So sorry to say guys, I'm off blogging until around the end of June. I have exams I need to revise for, therefore I can't blog. You may see one or two odd posts from me but not regularly.
Love you all, Lauren x
Thursday 14 April 2016
Thursday 7 April 2016
My go to party look: Makeup and Hair tutorial
Today I have a picture tutorial, it's been really long since I did one of these but this is my go to party look, I do this look when I don't have time before a special occasion and I need to think of something super fast!
It's a purpally, red, gold smokey eye lol with my normal foundation routine. You can definitely mix and match with the colours and recreate this look but to hit the nail exactly I used the Lorac Pro palette and MUA Academy undress me too palette.
Lets get started!
1. Prime time
So for me, the first step is priming. You can use any primer you want. I have oily skin and after a while my foundation starts to look reaaaaaally shiny so, I use milk of magnesia which is God's gift to people with oily skin. It really helps to control oil. I let that really seap into my skin. In the bottom right picture I looked like I just slapped myself but lets continue guys :).
2. Eyebrows
Okay, so I start by using a spooley to brush my eyebrows and to make sure that all the hairs go in the same direction. I'm using the dual ended spooley and angle brush from Primark. To fill in my brows I'm using the second to darkest shade from a makeup revolution eye shadow palette but you can use whatever you want. Secret: I filled in with eye liner before - gel.
3. Conceal and don't let them feel
Next up, use your concealer and angle brush (different to what you used to fill in the brows) I'm using LA Girl Pro conceal in the shade Dark Cocoa GC88. I like this colour, it's close to my skin tone and it gives a subtle highlight. I find the LA Girl applicator to be really heavy so I squeeze a little on my hand and use the angle brush. I line the underneath of my eyebrows and then blend the colour into my skin with the angle brush. I line the top too but that's totally optional.
4. Leftover concealer
Use the leftover concealer as a base for your eye shadow by patting it onto your eyelids. If you don't like to get messy you can use brushes but I've always loved finger application!
5. Proper eye shadow base.
I'm using the Lorac behind the scenes eye shadow primer but you can use anything that's an eye shadow primer and just pat it into everywhere there will be eye shadow. Use a wet wipe to wipe of anywhere there shouldn't be eye shadow because it sticks easily to the primer.
6. The actual eyeshadow!
So first I'm going in with the colour taupe for my brow bone highlight. I just sweep this under the highest point of my brow which adds extra highlight. The I'm going to add my transition colour. This colour is a colour close to your skin tone which makes the blending a lot easier. My transition colour will be a lot different to yours, it depends on your undertone. I have some reds and oranges in my undertone so I use a little red with a brown. For my transition colour I'm using Garnet and Sable from the Lorac pro palette (Love this combo). As you can see - Garnet is my most used colour lol. I sweep that above my eyelid but not on it. The brush I'm using is a dual ended brush from the naked 3 palette from Urban Decay.
For the next part we are starting to add depth and dimension so for details we're using my dual ended brush from primark or just a pencil brush. I forgot to show which colour in the palette but for this we're using deep purple. Any dark purple will do. It's shiny by the way not matte. We're gonna make a few dots with it in the outer corner and the sweep into the crease creating a V shape. You end up with really harsh purple lines. Make sure you do it lower than the transition colour so you get a gradient but high enough so you still see the primer on the eyelid.
Next, I'm going back with naked 3 brush and using "deep purple" to blend out the colours so we don't have sharp lines. Then, get a shimmery Gold ready. My Gold is from the MUA undress me too palette which is like super super pigmented.
Here's the fun part. Put your favourite gold all over your eyelid try not to get rid of the purple though. The best way to apply this is by wetting your brush. It makes the eye shadow stick instead of it flaking down onto your face.
Next, take something with a straight edge. I'm using my primer. Use your pencil brush to create another outer V using deep purple and black. and blend it inwards to about one third of the lid.
This is the extra fun part! Grab any gold glitter to intensify the look. I'm using a glitter eyeliner from an unknown brand called Rapsody, but you can buy these anywhere. Put this all over where the gold on the lid is. Then use your blending brush with no product on to blend it out.
Optional: Line the eyes. My eyeliner was so odd it hurt but you know, never mind.
7. Concealer
Most people do this after their foundation but I find doing it before saves a lot of foundation. If you think about it, when you put foundation on your T zone, it's going to be covered by your concealer highlight so why not just put foundation on the parts not covered? I'm using my two La Girl Pro concealers in GC87 - Beautiful Bronze and GC86 - Chesnut. I highlight my T zone, which includes a little of my forehead, under eyes, bridge of nose, cupids bow area and chin. I use a foundation brush to pat down the concealer and spread it out. I find that going in straight away with a beauty blender really makes everything disappear. Eventually I do use a beauty blender to blend everything in. I use the B. Beauty blender.
8. Foundation
For my foundation I'm using two. Mac matchmaster foundation in NW50 and Makeup Forever foundation in the shade 185. Most of the areas I pump the makeup forever as that's closest to my skin tone. As it's a little darker, I put one pump of the mac one on each side to even out the colour. Don't be fooled guys, I had some really strong lighting going on which was making me look lighter lol. I use a beauty blender to blend that in and also blend into my neck. We defo want to avoid concealer creasing, smile lines, gravy lines and flashback so lets blend well lol.
9. Bake!
I love this part of makeup, I think its so magical lol. Anyway I use the Ben nye translucent powder in Chesnut and normal baby powder. Strange right? I mentioned the two in my last haul so please check that out. When I mix the two I get a great highlight colour. I use a makeup wedge/sponge and just apply it to wherever I put concealer and the term bake implies we leave it for a while. This stuff is incredibly strong, so I don't leave it for long but, I'm going to go and do my contour then return.
10. Contour
For my contour I'm using the La Girl pro concealer in the shade GC89 - Mahogany (the darkest colour). Not much different from my skintone but I will later go over it. I contour the hollows of the cheeks, hair line and nose and sometimes cupids bow. The bottom two pictures are just me wiping of the powder.
I've wiped the powder off now I'm using my beauty blender to blend the rest of the contour. For my nose the beauty blender is too big so I used the brush that came with the smash box double exposure palette to blend my nose contour.
As mahogany doesn't do much for my skin, I use the fashion fair finishing powder in earth as more contour, in the same places.
11. Blush
For blush I'm using this totally unknown blush with two colours. I'm using the darker red because the pink is a no go for people with my skin tone. I'm putting this just above my contour.
12. Mascara
I don't do this straight away because I like the eyes to chill a bit before I do any more so I do everything else and then come back to it. I'm using the 3D Fibre last duo from younique. It's a multiple step process to get your lashes looking how their adverts look lol. In case you have this, firstly apply their transplanting gel as a normal mascara then add the moodstruck fibres and repeat this step until you get the desired lash length and style. If you have the time to really get your lash style, perfect natural looking alternative to falsies, if not then falsies are good too. I just couldn't find mine lol.
12. Makeup finally done, onto hair!
Firstly I brush out the hair to get rid of knots. and then tie it into a little bun. My hair was relaxed a week ago so this is much easier to do.
Use any gel, I'm using eco-styler which is £1.99 from most Afro-Caribbean hair shops. I'm putting it on the edges around my hairline and just letting it sit there. Then, I'm going to brush my hair back which slicks the edges down with the gel. Then I brush out my hair piece and attach it on :).
Our Finished look:
Wow! That was long. I hope you guys enjoyed this and comment on any tips I could use in my makeup. If you like these tips of posts please comment if you could like to see more!
Song of the day: Fuse ODG ft Joey B and Wretch 32 - Tingo
Lauren x
Wednesday 6 April 2016
The people series: Fake friends
Now, before we get this post alive and kickin I have a disclaimer as usual: If you're reading and you know me and you feel "uh she's talking about me", I mentioned no names but if you feel it's you there's obviously changes you need to make or just pop right out of my life lol.
This is the second blogpost in the "People series" and I'm loving this series. I've been doing a lot of hauls lately which is getting boring and this is kinda fun, it's like having a conversation with you guys.
So today! We're going to be talking about fake friends. Yaaaas girl, you need to dedicate that time of the day just to read Lauren's posts because these posts getting juicier, shadier and indirect. lol. Kidding, I have had a few in my lifetime though. I'm going to cover how to spot them and how to deal with them.
Signs of a fake ass friend!
1. You only exist when they need something.
That's not how friendship works boo. Anything your friend can help you with is a bonus that comes with your friendship. You need to be checking on all your friends finding out how they are all the time but I certainly have this and most people certainly have this rule - if you don't text me I won't text you. That's very important and it's one way to cut people off very quickly. Texts are so powerful and an unread one or a read and ignored one can cause hell fire between people. In my last post I said I was friends with some girls back in year 8 and I didn't really fit in, however I was the first one in the group to get an iPhone in the 5 series and suddenly everybody wanted to use my phone for selfies!
Lol, stupidly and young at the time that was the time everyone wanted to be friends with me and use it to take pictures because of the quality. I gave in and I was like yay they finally like me! What happened: flashing it about way too much got it stolen and the high went down and they went back to treating me like crap.
2. They are not over the moon about your success.
This may be hard or easy to see depending on the type of person. I'm not trying to be cocky however there's things I love about myself and those are particularly what God has given me. God gave me a talent in drawing and it's very easy to see when someone doesn't like the fact that I can draw. They shrug achievements off or don't congratulate you at all. That's the type of people you don't need to be around.
3. Negative ass attitude
Good friends try and make you happy, they only really stop when something in their life is truly eating them up. They're not going to tell you to go away if they have a headache or they've had a breakup because they know that's silly. If they have the Go away leave me alone attitude that's a bad bad friend.
3. Shady ass behaviour
This is something I've experienced quite a lot and it's very very annoying. You tell someone something and expect them to keep it and they just blurt it out in front of four of your other friends "without thinking". It took thinking to form what you were going to say so, that's shady.
4. You.
If you have to be fake around them, change who you are around them. That's a big no no! I've done this before. It leads to telling little white lies and then trying to keep up the lies till it spills out! If you have to change yourself around them this means that you're afraid to show them the real you. Which isn't okay.
5. Lies
This is hard to suss out if you don't really know their life story. Some lies may be prominent though. Some tell lies to make themselves look better. I've been in an instance where all of us were talking about our relationships and I discussed a present bought for me by bae and another girl was like "oh how, crap I got this Michael Kors bag and this £200 cheque". That was when I was like hold on. Your boyfriend is 16, you were crying to me the other day about him being thrown out of his house and now he can afford MK? Girl, I'll stick to the teddy bear I got for Vals day.
6. They never have your back
This is a classic! So you fall in conflict with someone and all of a sudden this friend disappears or they just totally keep quiet and not say anything or help your situation. This is because they usually have a negative connection with the person coming at you and them having your back would make them look silly. So, there you have it.
7. CRITICAL OF EVERYTHING YOU DO!
This is a huge one that's easy to spot. I've done pieces of artwork and instead of constructive Criticism "oh you could do this to make it better..." I get, "what's this?" "Why is her face like that" "she looks like this/that". The funniest thing is that they couldn't even do better, that's why the Criticism isn't constructive. It's only now that my makeup game is beginning to be on point, before I was the only one in my squad who didn't do their eyebrows, didn't do their nails and just went out with foundation and mascara on. With that little bit that I used to do sometimes I would get "your so cakey" meanwhile, there's a hundred other products slapped on their face.
8. Friends with no ambitions
This is not really a sign of a fake friend but it can be. If someone has no ambition that's cool for them. When that attitude starts rubbing off on you and you have ambitions that's a problem. A fake friend with no ambition is the worst. They're gonna steer you in the wrong directions, mess you up in School and just disturb you and often you miss your road to where you need to go to become successful and have to start up all over again when you realise it was them that was fake but by then it's too late!
9. They only talk about other people
If your only points of discussion are what's going on in somebody's life then that's a big problem. If they can talk about other people that much to you, they can do the same about you to other people. It just proves that's what they like to talk about (people's business) and no matter who's business it is (yours or theirs) they'll talk. It's just if its yours they'll find someone else to talk it to.
10. Listen to my problems, I'll listen to yours later.
This is a really hurtful one. I find that if I don't tell my best friend something it eats me up. She's a source of relief, if I let her know she comforts me and it's all a bit better. This has to happen both ways otherwise one person feels a weight lifted of their shoulder and the other person feels burdened with their problems and yours which you've not told them. As your bottling it all you'll soon explode.
Three ways to deal with these fake people!
1. The "lets sort it out approach"
There's a high chance that when you eventually leave they'll be like "oh my God, I didn't know you felt like that?". So, that line doesn't even roll off their tongue you tell them straight - "this is what you been doing and I don't like it, fix up or get cut loose".
2. Eventually give up
This is the approach I took, it's a quiet one. I stopped hanging with people, cracking jokes and talking about my personal life. If they notice a change then they may think, if not sad to say they never knew you existed in the first place.
3. Have your say before you go
They're fake, they haven't been listening to your problems, congratulating your achievements, been there for you. I'd have a lot to say to you before I leave yo ass! This is linked to number 2. Some people will still have all the wrong the fake friend did them bottled up inside and that'll affect how they treat the next friend they find. So in order to have a fresh start with anybody else, tell that fake friend what they did and leave! It'll leave them either feeling guilty or it'll leave them feeling angry. Whichever way, just leave their ass before they mess up everything for you.
Okay guys, that's it for this post and I hope you guys enjoyed it! That's my second post in the people series. If you haven't seen the first one you can catch it here:
Those are the only posts I can come up with about friendships, the next posts will be about anxiety, self confidence, boys, relationships and growing up. So keep reading for that.
Lauren X
Tuesday 5 April 2016
The people series: My main
Strange, I start a series and never finish it but I'm actually feeling this one guys. I've named this one the people series because this is an art based blog and I feel like if your not an artist or lately not interested in beauty you can't relate. So I came up with this series which is about things that happen in my life, which you might be able to relate to! I named this post after the song "My Main" by Mila J and Ty Dolla Sign. If you've heard the song you know I'm going to be talking about friends and who's my main.
So, I got a main and she's beautiful. I'm gonna talk about her real soon but let's just go through my friendship experience. Grab yourself a cuppa tea booboo, this might be a long one.
Disclaimer; A lot of you reading know me personally so I've not put any names of those who might be offended.
If you're lucky enough to have friends from primary school you still talk to we thank God, but I don't. Everyone I went to Primary school with is just non existent but I guess I say hi and goodbye to a few now and then. I had my fair share of friendship groups in secondary school. In year 7 I had a group of friends, mentioning no names. It's only now that I realised they were so boring! I couldn't still be friends with them now. Is that mean? I really don't know but we are so different in character, it just could not happen now. My friendship group changed in year 8 to a smaller circle and we were just 4 girls. We formed a name for our group and everything. It wasn't long till I realised that I don't fit in - I'm not obsessed with youtubers, I don't like heavy metal and what the hell is Kpop?
Moving away swiftly I joined another group, now this was the group that really made me feel like a salad in McDonald's. I was the only black girl in the group, there was one Asian but she's not black? I felt that they didn't go out of their way to make me feel uncomfortable but I just did? They also dropped little sleezy comments about my skin tone sometimes which was really unfair. Soon enough they started planning days out without me and all sorts. That was when I gave up on "friends" and just wanted to be on my own.
However I didn't know that one of the girls in that group was actually Fed up with their BS just like me. So when me and her got talking we slowly branched away from that group and just talked by ourselves most times.
The next post is entitled "How to spot fake friends EARLY". So watch out for that lol. I didn't find them early enough!
Now, at the beginning of year 10. I started hanging with who that girl was hanging with, then I was hanging with who that girl was hanging with. We became a clique of 5 which was great. Now as it's the big year we're all revising and nobody sees each other so it's broken us up a bit but this post is dedicated to a special someone.
Through meeting her I've found out that good things come to those who wait lol. I've also found out that one is plenty. She's got so many different personalities, it's like loads of people in one, does that make sense? Lol. She's been my friend for 2 years now and We're not like the Instagram models that have been friends for 10 but I know we soon will be because she's that amazing. We think alike, we finish each others sandwiches and we're both there for each other. What more could I want lol!? She's there in every single Relationship fail, she's there at every 2 am I can't sleep situation and she's there when I just need to cry. She's become family to be honest. She knows more about me than my mum does which is downright creepy but quite funny at the same time. Now, you may not have found someone like this. You might want someone like this. I had to make two main changes.
1. Change your attitude to the way you see people.
2. Be approachable
Stop noticing their flaws straight away, because there's much more to a person than how they look. She's absolutely stunning in my opinion but this is something to think about. Opposites attract so if she's slightly less made up and simple you might bond over sharing tips and beauty products and so on. I know that me and Micha are constantly shopping for cosmetics and that's one of the things that makes us super fun.
In any type of relationship this is key. Sometimes smile, not everyday look like a mean Instagram baddie. It's very easy for people to make assumptions based on what they've heard you say or seen you do even one time. She's already told me that she was scared of me and I have no idea why!
Anyway guys, thank you for reading. The next post will be on "How to spot fake friends". Lol more tea for you to be sippppingggg. I'll post that tomorrow so keep an eye out.
Monday 4 April 2016
2016 Birthday Haul - BEAUTY
Hey guys! I'm going through that stage in my life where I think I should just quit life and become a professional MUA lol anyway... Let's jump right in with this haul! 24th March was my Birthday and I'd like to say a big thank you to all my friends and family who gave beauitiful cards, great gifts and nice wishes. I successfully collected £400. As always my mum took £50 to store away for a rainy day and we can minus another £50 on odd misuse and street hunger lol.
This post will be on the beauty products bought in the haul. I'd just like to say that I carry great pride in this haul as I bought a few high end products which was really cool. Lets get started.
1. Makeup Forever HD Foundation - £16 (Half price sale) @ Shepherd's bush
That's right guys, it's the makeup forever you see in every big youtuber's video! I was so excited to get this because I had heard great things about it from youtube. I couldn't resist this sale. It's a shade darker than me but as I was unsure of the colour scheme of the brand I went with 185, but 180 would of been better. When I wear this foundation together with my MAC Matchmaster foundation in NW50 it looks great, I wore the combo today and it just slayed really. Aside all vanity - I turned heads, got stared at and got approached. Girl. That combo is the bomb! It's light, so pigmented and rich in colour and it allows your face to breathe. It's not heavy or sticky at all and it just slays. New favourite.
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| Makeup forever foundation (185) and MAC Matchmaster foundation (NW50) |
I will list all the products I used on my face soon!
2. Ben Nye Chestnut Translucent Powder £6.10 @ Shepherd's Bush
This is the second high end product I bought and it only cost me £6.10, awesome right? I made a mistake and I got Ben Nye's translucent powder instead of their luxury powder. I think they still do the same job though. I got it in Chestnut which is very close to my skin tone, so when I buy my next one I'll buy it in topaz to make sure I get a stronger highlight. However this one does really do a good job. The only problem is I have a very warm skin tone, with undertones such as orange and red therefore this powder makes me look even warmer. That's why Topaz (a yellow based powder) would have evened out the tone for me. I found a solution to this problem, did you guys know that the exact same products in beauty powders are also in baby powder? Exactly - Mind blown. I one day set my concealer with baby powder alone and it came out ashier than ash leaves on an ashy day. I think this is because baby powder is way lighter than my skin tone however if you're white I defo say you should try it because it did set, it's just that it wasn't my colour. So, I mixed the two and I created the perfect powder and it set very nicely which made me very happy! Baby powder for setting can last you two years and only costed a £1.
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| Face set with Ben Nye. |
3. Various Brushes - £1.50 each @ Primark
Each of these brushes costed me £1.50 and from Left to right there is a Blusher brush, A double ended eye shadow brush with a pencil brush and a normal eye shadow brush and finally an angled brow brush with a spooley. Honestly, people have this feel about cosmetics - If it's not high end then it's not good. Total and utter rubbish, These brushes are super soft and there is no fall out at all. This is the brush I've been using for my brows lately so it's worth taking a trip to your local primark!
That's all for the beauty part guys, I hope to be coming to you soon with the clothing part of this haul so keep watching, if you would like to see my posts when they first come out, please join the blogging community created by me, also filled with loads of other blog posts from great bloggers like me!
Thanks for reading, Lauren x
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