Giveaway Winner!

Hi everyone, sorry this post had been delayed for so long!

Finally it's time to announce the winner of my giveaway :)

I popped everyone into an excel spreadsheet with their choice of prize and (discounting some entries that sadly didn't follow all the rules :( and adding extra entries for tweeting etc) it came to 39 entries. I used random.org to choose a number between 1 and 39 and it came up with...

So congratulations to....

Milulu!

Who wins her choice of Prize no 1 and the MUA Pop-tastic palette.

Then I chose again from everyone who picked the remaining prize and the number generator came up with:

 

so congratulations to Bourriquette who wins second prize and Prize no 2 :)

If you guys could email me your addresses I'll get your prizes shipped out asap!

Thank you so much to everyone who entered, I really enoyed reading about your favourite bright makeup items! Seems like a lot of people are fond of bright pink and orange at the moment! To those who didn't win  don't despair! I'll be having another giveaway soon <3

Exciting stuff!

So for the last week or so I've been very excited about a new vlogging project. You may have seen posts about this on other peoples blogs as I've been being slow due to the various woes of the early part of this week. The fabulous Wendy from Turtle Beauty has set up a youtube channel for a group of beauty bloggers to collaborate with each other - The Makeup Heroes! And I am very honoured to be part of the group :)

Our youtube channel is here .You can see all the videos so far and information about all the bloggers involved there. Our first videos are introductions and 13 Questions Tags. Here's Wendy's intro and the intro to the whole channel:



And here's my video:



... Oh dear :P

Peoples videos are still going up so they'll be more to come soon. Please feel free to subscribe or comment :)

And the second exciting thing is this competition I heard about through Kimberly . Candace at Cinnamon Candies is asking for people to nominate their favourite bloggers to win the Cinnamon Candies Beauty Blog Awards!

' How would you like to win some awesome prizes from Darling Girl Cosmetics, Dark Heart DesignsEvil Shades just for being a beauty blogger? Here’s your chance. Susan from Darling Girl, Tina from Dark Heart Designs and Andrea from Evil Shades have all agreed to work with me to bring you all the “Beauty Blog Awards”. and
How does it work? Easy! Send me an email with your nominees in the following categories:

• Best swatches
• Best reviews
• Best eotd/fotd blog
• Best overall beauty blog
• and the fun category: Best indie make-up company!

Once the nominations close, nominees will be put to a vote. The winners will be announced and receive the awesome prizes from the companies mentioned above. Don’t worry, the winner of “Best indie make-up” will receive a lovely body pampering gift basket to give themselves a much needed break.'
(Taken from original competition post. You can find more rules and the email to vote on there :D )

I think this is just the sweetest, most lovely idea! It's so generous of Candace to have put this all together herself and such a nice way to build a community spirit among bloggers and indie brands. I'll be voting for my favourite blogs and it would be great if you did too!
(Please note I am not asking you to vote for me, vote for whoever you really feel is the best in those catergories! Not saying you shouldn't vote for me if you actually want to though! :P If I do happen to get nominated I will be incredibly honoured and grateful.)
You can even nominate yourself if you want to! (I'm tempted to because the prize sounds amazing, but I would feel too guilty XD)
Nominations close 7th July.

Anything else big and exciting happening in the blogging world that I've missed?

A couple of things you've probably seen before

But I just thought I'd post anyway, just in case :P

1. You can get a free Barry M makeup kit with Buzz magazine from the Sun on saturday. You just need to collect one voucher this time, and the kit includes a pencil eyeliner, lipgloss and nail varnish worth 'over £9'. It looks nice, I looove Barry M, but there's no way in hell I'm buying the Sun! :P

2. No 7 are having a 'best wink' competition to celebrate their new Exquisite Curl mascara. Upload your picture or video to their facebook page and you could win a goody bag or a star prize of a pampering weekend including a makeover by Lisa Eldridge. That would be awful for me, craven creature that I am, but I'm up for a goody bag! :P Also I like the advert because the musical backdrop has a proper 70s glam rock drumbeat. Just needs some 'heys!' with air punching. And a man with dodgy hair and platform shoes... Ok i'm waffling. The competition ends on the 15th so get your wink on ladies!

... Now I want some Glam Rock!


Oh boy!



Disclaimer: Someone from a company representing No 7 emailed me and informed me about the competition. I am sharing because I thought the Idea was cute and interesting. This is NOT a sponsored post, I am under no obligation to post about it and recieved nothing in return.

Some current Giveaways

I know these posts might be a bit annoying to some people, but hey it means people who don't know about these giveaways can enter, and I get an extra entry for some of them :P

Sparklz and Shine's 1st anniversary giveaway! Ends tomorrow!

Through the Eyes of Laura's amazing Mac Lipstick giveaway! Ends Monday 31st of Jan


Hell Candy's second birthday giveaway! Ends 4th February

MakeupLoveer's 1000th follower Mac giveaway! Ends ?



Sprinkle of Glitter's 1000th follower Lush giveaway! Ends 9th Feb

Fancy Geek's Morgana Cryptoria Giveaway! Ends 30th Jan

Makeup Zombie's Morgana Cryptoria Giveaway! Ends Feb 1st

XOXO's Birthday Giveaway! Ends Feb 10th

Falsie Love's Valentines Day Giveaway! Ends Feb 14th

Lipstick on my Teacups Hard Candy Giveaway! Ends ?

Cats Little Obsession's Girls with Attitude Giveaway! Ends Feb 7th

Get Gawjus's I <3 Glitter Giveaway! Ends 30th Jan

Fab Frocks Brand Alley Giveaway! Ends 2nd Feb

Konadalicious' 1000th Follower Giveaway! Ends 1st March 

Phyrra's Brazen Cosmetics Giveaway! Ends 10th Feb. Beware, you have to share a bad breakup/valentines day memory, depressing! :P

Baroque Boudoir is having a birthday giveaway! Ends 10th Feb

The Polishaholic's 1000th Follower Giveaway! Ends 15th Feb

Good luck ladies!

Bubblegarm Sigma Competition - Purple and Crazy

So the theme for purple was 'make me crazy' and so I decided to just flick and drop various purples all over my face. As you do.

 

Then I thought I'd add some eyeliner and lipstick, just because :P

Wearing:

Face: Sugarpill Chromalusts in Hysteric, Paperdoll and Weekender, Aromaleigh Rocks blush in Wildflower

 Eyes: Collection 2000 Glam Crystals eyeliner in Shake it Up

Lips: Morganas Minerals (Now Cryptoria) lipstick in Shrieking Violet

 

Doing this I felt a bit like The Divine David

Bubblegarm Sigma Competition - Cool and Teal 2

I really like the aqua brushes so I thought I'd do a second look to try and win them :P This time I decided to be 'cool' by doing something very simple and unfussy but again with a twist with the coloured mascars and the 2 different lips.

Here we have matching aqua lips:

But then I also wanted to do a more 'normal' lip colour, so this is a pink with a teal flash. The eye makeup looks green here for some reason. The other pictures are pretty accurate for colour.

 

Wearing:

Face: Nyx liquid makeup in LM01 Pale  mixed with Gosh Exceptional Wear in 11 Porcelain, Screen Face white loose powder, Sleek blush in Flamingo

 Eyes: Collection 2000 Glam Crystals eyeliner in Le Freak, Miners mascara in Tantalising Turquoise

Lips: Illamasqua Intense lip gloss in Gender or Nars Funny Face lipstick with Estee Lauder pure color gloss in  310 Clear flash

Bubblegarm Sigma Competition - Teal and Cool 1

Again another entry for Bubblegarms contest. This is for the aqua blue brush set called 'Make me Cool'. Now cool has 2 meanings of course, but I didn't want to go for the one meaning 'cold' because I've already done that with the Illamasqua competition trying to look like 'Ice' and I couldn't really think of any ideas that wouldn't just be a rehash with slight differences. So I went for cool meaning trendy. Which was really difficult because I have absolutely no idea what's cool. I don't think I've ever been cool in  my entire life!
But still this is what I came up with:

So as you can see it's a smokey eye but using a bright teal colour instead of dark. I am not the best at smokey looks but i thought this turned out quite pretty :) Anyway smokey eyes seem quite cool to me, they're basically always in style and a bit punky. I smudged black pencil all over my eye then patted aqua shadow over the top. I also purposefully smudged my mascara together. The lipgloss is clear but with a slight blue sheen. Then I thought I'd add some smokey blue lips too.

Wearing:

Face: Nyx liquid makeup in LM01 Pale  mixed with Gosh Exceptional Wear in 11 Porcelain, Screen Face white loose powder, Barry M blush in 4

 Eyes: Nyx jumbo eye pencil in Cottage Cheese, Barry M jumbo black pencil, Aromaleigh Rocks shadow in Bluespark, Urban decay 24/7 pencil in Flipside, black mascara

Lips: Estee Lauder pure color gloss in 310 Clear Flash or Miss Sporty Hollywood Lip gloss in 410 Punk it Up.

Bubblegarm Sigma Competition - Coral Blush 2

Here's a second coral blush look. I don't like it as much as the first one, but I still thought I'd enter it.
This is more of a 'regular' makeup look, using all corals of various shades but then loads of blush again :P

 

Wearing:

Face: Nyx liquid makeup in LM01 Pale  mixed with Gosh Exceptional Wear in 11 Porcelain, Illamasqua Loose powder in LP 005, Evil Shades blush in Ravishing, Illamasqua Illuminator in Fondle, Illamasqua powder blusher (dont know colour as it's rubbed off back :/)

 Eyes: Illamasqua Illuminator in Fondle, Hi Fi Shadows in Champagne Toast, Morganas Minerals (now Cryptoria) shadow in Coraline, Evil Shades shadow in Seraphic  Collection 2000 Glam Crystals eyeliner in Dancing Queen, black mascara

Lips: Illamasqua lipstick in Over

And yes, I need to bleach my moustache :P

Bubblegarm Sigma Competition - Coral Blush 1

My second entry, this time for the 'Make Me Blush' Coral Sigma set :)
Here I tried to keep all the makeup subtle apart from the blush, which I went to town with :)

 

Then I thought I'd pile on a bit more blush :P

 

Wearing: 

Face: Nyx liquid makeup in LM01 Pale  mixed with Gosh Exceptional Wear in 11 Porcelain, Screenface white translucent loose powder, Evil Shades Blush in Ravishing, Evil Shades blush in Gossamer.

Eyes: Illamasqua Illuminator in Fondle, black mascara
Lips: Illamasqua Illuminator in Fondle, clear lip gloss

Bubblegarm Sigma Competition -Black and classy

Bubblegarm is having an amazing contest where you can win a Sigma brush set of your choice. I'm so sorry I've only just mentioned it now, I actually thought I'd posted about it but now I see it was in a draft I'd written but not posted yet. Yeah I suck. But you can still enter until 11:59 tomorrow so get your brushes out real quick! ... Sorry again.

Anyway this is my entry to win the black set. It's meant to be a 'classy' look so I thought I'd keep it clean, simple and straight forward but with black glossy lips making it a bit special and unusual :)

 

Wearing:
Face: Nyx liquid makeup in LM01 Pale  mixed with Gosh Exceptional Wear in 11 Porcelain, Screenface white translucent loose powder, ELF studio powder blush in Peachy Keen, Evil Shades blush in Gossamer.
Eyes: the black matte from basically any Sleek palette on my eyebrows, Mac Gesso all over the lid, Illamasqua liquid liner in Abyss, black mascara
Lips: Nyx lip liner in Black Berry, Illamasqua Intense lip gloss in Repulse

This would work a lot better if I could have slicked back my hair, or if it just wasn't a ginger frizzy fraggle mane. But still, it's a makeup contest, not hair :P
And yes I'm wearing grubby pyjamas.

Illamasqua Contest entry 4 - Galatea

The idea for this character came again from the idea of someone searching for the secret to life itself. I started thinking about Pygmalion and his statue and the idea came from there. The makeup was my attempt to look like I was made of marble but uhh it didn't work so well (i think i look more like the moon) and then do a sort of normal face of makeup over it, as if it was my actual skin.

Galatea was created by Pygmalion, who pined and lusted after her, even though she was just a marble statue. He prayed to the Gods and eventually Cupid granted his wish and brought her to life. The sculpter was delighted. However Galatea was not. She had no love for Pygmalion, she did not know him at all, but he forced her to marry him, saying that without him she wouldn't have life at all. He treated her as his property, forgetting that she was now her own person. Eventually Galatea could not take it anymore and ran away.
She still has the look of cold stone but is a real woman, with a kind heart and sweet nature.

 

 

More under the cut :)

Illamasqua contest entry 3 - The Spirit Wife

When i saw the cast of characters that had gathered for the other-worldly banquet i was surprised at something. There are a lot of classic supernatural beasts, a fairy, an angel, a werewolf-type creature and a vampire, but no ghosty! So i thought i'd come up with a ghost character. The inspiration for the story comes from a hideously nerdish source. One of my favourite bands is David Devant and his Spirit Wife, who are a band who (at least used to) run under the concept of the lead singer being the spiritual vessel for David Devant, arguably Britain's greatest ever magician. And umm.. well I never really understood the spirit wife part of the story. In old gigs Madame Devant (AKA a nighty on a stick) would appear but i never heard what her story was. So anyway my story was based on his idea. Makeup wise the inspiration just came from just trying to look a bit ghostly and dead :)

When she was alive the Spirit Wife deeply loved her husband, one of the greatest magicians of the age. They did everything together and she even served as his assistant. One day they displayed their famous bullet catch trick they had performed it together hundreds of times but unfortunately by some freak co-incidence it went wrong somehow and she was killed. Husband and wife both pined for the other on the different plains. Finally she managed to find a way to appear before her love but he was terrified to see her in her undead state. So she now searches for a way to return her life to her so she can return to her love.

 

 

Couple more under the cut :)

Illamasqua contest entry 2 - Midas' Daughter

My inspiration for this came from the idea that the characters at the Art of Darkness dinner were searching for the secret of the elixir of life and the colours of the collection reminded me of alchemy which was the ancient theory of how to turn base metals into gold. In turn this reminded me of the story of King Midas and my idea came from there. The inspiration for the actual makeup look came from a few sources, firstly i remembered a look from some horror film where they had large cartoony veins drawn in black (can't remember which film and i couldn't find pictured on google so i had no source to look at) which i wanted to do but in gold. I also wanted the look to be sort of regal and that reminded me of a makeup look i love, Dave Stewarts in the Eurythmics 'There must be an Angel' video, where he plays a sort of playing card/rococo king with exreme contouring and gold eyeshadow.

The story of King Midas goes as follows:
In Ancient Greece there was once a great king named Midas. He was a good king but obsessed with wealth and loved gold above everything, including his one daughter Marigold. One day Bacchus came and after Midas showed him fine hospitality Bacchus agreed to grant Midas one wish. Midas wished for everything he touched to turn to gold. At first Midas was delighted by his new golden touch bu he soon saw the downside. He tried to drink and the water turned to gold, he tried to eat and the food turned to gold as soon as it touched his tongue. Worst of all when little Marigold came to see him Midas kissed her. Instantly all life left her and she was nothing but a golden statue. Midas cried and begged Bacchus to remove his curse. Luckilly Bacchus kindly agreed and told Midas how to cure himself. Firstly Midas washed his hands in  a river that ran near his house. He then collected some of the water in a pitcher and took it home. When he sprinkled the water on Marigold she returned to life. Midas was so delighted to be free of the dreadful golden touch that he returned everything in the house to it's original state and never lusted for money or gold again.

However I wondered what would happen if that is not where the story ended.

Midas' daughter has been searching for the banquet for a long time, desperate for the knowledge and help the gatherers might be able to grant her. Her father's stupidity has left her cursed. While once she was flesh and blood she is now slowly but surely returning to the gold that Midas lusted for. Gold dust now runs through her veins. She needs to find a solution to restore her humanity, but is it already too late? Sadly her emotions too are becoming as hard and cold as the yellow metal her body is reverting to.

 

 

More under the cut :)

Illamasqua Contest - Wild Thing

So here's my first entry for the Illamasqua contest. I was inspired by tribal face-painting (particularly traditional African paint) and my friend Liselotte Eriksson. Liselotte is an amazing artist who is quite famous for her faerie paintings and amazing photographs. Recently Lisis had an exhibition called Mad Dog which featured her and her friends as sort of feral, crazy wild people (or that's how i saw it anyway, i may be totally wrong) which i found very beautiful and inspired this look. You can see some of her photos here.

This faerie is not the sweet, ethereal kind that you might read about in books, she does not fly or sprinkle fairy dust or grant wishes. This is a wild, almost crazed and entirely uncivilised creature who others should be wary of. She plays by her own set of rules and will cheat, trick or attack to get what she wants. She's an umcomplicated, base creature who is fueled mainly by instincts and wants. She is not interested in making friends or helping people, unless there's something in it for her.

 

A million more photos (and how i did the look) under the cut :)

Amazing Contest

Hullo everyone! I'm home from holiday now (it was fantastic, post will be coming up on one of my blogs after i've sorted out the 500+ photos) but unfortunately have caught a nasty bug :( poor Claire had it from about our first day of holiday and i caught it near the end. I either have it worse or just make a lot more fuss than her :P
Anyway being ill may be a good thing for my blog cause all i have the energy to do is sit around eating tomato soup and toast and watching telly in my pyjamas (so basically like always, but i have an excuse to not actually get on with anything important) so will hopefully get some posts done :)

A lot of people who read my blog probably found it through Mizz Worthy's Illamasqua contests. In fact some of my very first posts were entries to the Heroes and Villains contest around the end of last year (they were pretty much all terrible!). Since then I have entered several looks for each of the two contests there have been since and have been lucky enough to come in second place both times!
Well there's a new contest and it's bigger and better than ever!

http://www.mizzworthy.com/2010/09/illamasqua-contest-mystery-guest.html

The prize is just amazing - the entire Art Of Darkness collection plus an intensive 2-day makeup course.

Anyway this is super late so i am sorry but hopefully you will still be able to enter!

I have quite a few ideas and will be entering any that turn out well. However this time I am pretty sure i will not come anywhere close to winning. The scope of this contest is just too big, so many amazing, talented people entering I don't think my ideas and ability will stand a chance. Also I guess i wouldn't be fair if i did win seeing as I've come in second twice already. But it will be fun and i hope you will enjoy my looks :)

Speaking of the Art of Darkness collection, i do still have a write up of the bloggers event coming and i am sorry about the delay!

Mizz Worthy and Illamasqua Elementals Contest - Fire

This is my final entry for the contest (i actually did 2 more looks but they were rubs and will be confined to the depths of my picture folder for all time) and is based around the element of fire. One of my failed looks was a sort of take on traditional punky makeup but using fire colours of red, orange and yellow and i decided to again use a punk aesthetic but try and create a look based on smoke of fire instead of the flames. The idea behind going for a punky look was that, while all the elements can be dangerous, it is fire that is regarded as the most so (in my opinion anyway) while water, air and earth all have tranquil aspects to them fire is mostly thought of as a destructive force. And i thought this went with the idea of nihilism and the shock and fear of punks conservative people often had in the 70s.
So this is sort of my take on a smokey eye but taken to the extreme (I am useless at a regular smokey eye because i'm pretty bad at blending, but with this look i thought i could get away with it being messy)

 

 

 

I did my face as usual and added a little red eyeshadow under my cheek bones and down to my jawline. Then i applied a thick rim of black eyeshadow around my eye before blending it (as best i could) up, down and out to my hairline. I also very lightly blended in some red eyeshadow and lined my waterline in red. Then i tapped on some red glitter (this time actually eye safe!) and stroked some over black mascara too. finally i added a little of the black shadow and red glitter over my lips.

I used:

Urban Decay Surreal Skin cream-to-powder foundation

Avon translucent powder

Sugarpill Love + eyeshadow

Sugarpill Bulletproof eyeshadow

Kryolan Red eyeliner pencil

Red cosmetic glitter

black mascara

Also i am a ginger now :)

Mizz Worthy and Illamasqua Elementals Contest - Ice

 I had so much fun with my first two looks for this contest i decided to do some more :) This is a second entry using the element of Water but this time i wanted a sort of Ice Maiden look.

 

 

 

First i painted my whole face white and powdered with a white translucent powder and then an iridescent shimmer face powder. I contoured my nose, eyes, cheeks and forehead with blue eyeshadow and applied it lightly to my lips too. Then i used the white side of a double ended mascara on my eyelashes and eyebrows and then pressed an opalescant, chunky glitter on top (the glitter i used specifically says not to use it on the eyes but i paid no heed to this. Oooh i'm a rebel!). Finally i slicked my lips with a blueish, iridescent lipgloss and sprayed my face with a setting spray before shaking large flakes of glitter all over my face :)

I used:

Kryolan White face paint
Screen face white powder
Aromaleigh Opal powder
Sugarpill Tako eyeshadow
Illamasqua Medium pencil
Estee Lauder crystal flash lipgloss
Sleek double ended mascara
Rocket City glitter
Early learning centre 'snow glitter'

Hmm i think i prefer my first 'water' look, but this was a lot of fun to do too :)

Mizz Worthy and Illamasqua Elementals Contest - Water

 The second element i decided to try and convey was water. I wanted to make a sort of creature-makeup and tried to look like some sort of watery spirit creature. I was attempting to look like i wasn't wearing makeup, but that i just naturally looked like this. It was a lot of fun! :)

  

  

Ok it looks awful with the flash, but i wanted to show the shimmery skin properly :P

 

The first thing i did was block out my eyebrows with a glue stick and powder and then applied foundation heavilly to properly cover them up. Then i started covering my face with shimmering blue eyeshadows and various other bits and pieces. I contoured a little with a green shadow and then used the Illamasqua liquid metals and lipgloss to make little 'scales' by making little fingertip marks under my cheekbones, down my nose, on my chin and forehead and the sides of my face. I added some shimmery white shadow as a highlight on my cheekbones and forehead. Then i put glitter on my face using a round brush to make sort of circles of glitter (again trying to look like scales). My lips were covered with blue lipstick and gloss and then patted a lot of glitter on. Finally i patted some of the blue shadow onto my waterline to try and get rid of the red (i wish i could have done this to the tear duct too, but that would have been a very stupid idea :P). And then i teased my hair to try and make it look like i was underwater and pated some eyeshadow and glitter on it too.

I think it ended up looking pretty good but i worked over it a bit too much and ended up losing the look of scales i had tried to achieve. I only wish i'd bothered to continue it down to my shoulders so the photos would look better :(

I used:

gosh x-ceptional wear foundation in porcelain

dainty doll concealer in fair

Avon powder

aromaleigh forget-me-not

evil shades banshee

evil shades moonlit

evil shades silver bullet

aromaleigh greenbrier

illamasqua liquid metals in enrapture, phenomena and surge the new one

illamasqua intense lip gloss in galactic

morgana minerals serenity

evil shades lip gloss banshee

wet n wild glitter (no name)

morgana minerals twinkling teal glitter