This Second's Obsession

You are here: Home / Archives for Makeup and Skincare

Makeup and Skincare

Monday Amusements 11

By

I hope your Monday is treating you well! Mine has me ill for the second week in a row so I apologise for the shortness of this list!

As Google Reader is about to load its last I’ve been spring cleaning my RSS subscriptions and finding some new blogs to follow. It’s been a while since I’ve subscribed to any new (at least to me) fashion blogs and it’s been a lot of fun exploring new sites. I’ve scrolled through several pages of Undercover Dress-Up Lover, and my favourite post so far is Lolita without online shopping, even though I am too tall for a lolita dress, there are some amazing boots in that post that are actually still available in my size! I am doing all the online surveys the internet sends with the goal of being able to afford them.

I’ve also been catching up on The Girl Who Looks Like a Cake, I’ve loved her DIY: Make your own collar and A Guide to Fabric Shopping In London posts.

I’m obsessed with eyeliner tutorial videos. Here are my current favourites, which show how to achieve three quite different effects:


Cat-Eye Tutorial from Rookie on Vimeo.

A tip for the last one – if you find it impossible to do this with an eyeliner brush and eyeshadow – ie if you’re a contact lens wearer and can’t risk getting powder in your eye – try it with a pen eyeliner instead, I did today and it looks great!

Finally, Mad About Dachshunds is the Facebook page to like if you want your news feed to be filled with all manner of cute sausage dog things.

Pastel Purple, Hot Pink and…Neutrals? May Favourites

By

I thought I’d succumb to blogger cliché today and share with you my recent clothing and make-up obsessions! I’m almost always obsessed with items in shades of purple and hot pink, but last month I stepped outside my colourful comfort zone and explored the possibilities of neutral eyeshadow!

I normally only wear neutral eyeshadow when I’m meeting new people and feeling shy, or when I’m attending an event where I want to look professional, so it felt kind of weird to wear the champagne-y Midnight 15, from the Urban Decay 15th Anniversary Palette, to a close friend’s birthday party! I didn’t want to be my usual garish self, because we were going to a fancy hotel for afternoon tea, and I wanted to look elegant. Don’t worry, I’m still me, I was wearing a bright pink dress, and Midnight 15 is glittery. It’s not as massively glittery as a certain other UD eyeshadow with Midnight in the name, but it’s still glittery enough to require Pixie Epoxy to stop fallout. I also made it a bit more interesting by putting a little Half Truth (a blackened purple, if you can’t see it clearly) in my crease, and I also wore thick black eyeliner, though it was a little thinner than I usually apply it.

This is fast becoming my favourite Urban Decay palette. Also this month, I was getting ready for work one day and feeling experimental, so I used Flow on the lid and M.I.A. in the crease. I loved it, and my manager said I looked really nice, so I will definitely try that again. More typically for me, I wore Omen a couple of times with a little Blackout in the crease. The only colours I haven’t tried yet in this palette are Chase, Evidence and Deep End – I think the last two look stunning but I don’t have many clothes in those colours. I’m hopelessly obsessed with matching my make-up to my clothes.

Of course, I couldn’t wear neutral eyeshadow without some sort of colour on my lips, and this month I’ve been all about shades of pink. For work, I’ve been wearing this ancient Maybelline Watershine lipstick in Raspberry Cream in an attempt to finally use it up, but I’ve started to genuinely like it! My lips are so pigmented that Raspberry Cream is almost a ‘my lips but better’ shade.

Outside of work, I’ve also been wearing the brighter lipsticks pictured, Revlon’s Cherries in the Snow (a very bright pink), and Lush’s Decisive (definitely a pinkish red on me, but your mileage may very as lots of people describe it as a cool red). Both of these are really long lasting and high quality.

I’ve been obsessed with lilac nails, mostly thanks to this little bottle that I got in a Colour Unlimited set at Christmas. It’s a beautiful shade and I’m afraid I’m going to use it up soon as I’ve been wearing it so much. I was a bit disappointed when I first tried L.A. Colors’ Flurry, because the lilacy base colour barely shows up. But it makes a great glittery top coat, especially over the Colour Unlimited lilac. Another lilac that I’ve been loving is Aromaleigh’s Penelope eyeshadow, an absolutely gorgeous and pigmented product.

Finally from the make-up favourites, Clinique Redness Solutions Daily Protective Base. This is a green coloured primer that I find too thick to use all over the face, but it works really well applied to the skin by my nose, though it took a lot of practice to get it right!

Onto clothes: I’ve been wearing this skirt to work a lot as it’s long and office-appropriate, but also quite light and floaty, great for the warm weather that we’re currently enjoying here in London. It’s a hand-me-down from my Mum, retro M&S. It’s probably from the 1980s going on the tininess of this size “14”.

This jacket was a hand-me-up from my sister. It’s funny that I’ve taken to wearing it so much because she used to practically live in it, though she styled it in a completely different way. I find that it works really well over pretty dresses, top and skirts, and I pin badges and brooches to the lapels to match my outfit. It’s also a lot easier to photograph than that skirt, as you might have guessed!

To be honest, I was wearing all of these quite regularly during most of April too! Should probably wash that jacket. What colours have you been loving lately?