Contouring with Avon

It seems contouring is the new MASSIVE thing at the moment. Everyone's raving about Kim Kardashian's perfectly sculpted make-up look or different contour sets that are available for you to achieve the perfect contour yourself. I had to jump on the bandwagon and give this definition-cheat look a try! (Just as a note aside, I do have hamster cheeks and so there is literally no natural contour to my face!)

I chose to attempt this look with some products that I already had available at home and loved rather than go out and buy a new contour palette when I was yet to even practice this look. So to do this I used my face pearls from Avon, an angled contour brush and a chunky blush brush.

To start off (after applying foundation and setting powder as per usual) I used the angled brush to apply the darker bronze pearls to the hollows of my cheeks sticking to the natural line just under my cheekbones to create shadow. I found this easier to do by pulling a fish pout pose and following the line down almost to your mouth from your ear.

Make sure the lines are even on both sides. I found my biggest trouble was getting the lines at the same place on each side! Once you've got this stage perfect, I then applied the highlighting pearls with the chunky blusher brush. I applied these roughly to the brush and then just applied along the cheekbone and the apple of my cheeks. I found it easier to smile to find where needed to be highlighted and follow the line from the apple of your cheeks along the cheekbone just above where you had applied the shadow, blending slightly together but not too much.

Then TA-DAH! Easy as that and it's done. I think this looks nice as it is but a soft pink blush added to the apple of your cheeks would give it a nice, warm rosy look as well, if you wanted to try something a bit different.

So what do you think? I do like the idea of contour palettes but I definitely don't think they are an absolute necessity if you have some good products that you could use to create the same look already. What do you use to contour?

Avon face pearls are available here currently for £5 (down from £10) for the bronze pearls and here for £9 for the highlighting pearls.

Subtle make-up looks - Wedding day!

So, with the wedding rapidly approaching (in case you missed it, it's my brother's not mine!) my mum and my aunt have asked me to do them some subtle but pretty make- up for the big day. As they are complete newcomers to make-up I was a bit nervous about using different products and styles on them on the morning of the wedding without trying them on them beforehand, so have started experimenting with some basic make-up looks on them. Understandably they didn't want anything to heavy for the day, partly because I think it would be a massive shock to the family as it is if they are seen with make-up on! So I tried to really tone it down.

Last night I tried out some looks on my aunt for the first time, it was actually a really fun evening! She has quite dark eyelids and under-eyes naturally and so she just wanted to lighten them and even out the colour as well as give a nice even glow to her face in general, so these are the products I used:

Firstly I applied the Garnier Caffeine Roll-on to her under-eye area. I love this product because it works immediately as well as long term; it has a subtle nude pigment (you do have to pat it in slightly with your ring finger) which instantly conceals any dark circles whilst the caffeine in it works to fight their appearance long term. Here's a swatch so you can see what I mean by the pigment, bear in mind this is just rolled on, I haven't blotted it in to the skin in the picture:

It is quite thin so really easy to pat in to the skin and doesn't leave it looking cakey under your eyes.

I then applied a CC cream to her entire face. I chose a CC cream over a foundation as they are much lighter and so would look softer on her face. The one I used is from Beauty UK and is in shade 20 Fawn. It gives a lovely even cover to the face and is the perfect texture to blend in to those tricky areas around the nose and eyes.

I then set this with Rimmel Clear Complexion Powder in Translucent as mentioned in my earlier blog post here. I applied this incredibly lightly with a chunky powder brush and it suited her face a lot better than it suited mine! Then a quick brush of Avon Illuminating Face Pearls to brighten her face and add a little colour.

I love these pearls, they give a gorgeous shimmer and highlight perfectly without being heavy in any way.

And then it was just her eyes to do!

I applied some Benefit Stay Don't Stray in shade light/medium just over the eyelid up to the brow to hold all the eye products in place and then applied a light pink illuminator (I think I got this in a set from The Body Shop YEARS ago!) to highlight her brows to make her eyes look more open. Then Mac Eyeshadow in shade Gleam to the lid just to add a bit of colour and shimmer. This eyeshadow is perfect because it doesn't settle in the creases of your eyelid like some others do and so looks even all day long. Here is a swatch of the 2 colours together:

As you can see, they are very gentle colours but great for highlighting. I then finished the whole look off with a couple of lashings of one of my favourite mascaras - Maybelline The Colossal Volum' Express Smokey Eyes Mascara.

Overall I was incredibly happy with the look, and more importantly my aunt loved it too! It was a nice toned down 'barely there' look that just looked great on her.

Do you have any suggestions of looks/ products to try out? Recommendations and comments are always welcome!