Day of the Dead

Here is an example of a Day of the Dead skull in case anyone has no idea what I am talking about. Stay posted for the tutorial. The image was pulled from google images

Happy Halloween Y'all!

I absolutely love Halloween! Probably my favourite time of the year next to Christmas of course. Halloween is the perfect oppurtunity to experiment with crazy make up and hair styles with the perfect excuse. I usually have at least two costumes every year. This year I am Bubbles from Cartoon Network's original television show The Powerpuff Girls and my other costume is a zombie nurse. I spent my halloween weekend in St. Catharines, Ontario in student housing for Brock University. I love seeing people dress up so I went to all of the parties to check out some of the creative costume choices of 2012! I must say, I was very disappointed to see the amount of people dressed up as "Gangnam Style". Come on people, put a little more thought into your costume! A new hit song just came out where the guy wheres a distinctive outfit so of course there will be people trying to mimic this. Zombie is also a very popular costume choice but what I like about zombie costumes is that everyone adds their own personal flare to their zombieness. Most people choose to take on a personna such as a cheerleader and that makes it more interesting because not every zombie you see will be exactly the same but then you get to match so many people. Everyone also has their own ideas of what a zombie should look like so it makes for some pretty creative costumes with the right people. I don't pay much attention to any of the generic sexy costumes either, you won't get noticed if you and 10 other girls are a slutty cop. Ok, I know Mean Girls taught us that Halloween is the one time of the year that girls have an excuse to dress slutty but that doesn't mean you have to be so boring about it. You can take a sexy spin on any costume. I don't think you need to go out and buy a "leg avenue" costume to have it look super cute on you. Most girl costumes are super cute anyways. Think of your favourite super hero, I bet she already has a hot costume. If you want to look sexier just shorten the hemline a bit and throw on a pair of heels, you don't have to be a mouse. Seriously though guys, my zombie nurse was originally titled "nurse feelgood" and I just ripped it up and threw some fake blood all over and it is still sexy and still scary and still creative. I added blood stained thigh high stockings and a biohazard mask. I absolutely love when people dress up as characters from movies, tv shows or books. This shows what they are interested in and gives you an idea of their personality. It is also an awesome conversation starter. So many people started conversations with me based on the fact that I am Bubbles and that they loved The Powerpuff Girls when they were children. This was awesome for me because I didn't know anyone at any of these parties since I was from out of town and it gave me the chance to meet a lot of people at one of the schools that I am applying to for next fall. I also believe that if you are going to get a costume you should go all out. I hate when people just buy masks. I know costumes are kind of a rip off in the sense that they don't come with everything you need but at least it usually comes with the most important parts of the costume. It is so easy to pull together any other random parts you may need. I already owned the stockings that Bubbles required. If you are short on cash then just sort through your wardrobe and I bet you fill find something to use. I didn't buy a single new thing for my zombie costume, I just wrecked an old costumes. Another option for a costume was being Marceline from Cartoon Networks televisions show Adventuretime and the only reason was because I pretty much have everything she would wear in my wardrobe already so all I would need is to make her axe and spray my hair black and maybe pick up some inexpensive vampire fangs. I don't mind spending money on all of this though and I saw Bubbles costume and just died at how cute it was so I had to buy it. I already resemble her enough to with my blonde hair and blue eyes. Another thing inexpensive would be a day of the dead skeleton. Halloween in Mexico is the day of the dead. Sometimes people call them sugar skulls. All this requires is white and black make up and some colours and just black clothes. I will be uploading a tutorial of how to do a day of the dead skeleton with my next post later today. Until then, Stay scary, super, sexy or whatever you want to be this Halloween!

Quick Tip: Correct Your Lips

Quick tip: when applying lipstick, lipliner goes a long way. I find a lot of girls our age don't use lip liner because they think it's for old ladies or something but that is not true at all if you want sexy lips! Lining your lips just makes it pop. A lip liner must match the colour of lipstick you are using. Another great thing about lip liner is that you can correct your lips with it! If you want your lips to look more full simply trace the liner just on the outside of your natural lip line and then fill in your lips with lipstick. If you think your lips are too big then do the opposite and trace on the inside of your natural lip line and fill in the lines with lipstick. Otherwise, you will want to trace along your natural lip line. You can also draw in the ever so desirable peak with lip liner and make it seem as though you have one if you don't have a very prominent peak. I like to put on lipstick with some gloss too so that my lips hold a deep colour while also looking shiny and luscious. A new trend in lips this fall are sparkly lips, I know this sounds kind of outrageous but I actually love them and I hope to try it soon as I buy the appropriate tools. I'll keep you posted! until then stay beautiful and enjoy! :) 

Highlighting and Contouring

Highliting and contouring is a part of corrective make up. Highliting is what it sounds like: a bright colour. Bright colours help to emphasize certain features. Contouring is using darker colours. Darker colours help to tone down certain features. When doing corrective facial make up the first step is figuring out what shape your face is. Just pull back your hair and take a look in the mirror and try and compare your face to one of the faces in the picture. The ideal face shape is oval. When applying corrective make up to any other face shape you have to highlight and contour to make your face look more oval. If you have an oval face this information is useless to you because you don't have to do anything. I have mostly an oval face but my forehead is kind of square so I correct my forehead when I do corrective make up. Firstly you want to use cover up to cover any marks or blemishes on your face. You have to think back to the colour wheel from art class for this. When dealing with red marks or blemishes you have to use a green coloured cover up because they are opposite to each other. If you are trying to cover any purple marks you will need to use a yellow cover up. Apply a small amount to the marks and rub it in with your finger because the natural oils in your hand really help the cover up do it's job. Next you will need to choose two colours of foundation. One must match your skin tone and the other must be one shade darker. When choosing a foundation, test on your jawline and whatever colour fully disappears into your skin is the one you will need plus a colour that is one shade darker than that one. Next you need to picture an oval over your face shape. Ask yourself what is missing and what is too much. Any part of the face that is too big to fit inside the oval will be contoured. To contour you will use a small amount of the darker foundation on the spots where you  need it for your particular face shape. Then you will go over with your foundation as per usual. This will cover up the dark son you don't look silly but you will still be able to see the shading effect of it which will make your face seem much more oval in the end. After I apply foundation I usually apply a powder but this is not something you have to do. Powder is just nice because it gives more of an air brushed look and it helps to hold the foundation on your face and hold any other make up you may put on top on your face as well. It also helps to dry your foundation. Translucent powders are always best to go with because then you avoid being orange. If you want a colour to your powder make sure it matches the colour of your foundation. Next you will use blush to highlight. Keep in mind if you are going to wear any kind of lipstick or lipgloss that you want your blush to match your lip colour. It doesn't need to be a perfect match just keep light colours with light colours and dark colours with dark colours. Any part of your face that seems to be to small to fit in the oval needs to be highlighted. I'm including a picture example because this is kind of hard to get a feel for without it. The x represents contouring and the slashes represent highlighting. I hope to upload a video of the application of full corrective make up by next week. This picture is above as I could not get it to move. Eccentuating your cheekbones also looks great. Just use a rouge blush and brownish blush. Apply the rouge blush from the middle of your eye and about halfway down your nose all the way back to your ears and then undearneath you can do the exact same thing with the brownish blush and that will contour and sculpt your cheekbones making them really pop out. If you have any other features on your face that you think are too big or too small then this can also be applied to that. For example if you think you have a big nose then you could put a darker colour of foundation on your nose before you applied your actually foundation. It's really simple and easy and can be used every day to look even more fantastic than you already do.

Enjoy! :)

Skittles

Another example of how you could do gradient nails. I took this photo from google because I thought it was cool how this person chose to use vertical lines instead of horizontal. I have never seen this done and they are obviously very talented because it looks so clean and perfect. They call it "skittles"

If anyone has any suggestions or anything they would like to see done just let me know! I will try my best to do everything :)

Gradient Nails

Gradient Nails are very popular right now and also very easy to do. I'm always being asked how to do them so this is how. You will need at least 2 different colours of nail polish, nude or white nail polish and a make up sponge. First you should buff and shape your nails and then apply a base coat.

Step one: Paint your nails nude or white. Just like painting your walls, you need to prime your nails for this particular nail art. The nail polish just doesn't really show up that well on a plain nail when you press it on, you would have to do a million coats. I chose white because I don't own any nude nail polish but either one will work perfectly fine. It just needs one coat and doesn't need to be perfect because you are going over it with colour anyways. Let this completely dry before you move on to step two.

Step two: choose 2 or more colours of nail polish. I decided to go with 2 colours because my nails are rather short so it makes it easier.

Step three: Cut the make up sponge to the size of your nail. This makes it easier because you can tell exactly where the colour will go on your nail and you can decide on how much of each colour you want on your nail.

step four: Apply a generous amount of polish to the make up sponge. It is good to overlap the colours in the middle to give a blended effect. You do not have to make it half and half either you can put as much as whatever colour you want. A lot of people make it mostly one colour and then put a second colour on the tops but I personally prefer half and half. Once you have done this you will want to take the make up sponge and press it on like a stamp and then roll it over your nails. If the polish is thin you may need to let it dry a little bit and and then do a second coat.

Once you are done all of these steps it will probably look very messy and you probably have polish on your skin but don't worry because that is very hard to avoid. 

There is a very simple solution to this problem. Take either your orangewood stick or the back of your cuticle pusher and peel a bit of a cotton swab apart and then wrap it around the cuticle pusher/orangewood stick and then dunk it in nail polish remover. Simply go around your nails with the nail polish remover soaked cottonball and it will take all of the polish off. Putting it on the stick makes it a lot easier to get into small places.

Finally you will be done and you can finish it off with a top coat to for extra shine and to make it last longer. The top coat also does wonders for blending and bringing the colours together.

Enjoy!

Home Solutions for Expensive Products

Good afternoon readers! I'm currently sitting on my death bed with a nasty cold. So I figured today would be the perfect day to pamper myself. The problem is: I don't have the money to afford all of these expensive spa masks and moisturisers and there is no way I'm leaving this house to go try and buy some right now. Luckily, our kitchens are packed full of great spa products. Why would I even bother buying a mask when I can use stuff that my mother bought on grocery day? I am going to give myself a facial using only stuff that I find in my kitchen. Facials are wonderful for your skin. It helps clean your pores to avoid break outs and it makes you feel and look a lot younger. It helps you to avoid wrinkles later on in life. This is a treatment that should be done about once a month to keep healthy looking skin.
Step 1: First you will want to remove any make up you are wearing and tie your hair back and push any hair out of your face with a head band.
Step 2: The second step is cleansing your face.It is important that you open your pores with hot water or steam. I usually put a wash cloth in hot water and then lay with it on my face then I proceed. My favourite kitchen cleanser involves juicing a cucumber and  mixing it with oatmeal to ex-foliate. Since cucumber is mostly water it does an excellent job of cleansing your face and ph balance of a cucumber is neutral so it will not mess up your natural healthy ph skin balance which should be at 5.5. The oatmeal is gritty so it works as an ex-foliant to take off any dry skin on your face.
step 3: It's time for the mask! Masks are good for tightening your skin and giving it a healthier glow. You can make a mask out of pretty much anything. You will need to start with a base though. Usually flour is used for a base. You want to end up with thick substance that can harden to your face. Most people mash up different kinds of fruits and mix it in with the flour and water or flour and milk. Different kinds of fruits are good for you skin in different ways. It is easy to figure out. Most people just pick based on scent because any fruit would be good to use. I personally like to go out to my herb garden and mix in some lavender with my mask. Milk is better to use than water if you have dry skin because it works as a natural moisturiser. Think about what the fruit does for your body and it will do the same for your skin. For example, pomegranate is full of antioxidants which helps to fight ageing and therefore will help to fight ageing on your face as well. Sit with the mask on your face for about 10-15 minutes.
step 4: wash off the mask. Now it's time to tone your face! I usually use a tea bag or lemon juice or a combination of both for a toner. They are both acidic and help to reset your ph balance like any store bought toner would do.Simply rub the liquids all over your face for a clean refreshing feeling. It is best to leave in fridge or use cold water when activating the tea bag as toners are also meant to close your pores.
step 5: Finally we are going to moisturise. Mixing milk and honey with a little bit of flour makes a great moisturiser. You want this one to be a more of a runnier consistency than your mask.You will want to massage it into your skin and wash off afterwards
After you  have completed all of these steps your face should feel young, clean and refreshed! It's a really relaxing way to feel good and look good.