hacks Archives - Irish Beauty Blog Beautynook

Makeup Tips Beautynook’s Top 5

I 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 🙂

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.

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.
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 🙂
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.

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

July 13, 2018/by Gem

Beautynook Tips, Makeup

Fuller Lips Makeup Technique

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

*PR SAMPLES USED

April 25, 2018/by Gem

Beautynook Tips, Makeup

Duraline from Inglot. A Makeup Staple!

Duraline is one of those things so many of us have in our makeup stash but we never think to talk about it. It is such a handy thing to own. Bear with me, I know it doesn’t look much in the picture 🙂

First off, you can pick up Duraline from your local Inglot store, or they stock in on the website here It costs 12 euro and will literally last you a life time.

A more technical explanation of Duraline is as follows ‘Silicone polymer forms a breathable film while this waterless clear liquid transforms any powder into an intense and easy to use liquid.’

In my more lay man terms Duraline is an awesome liquid that you can add to eyeshadow to make them into coloured eye liners. 🙂

I chose this Body Shop yellow eyeshadow because it shows the effect Duraline can have.

As you can see it can darken lighter shades, so just be weary of that. However, you can always add some white shadow in to lighten it up a bit. It’s a bit like being a painter 🙂

You just need a couple of drops and you can tranform any shadow matte or sparkly, and it dries to a waterproof finish, so you don’t need to worry about it sliding around you eyes. On a side note, to save your eyeshadow, scrape it out of it’s pan and do the mixing separately because it will dry it out!

Duraline is also the best invention ever for reviving dried up gel liners/brow gels etc. Seriously it’s such a life saver. Again a couple of drops and your gel is as good as new.

You can add Duraline to foundations or concealers too if they are too thick or harder to spread. I saw on the online grape vine it can also help them last longer too. I’ve yet to try this method, but I will be definitely giving it a go in the future.

Because Duraline dries, I also find it great for adding glitter to the eyes too. I usually do this but adding a teeny tiny amount to a synthetic brush, apply a really light layer to my lid and then use the same brush to pat on the glitter and then your party ready!

In Conclusion (I feel like I’m back in college throwing that into a post 🙂 Duraline is such a handy and underrated product. Go get it 🙂

xxx

December 4, 2015/3 Comments/by Gem

Beautynook Tips, Makeup

Winged Eye Liner Made Simple

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.

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.

I 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.

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

You’ll look fab 🙂

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

Pick the shadow you want to use. I chose the chocolate brown shade from the Narsisst Palette.

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.

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

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.

It’ll look a bit like this after.

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

Then, connect the line to the line across my lashes.

Try 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.

Of 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.

Then 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 🙂

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

I 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 🙂

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

November 1, 2015/6 Comments/by Gem

Beautynook Tips, Makeup

Easy Tight lining Tips

These are just really simple tight lining tips but like my last Beautynook Tips post about mascara here, I thought I would share just in case 🙂

I don’t know about you, when it comes to tight lining my waterline, I’m a bit funny. Using a brush just tickles the inside of eye and usually makes my peepers water, so it’s not really ideal.

I find gel liner is the best medium for staying put all day (and night) in the waterline. Kohl pencils just don’t cut the mustard when it comes to lasting power, especially for a night out, when you don’t want to have to keep topping it up. Inglot gel liners for me are some of the best out there. The Inglot liner in number 77 (black) is actually the first product I ever wrote about on Chatterbox. That was a little while ago now 🙂

They come in so many colours, and last so well, so well you need to use oils to get them off most of the time, but I am not complaining because they stay put, sometimes we have to make sacrifices 🙂

So onto my little application tip. Instead of using a brush to apply the gel into the waterline, use an eyeliner pencil!

This tip is one I got from the lovely Marlena owner of the now infamous Makeup Geek brand, which I am a HUGE fan of!

I usually pick one that’s a similar colour to the gel I’m using just so if there’s any transfer you can’t see it, but if you’re in a pinch any eyeliner will do.

Dip the the pencil into the gel and then apply the gel with the pencil.

It gives you an even distribution of product and it doesn’t tickle or annoy you like a brush might. I use this method every time and it works so well. Then when you want to use the pencil eyeliner as just a pencil just sharpen it to get rid of any excess gel, or just give it a wipe before the gel sets and you’ll be good to go!

If you have really watery eyes and find even the gel tends to move around on your waterline, try setting it on top with a similar coloured eyeshadow, that will help set the product even more!

Simple but hopefully a couple of handy tips there for you 😉

xxx

July 8, 2015/2 Comments/by Gem

Posts

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.

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.

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

*********PR SAMPLES USED********

Duraline is one of those things so many of us have in our makeup stash but we never think to talk about it. It is such a handy thing to own. Bear with me, I know it doesn’t look much in the picture 🙂

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.

These are just really simple tight lining tips but like my last Beautynook Tips post about mascara here, I thought I would share just in case 🙂

*PR SAMPLES USED