HAIR

Today, I shall talk about something that drives me nuts: MY HAIR. Lately, I have been looking a bit awkward as I have been growing out my short hair cut. Since I started this blog I have had an angled bob type of hair cut. The main reason that I got it was that I had grown out my hair almost down to my lower back but had not cut it nor taken proper care of it so it looked rather ratty. Also, I was bored and felt like a drastic change and the haircut also covered my many ear piercings which were a bit of a problem for job interviews.

I think that it looked good on me and suited my face shape well when it was the length shown in the picture above. However, it kind of became a pain in the ass for me to have this haircut. First of all, if I didn't want to look like a shaggy man, it had to be styled a certain way EVERY DAY. You could never just put it up or leave it down. Second of all, it could pretty much only be done in one or two ways. Whether I was going to work, going to the club, or going to a wedding, it pretty much got done the same way. BOR-ING. Thirdly, I like to participate in the goth/alternative music scene and for lots of the events people get quite dressed up. When I wear a complicated outfit, I like to have BIG hair to go with it and it's just not possible with the haircut I have. Also, a lot of hair accessories are too large to wear with shorter hair. I would like to wear my natural hair more often when I go to these events. Finally, I found that a short hair cut is very high maintenance and you have to go get it cut like ALL THE TIME or it looks wrong. If it is too short I look super masculine and when it gets too long it looks funny. In summary, I feel kind of masculine with short hair and I'm just sick of it!

Anyway, when browsing a store last fall this book caught my eye:

I decided the moment I saw it that I was going to finally grow my hair out! I can't wait to try out some of these cute vintage hairstyles, especially victory rolls! I did once try setting my hair in sponge rollers overnight for a certain style in the book, but my hair wasn't quite long enough yet to do it properly but I did some sort of variation on it:

Finally, for the first time in months, my hair is long enough to look half-decent! When you grow out short hair, you spend several awkward looking months in that "between-haircuts" kind of stage! Here is my hair as of April this year:

I have Lord and Cliff fusion extensions in which I often had installed with my short hair as well. I like them because they are subtle enough for me to get away with at work and they require no bleaching/dyeing/maintenance. They are melted to your hair strands and eventually fall out.

In addition to the vintage hairstyling book, I found a retro makeup book as well from the same author!

Have you ever tried any vintage hair styles? Have you ever had to look super awkward whilst growing out a short haircut?

Worksafe Monday: Naked Neutrals and Spring Pinks

Hello everyone, it's Worksafe Monday! (***slow claps***) Even though it is almost May, there seems to be a blizzard going on where I live. SUPER! When spring arrives (which it never apparently does here), I like to add a bit of pink to my boring neutral work looks when I need to look a bit more awake than I actually am. I think I read in Bobbi Brown book that if you feel like sh*t you're supposed to put on pink lips and blush and you will look much better or something. Take a peek at the look below to see if this actually works....

FACE: MAC Prep and Prime, MAC Studio Fix Fluid Foundation in NC15, MAC Select Sheer Pressed Powder in NC15.

BROWS: MAC Eyebrow Pencil in Stud.

CHEEKS: Silk Naturals Sheer Blush in Cosmic.

LIPS: Too Faced Mood Swing Lip Gloss in Petal Pink.

EYES: Base: UDPP and MAC Paint Pot in Soft Ochre.
Eyeshadows: From the UD NAKED2 palette: Suspect, Pistol, Verve, Blackout, Foxy.
Eyeliners: UD Perversion, Maybelline Liquid Black Eyeliner, Truth or Dare Eye Definition Duo Pencil.
Mascara: Maybelline The Falsies.

THE EQUIPMENT

SLEEPY EYE

THE LIPS

DO I LOOK AWAKE YET?

Hard to tell if that pink is perking me up because I always have a weird look on my face in pictures for some reason. Or, maybe I just look like that all the time......

Do you have any makeup tricks that you pull out when you look half awake or like sh*t in the mornings?

Club Look: Matte vs. Shiny

A few months ago, I went to a special alternative event where everyone got all dressed up for the evening. The dress code was such that people could be a bit risque in their attire if they wanted to. My outfit was going to be super shiny so I decided to play around with some contrasting textures in my makeup. I went for matte eyeshadow with shiny eyeliner and lips. I wanted to keep the look neutral but added a bit of drama with some thick false lashes. I added a bit of teal eyeliner to match the only bit of colour in my outfit.......black pasties with teal trim. I was looking for plain black ones but ended up ordering the teal ones instead just for fun!

FACE: MAC Prep and Prime, MAC Studio Fix Fluid Foundation in NC15, MAC Select Sheer Pressed Powder in NC15.

LIPS: NYX Black Cherry Lipstick, Dior Addict Ultra Gloss Flash in 982 Black Tie Plum, NYX Deep Purple Lipliner.

BROWS: MAC Eyebrow Pencil in Stud.

CHEEKS: Sobe Botanicals DuoChrome Blush in Nouveau.

EYES: Base: UDPP and MAC Paint Pot in Soft Ochre.

Eyeshadows: Annabelle Vanilla Chilla, Buff Naked, Foxy, and Ebony, shadows from the WnW Lust palette, and Sugarpill Darling (used as liner on the bottom lashline).

Eyeliners: UD Perversion, Lime Crime Uniliner in Quill (IT'S SHINY!)

Mascara: Lancome Hypnose Star.

False Lashes: Ardell Fashion Lashes 136 Black.

THE EQUIPMENT

THE LIPS

THE EYES

THE LOOK

THE OUTFIT

As I mentioned above, this event allowed people to dress in some risque attire. Thus, since I don't think anyone wants to see any more of me than they really need to, I shall describe my outfit rather than post a picture. I wore a long mermaid-style black latex skirt from Ego Assassin with a black halter style top with transparent panels also from Ego Assassin. Under the top, I wore teal and black pasties from PlastiKat and long black latex gloves from Polymorphe. For shoes, I went with my Jeffrey Campbell Night Nails. The synth dreads were made by me.

How was your weekend?

Dior Addict Ultra Gloss Flash

I am not a huge Dior fan when it comes to makeup but awhile ago one of their Addict Ultra Glosses caught my eye. I decided to try 982 Black Tie Plum in the Flash finish. This product reminded me again why I am not the hugest Dior fan. While the texture, consistency, and pigmentation are nice, it feathers and bleeds very badly and wear time is quite poor. Lip liner does not really even seem to help. I personally feel that the gloss should have better wear time since it is so pricey. I have the exact same problem with their eyeshadows. A long time ago I had really wanted one of their much-hyped 5 colour palettes and while the texture and pigmentation of them are nice, they creased on me! ARGH. Anyway, I think that the lighter shades in this line of gloss would be pretty nice as bleeding and feathering are not as big of a deal with sheerer, lighter shades.

PACKAGING

SWATCH

Damn, it is a nice colour despite its horrid bleeding-ness.

Have you tried any of these? Did you like them?

BRIGHT AND COLOURFUL!!!

The sun was shining today and that gets me in the mood for some bright and colourful makeup! Since I haven't done any recently, here's one from several months ago. (I'm behind, what else is new?) For this look I used my Inglot palette. One of my new favourite makeup colours is the coral/melon sort of shade that is on my lid for this look. I think I'll be cracking that one out a lot this summer!!

FACE: MAC Prep and Prime, MAC Studio Fix Fluid Foundation in NC15, MAC Select Sheer Pressed Powder in NC15.

BROWS: MAC Eyebrow Pencil in Stud.

CHEEKS: MAC Blush in Coygirl.

LIPS: Fyrinnae Lip Lustre in Meloncholy.

EYES: Base: UDPP, MAC Paint Pot in Soft Ochre, NYX JEP in Milk.
Eyeshadows: Inglot Matte 336, DS 495, Matte 338, AMC 73, AMC 74, Matte 353.
Eyeliner: Maybelline Liquid Black Eyeliner and NYX JEP in Milk.
Mascara: Lise Watier 24 Hours Glam.

THE EQUIPMENT

THE LIPS

THE EYES

\

NATURAL LIGHT

THE LOOK

What colours are you in the mood for this summer?

Failboat Friday: Poked Myself in the Eye with a Makeup Brush

ALLLLLL ABOARD THE FAIL BOAT! 

Source

Whilst looking through my makeup pictures, I noticed that I have a lot of old stuff that I didn't post because I screwed something up royally. Either the pictures didn't turn out, I looked like more of an idiot than usual in them, or I had a good idea for a makeup look but it just didn't turn out. I have decided to let some of these see the light of day on my blog on good old Fridays. I don't take makeup too seriously so I think it's fun to have a sense of humour about these things!

Today's crappy look was done in the summer of 2011. I had bought a new item from a Lise Watier collection. It was a lovely purple cream eyeshadow that came with glitter to stick on top of it. I cracked out some other Lise Watier shadow that I had to make a summery, colourful look. In the end, it turned out to be a poorly blended mess and the cream shadow creased and the glitter got everywhere. I also tried out a new mascara that sucked the big one and on top of that I poked myself in the damn eye with a makeup brush! Of course, the reason I was trying to do my makeup nicely was that I had a day off and was going shopping at Sephora and I wanted to take makeup pictures for my blog. When I looked at the pictures, almost ALL of them were blurry (and I took like a thousand). I thought maybe the makeup would look okay in the pictures but NOT SO MUCH. 

THE EQUIPMENT

It started off so well....

THE EYES

BLURRY PICTURES! CRAPPY MASCARA!

SAFETY ALERT! BE CAREFUL WITH THOSE MAKEUP BRUSHES, LADIES!

Not so sure why I thought it would be a good idea to take a closeup of my raging red eye after I poked myself with a makeup brush! GROSS!

THE LIPS

At least my lips looked nice.

THE LOOK

OMG my gross red eye, it hurt quite badly, lol!

REALLY, I'm not at all sure why I even took pictures of this! I am going to try something similar to this look again because I see where I was going with this but I hope it turns out a lot better!

Have you ever looked through your makeup pics and been like, WTF??

Ever poked yourself in the eye with a makeup brush?

Fun with Colourful Eyeliner!

Being that I am a brown-eyed girl with black hair, I sometimes feel very washed out in my work makeup. Since I prefer a heavy-handed approach to makeup, I have had to restrict myself to mostly neutral shades for work such that I don't overdo things by accident. When you deal with the public, it is difficult enough but when you don't look approachable it is even harder! Anyway, I had recently bought a couple of new eyeliners and had been shopping my stash of pencil liners (I usually prefer liquid liner for work as it lasts longer on me). I believe I have found  a way to add some colour to my face without looking completely over the top. I have been using matte neutral eyeshadows and adding a few different colours of eyeliner. I think this is wearable for work or daytime looks and perfect for spring and summer!

I recently got Covet (24/7 Glide-On Eye Pencil) from Urban Decay and MAC Chromaline in Rich Purple.

I usually have trouble with cream liners but once this sets, it is completely smudgeproof. It's an excellent product in my opinion!

MAC Pearlglide  pencil in Rave (from my stash!) and Rich Purple Chromaline.

UD Mildew, Covet, and Junkie.
Covet is similar to Junkie but it  is more green-toned and it is metallic rather than sparkly

FACE: MAC Prep and Prime, MAC Studio Fix Fluid Foundation in NC15, MAC Select Sheer Pressed Powder in NC15.

BROWS: MAC Eyebrow Pencil in Stud.

CHEEKS: MAC Blush in Coygirl.

LIPS: Fyrinnae Lip Lustre in Shangri-La.

EYES: Base: UDPP and MAC Paint Pot in Soft Ochre.

Eyeshadows: From the Too Faced Boudoir Eyes Palette: In The Buff, Fuzzy Handcuffs, and Garter Belt.

Eyeliners: UD 24/7 pencils in Covet, Electric and Perversion, MAC Chromaline in Rich Purple, and Geisha Ink (Black).

Mascara: Smashbox Full Exposure Mascara.

 THE EQUIPMENT

THE EYES

Excuse the peeling skin around my eyebrows, my skin has been giving me more grief than usual lately.

THE LOOK

What are some of your favourite coloured eyeliners?