Beauty and The Beast

Hi! Today I'm here with a two in one post as the title suggests.

My major inspiration for the "Beauty" part was Simone Simons, specifically this photo Tânia's father took when Epica came to Hard Club in Porto. Here's the photo I used as reference.

As you can see by the photo, Simone had a (quite dramatic) metallic shimmery blue eyeliner but other than that, the look seemed very  natural and simple. The lips are not visible on the photo but Tânia described the lip shade as a brick red.

The "Beast" part was my imagination coming to life. I had a fishnet weave cap that I didn't use at all so I decided to give it the best use.

My idea was to create some sort of mermaid'ish character but it turned out a bit darker and, therefore, I decided that it could be a siren.
A siren that was feeding on some sort of magic creature, and that would be where the glitter dripping down the sides of the mouth came from. The glitter drips aren't as visible as I would wish but they're there!

Products Used

"Beauty" 

Face: 
Benefit Boi-ing Concealer in O1 and O2
Benefit Hello Flawless Powder Foundation in "I love me" Ivory
Benefit Hello Flawless Oxygen Wow Foundation in "I'm pure 4 sure" Ivory
H&M Eyebrow Kit in Blonde (contour)
H&M Highlighting Palette in 2
Catrice Ombré Blush

Eyes: 
Sleek Au Naturel Eyeshadows in Nougat, Toast,Nubuk and Bark
Oriflame Very Me Eyeliner in Blue
Essence Crystal Eyeliner in Blue Heaven
Maybelline Colossal Go Extreme Mascara

Brows: 
Essence Eyebrow Designer in 02 Brown
Essence Lash & Brow Gel Mascara

 Lips:
Catrice Ultimate Colour Lipstick in 330 The Lips Are On Fire
Avon Lipstick in Mocha
MAC Lip Liner in Nightmoth

"Beast" 

Face:
Sleek Ultra Mattes V2 Eyeshadows in Orbit and Ink
IDC Color 44 Palette Eyeshadows in 8, 28, 36 and 44
Essence Holographic Effect Eyeshadow in Mint Candy
Essence Crystal Eyeliner in Rosy Rush

Eyes:
Sleek Ultra Mattes V2 Eyeshadows in Orbit and Ink
IDC Color 44 Palette Eyeshadows in 8 and 36
Oriflame Very Me Eyeliner in Blue
Essence Crystal Eyeliner in Blue Heaven
H&M Gel Eyeliner in Black
Maybelline Colossal Go Extreme Mascara
 Ardell Lashes in 115 Show Girl

Brows: 
Half pearls glued on with liquid latex

Lips: 
H&M Gel Eyeliner in Black
Essence Crystal Eyeliner in Rosy Rush
Lit Cosmetics Glitter in S3 Barbie Shops

I would like to thank Catarina for taking the photos and Tânia for that inspirational reference photo!

That's it for this post! I hope you have enjoyed it, I surely did!

Love,
Anna

New Year's Eve Makeup Look

Hello! Since I missed on the christmas makeup look, I decided that I would do a New Year's Eve makeup for you. New year's eve is such a fun time to play with makeup! You're entering a new year, you can use and abuse the glitter, the sparkle, the shine and the metallic shadows, it's a celebration time and nothing better than makeup to show how excited you are for the new year that is ahead of you.

So I did this look inspired in Simone Simons' stage makeup for Epica's Utrecht show with loads of glitter and sparkle! I was scrolling down her Instagram to find a photo that she has with Fernando from Moonspell and came across this beautiful makeup that looks so festive. I instantly got a boom of inspiration and decided that today I would do this look for the post.
My version of it turned out a lot less dark but still very sparkly, I hope you enjoy it.

In Simone's Instagram photo, her eyeshadow looked pretty metallic and in a grayish blue shade. That's what I tried to mimic with this metallic teal eyeshadow that reflects gold in certain lights. Most of the eyeshadows I used are from this new palette I was given for christmas that I will show in a future post in my christmas haul.

I used this color all over my lid till the crease. In the crease I used first a matte shade a couple of shades darker than my natural skin tone as a blending color. Then I placed black in the outer V, creating a cat eye effect, just like Simone had. I blended it all out with a fluffy brush I got as christmas present, which I will also show you in a future post. On the lower lid I used black on the outer corner, connecting it to the top lid and some of that teal shade along the inner third of the lower lash line. In the inner corner of my eye I used yet another eyeshadow from that palette that is very shimmery and that highlights the eye quite a lot.

Now for the fun part, the glitter!

Simone had loads of sparkle going on and that's what I tried to do too by using gold glitter. Glitter tends to fall out a lot if it doesn't have a base to stick to. If, like me, you don't have a glitter base, here's a tip: take your clear eyebrow gel, rub your ring finger in the wand and use that gel very lightly all over the lid. While it's still wet place the glitter on top. It will stick to it like no other.

I used a gel eyeliner to line the eye. I did a line a little more dramatic than usual for this one.

I also used that same gel liner on my water line, to give the eye a bit more of depth and drama.

You can't skip lashes with this look and that's why I used quite dramatic ones from Ardell in 131 Black.

I also filled in my brows with H&M Dark Brown eyebrow pencil and used a clear brow gel to keep them in place.

I don't use foundation. I have created some sort of aversion to foundation, I hate the feeling of liquid foundation. I just don't use it in general. I only used some moisturizing cream and concealer in my problem areas and to highlight under the eyes.

I then set all of that with a translucent powder and move on to face sculpting. 

Try to go with your natural shape, only enhancing it a little bit. That's what I did by placing a little bit of bronzer on my cheeks to define them and just a dash on my temples. I then went to a pinkish blush similar to Nars' Orgasm and highlighted the tops of my cheekbones, nose, chin and cupid's bow.

For the lips I used a lipstick that is the exact same shade as my natural lip color.

Simone had a peachy pink color on that seemed very glossy and quite a big outline on those lips, but I decided to leave it a bit more subtle there.

And that's the look complete! I'm not gonna do this one on myself but I've already got requests to do it on someone else. This year I've decided not to use glitter on myself.

I want to make a little note here and say that most of the photos for this look have zero to no edition. All credits to the amazing Catarina from the blog D'une Lune and a huge thank you to this girl for the spectacular job she did today.

This is it for this week's post! I hope you have liked it and gotten inspired for some new year's looks.

I will be back this weekend with a christmas haul with all the goodies I got for christmas.

Love,

Anna