Hi all, join me on my self discovery of makeup. I want to inspire all women that color is our friend and was created for us to play with. I truly believe every color can be used its just a matter of finding the right shade and lastly having confidence to rock it. From natural to edgy each week i will try to do colors that "not used" by darkskinned women.

Monday, May 23, 2011

Summer Trend: Bold purple eyes and orange lips

I've been wanting to try this combo for a while now. It features the famous MUFE #92 with a bright lip color named Mac SO CHAUD!!!. It is so not for the meek hearted. I wore this look with a turban style inspired by June Ambrose (celebrity stylist to Chrisette Michele and many many more). It took a lot of tying and retying for this turban to look remotely good lol, but I think it came out well.
Now for the makeup!!! I did this look as a contest entry for Laura62484 who wanted a summer/spring trend look and any one that follows trends knows that orange/ basically any bold lip color is the choice of the season. The look also features summers best accessory : GLOWY SKIN!!! For a long time I struggled with the fact that I didn't have an even skin tone, but accepting my body and having a great support (my beautiful sister Olamide and wonderful cousins) removed 95% of that insecurity. Also if you have confidence in yourself the rest is easy!!
(Caution if you have a pimple, don't put a highlighter on it, just makes it a thousands times more visible no matter your skin tone)
Products used for this look:
(All mac unless otherwise stated)
Face: MUFE 180 and Pro Long wear NW45 concealer (love love love this stuff), set with any powder of choice, highlighted with Comfort msf and Natural deep dark, contoured with Mac socrery.
Eyes: Applied Nars smudgeproof base, then contruvist paintpot, brown down in the crease, then socrery for some more dimension. For the purple cat eye, I used my Jordana purple passion eyeliner as a base, then applied MUFE #92 with fix+ to set it. In the inner third I placed Parfait amour to open the eyes. Used some random natural lashes and my favorite mascara Lash Stiletto.
Lips: Cork lipliner with SO CHAUD lipstick
Blush: Nars Exhibit A.

Comment if you would like to see any particular trends for this season. Thanks

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Swatchfeast: La Femme Blushes plus a little Sleek

This is my first Haul post!! YAY!! so I got the famous La Femme Blushes which I must say are justified in their pigmentation quality for their inexpensive pricing. Ladies when I say inexpensive I mean seriously $2.50 for each blush, which are 5.5grams, astounding isn't it. They are makeup artist secret weapons, SERIOUSLY!!. There are 3 different places to buy them from
1.) www.Makeupmania.com, where I purchased mine from, but their customer service was okay, shipping proved to be great hassle
2.) www.CameraReadyCosmetics.com
3.) For my UK beauties, www.love-makeup.co.uk, (their collection is missing some colors like russet, but they still have a good variety of colors).
There are two ways of ordering these blushes,

i.) Blush on rouge, if you are interested in these blushes in pot form  or
ii.) The palette lab which provides a palette plus 12 blushes in pan form.
Altogether I paid $35 excluding shipping, but since I ordered mine during their 'free shipping trial period', that's all I paid. The downside UK ladies is that I had to pay custom charges to receive the items, that was seriously f***** up.  Another perk of selecting the palette lab option is that you get to name your palette, I chose " BLUSH ME SILLY". For reference I'm a Mac NW50 so you can see for yourselves that the colors do come on very well on dark skin, therefore if you lighter they will even be brighter.

So from L-R, top to down these were the colors I selected
Bordeaux, Cinnabar, Brick Red, Golden Sunset, Golden Ruby, Magenta
Orchid Ice, Terracotta, Sienna, Coral, Mulberry, Redwood
Above is in natural lighting
Next is indoors (not much of a difference I'm afraid)
A word of caution, a simple tap (NOT SWIPE) is all that is needed for these blushes to show, so in case you don't love extremely bold color please be advised lol. I swatched on a white blank paper so that you could judge for yourselves without my skin distorting the coloring.

Next, I made my second purchase from Sleek, which came out with new Truecolor Lipsticks that are so out of this world. I'm not a big fan of their eyeshadow textures (too chunky for my taste), but their contouring kit and lipsticks and glosses have got me hooked. I purchased mine from Superdrug, but they are also available online at sleekmakeup.com. Orginally they retail for £3.99, but there was promo for 2 for £6 at Superdrug. I got  Mystic (Mac Violetta dupe) and Candy Cane (Mac impassioned but slightly more pinky).
Recommendations: All if possible lol, will definitely be purchasing more whenever possible like grape, russet, frambosia whenever they become available.
L-R: Sleek Mystic (matte), Mac Violetta, Sleek Candy cane (sheen).
Top to Bottom: Sleek Mystic topped with Mac Funtablous dazzleglass  Candy cane, combo of both lol

(image courtesy of sleekmakeup.com)
I wanted to get Amped (possible Mac Candy yum yum dupe) and OMG (if Morange and So chaud had a baby maybe) but they were out of stock.
Have you guys bought any La Femme or Sleek products lately???