get hold of more info on them right now. However I would suggest going to the website and getting in touch with Kathy, as she may be able to send you a catalogue for more details.

Go to www.misskco.com to get in touch!

Image Sources

Image courtesy of http://www.indiamart.com