Gold eyes

Hellish exams (where half marks = good) being over only means one thing - time to party. We finished on Thursday at 2pm and were in the student bar by 3. Thursday night was clubbing in a place that is a cross between Hobbiton and a nuclear bunker, where all the dancefloors are also walkways. Though ofc once you've had a certain amount to drink, it seems pretty decent! I forgot to take an actual camera photo with lighting on Thursday night, but it was just a slightly inferior version of NYE. After all, I think New Year's just about the only occasion which warrants gluing glitter all over your eyes.
Yesterday night however was summin' else. Only 2 out of about 20 actually made it to town at all, the rest of us turning a corridor into a party venue. Despite the whole thing turning into a slightly lamer Skins, it was a good night, highlighted by winning beer pong, clearing the table by throwing everything on it into recycling boxes, being introduced to http://freshnewtracks.com/2012/01/22/silver-medallion-slave-night-sundance-edition-dj-mix/ and telling people off for doing not-drugs (glorified tobacco ordered off the internet, so probably just dried cooking herbs).
Anyway, onto the topic of this blog - the eyes. Here they are:

You can't see it, but on the bottom lash line there was also some sparkly purple eyeliner. I'm not sure if it's always good though, I find purple can often give you the "tired, beaten up and been crying" look. Here's what I used:

The purple stuff goes on the bottom line. (The sparkly eyeliners are from MUA in Superdrug, and for £1 you can't not buy them really). The silver goes on the bottom inner corner, on top of the silver eye pencil so it sticks. Eyelid - gold all over (it's a really nice shade from Natural Collection called Moss Shimmer, and stays on all day as well). The cube colour goes on the inside (it looks peachy but it near bright-white when on), and dark one on the outside. Then use the gold glitter eyeliner on the inside 1/3rd of your eye. You can use a hairdryer to dry it, or just don't open your eyes for abour 2 minutes. 2 layers of mascara and you're done! Enjoy.

Pink eyeshadow and club music

Unfortunately I can't do any "looks" or even buy stuff to review, as it's exam season. Now I wish this was a good excuse, but it's not, as I probably spend more time on my bloody face than actual studying, funnily enough.....Tomorrow is exam #1, and I'm playing poker and writing this. And no, I don't do English or Card Studies (that's probably a degree somewhere!)
Anyways, I have an average look I did a week ago, for a night that I didn't actually end up going out on, once I found out the club cost £8. Classic cheap student.

All this took was some Body Shop cube pink eyeshadow, brown eyeshadow and some dodgy blending skills.   And sparkly eye pencil/shadow on the inner corner. Next look I'm gonna attempt (and fail due to lack of patience and high-quality blending brushes) will be in the style of "Blair Waldorf". But on the end-of-exams night out it's gotta be ridiculously heavy. Meanwhile - have a song of the day or two.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4HX0pXydF4&list=LLZPs7DhcE0qdYjNE-Ew0foA&index=2&feature=plpp_video Here's the playlist to go with it. It might be your cup of tea (in my case, I'm listening to it WITH a cup of tea...who said staying in can't be cool!), or not, but music is pretty much the love of my life really. Most of the songs are thanks to Judge Jules, Gossip Girl, my fwiends and occasionally russian dance radio. One of many annoying things is how the only people that seem to make guest appearances in Bath nightclubs aren't top house DJs, but the cast of Made in Chelsea. I wouldn't mind the Only Way is Essex, but no, they have to pick the inferior TV show to invite in their droves...such a shame.  Oh well, I'm going to London on the 3rd, might be something decent rather than Avicii Levels on constant repeat. One can hope!

Perfumes

It's 4 days into the "New Year" and I've completely and utterly wasted the day - revised for about 2 hours till I had to give up. The rest of it was spent re-watching Gossip Girl (I've been told there's about 10 films I desperately NEED to see to be able to call myself a 21st century cultured person, but no, re-watching a TV series is what's happenin'), listening to Deadmau5 and eating a variety of cakes "because our heating is broken". 

I saw this on Facebook and think it's the case for pretty much everyone. Anyways, the point of this sad monologue is I'm doing something useful(ish), in the form of perfume reviews!

After about a year of wearing DKNY Delicious, the green one, I felt it was time for a change. I never really buy perfumes because I keep getting them as presents from my gran, but she has about a 30% success rate in buying me smells I actually like...the rest I give to my mum or leave for a couple of years till it's not the same colour as it was, and then I HAVE to throw it. But when I saw this one on sale in Duty Free at Schiphol Airport, it had to be bought! The bottle is neon!

It's MaDame by Jean Paul Gaultier. Now I don't know anything about "notes" to tell you exactly what 20 flavours are in this, but at first I thought it was sweet, now I smell oranges and spice in this. Whatever, the point is it's really nice! After this runs out, my wanted-list goes something like this:

1)CK Shock - very sweet

2)Forbidden Euphoria by Calvin Klein - spicy

3)Versace Red Jeans

4)J'Adore by Dior - smells exactly like Tropical Paradise by Escada, but being Dior, I'd hope it stays on longer

5)ALDO perfume - yes, the shoeshop (and not ALDI the supermarket!). Also smells rather tropical.

I'm sure there were a few others, but that's probably enough for now! Also, loved the smell of Parisienne by YSL, but sadly it's not for me - it kept wafting at me all day and gave me a headache in the end.

NYE!

It's 2012!! I spent my NYE at a brilliant house party where I met the host for the first time upon turning up. As this was the first time in years I was going to an EVENT, I decided the make-up had to be pretty heavy. So this is what I did.
1) Face - foundation, concealer, undereye concealer and some Touche Eclat from a free sample in a magazine. Followed by blusher, bronzer and highlighter. Party-proof.
2) Primer on the eyes - I use Urban Decay primer potion, the ultimate feat of chemistry. Foundation is apparently a semi-decent alternative though.
3) Black/blue eyeshadow, quite "smokey". Not that important how neat/even it is though, as most of it will be covered. I used a mix of navy and a black sparkly one from Barry M. With those it's good to hold some paper under your eye, otherwise half of it ends up on your cheeks.

4) The main part - I used this loose glitter & gel wand that I bought a couple of days ago, from Collection 2000. If you don't have such a thing, liquid eyeliner works as a good base for glitter. Or, just buy a sparkly liquid eyeliner and apply that in hefty amounts all over the eye.

This was the outcome - half of the glitter does end up on your face though, so you will need makeup remover/sellotape and some more foundation. Sorry about the poor photo quality!

I also used a sparkly eyeliner in the same colour scheme to patch up any corners and make it symmetrical.
5) Finish with lashings of mascara. I'm afraid the false eyelashes didn't happen yet again - I have GOT to stop buying them, however pretty/authentic they may look, as I have never succeeded in using the things. Shame.
Anyways, that was "the look"!

Barry M Lipgloss

After seeing this plastered in Boots http://www.oliviasobsession.com/DoutzenKroesLorealColorRiche2.jpg , I was suddenly left wondering how I could get the same look in time for the festive season - it's not just red lipstick, but summin' else entirely. Turns out it's a red-plum lipstick with a golden one over it. But before I knew that, I spotted this in the Barry M section and pretty much had to buy it.

It's basically glitter! On it's own it's not that amazing, as the glitter density is never quite as good as it looks like in the tube. It also smells very strongly of bubblegum and kinda stings when on.

However, with red lipstick (I swear it wasn't orange, the camera is 4.1 megapixel and pretty shoddy):

It's a bit better (apart from the skewed pout which makes me look like I've fallen asleep/broken my jaw). This would probably work more with a dark red. Also, picked up some bargains from the bargain box: 

As Borat would say, great success! Half of that will be going on my face for NYE and then up on this blog as the first and last tutorial of 2011. Despite now owning 4 pairs of them, I've never actually used fake eyelashes... This has the potential to be dreadful, but I'm now settled on doing a heavy black eye (not that kind of black eye) for the 31st - black glitter, eyelashes, nothing on the bottom half of the eye. Got that to look forward to - though our New Year's party might in fact be a Midsomer Murders marathon, thanks to our slight lack of concrete plans :D Happy days.

False Lash Effect - or is it?

One of my Christmas presents was the Max Factor False Lash Effect mascara, in limited edition gold. Now I do get scammed rather easily, but when choosing which mascara to ask for, the words "false lash" just stood out at me. Isn't that the goal of all mascaras after all, to get that look but without the glue and the faff of pulling out half your eyelashes after 10 shots at the end of the night.

Upon opening the tube, the first thing I thought was that the brush was a bit ridiculous, and I might have nice eyelashes but end up having poked my eyes out. Applying it is fine apart from Max Factor have cleverly removed the bristles at the end of the brush, so reaching the corners of your lashes becomes a bit of a challenge. Anyways, here is a before and after:

It's pretty decent, though I'd say it fares much better at "defining" and curling rather than actually volumising. Now compare with 1 coat of the Maybelline Cat Eyes one (bear in mind this is my left eye, which always looks worse, probably because I apply it with my left hand)(also, photo is slightly out of focus):

 Difference? Well, the False Lash one is definitely neater, and the lashes are all generally pointing in the right angle. It also holds the curl much better by the end of the day. 2 coats of the Maybelline one was in the previous post, and it was a pretty clumpy affair. But as the Max Factor one is £11....really, I would have expected a bit better. The point is, I've come to the conclusion that they're all the bloody same - no matter what they call it, or how neon the packaging is, there doesn't seem to be a mascara out there that will multiply your eyelashes and make them reach your eyebrows. Sadtimes.

Hi everyone (and a mascara review)

So...hi! Just thought I'd introduce this whole shabang. Why start a beauty blog? I mean, there's 1000s out there, a lot more decent and by people whose advice is more trustworthy. Well firstly, I lead a boring unfulfilling life and will probably end up sitting in an office running stats programs (whoopee), so thought this would be a fun thing to do, and can fill up hours that probably should be spent on maths homework. Unlike DJing (lol), it doesn't require hundreds of pounds - though I probably have racked up that much even in the £3 eyeshadows I buy. Secondly, I do love cosmetics and even plan my face for a night out in advance. To me it's like art but on your face, which you can wipe clean every evening and do something different the next day. Some people find a look that suits them and stick with them, but I think the fun is in the experimentation. And thirdly, a selling point; being a student, I can't afford Chanel/Estee Lauder etc, so if you're in the same boat of being limited to only buying drugstore brands, that's mainly what I'll be writing about! And general reviews of things like perfume ofc. So here we go.

This is what I picked up in a recently failed attempt at Christmas shopping. The eyeliner and light-up lipgloss are from Collection 2000, while the eyeshadows were half-price (yay) from Gosh. The silver is a really nice glittery one, while the greens are very matte and could almost be grey in some lighting. I love the black-n-glitter liquid eyeliner, but the only problem is it ends up crumbling over your face and in your eyes if you're not careful. Anyways, this is what these products look like on: (sorry about the quality of the photos, will improve in future)

The mascara in this photo is the Colossal Cat Eyes from Maybelline, which I actually really like.

The brush is a natural bristle one, slightly curved. It's a normal size, which is getting rarer now that every brand seems to boast "our biggest brush ever" (what do they want, that eventually we'll be putting our mascara on with a shoebrush?). It's a pretty good one for applying, though I find I have to use the end bit for the very corner lashes which can be a pain - literally. I don't get too much of the stuff all over my eyelids.
As for how my lashes look - well, see for yourself. I think this does a pretty good job or curling/volumising/lengthening, especially on the first coat. However on subsequent coats it does start clumping, so you have to use a lash comb.
Any other unimportant details? In reviews I've watched on YouTube, EVERYONE complains about the smell. I can honestly say, I love it. It smells of honey, maybe "roses" to some and "nasty chemicals" to a few mad others....whatever, I think it's lovely, so I didn't mind that in the first week after buying this, I could smell my eyelashes. It's £8 in Boots/Superdrug, though I got it for £6. They do occasionally have some deals on. Though I won't be repurchasing as I want to try something new, I would definitely recommend this! :)