30 Day Makeup Challenge: Day 15, Blue Eye Shadow

 Blue eye shadow is notoriously hard to wear for day. I think there were some moments in the nineteen sixties and seventies in which is was perfectly fine. I can picture some ladies with big hair and nipped in waists in the typing pool on Madmen wearing it, but those days are gone.

So color me bold when I put on this matte cool French blue on my lids. What's really nice about having hooded eyes is that when you look straight ahead, mostly folks can't see what color is on your lids. So you can create a dramatic surprise by adding unusual shades and finishes to that area. I like to put some shimmer, some sparkle, one bright color, or even a bunch of colors there as a little gift for folks who are paying attention.

 As you can see, this look is a bit gentler in artificial indoor lighting. I like the way the purple tones come out here.

So here's what I used:

Eyes:

• MAC Soft Ochre Paint Pot as primer
• Urban Decay Vice Palette Chaos on Lid
• Urban Decay Vice Palette Disruption on Crease
• Urban Decay Vice Palette Lace to blend Crease Color up into browbone
• Maybelline Eye Studio felt tip eye liner on lash line
• NYX Slide On Eye Pencil in Navy on Water Line
• L'Oreal Voluminous Mascara in Carbon Black

Here are some tips on working with blue eye shadow:

• Ground the blue with a neutral in the crease and blend them together there
• Finish it off with black eye liner along the lash line
• Blend the shadow a lot, and then pack on more. Sometimes blue shadows aren't as pigmented as we'd like, so they can get patchy. If you really want to be sure to get full coverage, start with a white or, even better, a black sticky base like a NYX jumbo pencil or some other creamy shadow base.
• Go smoky and put something dark, a blue, gray or brown, in the water line
• Restrict the blue to the eyelid if you want to go a bit more stealth on it, and avoid the crease
• Use a nice light concealer under the eyes to make your smoky lash line stand out, and to avoid the sense that it's just the veins and circles under your eyes showing through instead of some nice blue eye liner that you chose to rock today
• Keep the rest of the face pretty neutral, both to feature the eyes, and to avoid an overall clownish appearance
• Since blue eye shadow can be a bit old lady, but it can also be a little Rock n' Roll and glam, wear stuff that fits the Rock n' Roll style - like the black leather jacket I wore here

So what do you think, Beauty Fans? Comment below.

Thanks for coming by my blog!

Love, BeautyJones

30 Day Makeup Challenge: Day 13, 4 Colors on Eyes!

I'm not going to lie. This one scared me. Wearing four different colors on my eyes, I worried, was going to make my colleagues at work give me some pretty strange looks.

I could have worn four different neutral colors, I suppose, but that seemed to me like cheating. And not nearly as much fun. A day look with four different true colors? Now that's a makeup challenge, people!

I have to take my hat off to the color wheel, and my art teachers throughout the years who told me about using harmonious colors. Harmonious colors are the ones that are next to each other on the wheel. They play nicely together. I picked some from the warm side, from the golds and oranges, reds and pinks.

1.Matte purple crease. 2. Shimmery bronze-orange outer lid.
3. Shimmery antique gold in center of lid. 4. Matte ellow toward the tear duct.

I wore neutral gray clothes with all this color on my face.

Here are the colors I used from the Crown Brush Kaleidescope 180 Palette, which really comes in handy for these challenges. I love knowing I do have pretty much every color of the rainbow.

Crease Color

Inner Lid and Tear Duct

Top: Outer Lid.
Bottom: Middle of Lid

Looking straight ahead, who can see those colors?

Colors! A black flick finishes it off.

Last thoughts:

• Going to the Makeup Show LA today and scared and excited! Scared I'll spend too much, but won't get the right things. Excited to see my fellow beauty fans and gurus there. I'll have plenty of stuff to show you from there, lovely readers!
• Loving L'Oreal Voluminous Mascara in Carbon Black. Wondering, does it come in waterproof so I can wear it for swimming?
• Signed up for the Nautica Malibu Triathlon again this year. Year 5 or 6 for me. Can't remember.
• Started cross training instead of just running on Thursdays nights. My quads are killing me and I can feel my abs. Not that they are now rock hard are anything, it's just that I can feel them. 

The next big thing in this Makeup Challenge is my zombie makeup look. That will take some doing. Hmmmm. Not wearing that to work, that's for sure!

Have a great day, Beauty Fans!

Love, BeautyJones

Random Weekly Faces

Here are a few looks from this and last week, including todays simple classic look with a neutral eye, cherry glossy lip and winged out eyeliner.

I used It Bye Bye Under-Eye with Embryolisse Lait Creme Concentrée for foundation, a neat trick I learned from Wayne Goss's latest video. Check out Goss Makeup Artist on Youtube for more of his really helpful tips. Bit of a focus problem on these. Sorry. :(

For this eye I used my Tarte We Wish You Wealth palette, and I'm sorry, I don't know the shade names. You can't get this palette anymore, but on the lid it was a pinky shade with a bluish shimmer. Top row left on the lid. Bottom row second from right in crease. Second from top row second from left on tear duct. I love love love this palette, and I'm sorry because you can't get it. Every shadow except the medium and dark brown seems to be a duochrome. So subtle, though. This palette has some really nice glosses in it, too.

My skin is a mess. Stress? Hormones? Who knows. Yeesh.

This is Urban Decay Naked Palette Toasted on top of a whole bunch of matte neutrals from the Pixi Soft Focus Fresh on my lids. I love that bronzey taupey shimmer. This big palette has so many fun pretty neutrals. I love the gloss, and the blushes, too. Here's a picture of it.

Here's another of my faces from this week. Lots of fun neutrals from the Sedona Lace 28 Neutral palette. Kind of a fifties look with the winged liner and rosy cheeks. I love a minky brown shade on the crease like this!

And finally, here's a Burgundy eye look based on Maybelline Color Tattoo Pomegranate Punk. Yay for smokey eyes!

 

 

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Lemon Aqua Eyes

Lemon Aqua Eyes Look

 Hello, Lovely Readers!

I've been in a purple or blue eye makeup rut for just days, and today I came up with something that I was really proud of:

• I broke out that Crown Brush palette, and used a bunch of the pale lemon yellow shades layered over each other on my whole lid.
• I then did some aqua green on the outer third of the eyelid
• I used a deeper blue aqua in the crease and along the lash line
• Then used some Cinema Secrets liner fix fluid with olive green with gold shimmer to make one pass of liner along the lashes
• Then finally I used my Smashbox metallic liner palette and worked not with the black or navy shade, but with the fawn brown.
• The color palette is kind of 60s retro. Damn, that Madmen just enters your dreams and changes your whole aesthetic, doesn't it?
• Finished off the look with Revlon Colorstay Lip Butter in Pink Truffle, which is a great shade for my skin tone, doesn't blend into my skin like a lot of nude shades do, and yet is neutral enough not to fight with all the pastel color on my lids.

More pictures below.

You can see how the Urban Decay Primer Potion gets kind of scaley on me.
Not the prettiest look.And the liner has gone into the wrinkles a bit.
But you gotta love that aqua at the outer edges.

Photographed around sunset

 Would you wear this aqua, because, wow, do I love it!

Do you think that you absorb color palettes when you are a baby? If so, that must be why I love shades from the mid-to-late 60s.

Or maybe I love that aqua because it's the color of Bermuda water over the sand at about a depth that would put you chest-high in it, in all that warm silky ocean. Ahhh. Summertime.

Cheers, and please let me know what you think below!

:)BeautyJones