I’m getting ready for the long Jubilee weekend with some patriotic lip and nail designs :).

Diamond Jubilee Union Jack Lips

Punk Inspired Union Jack Nails

“Couture to the core, she’s bathed in colour to her fingertips. She doesn’t go anywhere without the finishing touch to her outfit: La Laque Couture.”

I got this YSL nail varnish as a gift for my birthday and painted my nails with it for the first time yesterday, and am pretty much in love with it. The more YSL products I try the more impressed I am becoming with them as a beauty brand overall!

The application was easy and flawless, the shape of the brush allows you to almost  fill the nail with colour in one swipe, and then easily fill in the sides of the nails without making a mess on the skin around the nails. 

The colour is intense and completely opaque after just one layer (not sure whether this would be the case for the paler colours as well but I’d guess so - the colour on my nails is Fuschia). There are 30 colours to choose from including classic shades and some more seasonal shades.

Now all that’s left to see is how long it lasts, and how well it can withstand the washing up!

Little peak at the make-up I did for a spring lookbook shoot last week, for designer Hayley Smith. 

I wanted to create a youthful, fresh spring look that complemented Hayley’s designs without detracting attention from them. 

With this in mind, I went for dewy skin, glossy lavender and gold eyes and glossy lips with just a hint of pink. 

Products I used to get this look:

• Simple cleanser, toner and moisturiser
• Illamasqua satin primer
• MAC matchmaster foundations
• Bodyshop Radiant highlighter 
• Illamasqua cream pigment in Emerge (cheeks)
• NARS cream blush in Orgasm
• Illamasqua cream pigment in Dab (eyes)
• MAC gold eyeshadow
• MUA Cosmetics clear lipgloss on eyelids to create glossy eyes.
• YSL Rouge Pure Shine lipstick.

Edited images to come of the images used in the lookbook. 

“My friend is planning a 40s style look for a party, can you recommend makeup?” 

The 1940’s look is actually pretty easy to achieve and is a great way to make a statement with your make-up. To me it is all about Lips, Liner, Brows!

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Get the Look:

* Start by applying a foundation with good coverage that matches your skintone (pale is good for this look, don’t be tempted by fake tan), and powder lightly with translucent powder to set in place. 

* Use a matte cream coloured eyeshadow across the whole of your lid. You can then use a slightly darker taupe coloured eyeshadow on the outer corners of your eye lids and through the crease to add a bit of definition, but keep it well-blended and natural looking.

* Apply a thin line of liquid or cake eyeliner across your top lashline, as close to the lashes as possible. 

* Apply mascara to the top and bottom lashes. 

* Fill in your brows using a brow powder that matches your hair colour (or a couple if shades darker if you have fair hair) and an angled brush, focussing your attention on getting a well-defined arch in your brows. 

* Apply a peachy coloured blush to the apples of your cheeks and sweep up towards your temples.

* Apply your favourite shade of matte red lipstick. 

And there you have it, beautiful 1940’s style old Hollywood glamour!

For a lot of people, yesterday was a day of excessive chocolate eating, but I also indulged in some gorgeous chocolate inspired eye makeup, which is really a take on a classic smokey eye using three colours - a creamy colour to represent white chocolate, a mid-tone brown to represent milk chocolate, and a deep rich brown to represent dark chocolate. 

Get the Look:

* Apply a wash of the creamy ‘white chocolate’ colour over the whole lid and up to the brow bone, and use to highlight the inner corners of the eyes.

* Blend the mid-tone ‘milk chocolate’ colour across the outer two-thirds of your eyelids and sweep it underneath your eyes, again stopping two-thirds of the way along from the outer corner.

* Use the deep brown ‘dark chocolate’ colour as an accent to the outer corners of your eyes and across the outer third of your eyelids, sweeping up and out towards your temples. Soften the egde of this line using a soft round brush to blend into the creamy colour on your brow bone.

* Using a flat angled brush, apply the dark brown colour as an eyeliner, as close to the top lashline as possible.

* Apply lots of mascara, and there we have it! Deliciously smokey, chocolatey eyes!

I bought this foundation as a bit of an impulse buy as I was running out of my normal foundation and just needed something to get me through the week, but I have to say I’ve been very impressed with it!

I do need my foundations to be hard-wearing as I can often be out of the house for 15 hours at a time (sometimes longer) with little time to touch up my make-up throughout the day. So when I finally got home after the first day of wearing it, I was really pleased to see that it had stayed put and had not gone flaky or patchy.

The foundation goes on smoothly and evenly, and gives you enough time to blend into your skin before drying to a matte finish that won’t budge! It doesn’t give a completely poreless look and you can still see skin texture, which is fine for my skin as it keeps it looking fairly natural, but for people with deep pores or raised texture on their skin that might be an issue.

The main problem with this foundation is the lack of shades available. I bought the lightest shade which was a great match for my skin tone but I don’t consider myself to be particularly pale. People with very fair or very dark skin are not catered for at all. The majority of clients I work on are very fair skinned so this eliminates the potential for me to use this foundation on them.

Overall I really do like this foundation and would have no problem in recommending it to other people, and I’m sure I will be buying again in the future. The packaging and design is sleek and it gives good, long-lasting coverage. Couldn’t really ask for more from a drug store foundation!