In honor of entering the last leg of the bitter cold winter of Toronto, I decided to create a spring inspired make up look on my cousin, Bella, using many of my ride or die makeup products that I could never live without!
Seen above are products I would recommend to anyone in a heartbeat- I love them THAT much. What I also like is the fact that there is a balanced mix between drug store and high end products; something I live by is the fact that high end makeup isn't the only 'good' makeup in the market, drug store brands have really stepped up their game in the past few years and have amazing products with wide ranges of skin tones-something some high end cosmetics brands don't always take into consideration!
The products listed in order from left to right are: HOPE Cosmetics Cushion Foundation, Pixi Under Eye Correcter, MAC Desert Rose blush, Milani Cosmetics Baked Blush in Rose D'oro, MAC Mehr Matte Lipstick, Anastasia Beverly Hills Dipbrow Pomade in Soft Brown, Maybelline Fit Me Matte and Poreless Foundation in 120, Rimmel Lasting Perfection Primer, Modern Renaissance Eyeshadow palette by Anastasia Beverly Hills, The Contour Book by Kevyn Aucoin, and the Sleek Cosmetics Solstice Highlighting palette. To apply the makeup I mainly used Real Techniques brushes as well as my beauty blender.
BEFORE:
Starting out with a fresh, blank canvas I really wanted to focus on the skin and eyes for this look. Since Bella has gorgeous blue eyes I knew I wanted to use the most contrasting color to blue (orange) in order to make her eyes pop, along with luminous glowing skin. To achieve both of these I used my favorite eyes shadow palette in the WORLD, the Modern Renaissance palette. All the shades are so wearable and gorgeous, not to mention the amazing pigmentation and smooth formula of all the shades. On the other hand, the Sleek cosmetics Solstice palette is a dream to blend on the face and is so highly pigmented- it's so surprising to me that this is a drug store brand!
For her eye look I used about 5 shades from the MR palette: first I used Burnt Orange as a gorgeous transition shade in the crease, then I added Antique Bronze all over the lid. After that I deepened the crease using the beautiful tropical orange shade Realgar. To create more depth in the eye look I then added Cyprus Umber in the outer V of the eye and smoked it out. This creates a transition or gradient of colors going from dark to light and also makes the eyes appear more cat like. After that I added a shimmery gold shade called Primavera into the inner 1/3 of the eye to make them pop more.
For her face the star product I used was the Solstice highlighting palette that includes 4 shades- 1 cream and 3 powders. The shades I used to highlight Bella's skin were a mix of the purple pearlescent shade as well as the peach one which blended beautifully on her skin. Since she is fair these shades worked well on her skin tone, but for medium-deeper skin tones I'd recommend using the peach shade as well as the yellow toned gold.
For the rest of her face makeup I used Kevyn Aucoin's 'The Contour Book' which has a gorgeous grey toned taupe shade that is perfect for chiseling the face on fair toned individuals. The kit also has beautiful highlighting shades for the face and eyes as well as brow powders, but I prefer using the ABH dipbrow pomade in Soft Brown because it enables the user to easily create natural looking brows. For blush I topped over the contour using Milani's Rode D'oro and MAC's Desert Rose. And lastly, for the lips I used Colourpop cosmetic's Ultra Satin Lip Cream in Magic Wand.
AFTER:
I hope you all liked the first installment of this series- I hope to create more looks soon!
Links:
Eye shadow: http://www.sephora.com/modern-renaissance-eye-shadow-palette-P409118
Lipstick: https://colourpop.com/products/magic-wand
Contour: https://www.kevynaucoin.com/product/the-contour-book--the-art-of-sculpting-and-defining?product_id=80020
Highlight: http://www.sleekmakeup.com/eu/solstice-highlighting-palette
Foundation: https://www.maybelline.ca/en-ca/face-makeup/foundation/fit-me-matte-poreless-foundation
Blush: https://www.maccosmetics.ca/product/13842/329/products/makeup/face/blush/powder-blush#/shade/Melba
Blush: http://milanicosmetics.com/Baked-Blush.html
Brows: http://www.sephora.com/dipbrow-pomade-P384060?skuId=1621044