Subtle Winged Eyeliner

I have a love hate relationship with winged eyeliner. I used to be obsessed with it, the (self proclaimed) Queen of the winged liner, then overnight I hated it and literally didn't wear eyeliner for a year. 

A reformed winged eyeliner addict, I am slowly trying to reintroduce it back into my life and the key is subtlety. You don't want a thick black line over your whole eye as it can appear very harsh and makes your eyes appear rounder, which isn't always the most flattering look. By only applying eyeliner to the outer corner of your eye, not only do you elongate your eyes but the whole look is much fresher and less heavy. Angelina Jolie is the master of this eyeliner trick and it looks beautiful on her. 

To create your wing you can use whatever liquid liner you like, as long as it has a thin nib. I personally like to use a gel eyeliner with a brush. This gives me more control and gel eyeliners are pretty budge proof. My favourite are the fluid lines by MAC, here I have used Dip Down which is a brown colour. Its a nice change from black and is less harsh. My favourite eyeliner brush is actually an art brush. I highly recommend picking up a brush from an art shop as they have a much finer point. 

The key to this look is starting your eyeliner at the outer corner of your iris and keeping the rest of your eyelid clear of any liner, I know its tempting to fill it in but leave it! You can extend your wing just above your crease but don't go crazy and remember to keep the line thin, we are thinking Angelina not Amy.

If you manage to bag yourself a Brad Pitt, thank me later ;)

My Favourite Autumn/Winter Eyeshadows

As you know I have been slightly frivolous with my eyeshadow colours of late and have been particuarly loving dark purple and berry shades. I thought I would share some of my current favourites and recommendations with you.

Charlotte Tilbury Colour-Coded Eyeshadow Palette in Vintage Vamp

I bought this after seeing a picture of Khloe Kardashian on instagram. I loved her makeup in the picture and I also happen to follow her makeup artist, who posted a picture of what he used and this was one of the products. I had been wanting to try one of Charlotte's eyeshadow palettes but would never have chosen this particular colour if it wasn't for seeing it on Khloe. I love the cranberry colours in this palette, they create such a beautiful, sultry eye look. I definitely want to try more of these eyeshadow palettes now.

Available from Selfridges £38.00

Estee Lauder Pure Colour Instant Intense Eyeshadow Trio in Beach Metals

This is another palette which I would never have picked for myself if I hadn't been recommended it. This was actually a recommendation from the lovely lady on the Estee Lauder counter and from those dents you can see this has seen a lot of love in a short amount of time! I tend to wear this in the day time and the Vintage Vamp palette in the evening, as the colours in the Estee Lauder palette are lighter and softer. I wear the lightest colour all over my lid, blend the middle colour just above my crease and the darkest colour in my outer corners.

Available from Debenhams currently on offer for £24.30 instead of £27.00

Burberry Sheer Eyeshadow in Almond

One of my all time favourite eyeshadows, if you like messy, grungy makeup like me you will love this. I blend this all over my lid and underneath my lower lash line, taking the colour quite far down. Its minimal effort but looks amazing. These shadows are such beautiful quality, they blend so easily that they really are foolproof. 

Available from John Lewis £22.50

Maybelline Colour Tattoo in Metallic Pomegranate

Finally a cheap option, this is my newest addition to the cranberry family. Maybelline's Colour Tattoos are one of the best cream eyeshadows I have ever tried. For me they beat MAC Paintpots as they are less than half the price and don't dry out as quick, plus they last all day. I love this slightly shimmery metallic colour, it looks brighter in the pot than it does when its smudged out on the eyes. It gives a really subtle effect which I love.

Available from Boots £4.99

By Terry Ombre Blackstar in Velvet Orchid

This was a rather naughty purchase but in my defence I did have £10.00 worth of points on my 

Space NK card (oh yeah) I saw this used in one of Pixiwoos tutorials and fell in love. This is a cream eyeshadow but in stick form. Its really easy to blend and although it looks quite dark you can blend this out to a beautiful soft smokey purple colour.

Available from Space NK £27.50

I am loving recommendations at the moment, so please share yours with me!

Olsen Twins Eye Makeup

This is my favourite kind of makeup, messy, lived in and minimal effort. I'm not really a fan of "perfectly done" make up, I don't want to use one colour eyeshadow for my lid, then a darker colour for my crease then  a lighter colour for my brow bone to highlight. I just want one colour that I can basically smudge all round my eyes et voila! I do also secretly wish I was Courtney Love!

This is one of the reasons I love cream eyeshadows, I find they have more dimension to them than a powder eyeshadow. Even though i am only using one colour, the way you blend the cream out around the eye gives you so much depth.

The trick is to smudge your eyeshadow underneath your lower lash line. Don't be scared but we wanna go low here. If you feel under your eye, you feel that bulge around your eye ball? Well you wanna go as low as that, even lower if you feel daring, the trick is in blending so there's no harsh lines. There should be a foggy haze of colour around your eye, which will really emphasize your eyes. As these are creams I normally use either my fingers or a synthetic brush to apply, as they work better with cream products.

So, some of my favourite cream brown shadows are Dual by Illamasqua, MAC Paint Pot in Constructivist (also a favourite of Alexa Chung don't you know), Maybelline Colour Tattoo in On and On Bronze and possibly my favourite of them all and the one I am wearing, Tom Ford's Cream Colour for Eyes in Spice.

Burberry Sheer Eye Shadow

Meet my new loves......

Burberry makeup was launched in 2010 and mistakenly I did not pay the line any attention at all...until now! It just didn't interest me enough to pay the rather high price tags, but recently I stumbled across the Burberry YouTube channel and fell in love. The more I read about the line, the further I fell. I love natural, effortless makeup and this is exactly what Burberry are promoting.

So anyway, I watched these Burberry tutorials and that was it, I knew what had to be done. After some investigation I found that you can either buy direct from Burberry or Harrods. After the initial joy, came the overwhelming waves of guilt! How can I justify paying this much for an eyeshadow?! So I emailed Harrods, begging them to cancel my order (of course I didn't mention that I was a crazy make up person, I made up a rather long tale about a duplicated birthday gift!) but it was too late, they had already dispatched my parcel. I knew once it arrived I would be powerless to return it, so for that Harrods I thank you, because I would not be without these now (but Natwest hates you)

The packaging is of course very sleek and expensive. All the eye shadows come in those fancy velvet pouches which are nothing but bloody dust collectors! They also come with little sponge applicators, which I tell you aren't half bad for using to smudge under the eye.

So the shadows I picked were (from left to right) Gold Trench, Almond and Taupe Brown. The Burberry website is really helpful and shows you the products to use to recreate each season's look. i fell in love with the Autumn/Winter 2012 look and these were the shadow's used.

Gold Trench (mmmm)

Almond (droooool)

Taupe Brown (squeal)

These shadows are absolutely gorgeous, what I love about them is the buttery texture and buildable colour. They create a beautiful hazy effect on the eye and blend out beautifully, you really cant go wrong. I have honestly never used an eye shadow quite like these and I definitely want more!

I cannot wait to delve further into the Burberry makeup line now!

Urban Decay 15 Year Anniversary Palette

Do you know how bloody hard it is to photograph a mirrored palette!

ARGGGHHHHH

I'm a bit late to the game on this one so I'll try and keep it brief! To mark Urban Decays 15 year anniversary they released this palette, with 15 brand spanking new eyeshadows.

I LOVE the packaging for this palette, it comes in this very plush purple velvet box, which I think Bam Margera would love ;) I'm going to store my jewellery in it though, cos you know, dont think I'll be bumping into him anytime soon!

The actual case itself is mirrored so is a real fingerprint hoarder but I do love it!

So these are the 15 shades. Now the reason why I ummmmed an ahhhhed over this palette is because I am a neutral kinda girl. I don't do bright eyes, I think at the ripe old age of 25 I'm kind of past that. I'm all for the dramatic editorial looks, but I'm just not gona rock a lime green and pink eye. Its just not gona happen. So on first glance I thought that this is all this palette was (bright colours) that I would never wear but I'm not ashamed to say I was wrong.

There are 8 gorgeous neutral shades in this palette (I count black as neutral!) So if you are a neutral girl like me you really should check this out because the colours are gorgeous and they make a nice change from the Naked Palette if you already own that.

From left to right;   Midnight Rodeo, Midnight 15, Vanilla, Flow, Chase, Deeper, M.I.A and Blackout

See.....what did I tell you!

From left to right; (My permanent tribute to Bob Dylan, I ADORE him...anyway back to the make up) Tainted, Junkshow, Omen, Evidence, Deep End, Ace and Half Truth

And you know what, the brights aren't too bad either. Evidence, Ace and Half Truth are quite dark so will make a nice smoky eye and Junkshow could even be used as a blush (very, very light hand needed!)

So if you were on the fence about this like me then I hope I swayed you ;) Of course you might be more sensible then me and just wait for Urban Decays Naked 2 (FYI Exclusive to Debenhams early January for those in the UK) But unluckily for me I am a person of very little sense!

Oh and I almost forgot, I got this on Debenhams online where its currently on offer for £35.10p instead of £39.00, now go, make haste!

Illamasqua Art of Darkness 4 Colour Liquid Metal Palette

I am loving one of my most recently acquired purchases from the new Illamasqua collection, Art of Darkness.

The 4 colour liquid metal palette can be used on anywhere on the face and body but I have been using mine as cream colour eyeshadows or as an eyeshadow base.

The 4 colours in the palette (clockwise from top left) are: Stoic (emerald Green) Solstice (gold) Superior (burgundy coppery red) Resolute (blue)

My personal favourite is "Superior" as it makes my blue eyes stand out and I tend to gravitate towards these kinds of colours anyway.

These colours are beautifully creamy and so easy to apply, I apply them with my fingers as I like that smudgy rocky look. These also make great bases to apply eyeshadow and they are long lasting. I really would recommend this palette. I bought mine from ASOS.com and it cost me about £29, so its not cheap but I think well worth it. I am so impressed with this palette that I have put the liquid metal palette from the Body Electrics collection on my Christmas list :)

This is a look I did using "Superior" as a base with MAC Blue Brown pigment on top.

And this is another look using "Resolute" with some colours from my Urban Decay Book of Shadows Volume III hope this gives you some ideas! I highly recommend you rush out and buy this awesome palette!