But first makeup



At the age of 11, I started using makeup. I was young and I'd somehow managed to become friends with those popular girls that have everything, including £20 foundations which they didn't even like/want. So, I decided to wear makeup too. It was nothing flashy, foundation and mascara mainly, sometimes I had eyeliner in my waterline but that was it. Simple but unnecessary. 

After that, I had an on-off relationship with makeup. When I was sixteen I put mascara on and nothing else and I didn't feel self-conscious at all. Now, leaving the house with only mascara is a big ask. I do it, quite regularly but I feel naked without something else on - I'm talking foundation, highlight and eyebrows. It's true what they say, I never knew how important eyebrows would be to me growing up. 

This relationship with makeup is still constant and changing now. I'm incapable of doing a subtle or natural makeup look. Whenever I leave the house for anything (even a trip into town) I put on primer, foundation, concealer, powder, contour and highlight, eyebrows, mascara and often or not shadow or eyeliner. It's become almost impossible for me to leave the house without it. I know, silly right? My skin is not bad, except for right this moment and the hundreds of spots on my forehead, it's usually clear and not in need of touching up with foundation but I just can't resist. 

In my friendship group, I'm often the one that's overdressed and wearing too much makeup. I can't help it, a house party, for me, is a chance to glam myself up a bit and more likely than not, add some glitter to my look. As you can see in the picture below, subtle isn't my speciality and that's ok, we don't always want to have subtle makeup. Sometimes we want to stand out from the crowd and makeup allows me to do this, whether it's a bright purple lipstick of some star-shaped glitter beneath the wing of my eyeliner. I love experimenting with makeup. 

I took this picture before a house party. Yes, I need to learn
how to take pictures without filters but here it is. 

Don't get me wrong. Makeup is an agonising process. I've spent hours getting ready for things just to have my eyeliner go horribly wrong and ruin my whole look ten minutes before I'm due to leave. I get frustrated and snippy when I'm doing makeup but it's because I'm a perfectionist (who isn't when it comes to makeup?) and I want things to be perfect the first time but that's ridiculous. Makeup is like everything else. You need to practice and practice. You need to try crazy rainbow colour eyes and fail five times before giving up and coming back the next day to try again. It's a process, a process where we learn new things daily and find new matches. 

This isn't a specific routine, I'm not going to list every product I use when I do a full-face of makeup. That would take far too long. I'm just going to show you some makeup items that I adore. 

Foundation 

All of the foundations in the picture above are from Rimmel. I've been using their match perfection foundation (on the left) in shade 101 Classic Ivory, for five or six years now. It's a light coverage that doesn't feel heavy on your face. I've also got it in a lighter shade 100 Ivory which is perfect for those winter months when my skin isn't naturally tanned. Next, the wake me up foundation. I wear this in shade 100 Ivory too. The vitamin C in this formula helps to wake up the skin and give it a fresh radiance. While wearing this foundation the other week, my friend complimented the flawless and natural beauty of my skin and I told her all about this foundation, I can't recommend it enough. I would happily wear this foundation on a normal day or on a night out to refresh my appearance. 

Lastly, the lasting finish in shade 100 Ivory, is perfect for those full coverage moments. It claims to last for 25 hours. I haven't worn it for this long but I've never had to touch up my foundation before, I always leave the house without any backup plans and it's never failed me before (for the record: none of the above foundations have failed me before). It's perfect when you're going on a night out with your friends and don't want to worry about pesky blemishes showing. It's comfortable and it lasts, could it get any better? 

Highlight

I got my first highlight almost two-years-ago and I haven't looked back. I love to highlight. It's the staple piece of my beauty routine and you'll never see my makeup bag without a good quality highlight inside. Both of these highlights are from I Heart Makeup. 



This highlight is in shade Goddess of Faith. It's a beautiful golden peachy shade that's, in the words of one of my favourite beauty YouTubers, sooooo pigmented. These are only £4.99 and the pigment is unreal. I'm heavy handed when it comes for highlight but these require a light touch or you'll end up looking like Edward from Twilight the moment you go into the sun. 


The shade unicorn heart from I Heart Makeup was a must have for me, as a lover of all things rainbow, unicorn and gay. I couldn't not have this highlight. The packaging is simple and beautiful, I'm in love with the holographic label that shines rainbows as you move it around and the highlight itself, well just take a look below. 



It's beautiful and very pigmented - just like the previous highlight. The beauty of this highlight is its versatility. You can use the entire rainbow or take individual highlight colours. I'm especially taken with the violent purple shade. I've yet to get a purple highlight, so this offers me that along with four other beautiful colours. Sometimes, I like to highlight my cheeks with one colour and then, the other points of my face with another. I used violet and green the other day. I'm spoilt because I now have two of these and I took both with me to pride the other week, they work beautifully. 

Eyeshadow
I'm so sorry about the state of these, they're so dirty but it's
because I use them all the time. 

These MUA palettes are stunning for a natural look. I often find myself mix and matching between the two to create a 'signature' kind of look. They're the Undressed and Undress Me Too palettes. I especially love the pink shimmery shades. 



I Heart Eyeshadows chocolate and peaches palette is stunning. I just had to put this on my birthday list this year. I love the shimmery shades, the pinks especially but also the shimmery nude brown shades, they're the perfect way to glam up a natural eye look.

The only criticism I have with both of these palettes is that they're aren't enough matte shades, the majority are shimmer and while I love a shimmer, sometimes I want something a little more natural. I find this quite comment with palettes. I bought the Barry M super natural palette and only two out of eight shades were matte and the rest were shimmer, I love shimmer, but how the heck is that super natural? 

Eyeliner

This isn't my everyday eyeliner look but sometimes I just have to add glitter to my look. I love glitter, all kinds and these eyeliners from Collection Glam Crystals are the perfect addition to anybody's makeup bag and I mean EVERYBODY. Even if you're timid of eyeliner, these glitter liners are for you. They're beautiful and easy to use. I love to wear these instead of black eyeliner, especially if I'm feeling a bit down, these cheer me up everytime. Also, these are great to put on above normal eyeliner, either across the entire eye or just above or below the wing. The last time I used these, I used the beautiful teal blue shade which is called Le Freak 5 and did an ombre effect with this on my eyelid and a black wing. 

Mascara

Mascara is a whole new cup of tea for me. I hate my eyelashes, they rarely behave, so mascara and finding the right mascara is very important to me. Maybelline Colossal Volum' Express has been my go to mascara for years. This little yellow tube has been in every makeup bag or drawer I've ever had and I love it. I like the brush shape and how it manipulates my lashes. I have it in 100% black, normal black and in waterproof. The best time to buy this is in duty-free, you can get a box of three or four for the price of like one. It's insane and incredibly useful. Whenever my nan gets herself a new mascara, she does this and gives me the other two. 

If I'm scared the weather might change, this is England and it always rains, I like to use Maybelline Falsies Volum' Express mascara (yep, that's the little purple one in the middle). I either use this alone or over the top of my usual mascara. It's very similar to the Colossal Volum' Express and a winner for me. 

Next, the Maybelline Lash Sensational Mascara is perfect for a more high-impact look. The brush head is different to my other mascaras, but it's perfect for a night out. 

My latest mascara buy is the L'Oreal Baby Roll mascara in black and I love it. It's a little bit wet for me, I need a slightly drier mascara if I want my lashes to curl. If I wipe away some of the excesses on a tissue, this mascara provides amazing coverage and curl. It's also super waterproof, this is the kind of mascara you'll wake up with around your eyes after five minutes of taking it off the previous night. It's incredibly waterproof. Yes, I know I've got the waterproof version but how often is waterproof actually waterproof? I recommend this and I'll be buying it in the other colours soon - they have violet, blue and teal. 

I was going to add a section about lipstick but I think I'm going to do a whole post dedicated to that at a later day. 

So, these are my makeup must-haves and as you may have noticed, they're all drug store makeup. There is nothing that can be considered high-brand or an expensive. This wasn't an intentional thing, I will be digging into some different makeup soon but until I have more money, the drug store suits me just fine. If you know me, you know that I was a student up until very recently and buying any other than drug store was out of the question, I was too busy buying clothes and getting drunk.

Anyway it was lovely to talk about something that I love and I can't wait until the next post, as always thank you for visiting my blog, I appreciate it more than words can say.

 I'll see you on the next one. 
 x


P.S.
Here are some amazing makeup themed blog posts from some beautiful people. 
Please check them out. 

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