Halo Eye

Halo Eye Eyeshadow Tutorial + Lip Option

I've been really wanting to try out doing a halo eye look, and the shade Girlie in the Hard Candy Look Pro Neutral Eyes palette looked like it would be perfect for a pop of shimmer in the middle of the lid, so I created this look using that palette. I experimented a bit with using shadows wet as well, so I'll note which shadow I did that with when we get to that step.

Using a blending brush, buff the shade Chatty into and above the crease as a transition shade so that your crease shade will blend easier and look more gradient.

Put the shade Toying in the crease, working in light layers and slowly building up color.

Sorry this picture is out of focus, I didn't realize until after I had completed the next step so I couldn't retake it. I took the shade Philander and placed it on the inner and outer thirds of the lid, staying away from the middle of the lid entirely. I did take the color up into the crease a little bit.

Next, I wet my brush with the Hard Candy Fast & Fabulous Setting Spray and dipped into the shade Girlie before putting it on the middle third of my lid. I wet my brush so that the color would be more intense and metallic looking. It doesn't look nearly as good on camera as it did in person, but believe me, it makes a huge difference. Make sure to blend the edges of the lid colors together.

After that I blended my crease some more so that everything looked more put together.

I put the shade Coy on the lower lashline because I think it makes everything look a lot more complete.

Adding the shade Bashful as an inner corner and browbone highlight pulls everything together nicely!

Blend some more, add liner and mascara, and you're done!

For the lips, I applied Wet' n' Wild's Mega Last lipstick in Just Peachy under Stila's Stay All Day Vinyl lip gloss in Nude. I think this look would also look nice paired with a red lip.

Makeup Collection: Eyes

Makeup Collection 2016: Eye Products

I love eyeshadow and mascara almost as much as I love lipstick, so I have a lot of eye products. The next post in my collection series will be lips, although I may have to split up the lip products into different posts because I have so many.

These are all of my brow products. I use the Essence clear brow mascara and brow pencil in blonde. I have a backup of the brow pencil since I want to have one on hand whenever I use my current one up. Both of these are great products.

Next I have this NYX eyeshadow trio in Nighttime In Rio. I've scraped off a bit of these shades and used them to mix some custom shades, so they look pretty bad. They're decent quality and the colors are nice.

I've got the Revlon Shadow Links in Copper and Gold and an Amuse eyeshadow in Black Night. They're all okay quality. I got these because at the time I purchased them they were colors I didn't have in my collection, but I do have better quality versions of these colors now, so I'll probably get rid of them eventually.

Next I have the NYX Hot Singles eyeshadows in Dank (green) and Bad Seed (red) and an Essence duo in Irresistible First Love. I really like the silver/grey shade in the Essence duo for all over the lid.

The last of my single eyeshadows are three Wet' n' Wild singles in Sugar, Brulee, and Cheeky. They're pretty pigmented, but also quite powdery.

I rarely use eye primer, but I want to try and use them more this year. The one I plan on using is this Urban Decay Primer Potion. I find that it does help shadows stay on, but I don't tend to have big problems with that anyways.

These are all of my currently open mascaras. I have a purple one from Hard Candy, a dual ended one from Covergirl, a Maybelline GreatLash, a Covergirl SuperSizer, and a ModelCo VolumEyes. My favorite is the ModelCo one, and my least favorite is the dual ended one because it's almost impossible to remove the second side if you use it on it's own.

These are my liquid eyeliners. I'm choosing not to include my pencil liners because I have so many, but I only have these five liquid ones. My favorite right now is the NYC one.

This is my Essence gel eyeliner and my mini Duo lash glue. I use the liner regularly and the lash glue every time I wear lashes.

Fire Inspired Look

Fire/Sunset Inspired Eye Look

For my crease/transition shade, I used a Revlon Shadow Link in Gold.

Next I used a Revlon Shadow Link in Copper in my outer v and crease.

After that I put a NYX Hot Singles Eyeshadow in Bad Seed all over my lid.

The next step is to blend everything together.

After that I mixed the colors Slowburn and Savage from the Urban Decay Electric palette and lined my eyes.

Take that same mix of colors and put it all along your lower lashline.

Apply some mascara and you're done!

I decided to pair this look with a Rimmel Moisture Renew lipstick in the shade In Love With Ginger. I think this is the perfect look to pair with red or orange lips, and since I almost never do orange lips, I chose orange.

Super Bright Eye Look

A Super Bright Electric Eye Look

I wanted to do a super bright eye look today, so I used the Too Faced Chocolate Bar palette and the Urban Decay Electric palette to create this look.

I started off by putting the shade Salted Caramel from the Too Faced palette in my crease as somewhat of a transition shade.

Next I applied a white base all over my lid so that my lid colors would really pop.

Apply the shade Jilted from the Urban Decay palette all over the lid.

Put the shade Urban from the Urban Decay palette on the outer half of your lid, blending it into Jilted well.

Use the shade Champagne Truffle from the Too Faced palette as a browbone and inner corner highlight.

Blend, blend, blend! This step really pulls the look together.

Put on liner and mascara and you're done! If you want to use a color on the lower lashline as well, go for it.

I paired this eye look with the Wet' n' Wild MegaLast lipstick in Mauve Outta Here. I think it matches the eye look pretty well without distracting from it.

Naked Smoky Look

Naked Smoky Palette Eyeshadow Tutorial

Put the shade Password in the crease. Don't worry about blending it out yet, we'll do that at the end.

Apply the shade Dirtysweet all over the lid. This is one of my favorite shades in the palette.

Use the shade Smolder on the outer half of the lid, blending it into the outer v as well.

Apply the shade Black Market to the outer v to deepen the look.

Blend everything together and clean up the edge of the shadow.

Apply liner and mascara. I used two or three coats of mascara since this is quite a dramatic look.

Here is the eye look paired with Too Faced's Melted Berry. I think they go pretty well together, although a nude lipstick would look good as well.

New Year's Eve Eyes

New Year's Eve Eye Makeup Tutorial

I wanted to do a New Year's Eve eye look using just one palette, but none of my palettes had all the colors I wanted to use, so I ended up using two, the Urban Decay Electric and the Too Faced Chocolate Bar.

Apply the shade Salted Caramel from the Too Faced palette to the crease. This will make the end result look softer.

Apply a white base to the lid. I couldn't find my white eye crayon so I just used a white eyeliner.

Apply the shade Revolt from the Urban Decay palette all over the lid and blend up into the crease. New Year's Eve means glitter to me, so I chose this glittery shade.

Apply the shade Chaos from the Urbam Decay palette as liner. I think this makes the look more fun, but you could easily use another color or black or even skip liner altogether.

Blend everything together so the look is less harsh.

Curl your lashes and apply a few coats of mascara. I used the ModelCo VulumEyes mascara, which gives great volume.

I think this look goes well with berry or red lips, so I used the Tarte LipSurgence Power Pigment in Flush, which is in between a berry and a red. Paired with a flawless-looking foundation, this is a great simple look for New Year's Eve.

10 under 10

Top Ten Under $10

Some people swear by drugstore makeup, and I am one of those people. Although I do own some high-end makeup, I feel that you can almost always find something just as good at the drugstore. There are a few exceptions (I have yet to find a lipstick I love as much as the Tarte LipSurgence Power Pigment in Flush), but for the most part, the drugstore can be just as good, if not better. That's why I wanted to feature ten of my favorite makeup products that are under $10 USD. I'll admit, I had trouble choosing just ten, because I have so much great drugstore makeup, but these are ten of my favorites.

My first favorite - and probably my most favorite - is the Makeup Revolution Iconic 3 palette. You can buy it here for $7.00 USD. There's also an Iconic 1 and 2, which are both great, but this one is my favorite because it's full of pinks and golds, which I absolutely love. All but the lightest shades are super pigmented, and even the lightest shades aren't bad. This is probably my favorite palette of all time, as well as my current most used. I feel like you could create a great look on any skin color with this palette.

If you're always smudging mascara like me, you'll want this. It's the e.l.f. Makeup Remover Pen, and it's only $3.00 USD if you get it here. The one annoying bit is that if you want it to last a long time, you have to clean the tip right after you use it to keep it clean. Otherwise, it's fantastic, and I use it anytime I need to clean up my winged eyeliner or a mascara smudge.

I prefer gel eyeliner over liquid or pencil, and my favorite black eyeliner ever is the Essence Gel Eyeliner in 01 Midnight in Paris. You can buy it here for $3.99 USD. I use it with an angled brush to get a nice thick wing. I wouldn't recommend using an angled brush for a thin wing, but I almost always prefer my winged eyeliner to be super thick and easy to see.

As for foundation, my go-to is the Maybelline Fit Me Matte + Poreless foundation in 110 Porcelain. It costs $7.99 USD if you get it here. I would recommend this to people with normal skin for sure, since that's my skin type and it looks great on me, and probably to people with oily skin. However, if you have dry skin, matte foundations in general might not be for you. Once you set it with powder, it looks totally matte and it makes your pores practically invisible. Of course, this won't be the case for everybody, because everybody has different skin and preferences, but for me this is absolutely great.

When it comes to my brows, I'm honestly not the best. I only recently started filling them in, and I rarely have the time to get them waxed. However, they look ten times better when I use the Essence Eyebrow Designer Pencil. I'm in the color Blonde 4, which you can buy here for $1.99 USD. Even the blonde isn't an absolute perfect match for me, as my eyebrows are quite grey-toned, it still looks pretty good. It's not too creamy or too waxy, and you can use it three or more times without sharpening it.

If you want voluminous lashes, you need the Covergirl Super Sizer mascara in black. I have yet to try very black or black brown, but I would assume those are great as well. You can buy it for $7.49 USD here, and it's probably the best drugstore mascara I've ever tried. That being said, if you prefer length over volume, this may not be for you. I'm happy with my lash length, so I really prefer mascara that gives me lots of volume, like this one does. It claims to give you 400% more volume, and I'm not sure if that's true, but it certainly gives a lot of it.

Please ignore my fingers in this picture, I had to hold the lipstick so it wouldn't roll away. This is the NYX Butter Lipstick in Pops, which you can get here for $5.99 USD. The formula is super buttery, just like the name suggests. I only own this color, but I would assume they're all about the same formula. It's a pretty brownish nude, and I think it would look good on almost any skin color.

This is the Wet' n' Wild MegaLast Nail Color in Private Viewing, which you can get here for $1.99 USD. For the price, it's outstanding. It only takes a couple of coats and it lasts as long as two days on my nails, which is actually quite a long time for me. Most polishes chip on me within a day, so I assume it would last longer on people with better nails. The color is also a nice neutral that would look good on anybody.

This is probably my favorite black liquid eyeliner, although I haven't tried a whole lot. It's the NYC Liquid Eyeliner in black, and it's only $2.77 USD here. It is a bit more expensive at other places, but nothing more than about three dollars, which is a steal for something this good! I find it difficult to use it for winged liner, but I'm honestly not that great at winged liner with any liquid eyeliner. I've hear other people say they find it easy to do winged liner with, so I think it probably has something to do with skill and a bit of natural talent with eyeliner, which I do not have. But for everyday normal eyeliner, this is great! It doesn't smudge or crack throughout the day and it's pretty easy to remove.

The Essence clear Lash and Brow gel mascara is absolutely fabulous for brows. You can get it here for just $2.99 USD. It keeps my brows in place all day long without feeling all weird and crunchy, and it comes off super easily with a makeup wipe or makeup remover. Mine's wand looks a bit gross, but that's just because I put it on after using a brow pencil, so some of that comes off on the wand and makes it look a bit icky. That's the only downside, though, and I think that any clear brow mascara would do that eventually.