A Little Glamour…

Hi Ladies!

One of my favorite things to do is get all dressed up for a dinner and movie night with my boyfriend. I use these nights to experiment with some new products and styles of makeup. I wanted to show you guys my go to brown smokey eye and heavily contoured face (that seemed to not come up in photos). Products will all be listed below! 🙂 

EYES:

• I like to start with my eyes before the rest of makeup just because I tend to be messy and use tape to get a precise line and I don’t want to pull off any of my foundation and hard work I have already done on my face. 
• Prime: MAC Paint Pot in Painterly ( I put that on with a concealer brush and just blend it out with my finger, I usually put it from my lash line to my eyebrows.) 
• Set: I like to set that cream with just any cream shadow, I used my MAC Skin Finish in Light. 
• Crease: MUG Coco Bear ( I build it up and blend it in with a MAC 217, take your time with this shadow and really build it up). Then I take MUG Creme Brulee with the same brush and build up that color so I have a warm crease, it should be darker at this point and should really define your crease but you really just want to focus the colors in the outer part of your eye so put the brush there first and blend out whatever color you have left on your brush into the inner part of your eye. 
• Lid: Then I go into my Anastasia Lavish Palette and take the darkest brown shade that has shimmer in it and pack it onto my lids with a Sigma E55 brush. When I’m doing a smokey eye I like to use shimmer on the lid because it makes it more flirty and a little more soft, I am personally not a fan of an all matte eye. 
• Touch Up: I then go back in with my MAC 217 brush sometimes I have product on it (left over creme brulee) but this time I went in with it clean and just blended the shimmer color into the crease so there was no harsh lines. 
• Liner: Then I went in with Maybelline gel liner and a thin pencil brush from an art store. 
• Lashes: I started with DUO glue in Black and use the Ardell 419 Curvy lashes. 
• Brows: I used Anastasia Dip Brown in Auburn with her eyebrow brush and set them with her brown gel. 

FACE: 

• Prep: I started by moisturizing my face with the Philosophy Hope In A Jar for Dry Skin and Clinque Eye Cream
• Prime: I added just a tiny bit of the Tarte Flawless Primer to my skin just on my cheeks. 
• Contour & Highlight: I used my RCMA palette taking the white shade to highlight and the second darkest brown shade to contour around my face. I then took my beauty blender and just blender the edges of this into my skin. I applied this to my face using a flat concealer brush from Bare Minerals. 
• Foundation: I took my Tarte Amazonian Clay 12-hour Foundation on my beauty blender and put the foundation lightly onto the areas I highlighted first and then blended it into the contoured area very lightly. 
• Extra Highlight: Since the concealer palette hide any dark circles or imperfections I then took my MAC Prep and Prime pen in Radiant rose and blended this into the areas I put the white concealer area for some extra highlight. 
• Set: I set my under eye with MAC Skin Finish (using the contour brush from real techniques) in Light and contoured area with Hoola Bronzer from Benefit (using a tapered brush from sigma)  and the rest of my face with Buff from BEN NYE (using a large powder brush from real techniques) 
• Contour: Taking a MAC 109 I used the Anastasia Contour Kit to contour my cheeks, forehead, and nose. 
• Blush: I used the tapered brush from Sigma again to apply a coral color from my BEN BYE Cheek Palette. 
• Powder: MAC soft & gentle, I used my finger. 

LIPS: 

• Prime: I started with Vaseline about 30 min before. 
• Liner: Lined my lips with MAC Strip Down and colored them in lightly with the liner also.
• Gloss: Urban Decay Liar 

Contour & Highlight in One Perfect Palette

These are the two shade options available

Hi Ladies!

So as we all know contouring and highlighting is as essential as drinking water these days. Whether you’re Kim Kardashian or anyone else, the benefits that contouring and highlighting can have is simply phenomenal. While to some, it may seem unnecessary you can get a serious transform in a matter of minutes with just a little dark powder and cream.

I recently attended IMATS in LA this past January and was overwhelmed with the amount of cream palettes that all of the big makeup brands were offering. I ended up choosing a wonderful palette from RCMA Makeup. The palette comes with 18 shades of concealer ranging from dark to light (mind you there are two of these palettes depending on your skin tone, since I am fair I chose the VK #11 because it had more shades to compliment me). This palette is phenomenal! It was seriously worth every penny I spent (I don’t remember the exact price because the IMATS prices were a little different than the normal prices but it currently retails for $27.00)

Although the palette can seem intimidating at first I would definitely recommend trying a cream contour. Concealer palettes make this easy because they offer you such a light shade and then one that is much darker than your normal skin tone. This concealer is formulated to be very creamy and sheer so you will need to build upon it for a more intense highlight. If you are a pro, this kind of palette is ideal because of the price and also the variety of colors that you get because it is so versatile.

 

How I Use It:

I start with my normal foundation routine but I usually apply a thinner layer when I know I am going to contour with cream. After my foundation I take a MAC 189 concealer and dip into some of the lightest shade (if you are using this palette on multiple people then scoop the product onto something separate) I then take the lightest shade and draw a triangle under both eyes down to my cheekbones, a triangle in the center of my forehead, a swipe on my cupids bow, and a triangle on my chin. Next I take a beige color from the palette and swipe it onto the hollow of my cheeks, on the sides of my nose, the area that was not covered by the highlight on my forehead, and on my jaw. I then take any duo-fiber brush and lightly blend out the highlight and then take my beauty blender to blend my contour in ( I like using my beauty blender for this because I want the dark product to stay exactly where it is, if you move it too much you can change the shape of your face and make it look bigger or wider.) After everything is blended I set all the creams ( for my highlight I set with MAC Pro Emphasize powder & for my contour I set with Benefit’s Hoola.)

 

In case you can’t get your hands on this palette try using a light concealer from the drugstore, I like the Maybelline Age Rewind (so blendable and comparable to a high-end concealer) and for contour try the Sonia Kashuck Undetectable Cream Bronzer (there are two shades). If you want more of a liquid contour try a few shades darker than your skin tone in the L’oreal True Match foundation (beautiful foundation from the drugstore)

 

XOXO