Gorgeous Mineral Eyeshadows: Femme Fatale Cosmetics

Been really busy learning all I can about iMovie and Youtube to get some video edited and up looking pretty.

In the mean time, how's about some gorgeous eye candy, courtesy of Femme Fatale Cosmetics.

I just can't wait until I hit my 6-month Blogiversary, so I can get me some of these to review! Maybe I'll buy me some before then.

I mean, OMG, People! Georgeosity!

Which ones are your faves? Let me know in the Comments, below!

Cheers!

BeautyJones

First YouTube Vid: Mani with Butter London Lillibet's Jubilee

 

If you love terrible British accents you will enjoy this video.  This Butter London is so pretty and subtle, and so appropriate for this London-focused summer. It's a chrome with lavender tones, so surprising, yet royally elegant.

Check it out!

Wet n Wild Petal Pusher Intense Purple Eyes

The Glory that is Wet n Wild's Coloricon Petal Pusher Palette

I think colors are sexy, don't you?

Look at those gorgeous shades above. They are inspirational, evocative, candy-like. OK, I'm a freak for them.

And I'm super-tired because I've been working on some videos for you, and I'm getting there, getting there, but in the mean time, here's a great little intense eyes look that I think works very nicely with my greeny-grayish-hazely eyes.

I used mostly the mauvey shades on the right, but then I layered the lavender eyelid shade on the center-ball part of my eyelid, and then added Milani's Violet Shock over that. Hence the intensity.

Lips: Revlon Lip Butter in Cupcake, which was way to crazy, so I toned it down with NYX lip gloss in Salsa and blotted the whole mess until my lips stopped looking so much like a melting pile of strawberry frosting.

Soft, and creased a bit at midday, but, hey, who's perfect?

Mostly the mauvey shade under my eye.
Next time I'll try this with some nude pencil on the waterline to neaten the whole thing up

And now for the money shots: Milani Violet Shock Eye shadow is a legitimate duochrome color.  And in these shots, taken from different angles, you can see that actually has two distinct colors.  From the side, a pink-violet with blue shimmer. From the front, a blue-lavender foil. OMG, how can you not love this all to pieces!

I told it was money!

Ooooh!

Aaaaaaah!

I promise, video soon!

Oh, how I love purple!

Cheers, all, and if you have any thoughts about this look, please share below.  I hope this was fun and helpful and enjoyable.

:)BeautyJones

Wet n Wild 738 Comfort Zone Copper Look with Lime

Last Friday I arrived at CVS mid-restock, and picked up these great Wet n Wild Coloricon palettes that I'd heard Vintage or Tacky and EmilyNoel83 raving about. Love you girls, by the way!

Here's my first look, continuing this week's theme of neutral eyes with just one pop of bright color.

I used the colors on the left as labelled.  That label pressed into the shadow is a nice touch, and it means less thinking in the morning, when I am not always quite so awake yet. :)

With Flash. You can see that hint of green underneath.

Shot's a bit soft, but you can see how straight on, the copper color on the lid is subtle. So is the green.

Check out this gorgeous palette with these lovely shades.  Look at the depth of the color, and the duochrome look in almost all of them. Can't wait to play with all of the ones on the right.  Maybe I will today. Depends on what clothes I wear.

Duochrome: the magic word!

I put NYX's Lime jumbo pencil and their Slide on Pencil in 05 Golden Olive under the eye, and sealed it with the green eyelid shadow on the right. I'm a little disappointed that the green underneath didn't last until noon. Next time I'll hit it with the smashbox cream liner to see if that gives the color more staying power.

The Wet n Wild shadow is indeed pretty powdery with loads of fallout, and every time you dip in, you'd better give your brush a good tap to whack away the excess powder. But, as promised, each shade is very pigmented, and the shades are so complex, way more interesting than one would expect from drugstore eye shadow, so Bravo!

What do you think of this look? Do you like to play with color in your day look, or do you stick with neutrals?

I hope this look inspires you to try experimenting with your daily makeup. I find it really adds a touch of excitement to each day when I do that. I love color, and although I am lucky enough to have a job where I get to be creative and artistic just about every day, my makeup is something I do only for me, only for my sense of beauty and creativity.

What kinds of creative outlets do you enjoy? Share your thought below, and thanks for following along with my journey!

:)BeautyJones

Smashbox Photo Op Palette: Softbox with Turquoise

I've been seeing a lot of gorgeous eye looks that are basically neutral with a pop of bright color under the eyes, so I thought I'd try one, using my holy grail product: the smashbox Photo Op Mega Palette.

I used the Softbox quad you can see at the bottom of the above picture. I put Fizz all over my lids, Pebble in the crease, Minx in a wedge shape on the outer edge of the lid, and Sienna along the upper lash line.

I used smashbox Full Exposure mascara, and then lined the eyes all around with Midnight Brown gel liner (see below.) But I left the space from the middle toward the tear duct free and filled it in with the Turquoise Eye liner pencil. I sealed it with some Physician's Formula eye shadow in a similar color from the Green Eye Pop palette.

I used the blonde and taupe shades shown below (third row down) on my eyebows, applying the wax, and then mixing the shades onto my brows with an angled brush from my Real Techniques collection.

I also used the Warm Apricot blush on my cheeks

I like the way the turquoise in the middle pops the green shades in my eyes.
The glitter in the NYX pencil likes to travel a bit, though.

Here are the pencils I used around my lash lines:

Sephora Flashy Liner Waterpoof in 08 Flashy Blue
NYX Slide on Pencil in 02 Black Sparkle

Sephora Flashy Liner Waterpoof in 08 Flashy Blue
NYX Slide on Pencil in 02 Black Sparkle

So, Lovely Ladies over 40, would you try this pop of bright color on your lash line? What do you think?

I think it would also be cool with an emerald or spring or dragonfly green.

Thanks for reading my post. Share your thoughts about this new trend below!

Cheers!

:)BeautyJones

Ombre Manicure: Essie Mojito Madness and Milani Yellow Whiz

This Saturday, I did a metric century in Ojai, CA with my friends.  What's that, you ask? It's a 62-mile bike ride. Why do people do it? Because it's beautiful, and it seeds your dreams with gorgeous landscape tracking shots. Ojai is just as beautiful as the terrain I've biked in Northern Italy, and Umbra (also in Italy). It was a hilly challenging course, but very well supported with such gourmet treats as banana sandwiches with peanut butter and oreos. Turns out this is an athletic super-food. Oh, and you can eat whatever you want afterwards. I love it!

But, as a result,  I was exhausted, and my plans for a Saturday/Sunday swatch-a-palooza using that Crown Brush 180 palette went by the wayside.

Yesterday, we watched the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Pageant on the BBC America, and said the word "Jubilee" over and over again in Monty Python silly voices until we were blue in the face. Why do I find this so amusing? Maybe the aluminum chloral hydrate in my antiperspirant does cause neurological damage. Hmmm. "Jubilyeeah!"

 

The Queen looked terrific in the white dress coat with diamond accents. I love the hats she's been wearing for the last decade. It was fun to watch her and Charles laugh and have fun. And how the heck did she stand up for all that time? Kate's hat and dress were gorgeous, but I was tempted to make her many sandwiches. The girls must be famished. The broadcast was oddly satisfying. Love that pageantry and pomp and circumstance. Too bad the planes and helicopters couldn't do their big flyover because of the rain.

So during the 6-odd hours of the Jubilee pageant I managed to take my brand new Essie Mojito madness green polish and do my first ombre polish look with it, using Milani's Yellow Whiz fast drying polish as the accent color.

essie.com

There are many many ombre nail tutorials on Youtube.  Here are some I have enjoyed and learned a lot from. By the way, I know mine isn't the most gorgeous example of the ombre, but I haven't yet seen this lemon-lime combination.

• Ombre neon nails by Nikkietutorials
• Ombre white base with pale blue ends

Can I just tell you how much I love that moment, which happens about 2:30pm on a Friday at CVS? It's like a little mini-holiday in which the drugstore elves do the magical restocking of the new products, which are about to fly off the shelves and be impossible to find. That moment should have its own theme song and love montage. Well, thanks to summer hours at my esteemed and much appreiated employers, I was there to see it, and grabbed that elusive green bottle of Mojito Madness, along with a bunch of other cheap treats.

Mojito Madness by Essie, part of the new summer collection, has a soft gray-blue tone to anchor the brilliant green. It's not really a Kelly green. It has a nice retro 50s tonality, and I adore retro colors in nail polish. Love, love, love. Because this nail polish is fresh, fresh, fresh, it applied very easily, achieving almost total coverage in one coat.  I gave it two coats and then painted strips of the yellow and green onto a sponge and patted them onto my nails. Probably, I should have used the yellow as a base and sponged on the green at the tips, but I was in love with the green. You live, you learn.

After that is was a banner Sunday. Madmen was amazing. Game of Thrones finished with a zombieriffic firebreathing dragony pop, and thus ended my awesome weekend.

What did you get up to this weekend?

Have you tried the ombre look on your nails? It's a fun crafts project.

Feel free to comment below, and let me know what you think!

Cheers!

:)BeautyJones

Epic Fix: No More Raccoon Eye!

No Raccoon Eye for me today!
And, by the way, are you feeling lucky, punk?

I dread the raccoon eye like no other makeup faux pas. And something about the way I smile, or the planes of my face just makes it want to happen, so I was searching and searching for a solution.

Was I using too much concealer? No, because when I used none, the eye makeup under my eyes still moved. What if I didn't put anything on my lower lids? I still got those smudgy raccoon spots under my eyes, the stuff on the upper lids liked to transfer itself there.

Then, yesterday I tried something I'd seen lots of YouTube beauty gurus do, from Cora of Vintage or Tacky to the Pixiwoos.  And it worked.

Here's what I did:

• Line lower and upper lash line with pencil of your choice. Smudge it or don't. I went for a bit of a cat eye look, so I didn't smudge it very much at all.
• Find an eye shadow that matches the pencil color, and sweep some on over the pencil to seal it.
• That's it.  That's all. So simple. Why didn't I try it before?



Out of focus works like Vaseline on the lens, doesn't it? (Oops.)

I ran back from a lunch walk because I was late for a meeting, and by the time I came up in the elevator I wasn't just warm, I was dripping.

My green eyeliner didn't move. It did not move.

Here's what I used:

NYX Slide on Pencil Shade

• NYX Slide on pencil in Tropical Green
• Crown Brush 180 Palette, Yellows/Greens/Blues/Purples in G3 (Yes, I made this name up—ain't it catchy? Please see picture below)

So, I guess the moral is, if you see a cool technique on a Beauty guru's vid, give it a shot, even if it seems to take extra time or thought. It might be a hot new technique you find you want to use every day!

I hope you guys find this helpful, and I'd love to hear your results if you try it!

The rest of my look that day was out of the NYX "butt" naked palette. Still in love with that!

What do you use to help avoid the raccoon eye or other makeup epic fail situations? What are your biggest challenges with the whole make-my-face-pretty-today thing?

Comment below and let me know!

Happy Friday, All!

:)BeautyJones