Makeup Diary #1

It seems I need to work on rotating my bases and blushes...I took a snap of my daily makeup for a week and love being able to pick up patterns in the photos! I am very much into neutral eyes at the moment (and you can see I hauled towards the end of the week!) and lips have been quite low key most of the time.

Getting back into a Nars frame of mind, the standout for this lazy errand day with my sister in law was definitely the taupe shade from the Grand Palais duo. 

Sticking the the Nars trend but stuck Lorac Pewter over the top for some jazz! I went wedding shopping with Mumma Bovary and oh she looks stunning in her 'mother of the bride' dress!

Working out how to pull off silver eyeshadow and wearing my beloved MAC Poised blush. After dinner we hand delivered a stack of wedding invitations and it felt so good!

Tried to keep the eyes nice and simple with Burberry Pale Barley, as this was the only day this week that I wore a bright lip! Bourjois Rouge Edition Velvet in 02 Frambourjoise was the lip of choice, and thank goodness the lasting power is great because I forgot to bring it along with me for touch-ups!

A relatively makeup free day, I evened out my complexion (I'm currently in a terrible skin phase...) and added mascara to feel human. Cake batter lip balm, by the way? Genius!

I told you it was Nars-centric! I chose to try out Nars Orgasm blush (from the Danmari Cheek Palette) this time around, as I still don't love it as much as everyone else seems to. The Turkish Delight gloss is a whole other story though, I adore that pale pink shade.

As soon as my Nars And God Created the Woman palette arrived I snapped the obligatory blogger shots then threw it on my lids. Absolutely swooning over this tiny palette.

I'm the kind of person who finds a base she likes and sticks to it, and Illamasqua Skin Base is no exception. It's one of the few foundations that matches my pale skin but I have been needing a whole lotta undereye concealer lately, so had to pop some YSL Touche Éclat over the top of my Maybelline Age Rewind to make things half-decent.


So that is my makeup diary for the week! If you like peeking into the makeup bloggers use everyday, check out Liz's post which is what inspired me to keep my makeup diary! If you want to know more about anything in these shots just let me know, I would love to chat more about them.


Do you wear similar products for your everyday style?
What blush gets a heavy rotation for you?
Emma x

Current Favourites // July 2014

For a while now my life has been a tumble of wedding planning, house cleaning and honeymoon dreaming, and through it all I spent a lot of time in my beauty room enjoying my almost-organised stash. It was actually with ease that I chose my current favourites, which is a nice change from scrabbling to make up my mind.

When I originally came across the Revlon Cheek Boutique I took home the one that swatched the nicest – Mauvelous! It wasn’t until Chemist Warehouse took down their Revlon products to half price that I grabbed Naughty Nude as an afterthought, and wouldn’t you know it I’ve barely had it off my cheeks since that day! I’m obsessed with neutral cheek shades at the moment and this one is nice to dig into – something worth nothing about the Revlon shades is that they swatch terribly, but look amazing on the cheek when applied with a blush so don’t let the swatch put you off!

It’s all about my obsessions at the moment – my bright pink obsession is still going strong! I wanted to pick up some new shades to add to my gel nail stash (in love with my Sensationail machine!) and one of them ended up being Sally Hansen’s Back to the Fuchsia which is a seriously gorgeous hot pink that I needed in my life. I was a bit put off when I saw the blue shimmery base when I opened the bottle but it just looks like a shiny crème finish on my nails so happy days! It matches my constant pink lips perfectly – I’ve been rocking my Maybelline Color Bloom lip balm in Pink Bloom underneath my Elixir in Fuchsia Flourish for low-key makeup days, and Bourjois Rouge Velvet Edition in Pink Pong for work days and weekend wear alike. All bright, all right!

Each and every day has been an ode to my beloved – the essence Long Lasting Eye Pencil in Hot Chocolate. The perfect pencil for defined eyes that aren’t harsh, I’ve been swiping this on my top lash line every single day for so long now that I’ve just about used up the whole pencil. I have already procured a back-up (and added some other colours into my stash, too) and the next round of empties will see my current one finito. It’s as soft as a crayon but in thin pencil form and is a wind up, negating the need for a messy and annoying sharpener.

 

I couldn’t ignore my current skincare loves in this post, so in steps the exxy Lancome Dreamtone* which I wish I didn’t love (three digits, painful) but I totally completely do. It is the first product that has actually reduced the acne scarring on my cheeks (and all over my face) and for that it is worth each and every penny – though the day I have to repurchase this will be a painful one, and I’m stretching this PR sample out as far as it will take me. It softens my skin, soothes it, lightly moisturises it and actually does give my skin a ‘dreamy’ tone I’ve never had before.

The final favourite is a reoccurring one on the blog, my La Roche-Posay Effaclar Duo which banishes crappy skin, works at blemish build-ups underneath the surface and stops pimples from appearing. I’ve seen a lot of people mention that this isn’t very effective on skin with pre-formed pimples, but I use this every night/every second night and apart from perhaps a monthly spot I don’t have any blemishes come to the surface at all...prevention people, not cure! I’ve found that using preventative methods works best for my skin, and this in conjunction with my Mario Badescu loves means happy skin territory for me.

What are your current favourites? Pink lip recommendations anyone?

Emma x

*Provided for consideration! Honest favourites though ;)

Weekend Makeup Bag

This weekend I’m up in Rye on the Mornington Peninsula, celebrating my sixth anniversary with Mister Bovary. I’m pretty excited that this is the last ‘dating’ anniversary before we get married, and we’ve planned to try some new restaurants and head down to Portsea to walk through the Point Nepean National Park. I’m hoping that it doesn’t rain too much during the day so that we can take Charlie for a nice long walk through the hills too, but we’ll have to play that one by ear.

I tried to stay relatively minimal with my beauty considering we’re only away for two nights, but nice breakfast dates and heading out to dinners gave me excuse enough to bring along some of my beloved pink lip products. I bargained with myself, allowing one blush and one eyeshadow palette along in order to make up for the craziness that is my lip stash. I tried to cut down on heavy items too (even though we’re heading up in the car) so I brought some perfume samples and my new YSL mascara sample to play around with. Some of my skincare is mini sized too but I didn’t snap a picture of that bag. I think I'm just gearing up really early for a honeymoon full of mini-sized products - I'm getting so ahead of myself with lots of wedding things still to plan!

I forgot to include my Rimmel matte BB cream in the photos but I popped it in the skincare bag along with the new La Roche-Posay sunscreen I’m trialling (will be important for our walks!) I thought long and hard about which eyeshadow palette to bring with me and ended up with my Too Faced Natural Eye palette, I haven’t used this one very much at all so this will be a nice way to push myself into it (I definitely won’t be using that horrible glittery shade though! Really glad they reshuffled this palette and took out the dud shade, but sad that I already own the old version…)

Hop on over to Instagram if you want to see snaps of my weekend – I hope you have a wonderful weekend whatever you get up to!

Emma x

What's On My Face This Week - Bright Lips and Easy Eyes

I’ve been all about the easy eyes and shocking pink lips lately, and this week I’ve put this look on repeat varying some of the products but keeping the overall look really similar each time. Now that it is beginning to feel like winter in Melbourne (how about that wind!) I’ve reverted back to my love of wearing black to work and nothing pops better against black for me than a bright pink lip!

Mister Bovary making an appearance!

In these shots I’m wearing my Maybelline Color Bloom in ‘Pink Bloom’ which is a clear balm that turns into a bright pink tint once it hits the lips – it was a gift from a friend who travelled to Bali, but I really hope they are launched worldwide because they are seriously amazing and stain the lips so well! I topped that balm with my Maybelline Colour Elixir in Fuschia Flourish and am still head over heels for that packaging. I've pretty much stuffed all of my bright pink lip products into my Muji to rotate and am still mourning the loss of my Nars Carthage (did I lose you? are you hiding? was it something I did?)

Eyes have been the same shadows all week – I’ve rediscovered my Maybelline Bad to the Bronze Colour Tattoo and am back on the bandwagon. I didn’t realise how many Maybelline products I’ve been using lately – promise this isn’t a sponsored post and I didn’t plan it out! I’ve still been using my Too Faced Shadow Insurance underneath, and then sweeping some Too Faced Soleil from the A La Mode palette through my crease. It’s definitely the most used colour in that palette so far! It’s an easy eye look that takes no time at all in the morning and lasts all day for me, so I can see the trend continuing for the time being.

Cheeks are neutral central right now, in this instalment I’m wearing my new and shiny Dolce and Gabbana The Blush in 25 Caramel which is just as lovely as Jessica said it was! If I’m not wearing this powder I have on the Naughty Nude Revlon blush from the newly released Cheek Boutique – love!

What has been your favourite look this week?

I'd love to see you pop your pink lip recommendations in the comments for me to suss out!

Emma x