Deep Plum and Chocolate.

For a recent trip to Cardiff I tried something different - plum lips. I'm in love with this combo and felt like I had to share it with you lovely people. I paired the dark lips with a warm toned neutral eye and warm, bronze skin. (To see my looks, follow my instagram: oicharr). To see how I achieved the look below, carry on reading.

Firstly it's very important to moisturise and prime the skin. I use the Smashbox Photo Finish Colour Correcting Adjust primer. The primer is a green colour and helps correct my redness. I love this primer!

Next I apply my M.A.C Pro Longwear Concealer in NC15 with a random, cheap fluffy brush to brighten my under eye. Using my favourite foundation, M.A.C Studio Fix Fluid in NC15 and a M.A.C 159 brush I apply my foundation in small patting motions in the centre of my face and blend in circular motions close to my hairline, ear and down my neck to blend it out.

Brows are my favourite part of my routine - they're like my babies! Using an Anastasia Beverly Hills no.7 brush I spooly my eyebrow hairs upwards and using the brush side, I use Dipbrow Pomade in Dark Brown to draw out and fill in my brows. To darken the tail I use the same brush with M.A.C Fluidline in Dipdown. To carve my brows out I use Benefit's Erase Paste in Light and a random concealer brush (I think it's from Morphe).

Now for the long part, the eyeshadow. Firstly, to prime my eyes I use Urban Decays Primer Potion in Original. Using a Zoeva 228 brush I take M.A.C's Rule eyeshadow and blend it into the upper crease area as a transition shade. Next, I go in with my crease colour with a M.A.C 217 brush and the shade Swiss Chocolate. To deepen the crease I take Embark with a Zoeva 224 brush and concentrate on the outer V and bringing it lightly into the crease. Using a Zoeva 237 and M.A.C's eyeshadow in Artificial Earth all over my lid. Taking the Zoeva 231 and 224 I go under my eye with rule and swiss chocolate.

For mascara I use Maybelline Great Lash and Benefits Badgal Lash. My under-ey concealer is Rimmel's Wake Me Up concealer with the Real Techniques Sponge (the beauty blender dupe).

Contour is very important for me as my chubby face means a lack of definition and shape. Using Bobbi Brown's Foundation Stick in Almond I create lines on my cheeks, forehead, nose and chin and buff the product out with a Real Techniques Stippling Brush. Followed by a Morphe contour brush and Anastasia Beverly Hills contour powder in Java.

For blush I use a Zoeva 126 brush and M.A.C's Blush in Buff to add colour to my cheeks. Next I use M.A.C's Bronzing Powder in Golden to add a glow at the back of my cheek bones. For highlight I use M.A.C's Vanilla Pigment on a Zoeva 105 brush for my face and 227 for under my brows and my inner corner.

Finally, it's time for the stand-out part of the look - the lips! I line my lips in M.A.C's Lip Liner in Currant and their Lipstick in Hang-Up. To finish the whole look I spray my Fix+ all over my face and voila!

Feel free to leave any questions or requests in the comment section! Thanks for reading!
Char xo

My M.A.C Lipstick Collection.

Over time i've collected a few of these heaven in a bullet-form. M.A.C lipstick is hyped about all over from Instagram to Twitter, but is it worth the hype?

To the right is a (very bad) swatch picture. From bottom to top; Myth, Creme cup, Angel, Viva Glam Gaga, Nouvelle Vogue, Vegas Volt, Heroine, Rebel and Hang-up.

First i'll talk about Myth. Myth is a very light nude and is gorgeous over Boldly Bare lip-liner (a pink-toned nude) as alone it looks a tad like foundation lips! It's a satin finish which I love as it gives an opaque coverage of colour and is long-lasting. Satin finishes are matte with a tad of sheen so they don't look as flat.

Personally, i'm not that keen on Creme Cup. It's a gorgeous colour but with my very light complexion it tends to wash me out. I do love to mix it with other lipsticks though.

Next up is Angel. This is the perfect soft pink shade, even though it is pretty dark I find. It's a frost finish which makes it pretty shimmery and the colour pay-off is still pretty good. Some frost lipsticks can be very shimmery though, so i'd suggest swatching them in-store before purchasing rather than online.

Viva Glam Gaga is a baby pink lustre lipstick. It's a sheer coverage but because of the lightness of the pink I personally think that's a good thing otherwise it would be too over-powering. The finish is glossy and the pink inside packaging is to DIE for. Unfortunately this is no longer available to purchase.

Nouvelle Vouge was a limited edition and was a matte. This lipstick is pretty dring but very opaque and lasts ages. Because you can't buy it I wont go into too much detail apart from the fact that I really like it.

I really need to invest in other orange shades as personally I think they suit me. I've absolutely fell in love with Vegas Volt! It's a gorgeous orange described as 'fill power coral' on the website. It's so creamy and glides on with a gorgeous opaque colour pay-off.

Heroine is a new buy for me, but with my love of purple lipsticks was a must purchase! I've only wore it once and I think its amazing. If you love purple but don't want to go too daring stay away from Heroine and get something more like Up The Amp. Heroine is a matte formula and is totally gorgeous.

Rebel is super popular and I completely understand why. The colour is a gorgeous mid-tone plum and in my favourite finish, satin. The colour pay-off is opaque and creamy with a slight sheen to it.

The last of my swatches is of the cremesheen Hang-Up. This is a new buy and I havnt used it before but one of the girls at M.A.C was wearing it and I instantly fell in love.

Next, i'm going to talk about my beloved 'Up The Amp' (the poor one in the tub!). Sadly, my mum stuck it in the wash with my jacket and it got ruined so I de-potted it into an edible glitter tub. 'Up The Amp' is an amplified formula which means that it has an opaque coverage with a vivid colour pay off but isn't drying at all. It's described on the website as a 'lavender violet' which i'd agree with very much. I honestly love this colour and if you're not afraid to wear purples, I highly recommend it.

Lastly, I'll talk about my VIVA GLAM keepsakes palette. This was a Christmas edition and I don't believe you can still buy it but you can purchase every colour individually at £15.50 and that goes towards M.A.C's aids fund. I love the variety of this palette as it's perfect for on the go and contains some gorgeous nudes and it's perfect to mix the colours to create your own custom colour.

Overall, being priced at £15.50 make's them moderately affordable and I think that they're worth the money and the hype. The colour selection covers EVERYTHING and they have a finish to suit everyone. They're my favourite lipsticks around and they smell like vanilla...they're good enough to eat!

Thanks for reading!
Char xo








  

First try smokey eye!

Recently I tried my hand at a more skilled eye look, the smokey eye. Commonly used and glamorous but if you get this look wrong, boy is it wrong! Not enough blending at you end up with hideous lines, too much blending and you're left with a muddy mix on your eye that looks as if Taylor Momsen's had a few too many vodkas before applying her stage make-up! If you're interested in finding out how I achieved the look below, keep reading!

Firstly I primed my skin using the Baby Skin primer from Maybelline. Personally I love this primer, it helps my appearance seem smooth and helps my foundation to glide on effortlessly.
Then I used my Erase Paste by Benefit to conceal my dark under-eye circles. This product is very thick so a little goes a long way, although I do find that this product fails at covering red areas such as spots.
For foundation I used M.A.C's Studio Fix Fluid in NC15 mixed with M.A.C's Strobe Cream to achieve full coverage yet with a dewy finish.
Moving on to my brows I used M.A.C's Fluidline in shade 'Dipdown' with an angle brush and used Erase Paste to carve them out and give them a sharp, defined tail.
To prime my lid before we start applying any colours I used a layer of Erase Paste as naughty me hasn't yet invested in an eyeshadow primer (oops!)
I used 'Tease' from the Urban Decay Naked 2 palette as a transition shade from my crease upwards. To darken the crease I used my fave eyeshadow of all time, M.A.C's 'Folie'. On my lid I used 'Carbon' also by M.A.C but the colour pay off didn't live up to my expectation so I switched and used 'Blackout', also from the Urban Decay Naked 2 palette. For my inner-corner and brow bone highlight I used 'Bootycall' from the same palette.
For eyeliner I used my trusted Rimmel 'Glam Eyes' liquid liner.
After coating my lashes in Benefits 'Bad Gal' mascara I applied some Eyelure eyelashes using Duo eyelash glue.
To clean up any fall-out and partially highlight the under-eye area I used Rimmel's 'Wake Me Up' concealer blended out using my fingers.
Using a mix of Bourjois chocolate bronzer and MUA's bronzer in 'Shade 3' I contoured along my jaw-line, forehead and cheekbones.
To highlight I used the shade 'Bootycall' from the Uran Decay Naked 3 palette on a fan brush.
On the lips is a nude lipliner, NYX's lipstick in 'Snow White' with M.A.C's Maleficent collection lipgloss in 'Anthurium'

Thanks for reading, dolls.

Frozen Inspired Make-up Look.

Frozen is my favourite Disney film out there, and i'm sure it's a lot of other peoples too! I've been really ill recently and in hopes to cheer me up a bit I watched Frozen a few times (oops). Elsa's purple make-up inspired me to create a look based from it. This is the final look, read below to know how I did it: 

After applying my average foundation, concealer and eyebrow routine I primed my eyelids with Nyx Jumbo Pencil in Milk not only to prime the lid but the white base will make any colours I later apply pop.
With a flat shader brush I applied M.A.C's eyeshadow in Stars n Rockets which is a beautiful light purple with blue reflects in.
I then used Tease from the Naked 2 palette as a transition colour from my crease all the way up to just under my eyebrow.
I used the fuchsia colour on the bottom row, second one alone from my BHcosmetics 88 cool matte palette (will be circled in the picture) with a M.A.C 217 blending brush to blend Stars n Rockets up to just below where Tease ends.
Then I took the light purple colour from 4 rows down, 4 across from the same BHcosmetics palette (also circled) with a fluffy blending brush and blended it in concentrating directly into the crease.
Next I went back over Stars n Rockets to deepen the colour and then added Collection 2000 Dazzle Me! loose eye shadow in Stone Wash to the inner and outer eye-lid area to create extra sparkle.
Finally, I ran the fuchsia colour under my bottom last line, added a few coats of mascara and then some beautiful falsies from an old Nyx collection. Then M.A.C's Rebel lipstick to my lips and voilà, done!

Thank you for reading and hope you enjoy dolls!

You're such a rebel.

Hello, loves! Today on this blog I shall be discussing a very popular M.A.C lipstick shade - rebel. Everyone's heard of it, everyone has their own opinion and after lusting after it for quite a while I decided to finally purchase it.

Since that fateful day, it has become a staple for me! It completes so many looks for me, it brings out the blue in my eyes which makes it a perfect accessory for a simple eye and also makes a great accomplice to a smoky eye for extra drama (almost as much as high-school girls at a party with some lads). 

It's a dark plummy purple colour that's a 'satin' finish. This means that it dries semi-matte and leaves a nice sheen to the lips. It glides on really smooth and doesn't dry out and feel cakey, that being said it's a good idea to moisturise your lips before you put it on (but when is it not?!) 

So to conclude this blogpost with some useful information. It has gorgeous pigmentation and stays all day, it's gorgeous to use as a stain (dab it on and rub it out with your fingers) and it's certainly worth the price in my eyes. Happy shopping!

Why, isn't it lush!

Right, now we've gotten over my poor excuse of a pun we can jump straight into my review of a Lush product. 

Firstly, though, in case you didn't know about the brand Lush is a home-made made that is against animal testing and only uses organic ingredients which makes it completely vegan friendly (I do believe, don't hold me to it). They do everything from lip balms to bath-bombs to shampoo's to soaps! They even carry their own delightful make up range of eye-liners, lipsticks and even mascara in truly magical colours! Here is a picture of the label on the back of 'snow fairy' so that you can see for yourself what they stand for and their hilarious ways of putting things:  

This product is a lovely light pink colour that has freckles of blue shimmer running through out (sorry my camera didn't pick that up very well). The smell is very sweet so if you don't like sickly sweet smells then this isn't for you! On the bottle it is described to to smell like 'candy floss and pear drops' which I'm defiantly picking up on! It's like heaven in a bottle guys, I swear.

As a shower gel it lathers up really well and a little goes a long way! The beautiful smell lingers on your skin for ages and leaves your bathroom smelling as gorgeous as yourself for a good day! (My mum even commented as she walked past is the morning after I bathed!) This is defiantly a good cleaning product that leaves you feeling clean and is worth the price. The only downfall is that it's a limited edition that only comes out at christmas time. Luckily, a little goes a long way so you're not without it for that long before it comes back in stock again if you buy a big bottle of it. 

Thankyou for reading, please follow and comment- I'd love to hear your feedback! 

-Charleighxo.

Hey there, i'm really sorry for my absence but i have been (and still am) swamped in school work. Fortunately it is the winter holidays so I have some spare time!

So, it's that wonderful time of year where it is CHRISTMAS! I was lucky enough to get the beautiful chromebook that I am blogging on right now, which also makes blogging 100x quicker!

As one of my presents I got a gorgeous Ted Baker beauty set. Inside it contained a variety of beauty products, one thing that immediately caught my eye was this hightlight. 

The packaging is elegant and simple, a rosy gold colour with the Ted Baker London logo on the front. When you open it it reveals a hand compact mirror (which is initially what I though it was,oops!) and the gorgeous highlight shades. One shade is more of a pinky colour that I consider to be more of a 'blush' shade but is very, very shimmery. Due to this fact I recommend using it as a highlight still with minimal blush. The other colour is a light pink and is your average highlight shade. They're very shimmery so give a very 'dewy' highlighted look. Personally I love this look as I love a strong contour and highlight!

The pigment in these shades are phenomenal and it blends very easily, which is very convenient. Personally this highlight is the perfect highlight for me. It gives a radiant glow and doesn't come off as cakey at all!  

Thanyou for reading, I promise I shall keep up with these blog posts!

-Charleigh xo