Festive Gold with a Berry Lip

Howdy!

I have finally done it - I've made and uploaded my very first YouTube tutorial, where I show you how to get the below eye look.

I'll be honest with you- I know my photos aren't amazing. I'm aware that the camera I filmed the tutorial on isn't the best, but personally, to me the person in the video/photo is more important than the quality of the picture. I've seen YouTubers and Bloggers alike who have amazing super sharp HD cameras, but it's done nothing to improve either patchy makeup or a poor explanation. I don't mean to be mean - my point is I've always thought that if your content is sub-par, no amount of fancy technology is going to help you.

Anyway, I created a fun, festive look that I think would look great against lots of different skin tones and eye colours! I've shown this with a berry lip, but of course you could pair this with a nude or a rosy, more natural pink :)

Here's a very quick breakdown of the products used.

-Urban Decay Primer Potion (Anti Ageing)

-NYX Jumbo Eye Pencil (Milk) as base on lid and browbone

-Urban Decay Original Vice Palette - 'Laced'  (crease/transition),  'Penny Lane' (outer half of lid),  'Blitz' (inner half of lid), 'Anonymous' and 'Laced' mixed (to blend out dark colour above crease)

-Urban Decay Vice 2 Palette - 'Toxic' and 'Coax' mixed (very outer corners of lids)

-Urban Decay Naked 3 Palette - 'Blackheart' (outer V & blended above crease)

-ELF Cream Eyeliner (Black)

-Urban Decay 24/7 Liquid Liner in 'Perversion' (Applied over cream liner)

-Eyelure Volume Lashes (No. 100)

-LAQA & Co Lip Lube (No name on product, but I believe it's 'Menatour')

-Naked Flushed Palette Highlighter (Brow and Cheekbone highlight)

I'd love it if you'd like to pop over to my little corner of YouTube and have a nosey at my tutorial, and any shares, likes or feedback will be hugely appreciated!

Have a beautiful day lovelies!

Charley xxx

A Two-For-One Treat: I'm Going Bold!

Hello there lovelies!

Okie dokie, let's not mess about, the time has finally come for me to roll up my sleeves and crack on with a tutorial.

As I've been a bit naughty, and done three different posts with zero eyeshadow looks, I've decided to do a bit of a bargain for you, with a TWO FOR ONE tutorial, mostly using the Urban Decay Vice Palette (original).

The theme of today's two-for-one will be 'Ways To Go Bold'.

The basis of each look is the same, but when we get to that last 10%, I'm going to give you a couple of cheeky options to decide between to change it up!

So here are our options (try to ignore my crazy hair):

Route 1: Smokey eye with a bold red lip

Route 2: Neutral lip with a bold smokey eye (yellow)

Right-  I started with my Urban Decay Primer Potion (anti-aging), and covered my eyelids, browbones and undereyes.

e.l.f. angled contour brush and 'Laced'.

Using my e.l.f. angled contour brush, I took 'Laced' from the Vice (original) and swept it across the crease, as a transition for the smokey magic that is to come!

After this, I applied a light layer of 'Desperation' - a smokey brownish-grey to the crease and outer V, and blended out to a soft finish using my e.l.f. eyeshadow 'C' brush. I LOVE this brush for blending and buffing out harsh edges- it is a DREAM to work with!

Applying 'Desperation' with the eyeshadow 'C' brush

Using a dense eyeshadow crease brush (bought YEARS ago at H&M, not entirely sure if they still stock it, but I love it!) I dabbed a tiny dot of 'Black Market' into the crease and outer V to create a more slightly more defined cat-eye shape, then further blended out any harsh lines.

I took my e.l.f. small stipple brush, and used it to apply my e.l.f. HD blush in 'Headliner' for a soft, understated flush of colour on the cheeks.

This is the point at which we decide whether we're rocking a bold lip or eye. Thus far, the eye is fairly neutral, with no shadow on the inner two thirds of the lid.

Route 1: Apply 'Echo Beach' to the inner corner, and blend out to 'Nevermind' in the centre of the lid. Crack out the boldest, brightest lip colour that you have in your arsenal - I went for my Urban Decay (I know, surprise surprise) Super Saturated High Gloss Lip crayon in 'F-Bomb', a classic red. If you fancied doing this in matte, you could opt for the UD 24/7 lip pencil in '69'.  Finish off your eyes with lashings of your mascara of choice, a dash of eyeliner (as IF you even need to guess which brand of eyeliner I used) and you are DONE!

Here are the final results of Route 1...

Route 2: First we need a bright eye colour to fill in that inner/middle section of the lid. I'm sure you know that the Vice Palette has a whole myriad of options, from a glittery hot pink ('Noise') to the most outrageous electric blue you've ever seen ('Chaos'). But I'm trying to move out of my comfort zone here, and I recently picked up the pressed-powder-insanity that is Sugarpill's Buttercupcake, a vivid matte, mustard-esque yellow.

I smudged on a little of my NYX jumbo eye pencil in 'Milk' for a solid, white base, and using a precision eye brush, I patted Buttercupcake onto the inner two-thirds of the eye, and blended into the edges of the darker crease/outer V colours. As ever, the mascara and liquid/pencil liner combo finish this look off beautifully. If you curl your eyelashes, I imagine this is when you would do so- my own lashes are fairly long with a decent amount of curl naturally, so I've never curled mine, and as such, am not much of an expert.

My go-to neutral lip choice of late is my Revlon Just Bitten Kissable Balmstain in 'Honey'. This is a beautiful dusky pink with the perfect amount of understated shine.

So! After all that hard work- this is where Route 2 brings us...

How perfect is that Revlon Balmstain for a neutral lip?

I love the contrast of the yellow shadow and UD's jet-black 'Perversion' liquid liner.

The looks obviously aren't HUGELY different, due to them being based on the same fundamental products, but  I love them for different reasons; I think a statement lip always looks glamorous; but who doesn't love a fierce eye look?

Which is your favourite? I'd love to know your thoughts!

If you have any 2-4-1 ideas you'd like to see, let me know! Two ways to rock glitter? Two easy Valentine's looks? Let me know, either in the comments below, or on Twitter using the hashtag #241- you can find me at @CharleyShadow !

I hope you enjoyed this post!

Seeya again soon lovelies!

Charley
xxx

Let's start as we mean to go on, shall we?

Right, so now I have a beauty blog.

If you haven't followed me on Tumblr or Twitter yet... well, frankly it's not that surprising, because I currently only have about 30 followers... but that's not the point. If you've not yet followed me, you probably don't know who I am. So let's start there.

My name is Charley, I've just turned 27, and I'm from Cardiff, in South Wales. I have a younger sister, who is hilarious and beautiful in equal measure, and a boyfriend whose patience astounds me.

'Why makeup?' you ask. Well, I'll tell you why. When I was younger, I was ALWAYS the shortest in the class, I had perpetually frizzy hair (that hasn't changed, to be honest), I thought my nose was too long, and a crooked tooth that I hated (I still have it, and our relationship hasn't improved much). I had a few issues with my appearance, and as I got older, a lot of them stuck with me. When the other girls started looking like young women, and I retained the build (and height) of a twelve-year-old... well that didn't help. BUT, there was a faint shining light at the end of the tunnel- I liked my eyes. I've always liked my eyes.

My mum had given me a makeup palette of hers to play with when I was younger. I remember that it had colourful layers of little sections you could pull out, to reveal a layer of even more shadows and blushers and wonderment. I was intrigued by the eyeshadows; bright cobalt blues; soft corals and bottle greens, but when I tried to put them on MY eyes, I ended up looking like a clown. I lost patience with a lot of it, but by the time I was about 14, I was pretty sure I'd mastered eyeliner. I bought liquid liners in every imaginable colour. My favourite was a metallic electric blue which - in hindsight - I believe was Urban Decay. It had been a birthday present from a friend, and I absolutely adored it.

Anyway, if we fast-forward a few years, we get to 25 year old me, stumbling across a makeup tutorial on YouTube, featuring the Coastal Scents Original 88 palette. Obviously by this time, I've amassed a respectable collection of eyeshadow quads and singles, several eyeliners, a couple of lipglosses/lipsticks, and a Sephora blusher (my friend introduced me to the wonders of Sephora when we were in Venice for a few days). I'd never really felt like makeup was a necessary part of my life (and to be honest, I don't feel that way now, either) but it was like a toy, and that Coastal Scents palette was calling out to me, so I immediately went online and bought it. This made me excessively happy, but all of the colours were matte and satin, so a few weeks later, when I got a £150 Debenhams voucher in exchange for my old phone at Vodafone, I skipped merrily over to the Urban Decay counter in search of shinier prey. What I bought was what I can only describe as the makeup equivalent of a gateway drug: the 'Smoked' palette. The colours, the shimmers, the silky-soft textures... I was hooked. Readers of my long-standing (and currently woefully neglected) blog 'Charley Says...' will know that at the time, I was so excited that I wrote a post about my makeup adventures.

So here we are. Two years, two UD Vice palettes, several face compacts, blushers, lip products, eyeliners (obviously) and half the Naked collection later, and I have so many makeup thoughts swimming around in my head, that I've had to release the pressure by unleashing them onto the interweb.

You may be thinking "that was a flippin' long story, there had better be a point to this". Well there is. Like I said, I STILL don't see makeup as a staple, I see it as a toy. If you like to play, you might just like this blog! For the life of me, I cannot talk you through a great skincare routine, how to minimise the appearance of cellulite, or the best conditioning hair-masks on the market, but by George, I can show you how to have fun with makeup, and sometimes - as an added bonus - the rest of my face might look good too! If you're liking the sound of things so far, check out my Tumblr account, where you'll be able to see posts and tutorials for the looks in the photos throughout this post, to tide you over until I've been able to throw a few more posts together!

Thank you for reading! Seeya again soon!

Charley
-x-