I’m really getting into entering as many makeup competitions lately, not so much to win (though it would be nice) but it helps give me ideas and inspiration on what looks to do next. This is my next entry into Makeup Geek’s Valentine look~ It’s much more toned down than usual, to me it almost looks wearable, just need to lose the excess blush and hearts ;D

Face
MAC Prep + Prime – Skin Base Visage
Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk Foundation – 4
Giorgio Armani Micro-Fil Loose Powder – 1
Bobbi Brown Creamy Concealer – Beige

Cheeks
NARS Powder Blush – Orgasm
MAC Powder Blush – Azalea
NYX Mosaic Powder – Highlighter

Eyes
e.l.f Eye Primer
NP Set – New Neutrals Palette
Prestige Eyeliner – White
MAC Fluidline Blacktrack
Maybelline Falsies Mascara – Very Black
Maybelline Brow Styling Gel – Clear
Shu Uemura Eye Lash Curler
False Lashes
DUO Glue

Lips
Revlon Colorburst Lipstick – True Red
Revlon Colorburst Lipstick – Carnation
Savvy by DB Lipliner – Poppy

Face
Prime, foundation, conceal and set with powder as usual.

Cheeks
Apply a soft coral pink to the apples of your cheeks and extend all the way to your temples. Then take a more pigmented magenta pink blush and work that into your temples. Take a matte white highlighting powder and highlight all your high points.

Taking a red lipstick, draw 5 hearts along your cheek bone and place a heart shaped rhinestone at the end of one of the lines.

Eyes
Prime your lids, take a white eyeliner pencil to the inner corner of your eyes, inner lower lash line and brow bone. This is my way of “priming” for white eye shadow to make it stand out more. Then apply a white eye shadow over the white eye liner.

We’re going for a generic neutral brown eye hear, so take a medium brown to the lid and a dark brown to your crease, concentrating on the outer corner of your eye. Blend! Pat on a bit of white eye shadow to the center of your lids.

Line your upper lash line with a black gel liner, curl your lashes and apply mascara. Then apply your false eye lashes.

Define your eyebrows and extend them using a dark brown eye shadow. Then set them with a clear brow gel.

Lips
Line your lips with a red lipliner and fill in, I always fill in as this is my way of priming the lips but also ensuring the colour stays on for longer. Go over the liner with a red lipstick, then apply a pink link stick to the center of your lips for added dimension.

So as you know from yesterday’s post, today’s look book is very special! Unfortunately I haven’t received all the photos taken that day, so you can look forward to a 2nd post involving some props later on.

This is the first lookbook I’ve had photographed not only by pro photographers, but with some awesome stylists as well! Making sure my hair was perfect, making sure my pose was right on etc. I’m not sure I can ever go back to doing my 1 person lookbook again lol. Well at least not happily, I’ve been thoroughly spoilt!

I went with a mermaid look, something I’ve always wanted to try~ Creating a mermaid costume has been a dream of mine, but knowing how conservative I am, it’ll be one I probably won’t realise hehe. So this look book is as close as I can get I hope you guys enjoy the photos! See steps to recreate below.

Oh and it should be noted, this look lasted over 10 hrs without smudging at all! It’s all in the primer baby since my skin is naturally oily.

Photo credit goes to Neil Creek, Elias Lopez and Hayden Pratt. Elias and Sam still have a couple more photos to post-process, so I’ll be sure to upload those for you guys once I get them

Steps to reproduce:

Face
Make sure you have a clean face, and apply MAC’s Prep and Prime all over the face. One pump is all you need. Once done, apply about 2-3 pumps of Giorgio Armani’s Luminous Silk Foundation in 4, I recommend using a foundation brush for this. I always feel like brushes cause less drag, and seem cleaner than using my fingers (though I’m not scared to use my fingers when I need to!)

Apply Bobbi Brown’s Creamy Concealer in Beige under your eyes, side of your nose and where you can find any redness or imperfections (I was breaking out for this shoot so concealer became my best friend ) Dust Bobbi Brown’s Sheer Finish Loose Powder in Pale Yellow lightly over the concealer.

Next with a puff, pat on Giorgio Armani’s Micro-Fil Loose Powder in 1. Don’t be afraid to be a little generous with the powder as I’m sure some will fall off when we get to our next step.

Cheeks
Apply NARS’ Laguna Bronzer into the hollows of your cheek, we want the apples of your cheek to really pop for this look. Tap out some NYX Ultra Mania Pearl in Yellow Pearl on to a mixing plate, and with a powder brush dust it all over your forehead, making a “V” like shape. Then dust some on your temples, cheeks, jaw line and don’t forget your neck and upper chest too, or anywhere you want your “scales” to appear.

Next is the tricky part, find a cheap pair of fish net stockings and cut it to seperate the legs. Then, put one leg over your head so that the netting overs your entire face. Go slow with this part, we don’t want to drag our foundation too much, but at the same time we want the netting to sit tight on our face so it doesn’t move.

Fun time! Tap out some Turquoise Pearl and apply it over the same areas you applied the yellow. Only this time, not as liberally. You need to make sure the yellow is still showing, so only apply within the yellow areas, staying clear of the edges. To make sure the colour is pigmented enough I sprayed some MAC Fix+ into my mixing plate. It helped intensify the colours a great deal.

Next apply Ocean Blue Pearl over the top of the Turquoise Pearl, don’t cover it 100%, but pat on enough to give it a “blue glow”. Hmm… it’s times like this I wish I did video tutorials as well, it would make it so much easier to explain if I could show you… would anyone even watch them? lol okay, back on topic!

Finally before removing the stocking, apply NYX’s Glitter Mania in Crystal all over the pigments used, be generous! We want that “just out of the ocean” fresh, sparkle look!

Take off the stockings and see how awesome the scales look! Do exactly the same as above for your neck as well.

Now we need more glitter! Seriously, I was a walking disco ball that day and the glitter still wasn’t as strong enough in some photos! When it comes to make up for photo shoots, use a heavy hand. I applied Milani Crystal Eyez in Gorgeous & Glowing with my fingers on my forehead, apples of my cheeks, neck and collar bone. Glitter makes this look!

And if that wasn’t enough, using DUO eyelash glue, I applied 3 small crystals just under my left eye.

Eyes
Apply NARS Smudge Proof Eyeshadow Base all over the lids and under your lower lashes. Put on as little as possible to have good coverage without leaving your eyes feeling “damp”.

Next using my Coastal Scent 88 Ultra Shimmer Palette, apply a yellow colour all over the lid. Next use a medium blue colour and apply it just above the crease, make sure to wing it out. Add a bit of the blue under our lower lash line. Then use a aqua / green colour and apply it directly into the crease. Finally use a dark blue colour and apply it to the outer corner of your eye, make sure the colour is saturated, having these different shades really adds definition to the eyes, which your eyes certainly need to stand out with against all the crazy vibrant scales on your face. Then use MAC Pigment in Vanilla in the inner corner of your eyes and brow bone.

Next, line your upper lash line with MAC Fluidline in Blacktrack. Wing it out ever so slightly, we don’t want a vampy look. I always prefer using pencil liners for my waterline, so here I used Savvy by DB Luxury Liner in Shimmering Slate. This stuff doesn’t budge, love it!

I unfortunately forgot to bring my mascara to the shoot But I did have my eye lash curler and false lashes, so after curling my eye lashes, apply false lashes and then I used my fluidline mixed in with some MAC Fix+ to try and combine my own lashes with the false lashes.

Lastly fill in your brows with any brow pencil you have, or use eye shadow! It works just the same

Lips
I stained my lips with YSL Rouge Volupte in 15, then applied MAC Lipglass in Flurry of Fun on top for added sparkle.

Hair
I curled my own hair, but my lovely Sefie is responsible for pinning it up for the photos

I saw a look similar to this whilst surfing the web, especially the lips and just knew I had to give it a shot! I suspect the one I saw online had some level of Photoshop applied to it, where as mine has none so I’m not feeling too bad that it wasn’t total success ahaha.

It was a fun look to rock, I did the mistake of putting up some white filters over my lights to soften them, but by doing so have added a “cold” touch to my photos. Which is fine for some looks, but Purple Pop was suppose to be a fun loving, warm look :/ Oh well, another lesson to chalk up!

Obviously NOT a practical look at all, if you tried to eat or drink anything the lipstick would be completely ruined, but not everything in life has to be practical If only I had a short cute blonde wig to sport with this look, it would have been even more cute/fun!

Products used:

Face
MAC Prep + Prime Skin Base Visage
Giorgio Armani Lumious Silk Foundation 4
Giorgio Armani Micro-fil Loose Powder 1
Bobbi Brown Creamy Concealer Beige
Bobbi Brown Sheer Finish Loose Powder Pale Yellow

Cheeks
NARS Blush – Orgasm
NARS Highlighter – Albatross
NARS Bronzer – Laguna

Eyes & Lips
MAC Paint Bare Canvas
NYX Trio Eyeshadow TS06
NYX Ultra Pearl Mania – True Purple
NYX Ultra Pearl Mania – Yellow
MAC Fluidline Non-Conformist
Covergirl Lash Blast – Very Black**

Lips
NYX Eye/Eyebrow Pencil – Purple
Lucas Pawpaw Ointment

Thought I forgot about last week’s lookbook entry, right? Nah, I was just too caught up with other things. Anyways, last week I ran out of my usual daily contact lenses, which means having to fall back on my coloured lenses. I hadn’t used my gray ones before, so decided to give them a whirl and was happily surprised!

They gave me this ghostly look, I loved it! Going to be perfect for some future costumes I can see Having coloured contacts that actually work on me is rare (dark natural eye colours) so I was pretty stoked when I saw these on me Twas inspired to try a semi-vampireish / zombie look, I think I came out looking more tired than anything else, but I figured it wasn’t a terrible attempt

Products I used:

Face
Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk Foundation – 4 Light Sand
Giorgio Armani Micro-fil Loose Powder – 1 Porcelaine Rose
Bobbi Brown Creamy Concealer Kit – Beige

Eyes
MAC Paints – Bare Canvas
Coastal Scents Matte 88 Palette
Rimmel Kohl Eyeliner – Black

Lips
MAC Lipstick – Creme d Nude

Check out these contacts

Pros

• Great coverage
• Very easy to blend
• Rich formula, a little goes a long way and versatile
• Feels lightweight
• Easy pump application

Cons

• Very expensive

Price:$98AU
Where: Visit the counter at David Jones.

My friend Sheila recommended this foundation on her weblog, and thank goodness she did. Out of all the foundations I’ve tried, this has got to be my favourite. I applies like a dream, very light and can easily be layered (give each layer a few minutes to dry). This is great because I absolutely can’t stand foundation that make me feel cakey or bogged down.

2-3 pumps is enough to cover my entire face, but since I generally don’t wear full foundation everyday (only for photo shoots) I’ve ended up using this as an under eye concealer on days I’ve feeling drained or need an extra lift.

I love that this bottle comes with a pump, making it easy to control the amount of product I need. The best part is it comes with a lid, so any foundation still caught in the nozzle never dries out, no wastage!

The only downside is the price, it’s extremely expensive. Luckily for me, I bought my bottle around mid 2008 and it is still as good as new (I know liquid foundations should be throw out every 6 months, but it seems perfectly fine to me!), and I’m not even half way through the bottle yet. But if I were to wear foundation everyday, I’d be inclined to search for a cheaper alternative. If you know of any, feel free to let me know

For the curious, my shade is 4 – light sand, which matches my skin tone perfectly.