Festival Fun

I love festival makeup. You can be as creative or as natural as your heart desires. It really is a free-for-all and anything goes, so have fun with it!

This image has been going viral on social media this week. The stunning Brookelle McKenzie (@bybrookelle) absolutely stayed her festival creation, not to mention her Instagram feed of perfection.

So I thought I would try and re-create my own version of this look. 

I may have had to scrub this all off to go take the dog for a walk. I think the neighbours would have given me a few side eyes with this one. 

The Perfect Palette

Being a makeup artist can be a a good thing and a bad thing when getting ready. Although having all the good tips and tricks from my trade, sometimes, it can be a nightmare having TOO much makeup. I know, I know, first world problems, but every now and again I get myself into some kind of a rut with my makeup routine. 

To help me get out of this rut, I've decided to re-jig my everyday makeup palette.

Cosmetic brands make palettes to make it easier for the consumer to create a whole look with one purchase, however, they team their best sellers with their worst so you find yourself never using the full palette.

I use the MakeUp Forever Empty Magnetic Palette. Now I can build my own palette with all my favourite products and brands to suit me and my makeup taste. These are my go-to colours for anything from a natural day look to a dramatic evening style.

In my palette, I have three of my favourite Inglot blushers, two new Inglot contour powders, my favourite MAC contour powder, three highlighting eyeshadows and fifteen coloured eyeshadows.

From top left to right:

373 matte eyeshadow. Great for a matte highlight under the brow.

330 matte eyeshadow. I use this for an all over base when doing a natural eye

390 matte eyeshadow. This is fab for naturally contouring the socket of the eye.

337 matte eyeshadow. A great shadow for blending out other shades.

357 matte eyeshadow. A medium toned warm brown. Perfect for almost anything!

327 matte eyeshadow. A warm, chocolate brown. Goes with all skin tones.

363 matte eyeshadow. A cooler medium brown tone. Love using this tone when I don't have tan on.

326 matte eyeshadow. A dark, purple toned brown. A beautiful alternative for black.

393 sheen eyeshadow. My favourite shade when I want a strong highlight or for inside of eye.

361 matte eyeshadow. A light peach tone perfect for blending out a adding warmth to your look.

51 matte eyeshadow with glitter. Mixed with your neutrals, perfect for adding colour to a neutral eye.

335 matte eyeshadow. A burnt orange will warm up any warm toned brown.

450 sheen eyeshadow. The perfect cranberry. Used with others or alone, really brings out blue eyes.

74 matte shadow with glitter. Mixing this with orange tones gives you a stunning sunset toned eye.

325 matte eyeshadow. I call this Cadbury purple. My all time favourite purple, ever.

362 matte eyeshadow. A bubblegum pink, beautiful for blending out purples or to use on the cheek.

46 sheen eyeshadow. My all time favourite highlight. A pearlescent tone suitable for any skin tone.

63 matte shadow. The blackest black I have ever used. I use this for smoking out a look or wet as liner.

505 matte contour powder. Cool toned contour for when not wearing tan. New product.

502 matte contour powder. Warm toned contour for yellow toned skin.New product.

41 matte blush. I rarely use this on my cheeks. I love it as a red toned shade on my eyes.

29 matte blush. A bright, medium toned coral. Beautiful on most skin tones.

47 matte blush. A bright, peach toned coral. Suitable for light to tanned skin tones.

MAC Pro Definitive Contour Powder. Beautiful for light, pink toned skin. 

Hope you enjoyed

Love Jen 

xxx

The Good Additives

Last week, I gave you my list of 'Top Ten Favourite Makeup Brushes' for all your basic makeup needs. Here are my top ten additives to your brush collection, weather it be for personal or professional use. These brushes will help you achieve a beautiful, professional makeup look and add that extra touch to your makeup that will really make a big difference.

#1 Inglot 4SS, Eyeshadow Blender. €22

This brush is amazing to use with powder or liquid products. It is technically an eye brush, but other than an eyeshadow primer or a base colour, I feel it is too large for even the biggest of eyeshapes. A perfect tool to contour the face. As it is small, it can carve out the most awkward of faces easily. As wel as contouring, the brush is an ideal size to apply a highlight to the cheekbones, the nose and more. I personally love to use this brush to apply a lighter foundation/concealer around the eye area before or after finishing the eye makeup. 

#2 Sigma F05, Small Contour Brush. €13.16

This contour brush is small in size and a mix between a dome shape and a flat top brush. It's size, texture and shape makes it easy to control product allowing you to achieve a perfectly sculpted face.

Can also be used to apply powder, blusher, highlight or bronzer to a specific area in the face.

#3 Crown C404, Small Duo Fibre Face Brush. €9.27

This is another brush I like to use to apply foundation to a face, whether it be a clients or my own. I tend to only apply foundation to the outer areas of the face, and use concealer or contour creams on the center. The size of this brush is ideal for that as it allows you to control where you are placing the foundation with ease. This brush has a duplicate in Sigma, the F55, if you prefer. However I find the Sigma versions Taklon hair stains quite badly and doesn't clean as well as the Crown version.

(The brush on the bottom is the Crown C404 compared to the average sized stipple brush (the Inglot 27TG)).

#4 Sigma P82, Precision Round Brush. €13.16

My makeup is not complete without the use of this brush. I use it with powder or cream products to darken the other sides of the nose and under neath the bottom lip to contour with. Perfection. This brush can also be used as a concealer brush.

#5 Inglot 6SS, €20, and Sigma E40, €10.24

These two brushes I have listed as the same as I carry multiples of both for my kit and for personal use. The Inglot version, the slightest bit stiffer to the Sigma, both are perfect for getting a perfect blown out, blended look. I could not do a makeover without these brushes.

#6 Inglot 10S, Eyeshadow Blender Brush. €18

Unlike others, this blender brush is long and slender with a slight stiffness to its hairs. It is perfect for applying colour and blending out product to concentrated areas of the eyes. This brush is also small enough to achieve a crisp, cut crease look, unlike most other blending brushes.

#7 Sigma E30, Pencil Brush. €8.77

I find most pencil brushes from a variety of other brands to very hard in texture. Although this can be controlled when applying makeup to oneself, when applyed to others it can be quite painful to the eye area of the recipient. The Sigma E30 has soft hairs and it's tapered shape allows you to get product right upto the bottom water line with ease.

(This brush has white hairs, I wanted to show how well it picked up black pigment, as this allows you to achieve a darker look, and forgot to take before pictures of my brushes).

#8 Inglot 11S. €12

Another brush that can apply product to the lower lash line with great ease. This brush can also be used as a pencil brush, to buff out pencils or harsh lines on the eyes. Another way of using this brush is for concealer or for lipstick due to its precise shape. 

#9 Sigma F86 Tapered Kabuki €15.35 or Sigma P86 Precision Tapered Brush €13.16

These two brushes are exactly the same shape, one is large for the face, and the other much smaller. It's synthetic hairs allow you to use powder or cream products with ease. These are perfect brushes to use to map out and place product on the face for contouring. You can then use these brushes to blend out the product or a beauty blender. I personally prefer to use the smaller P86 as I prefer to have more control over the brush and therefore the product. These brushes can also be used for concealer or foundation.

#10 Rubis Switzerland Tweezers.

I know this technically shouldn't count as it is not a brush but every person, to be used on yourself or on others, should own a good set of tweezers.

I'm not sure how much these particular ones were as they were part of a professional kit. A good tweezers is essential for maintaining growth of eyebrows.I truly believe you cannot achieve an amazing eye look with out the perfect brow, and all brows need a little maintaining even if you like the natural look. Tweezers can also be used to apply false eyelashes much easier.

Hope this helps guys

Love Jen xxx

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Top Ten Brushes for My Makeup Bag

I got a request off of one of my lovely friends, Rachel, to do a blogpost on my top ten favourite, can't live without, makeup brushes of all time, so here it is guys.

#1 Crown Brushes C427, Tapered Duo Fibre Blush Brush. €12.65

I love using this brush to apply foundation. You can use a standard Foundation Duo Fibre Brush to do this but I prefer the shape and size of this particular one. It is domed in shape and a smaller size than the normal version, perfect to get into all areas around the face. Blends the product perfectly and quickly. This brush can also be used to apply powder, contour, blusher, highlight or bronzer.

#2 Sigma F25, Tapered Face Brush. €21.20

This brush is excellent for applying powder, loose or pressed, to the face. It has a tapered finish so it is very easy to apply powder to the outskirts of the face, but also the perfect shape for under the eyes. It can also be used to apply Bronzer.

#3 Sigma F40, Large Angled Contour Brush. €13.89

This brush is my favourite to apply a good contour to the face. Simple to use and the goat hair does not pick up too much product so it is almost impossible to over do on your sculpting.

#4 Sigma F35, Tapered Highlighter Brush. €15.35

There is nothing about this brush I do not love. There are many uses for this brush. It is the perfect size and shape to contour, highlight, apply blusher or even apply a small amount of powder under the eyes to prevent your foundation from creasing.

 

#5 Inglot 31T, Gel Eyeliner Brush. €12

This brush is my Holy Grail when it comes to eyebrows. I use a gel eyeliner to fill in my eyebrows and I find this brush perfect for the task. It can also be used to apply gel eyeliner. I wouldn't reccommend this brush to be used with shadows as it is made from Taklon. Because of this, it may cause downfall from any powder based products. The only downfall on this brush is it does tend to fray, meaning you may need to purchase a new one every few months.

#6 Sigma E35, Tapered Blending Brush. €10.23

If your looking for a good brush to blend out any stubborn edges, this is the one for you. Slightly stiffer than your average blender, it helps to blend out colour on the eyes effortlessly. I would not reccommend to apply the product directly with this brush as you may not have control on where the shadow goes. Instead, apply with a smaller brush and use the E35 clean to blend.

#7 Crown C250-0, Mini Liner Brush. €2.04

Other than being the cheapest brush, on the planet, this brush is so teeny it is perfect to apply the perfect flick eyeliner. You really can't go wrong.

#8 Inglot 9S, Flat Eyeshadow Brush. €16

This is my go-to brush for packing on colour to the lid or the brow bone. Because it is slightly stiff in texture, it holds product great and does not cause downfall. This brush can also be used for concealer.

#9 MAC 217, Eyeshadow Blending Brush. €17.55

The 217 is an essential brush to any person who even looks at makeup. You can use it to not only apply product, but also to blend a product out. Only downfall, the price and the longevity. For the price of this brush, you would expect it to last well and clean well, however, it doesn't.  The individual hairs in this brush tend to snap and stain very easily. The Crown C433, Pro Blending Fluff Brush is almost an exact duplicate, without the problems and for a fraction of the price at €7.34. This brush is also great for applying concealer.

(The top brush is Crown C433 and the bottom is MAC 217).

#10 Charles H.Fox 1/4 81460/02

I'm not sure of a price on this brush as I received it as part of my kit in college and it's as if it doesn't exist online. However a precise lip brush is essential to any person who wears lipstick. To get the perfect pout you need to apply your lipstick with a brush. A good duplicate of this brush is the Inglot Lip Brush with the Silver Lid. It prices in at around €18.

I may be cheating a little here as I did say the 'Top Ten' fave brushes, but technically this is not a brush. My major beauty essential for applying makeup is the Beauty Blender, be it the original or a dupe. Simply run it under water, squeeze out the excess water and stipple your foundation onto the skin. The pointed shape at the tip of the sponge, the moist consistency with the water, mixed with your foundation, creates almost a flawless finish on ANY skin. It blends your base out perfectly and prevents the skin from appearing cakey, even when using a full coverage foundation. 

I use the ModelsOwn Beauty Blender. Two sponges for €12 available in Boots.

Hope this helps guys

If anyone else would like to see a certain type of blogpost or has a question to ask, feel free to leave a comment or contact me on my other medias:

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Love Jen xxx

A Mascara Must

Mascara is probably the most worn makeup product by all women. If you have woken up late, run out of time, or need to leave the house in a hurry without putting on your war paint, a little lick of mascara is known to open up the eyes and give that extra lift to the face when you have no time for a full makeover. Even going to the gym. A full face of makeup isn't exactly the most practical when your breaking a sweat on the treadmill, but a sweep of luscious lashes can keep you looking fresh when your not exactly in your Sunday finest.

A mascara's job is to thicken, lengthen and darken the lashes, to give the illusion that our natural lashes are the length of our legs and as black as the nights sky. We wish! 

There is nothing better than a fresh, new mascara that licks our lashes with a smooth layer of product to each individual lash, fanning out the hairs to frame our eyes and to achieve anything from a natural beauty to a glamourous evening look.

After a couple of weeks though, we tend to notice that instead of fanning out our lashes individually, we achieve the three lash, spider-leg, not so desirable thick product that couldn't do a Disney Princess any justice (and that's hard to do).

Each brand of makeup is different but generally a mascara should be thrown out after six months of first opening it. Each individual makeup product will have a little picture of what looks like an open container with a number inside or beside it. This number will state how many months that product should be used within once opened.

So we have six months to use our beloved mascaras, but they tend to go thick in texture and become unwearable after only a couple of weeks. Sometimes this is unpreventable, but some key tricks can definitely help you get more for your money.

Tip one:

When you first buy your mascara, scrape the excess product from the brush off of the edge of the bottle opening. You do not need the amount of product that is on the brush, on your lashes. The excess will just cause the lashes to stick together and look clumpy. By removing it, you are allowing the bristles of the brush to work their magic without having too much product blocking the bristles seperating the hairs and making them longer and thicker looking.

Tip two:

Always keep your mascara firmly closed. I hold my hands up, I am guilty of leaving my mascara open on my desk when doing my makeup, but this allows oxygen into the product and this oxidises the contents of the mascara causing it to thicken. Simply keep the lid turned tight and it will help keep your mascara fresh and like new.

Tip three:

People tend to pump their mascara wand into the bottle like they're blowing up a punctured bicycle tyre. Again this allows oxygen into the product and it doesn't actually get any more product onto the wand. The actual mascara is hugging the sides of the container and that is where you want to direct the brush.

Tip four:

When you are literally at the end of the bottle, and pay day is just around the corner but not yet reachable, us girls need to go to extreme measures to get our desired look. Simply run the tap at luke warm and run the wand under the running water for a split second. Insert the wand into the bottle again and use the handle to mix the remainder in the bottle with the one drop of water. It will thin out the product slightly but you will get to your paycheck with lashes galore!

Tip five:

If you can, try to change your mascara every 6-8 weeks. It really does make a difference. After all, mascara is used on the eye area so you want to be extra careful when it comes to products used. 

Hope this helps guys!

Love Jen xx

A Girly Affair

I'm always looking for alternative ways to display my favourite things on my vanity. Santy must have known I was eyeing this little beauty up for when I move out and get my own place, but for the moment, instead of being used for cupcakes I am going to use it for makeup and jewellery.

       

A gorgeous pattern of baby pink and lilac with gold and floral designs, it is the perfect girly touch for my otherwise all black desk area. Especially handy for your everyday pieces that you can have at the ready to speed up the painful morning process of applying our war paint for the day ahead.

      

On the top plate I have placed a few of my favourite jewellery pieces that I tend to wear a lot. Items too pretty to store away in a jewellery box. 

      

When the time comes, I will use this to display delicious cupcakes in my new apartment as I love to bake but I thought it was a cute idea you guys might want to try out for your vanity at home. Something like this could also be gorgeous with your favourite perfumes displayed in your bathroom.

      

Hope you like this. Love Jen xxx

How To Clean Your Makeup Brushes

So as you know, I am heading away, and on my adventure I could not got without some vital tools of my trade. Today I got around to cleaning ALL of my makeup brushes, personal and professional. It took a little while, but a couple of hundred brushes later and some definite wrinkle-finger syndrome, I am done!!

The majority of people who use makeup brushes to apply their war paint are very aware that they need to be washed regularly and shown a little bit of care and love. Unfortunately, a little bit of love can mean very different things to many different people. I have heard some horror stories about people washing their brushes. Filling the sink with water and throwing all the brushes in to 'soak'. Pulling at the bristles of the brushes. Leaving the brushes to dry standing up. Even a case of using bleach, yes I know, my heart stopped a little too, bleach!!

I have had many of my brushes for years and years and they still look, feel and do their job as if they are freshly out of their packaging, so I think I know a thing or two about cleaning and maintaining brushes. I'm not saying my way is right or that other ways are wrong, however, I have found this method to work for me and for my beloved brushes, abuse free!!

The only thing you need to clean your brushes are items you most probably have in your house. Warm water and some washing up liquid. You can use shampoo, baby shampoo, specific brush cleansers but I find washing up liquid to be the best. I use Fairy washing up liquid as it isn't too harsh on the bristles of the brush but yet it strips grease, oils, bacteria, and of course makeup, easily off your brushes.

Using warm running water, wet the brush with the bristles facing downwards so the water does not seep into the barrel of the brush, usually the silver area in between the handle and the bristles. Whenever emercing the brush under water, it should always be done in this way because if not, water will loosen the glue holding all the hairs in place, the hairs will fall out and ruin your brush and your makeup!

Squeeze a pea size amount of washing up liquid onto the palm of your hand. Using circular motions, stir the brush into the liquid until it begins to sud up. Rinse the bristles of your brush under warm water and repeat until the suds and water run white and clear. 

Be gentle with your brushes. You do not want to damage the bristles by being too rough or bending the bristles too much.

Now your brush is clean you want to dry the bristles. With the brush facing down again, wrap the bristles with your fingers and gently squeeze the water out. You do not want to pull at the hairs while doing this, just gently squeeze the bristles and shape the brush to its original shape.

When the excess water has been wrung-out, lay all of your freshly cleaned brushes out on a clean, flat towel in a cool dry place. This will allow the brushes to fully dry naturally in their original shape without the water dripping down into the barrel. Leave overnight. 

Your brushes are now squeaky clean to use on you or your clients. Let me know if you have any questions. Jx

Get the Look

I kind of did this look a bit backwards. I would usually do the eyes first so if there is any fall out, it can be easily wiped away without effecting your foundation, but due to this look having very natural colours on the eyes, I decided to do the face first.

The face:

I started by using the F55 small duo fibre foundation brush from Sigma and Revlon Photoready Airbrush Mousse Makeup in the colour Shell to the cheekbones, forehead, chin and underneath the eyes. I then used the same foundation in the colour Natural Beige on the rest of the face as this shade matches with the tone of my neck. This means any areas of the face covered with the shade Shell are naturally highlighted giving the face a more airbrushed look.
Using the same brush, I stippled a small amount of MAC NW15 Studio Finish Concealer underneath the eye area, around the nose and a small amount through the cheeks just to add a bit more coverage as these areas can tend to get a bit red throughout the day.
To set the foundation and to mattify the skin I used Inglot AMC Powder in the number 55 all over the face and contoured the forehead, nose, lip and cheekbones with Inglot Pressed Powder in the number 31 and a Sigma F35 tapered brush.
I applied a mixture of MAC Pinkswoon and MAC Fleur Power blusher to the apples of the cheeks using a Sigma F15 duo fibre blush brush to give the cheeks a more rounded appearance.

The eyes:

You want to achieve the 'no makeup' makeup look with the shadows on the eyes. Similar to contouring you want to create seamless shadows and highlights, so blending is key.

I firstly filled in the brows using an Inglot 17TL brow brush and Inglot 329 chocolate matte brown eyeshadow. I paid extra attention to the arch and extension of the tail and used very little product on the inside of the brow. This makes the brow appear more natural. To achieve a clean, sharp brow I carved out the underneath of the brow line using a flat concealer brush and Studio Finish Concealer in NW15. This colour is a few shades lighter than my skin tone so it will act as a natural highlight to the brow bone.

Using my ring finger, I applied MAC Painterly Paintpot and blended it from the lash line into the concealer underneath the brow. This will act as a base/primer to the eyeshadow and brighten the lid, yet still giving coverage to any blue undertones on the lid.

Using a large fluffy brush, I used an Inglot 4SS blender brush, and I applied Inglot 352 matte pale pink eyeshadow on the full eyelid. Using the same brush (because it's tapered) I applied a shade 2-3 shades darker than the lid colour to create a shadow effect and give definition to the crease. I used Inglot 357, a wam matte neutral tone to do this.

I used my favourite liner, Inglot 77 black gel liner, to create the classic 50's flick eyeliner look, making sure it was a thin line on the inside, getting thicker at the outside corner of the eye and extended out into a tapered flick towards the tail of the brow.

Lashes:

I removed the Inglot 16N lashes from the box carefully from the outside corner of the lash using a tweezers. I was extra careful doing this a I didn't want to distort the shape of the lash because this would effect how the lash sits on your eye making them unwearable. I then took some Inglot 22S long individual lashes and I attached these to the lashband of the 16N lashes at the outside corner using clear DUO Glue. I did this about a third of the way into the lash from the outside to achieve that winged, cat-eye lash look. I used the same clear DUO Glue to apply the lashes to the eye. Once set, I went over the lash band with the gel liner again.
I then applied Inglot False Lash Mascara and I wiggled the product through my own natural lashes. This application technique will weave your natural lashes into the false ones so the two sets of lashes appear as one and sit on top of each other comfortably.

The Lips:

I firstly applied a small amount of MAC Diva matte lipstick to the lips, not going too close to the natural outline of the lip. I then used Kryolan lip liner in the colour 910 to line the lip on the very outside of the natural lip line to give the appearance of a fuller lip. This is personal preference if you want your lips to appear fuller or not.

Thre ya have it guys!! Try it out yourselves

J xxx