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top irish beauty siteI know this isn’t a new idea, but I was doing my makeup the other day and started doing something that I thought was worth sharing. I was about to jump onto Instagram stories and share it, but then I had the idea to do it in blogpost form for future reference purposes 🙂 I’m calling it my top 5 makeup tips but I can’t guarantee I’ll keep it to 5 🙂top irish beauty blogger

There’s no real rhyme or reason to these makeup tips. They’re really just things that came to mind and things I’ve learned over the years.

  1. If you’re using a thicker foundation and find it hard to blend. Try spraying your foundation brush with makeup setting spray. It’ll make it easier to blend without compromising the longevity. It works if you’re using a sponge too.top beauty blog ireland

  2. If you have trouble putting gel liner in your water line. This is something I learned from Marlena aka Makeup Geek. I use to attempt to do it with a brush but it just tickles too much! Instead, try using a similar coloured eye pencil to apply it. Dip the pencil into the gel liner pot and use it as the tool. Makes tight lining so much easier. Thanks Marlena 🙂top irish beauty blogger

  3. Don’t directly powder over wet skin ie: oil or sweat, it leaves holes in your foundation. If you need to touch up,  always try blot and then pat powder where necessary onto the face.

  4. Filing indexes aka sticky notes or even sellotape works. Just me sure you take the access stickiness off on the back of your hand.  (You don’t want to pull your eyes). They make a great eyeliner guide. Apply to the edge of your eyes in the direction you want your flick. Apply your liner or eyeshadow and then slowly pull the sticky notes off away from your face. You should be left with a clean line. It takes practice, but I promise it works.makeup tips

  5. We know dampening your brush makes metallics shadows and highlights apply more vibrant, right? If you don’t want to do that, you can use your setting spray as normal on your face and before it dries, apply your highlighter on damp skin. This will make it pop a little extra too and help it last longer.irish beauty blog

  6. Cheap eyeliners are often hard to use. If you want to soften the pencil and get use out of it. Run the tip through the flame of a lighter for a couple of seconds. Obviously be sure that it’s not hot to the touch when applying it to your eyes. But it will soften it and make it much easier to apply.irish beauty blog makeup tips

  7. If you have an eyeshadow that you don’t get much pigment out of but love the colour.  Try applying concealer or a white base (like the NYX Jumbo eye pencil) before it and pat it on with your finger. It will help with the opacity. Dampening your eyeshadow brush with water, setting spray, Duraline or even eye drops before application will help too.makeup tips

I did a post here yonks ago about keeping your lashes curled all day. I thought that might be helpful to throw into the makeup tips mix too. And here is a demo of the winged liner tip in practice. The pictures and videos are horrendous but the methods still stands 🙂

If even one of these makeup tips helps you, I’ll be very happy, so please let me know. I definitely went over the quota of five ha!

xxx

I think the theme of this post is pretty self explanatory from the title. This is my three step process to getting fuller lips.

top beauty blog ireland

Now I do mention this in the video as well. I love Instagram as much as the next blogger. But, I very much try to live in the real makeup wearing world for the most part. So there’ll be no drag queen over drawing here, (as much as I love what they do.) This is my guide to natural, but fuller lips.

 

I use three products here, but all three lend themselves to a more poutier look in their own right really. A slick of liner, lipstick or gloss tends to make your lips stand out more, so on their own can make your lips look a little bigger.

fuller lips makeup hackfuller lips makeup hack

This run through is for the time when you want to take a bit of time, even out your lip line, make it a little bigger and also make everything last as long as possible throughout the day. The products I used aren’t necessarily important, but the tones are, I think.top irish beauty blog

This is my go to nude, fuller lip look. My skin tone doesn’t lend itself to super nude lips, so I settle for a more brown nude colour spectrum.irish beauty blogger

I use Mac Whirl lip liner to even out and over draw my lip line slightly. My top lip is smaller than my bottom so I like to make them look a bit more symmetrical. I used Laura Geller’s High Line Honey lipstick to lighten the inside of my lips a little. And then finally, right in the centre of my lips I used the new Urban Decay Hi-Fi Shine lipgloss in Fuel to add some extra dimension. Gloss is obviously shiny so allows the light to bounce off it, letting us fake fuller lips.irish beauty blog

If you want to see me talk through the process, just click on the video above. Or, you can of course head straight to my YouTube channel here.

Let me know what you think and if you have any fuller lip hacks! 🙂

xxx

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Myself and winged eye liner do not have a good relationship. It’s tired, it’s strained and it stresses me out! I over think it and just over analyse it and also my left eye is very ticklish and it twitches alot and makes me mess up…yep it’s all leftys fault.

Liquid liner, gel liner, pencil liner, I’ve tried them all. Now, sometimes I get lucky and I attempt it and it works. That’s usually the night I decide to practice my winged eye liner before bed and then have to take it off straight away, what a waste!

You need to be calm and collected around winged eye liner and I am neither of these things. There is one way I can get the look though without compromising my mental health, and for it I need three things.

Scotch tap.

Or any tape really, I just happened to have scotch.

A liner brush.

Whichever one you’re most comfortable with.

And a eye shadow colour of your choice.

nars narsissist palette

 

Shadow is way more forgiving than liner and can be easily wiped away, you can always go over it when the shape is achieved using a more hardier substance.

Take two pieces of tape about two inches long. How cute is my dusty tape holder ha.

Irish beauty blogmakeup and beauty blogI put the scotch tape on the back of my hand and pull if off my skin a few times to take some of the stickiness off it, so it doesn’t pull your eye too much.

irish blogPlace the tape under your eye and make it parallel with the end of your eye brow.

Winged Eye Liner Made Easy (5)You’ll look fab 🙂

Grab an eye liner brush you are most comfortable with. For me I like the Nima bent liner brush.

irish makeup and beauty blogPick the shadow you want to use. I chose the chocolate brown shade from the Narsisst Palette.

Nars beauty blogbeauty blog ireland

I start my wing at the tape, this means when I remove the tape, the line will be straight, so you don’t have to be too precise at all, the tape does the work for you.

winged eye liner made easyI choose how long I want the wing to be and draw a liner from there to the end of my eye.

cat eye tips Then, I just draw a liner across my lashes as normal. I have a slightly hooded eye, so I don’t go too thick with it.

easy cat eye linerIt’ll look a bit like this after.

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To create the wing, I just place the brush at the end of the line I created.

top irish blogThen, connect the line to the line across my lashes.

winged liner tutorialTry do this with your eye open because you want the liner to look the most flattering with your eyes open rather than closed. I then, just fill in the gap left behind.

winged liner irish blogOf course, you can make the wing and liner as long, dramatic or long as you want. For me, a smaller wing suits me best 🙂

When you remove the tape, you should be left with a crisp winged edge to your line.

easy liner tips irish beauty blogThen the hard bit, you try to recreate it as best you can on the other eye. Luckily, the eye shadow is easy rubbed away, if you make mistake, just grab a cotton bud and clean it away. If the liner is a little uneven when you take away the tape, you can adjust it with a cotton bud too, so don’t panic 🙂

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Then you should hopefully left with a soft winged eyeliner look.

irish beauty blog beautynookI have some shadow in my socket too for some definition and a light shimmery shadow on the lid and in the inner corner, but that’s not necessary at all. I then curled my lashes and add crap loads of mascara 🙂

gemma irish beauty blogger

And there you have it, winged liner but not in your traditional way.

It takes a little practice, but I promise it’s an easier alternative, if winged liner doesn’t some easy to you.

xxx

 

 

 

This is by no means a new tip in the world of makeup. But it’s handy to know if you’ve taken a chance and picked up a pencil eyeliner or lipliner that is just crap! It happens to the best of us, we think’ oh that looks nice, or that’s cheap’, but there’s no way of testing it out in the shop or you buy it online. You bring it home and it just doesn’t give any pay off, or it’s dry and it drags on your skin.

irish beauty blog beautynook

So my tip is, grab a lighter, or a match whatever you have to hand. And of course grab that stupid liner.

irish beauty blog tips

Run the pencil under the flame for a couple of seconds. Don’t leave it for too long, it will melt the product and you may end up with a fire on your hands too, noone wants that!

What this does is warm up the product and makes it softer so it’s easier to apply. Apply it to the back of your hand first to make sure its not too hot and of course that the heat has actually worked on it.

You will hopefully see the product applies a bit more easily on the skin and the colour pay off should be a bit better too.

Give it a go and let me know. I know it’s a bit more effort than using a decent pencil, but it’s also better than throwing out the unused ones you may have lying around 🙂

xxx