My Go-To Simple Matte Eye Look

Simple and Easy, using 3 shades!

Sometimes I feel like doing something to my eyes, but nothing major, and this is the look I always go for. It's so simple, it only uses 3 (matte) shades from a quad I own, but they're colours you can easily find very similar alternatives to, and I'm sure you'll have dupes in your collection.

My favourite liner is the L'Oreal Linear intense, as I'm sure you'll know if you've seen my 'eyemakeuplook' series, because I literally use it every single time I go out.

This eye makeup is so inoffensive, it's like hardly having anything on. But it just cancels out my veining on the eyelid and creates a tiny bit of depth in the crease and highlight at the browbone.

I used the Soap and Glory 'What's Nude' quad, which I mention all the freaking time!

I used the matte cream shade as a browbone and inner corner highlight, the second colour, a taupe, as a transition colour in the upper crease, and a tiny but of the third colour, a darker corky brown in the outer corner and crease, as well as 2/3 of the outer lower lashline to tie it all together.

The quad is £10, you can buy it from some of the bigger Boots stores. I love Soap and Glory makeup so much.

Hope you liked this post, what shades do you use for your go-to nude or neutral smokey eye? Let me know in the comments below.

How I Spot Clean My Makeup Brushes! (Ft Cinema Secrets Brush Cleaner)

Spot Cleaning my Makeup Brushes

I bought this a few weeks ago and have been absolutely loving it- can't believe I never owned a brush cleaner before this!

Spot cleaning your brushes is amazing for when you quickly want a few small brushes cleaned and don't have time to do a deep clean with shampoo and wait for them to dry. (I may do a post on my whole full cleaning routine also because it's so simple but many people are confused as to how to deep clean their brushes.)

What I need:

1. Dirty makeup brushes!
2. Toilet paper strips (you can use whatever tissue paper or even cotton pads if you want, but I find toilet paper is cheapest and works fine
3. A brush cleaner

The process:

I dip the very end of the brush into a capfull of the brush cleaner.

I then brush it across the tissue paper and as you can see, a lot of the product (most of it), comes off at this stage.

I then just do a few further swirls to get the rest of the product off, here I didn't need to re-dip into the cap again, but sometimes I do that just to make sure all the product is off.

And voila! A completely clean brush that'll be completely dry in only a few minutes. I just put it back into my makeup brushes holder, and repeat with other brushes.

That brush was a mac 242 by the way, I use this for packing on colour or applying a basecoat.

The next brush was the Real Techniques pointed foundation brush which I use on occasion for cream blush, and also for concealer.

Brushes before:

Brushes after:

It's so lovely to have clean brushes!!

I haven't deep cleaned my brushes in weeks, because I've been so busy and this is just way way easier that fully cleaning with shampoo seems like such a hassle to me now.

Overall I love this product, and when I'm writing this I literally have half or less than half left! So i'm definitely going to pick it up again when it runs out, and next time get an even bigger size.

The price isn't too much, this size was 8oz and it costs $24 from the cinema secrets website, and they ship worldwide. And I've gotta mention the smell! It leaves the brushes smelling fresh and fruity, it's really pleasant.

How do you clean your makeup brushes? Have you picked up any tips here? Let me know in the comments below.

Bioderma Crealine H20: Empty-Review

Empties: Mini Reviews

Today I finished this cleanser from Bioderma- I'm sure you've heard about this already as it's pretty much a beauty phenomonon here on the blogosphere.

I use a cleanser to remove makeup before bed, and freshen up my face in the morning before applying makeup.

I either buy mine from Amazon or Ebay, or preferably from a French chemist as it's so much cheaper.

This is so amazing because it's so gentle on the skin- it literally feels like water except for the fact that it removes makeup, even waterproof makeup. I like to use this mainly for the eyes or all over to remove any remnants of makeup after using a slightly more harsh makeup remover to get off the brunt of it- the one I use is the oil-based Nivea double effects. A full empty-review of that can be found here.

Will I repurchase this product? Oh I already have. In fact, this is about the 3rd or maybe even 4th one of these 500ml products I've used.

What makeup remover do you use? What's your favourite cleanser? Let me know in the comments below.

Current Nails: Essie Fear & Desire

Currently I am wearing...

This bright satsuma neon orange colour by Essie called 'Fear & Desire'.

I love Essie nail polishes, as I find that a lot of their colours are unlike anything you can find elsewhere. Also although with this 'new formula' I don't notice much of a difference in appearance or general wear, the brush is so so amazing.

It's a thick wide-spanning one so literally one swipe and your whole nail is covered! Makes painting nails super quick!

To see more Essie posts:

I did a 'current nails' with 'Bikini So Teeny' a while back, a beautiful shade. The pictures on that are a lot better as I didn't have time here to get out my proper camera and I had to rush off!

I also featured 'Bikini So Teeny' in last year's spring nail polish edition 'Put a Spring in your step', a blog post of my favourite spring polishes. It's definitely worth a read!

And in my winter nails selection I featured another beautiful Essie shade, 'Velvet voyeur'. 

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Update: A couple days after, I got bored as I so often do with my nail polish.

Instead of taking it off and putting on a new colour as I so often do, instead I did something I sometimes do, which to change up the nails without the full bother of repainting, I just whacked on a matte topcoat! Done.

And hey presto your nails are like new.

The best thing about using a matte topcoat is that it dries super quickly, way quicker than any glossy topcoat I've tried, so rejuvenating your nails takes like 20 seconds and then you can get on with your life!

In my 'Ultimate Nail Polish Tips' blog post I named my favourite matte topcoats, and the one I used here is the Rimmel pro matte finish one, it's so cheap and I can't complain at all it's all you need in a matte topcoat. I also gave loads of other good nail polish tips.

I also have a nail care megapost which gives my top tips for healthy strong nails- it's definitely worth a read!

What nail polish do you currently have on? What's your favourite nail polish? Let me know in the comments below.

Eye Makeup: Gold and Blue Smokey Eye

Friday 20th June Eye Makeup Look

As I mentioned in the last eye makeup look I posted, which was very similar to this just using purple and silver, I know I'm going to be going out quite a lot in the coming months so I've decided to document each funky eye makeup look I do and give a quick description of what I did. It all stems from the conscious decision I've made to branch out with my eye looks and add pops of colour to make them more artistic and adventurous.

So for this party on friday I did something I've done once before, using a gold shadow all over the lid and a bright blue in the corners and under the eye for a pop of colour.

I hope the picture quality is okay, I know it's not as good as last time because I was getting ready at a friends and didn't have my huge Canon camera.

I know this look may not seem that adventurous, and it's not pretending to be, I just have recently liked doing a tiny addition of colour to amp up the drama in my eye makeup for a night out.

For anyone interested, now I'm going to describe what I did.

I used a matte white as a browbone highlight and then a medium cool-toned brown just above the crease and into it as a transition colour. I then used a pigmented gold shadow from the innermost part of the eye even using it as a highlight there also, and carrying it across 3//4 of the eyelid, but not dragging it much into the crease. I mirrored this placement under the lower lash line too. Then I placed a bright blue shade on the remaining part of the eye and blended it into the gold to make a smooth even transition from gold to blue. Again I mirrored this on the lashline by placing blue 1/4 of the way across and blending it into the gold underneath. I finished it off with black eyeliner into a wing on the upper lashline, and a few coats of mascara.

I just love the gold-blue eyeshaodow colour combination! I really didn't think I would be able to wear gold shadow because I'm so so pale, and it generally looks better if its not a stark darker contrast to your skin colour! But I really like wearing it in this look and I'm going to branch out and maybe try some gold-based smokey eyes in the future.

Here are the products I used:

I used the NYX Jumbo Eye Pencil in Milk for the eyeshadow base/primer. As you can see, it's my favourite one and I've used it loads.

For the lid colours, the gold and blue, I used two colours from the Urban Decay sustainable Palette which is really old now- it was my first palette! And I'm trying to use it again as the colours are amazing (just a bit chunky on glitter, and not as smooth in texture as their more recent eyeshadow additions). The colours were Half Baked (a huge favourite of many, and in many Urban Decay palettes, and Kiddie Pool (which I just think is the best name ever, especially for this shade). They're next to each other in the bottom right of the palette.

For the browbone highlight and matte brown transition shade I used the Soap and Glory Lid Stuff quad in the shade What's Nude, (for the browbone I used the lightest shade, and for the transition a mixture of the two other matte colours (so the only one I did not use was the 4th colour, the sheeny dark brown)).

For mascara I used the Maybelline One By One and Clinique bottom lash mascara.

And for eyeliner I used the L'Oreal Linear Intense eyeliner in Carbon black which is my favourite eyeliner by far and lasts for ages- I will never find an eyeliner I love this much.

__

That's it! I hope you enjoyed reading about this look, it's so simple but looks amazing. I'll be posting another one of these looks very shortly so hope you guys love reading that one too!

Would you wear this eyeshadow look? What's your go-to slightly different eye look? Let me know in the comments below.

Benefit Benetint: Empty-Review

Empties: Mini Reviews

Today I finished this mini sample of Benefit's cheek stain Benetint.

I got the sample in an old box set I got as a gift many many years ago now- it was one of my first makeup products and I don't have any of the other elements of the box left.

The full size is around the £20 mark, as with most Benefit products.

I used this as a lip product as well as a cheek one, as it gives a nice natural flush to the lips without being a proper classic red lipstick or anything. On the cheeks I also noticed it blended out very well. Other cheek stains have the tendency to be really patchy, but this is not.

The little but firm brush which came with this product was amazing

Will I repurchase this product? I don't think I'll buy the full size because it's just not something I particularly need. But i can see the benefits -sorry- to using a cheek stain, and especially this one which is the best I've tried.

Have you tried Benetint? What's your favourite Benefit product? Let me know in the comments below.

Selling Some Unloved Clothes and Makeup!

I'm selling some of my unwanted clothes and makeup on this recent discovery of mine, an app called DEPOP.

You may have heard of this app already, just letting you guys know if anything below interests you, I'm selling them all! Want to give my unloved clothes and makeup new homes, and get a bit of money back in the process.

The app lets you post pictures of your items of clothing and set a price, and people can send you private messages, comment and like the posts, and eventually buy through papal or mail.

It's a selection of things I don't use or wear anymore, which is always sad, but selling your clothes and makeup and getting a bit of money back on your payment is always much better than just chucking them away or giving them away free.

Means you can buy more stuff!

If you want any more detail on an individual post, let me know, or check out my account on DEPOP (an app, I have it for iphone), my account @amberthompson8

Or if you don't have an account and are interested in something, I can send you more pictures and you can buy off me using Paypal, and I can ship it to you, without us having to go through the site.

If you don't have this app already, it's great and I highly recommend it!

Have you ever bought or sold from Depop?

E.L.F. Loves and Loathes: Lips Edition

E.L.F. Loves and Loathes (Lip Products)

This is second in a three-part blog post set, I've done eye products already and I'll be doing face products next to finish it off.

E.L.F. is an online brand but in other parts of the world you can even get them in drugstores! They're so popular because their products are really cheap, and yet they aim to dupe a lot of more expensive products out there.

Can I just firstly say that these are my opinions and my opinions only- some of you may love the products I hate, and vice versa!

So let's get into it!

I'm gonna start off with the loathes, just to get them out of the way...

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BAD PRODUCTS (1)

1.
Glossy Gloss
£3.95

I really hated this product, and I'm not that big of a lipgloss fan anyway, but these ones really were not good.



I wasn't expecting high pigmentation, and there certainly isn't high pigmentation.

Sweet Salmon

Ballet Slippers

I like the smell, it's vanilla-y. But the gloss is very thick and sticky. The applicator is very stiff, meaning when you apply to the lips you end up wiping some of it off.

However there's no doubting the packaging- it's beautiful!

**

'GOOD' PRODUCTS- these products are alright but not amazing (4)

1.
Conditioning Lip Balm
£3.95

This product is okay. It gives a sheer tint to the lips, and this colour is pretty.

Mellow Melon

It's not amazingly conditioning, as the name suggests, but it's alright! It doesn't cake onto the lips and looks more natural, so I like this.

I quite want to try the nude colour called 'Nice & Natural' because that looks really good. Also, you get loads of product in the well-packaged studio tub.




2.
Mineral Lipstick
£5

These are a good product, and I do want to try out more colours in the line. I probably actually don't get enough use out of them actually.

Runway pink, Rich raspberry

The bonus to these as oppose to the next product I'm going to be sharing with you- the essential line lipsticks, these ones are slightly thicker (in a good way, they're still not too thick), meaning they'll have a longer staying power, which is good. They are really good quality.

Runway Pink

Rich Raspberry (sorry I know the application on this one was awful)

They have a slightly less shiny finish than the essential line lipsticks.

3.
Moisturising Lip Tint
£3.95

Another alright product. I use the nude one quite a lot. Again, they're not that moisturising but give a nice tint of colour to the lips without being a full-on lipstick.

Natural, Berry

Natural, Berry

They look quite nice on the lips, I often wear the nude one out or to school. It's nice.
4.
Custom Lips
£1.50 each

These are okay, it's nice to have a lipstick in this sort of arrangement but they didn't have the pigmentation that I would've wanted, or come to expect considering the quality of the rest of the ELF lip products.



In order, left to right top then bottom, I have the colours wine, sugar plum, earth rose and berry brown. They're quite thin and look nice and natural on the lips. The colour selection isn't that great though.



I also had a custom eyes palette, but it was really awful. The colours were chunky and chalky- really awful. The lips ones are better no doubt.

**

AMAZING PRODUCTS (4)

I do think E.L.F. lip products on the whole are amazing, and this is their best category.

1.
Lipstick
£1.95

The colour range is amazing, the smell is amazing (like fruity sweets), the texture is amazing. I love these.

Nostalgic, Classy, Gypsy, Captivating

These are my favourite lip products and perhaps products on the whole from ELF, and they're from the essential line so the price is even lower than other products.

same order as above and below 

lips with no product

Nostalgic- I love this colour, and it works amazingly to mix with others too

Classy 

Gypsy

Captivating

The only problem is the photos on the website are so misleading!! Always check out swatches before buying from ELF- that's my top tip!

Nostalgic, Classy, Captivating, Gypsy

2.
Lip Primer and Plumper
£3.95

This product has one side that supposedly plumps the lips- it's a clear smooth product that does give a tingling sensation. As to whether it actually plumps, who knows.



The other side is the prime side. It's a sort of creamy concealer which nudes out the lips, meaning you'll get a more accurate colour to your lipstick. This is a key product to own, and I use it all the time. It really helps light lipsticks show up better.



It's a nice product, and there aren't many other specialist lip primers out there, so I recommend trying it out.

Stained lips before applying the product 

After I applied the primer, and patted it in well

As you can see, the problem is that it's a tiny bit drying. It's still better than wearing concealer though!

 3.

Matte Lip Colour

£3.95

This is a nice product, and I especially love the colours I own. These are a matte-looking lipstick in a roll-up pencil form.

Tea rose, natural

 Because they're matte, they're slightly more drying than the ordinary lip product. Also they're not completely matte either, and I've noticed they still have some sheen.

Tea rose- a muted purple 

Natural- a slightly orangey nude shade

I really want to try out the one in nearly nude!

Also they're roll-up, meaning no sharpening, which is always a bonus.

4.

1 Mineral Lip Liner and 2 Lip Liner and Blend Brush

£3.50 and £3.95

I love these lip liners, they're the best quality ones I've tried. Despite there being two different forms (one comes with a blending lip brush on the other end, and the other does not) the product is 100% the same, just with different colours.

Lip liner and blend brushes in Wine and Grapefruit, Lip liner in Raisin

These are so amazing. They're longwearing, highly pigmented and work as an amazing base under lipsticks or alternatively just alone for a matte finish. Wow. They have a colour selection for all skin tones. It's perfect.

Also both of these products wind up so there's no need for sharpening once again (the packaging is amazing), and they come with caps so your product stays clean and safe.

Same order as above

I quite want to try the essential line lip pencils, just to compare. I think everyone should try these out, they're so cheap (as is everything), and I must add before this post finishes that you should always wait until ELF are having a 50% off sale, which happens more than you'd expect. Therefore although all the prices here are extremely cheap, just imagine them half off! It's unbeatable.

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I hope you guys found this somewhat interesting or helpful!

What are your favourite lip products from ELF? What are your least favourite? Let me know in the comments below.