This is Halloween | Scary Skull Make Up

For a few years now I have been interested in character and SFX make up but I just never had or found the time to have a dabble myself. I marvel at make up artists on You Tube with their spooky special effects, melting faces, nails through noses and let's not forget the zipped faces (though admittedly some of these I'm a bit too squeamish to try out on myself) This year however, continuing with my endeavour to improve my overall skills as I venture forth into make up artistry-dom I set aside a bit of time at the weekend to play around with a few of my new make up goodies from this post right here.

This year the most popular Halloween inspired make up seems to be skulls, half skulls, melting skulls, sugar skulls you name it you can't move on instagram for seeing skulls. So I decided to be oh so different and do a half skull, half vintage inspired make up look for Halloween party number one of the season! 

The products I used to achieve the above look (the skull side!) were:

• Generic brand black liner pencil to mark out the 'black areas' including my eye socket, my 'cheekbones' the teeth and to mark our one half of my face.
  
  
• Snazaroo facepaint in plain white to go all over my face, which I applied around 2 / 3 coats to give it a less sheer quality and more opaque and 'bone like' appearance.
   
• Snazaroo facepaint in black to carve out the mouth, teeth, fill in the eye socket (not the lid or waterline!) and mixed together to create a bit of shading for the jaw and teeth.
   
• Black eyeshadow to go over the eyelid and give a bit of dimension to all of the little details like the teeth, nose, eye socket etc.

Of course it isn't perfect, but for a first attempt I'll say it wasn't half bad and I had so much fun playing with brand new products and you know...scaring my husband when he came home from work that day! I managed to create this look in around 20 minutes for the Aberdeen Bloggers Halloween Party (Aberscream) when it rolled around last week and I'm planning on giving it another go this weekend for our besties annual Halloween party.

Though this of course wasn't a tutorial or review of some sort I thought it might be nice to continue this weeks Halloween theme and just share a little bit of what I'm up to as I don't often do that anymore, hopefully you've found this interesting, learned something new or at least got a little into the spooky season. If you want to keep up to date with my latest looks, posts and every other little thing you can find me on Twitter, Instagram and Bloglovin.

 

Until next time folks, stay creepy.

H.Elizabeth x

Send Nudes | My Nude Lipstick Collection and Swatches

Nudes are all the rage right now. Nope, put that phone down ladies I'm talking about nudey lips (though if you're Kim K nudes are ALWAYS the rage in your house) and over these last few months I've built up quite an extensive collection of nude lipsticks, glosses of all shapes, sizes, finishes and price ranges and today I wanted to share with you a few of my top picks from my pro make up artistry collection and of course ones from my own personal make up bag.

Swatches L-R: MAC Half N Half, MAC Blankety, Maybelline Colour Drama in Nude Perfection, Revlon Matte Balm in Mischievous, Too Faced Melted Matte in Nude, NYX Lip Cream in London, Kylie Cosmetics in Dolce K, Kylie Cosmetics in Exposed, Kylie Cosmetics in So Cute.

MAC Amplified Creme in Half N Half

Half N Half was one of the first shades by MAC I ever bought, way before the days of the Velvet Teddy reign I was rocking my good old half n half. This one is a bit darker than my other nudes and is perhaps verging on a more brown shade for us pale girls, but on a darker skin tone this would be perfection. The finish of this one is an amplified creme, so it's very creamy and quite heavy on the lips and what's great is it won't dry out your lips, great for those winter months (when they eventually roll in)

MAC Amplified in Creme Blankety

Blankety is one of my staple staple favourite. Whenever I don't know what to wear I'll always reach for blankety for comfort (ha I know!) Blankety again has a lovely creamy texture and consistency and is much lighter than it's sister Half N Half. I often use Blankety to lighten up the mid section of my lip and pat it out to give myself that 'ombre' lip, it also helps make your lips look fuller and bigger which we new age make up lovers of course all die for!

Maybelline Colour Drama lipstick in Nude Perfection
This one is perhaps the most affordable of the bunch and is one of the most surprising. Whenever I apply this shade it lasts all day! And as far as I am aware that isn't part of the major selling point, in fact I don't even think these have been to widely advertised. This shade is literally what it says on the packaging, nude perfection and is a great starter nude for you dabblers out there. My only criticism is the size is really quite small and you also have to invest in a large sided pencil sharpener just to get additional uses.

Revlon Matte Balm in Mischievous 

These matte balms are worth a look in for the forumla alone, which contains peppermint extract and leaves your face smelling minty fresh! If I could bathe in this I would! I use mischievous again to create ombre looks the majority of them time and it's a nice, blend-able, light shade which also doesn't feel drying.

Too Faced Melted Matte in Nude

The applicator for this is not great for hygiene and hence I do not stock them in my pro kit, which is a real shame because they are gorgeous. I wouldn't technically say that this was a particularly matte lipstick, it semi dries but not entirely. The finish however has a very tacky, strobed look and again is great for summer. It is quite a warm nude, even warmer than the Kylie Exposed kit so I usually pair this with a cool toned eye just to balance out the face.

NYX Soft Matte Lip Cream in London
One of my brand new babies from the brand new NYX counter in my local boots, I've been loving the finish of this lip cream, it feels more like a light soufflé finish than an actual cream which is lovely for summer when you want to feel a bit lighter. The shade itself is quite light with what I would say is a hint of orange very similar to the Too Faced melted matte shade. You do have to top NYX up quite a bit through the day but as they're high street I'm not complaining and it's a gorgeous shade!

Kylie Cosmetics Lip kit in Dolce K
I won't go into too too much detail about Dolce as you can read my full review and first impressions of it right here. 

Kylie Cosmetics lip kit in Exposed

First of my many, many mattes is the Kylie Cosmetics lip kit in Exposed. Exposed is a toffee / caramel shade which is unlike most other colours on the market. On darker skin tones it is a gorgeous cool, light colour, however on myself it is far warmer in colour and helps bring a bit more depth and dimension to my moon face. This is not perhaps one to dabble with if you're new to using nude colours on your lips as it can be quite intense but I cannot fault the formula it is beautiful!

Kylie Cometics lip gloss in So Cute

So Cute is the most versatile colour I have ever used it's gorgeous and this summer I would not be without it. It looks exactly as it did on the Kylie Cosmetics website and can be layered over the top of just about any colour to give your look an extra oomph. But I genuinely just love wearing this on it's own with a pared back eye and subtle contour for a great summer barely there look.

For all of you nude connoisseurs and nudey newbies I hope you found this post helpful, informative, entertaining or maybe I've even just inspired you to get out there and spend some pennies (go on treat yo self!) What are your favourite nude shades? I'd love to hear them in the comments below, come link them to me on Twitter or if you're just interested in seeing these nudes in action be sure to check out my Instagram and Facebook pages.

Until next time, let's get naked!

H.Elizabeth x