Come Play With Me: Futuristic love

I have recently been loving joining in on the Come Play With Me Series, so when the gorgeous Gemma from Lady Sapphire Blog chose the theme 'Futuristic Love' I was super excited! Especially after seeing Gemma's and Indie's amazing looks. I had some fun trying out some colours and jewels, something I image will be rocked a lot in the future!

I tried a sort of opposite/cut crease liner by first winging out some orange shadow mixed with Mac Fix Plus from the Australis Neautrals and Neons palette (thanks Kats!) and then tracing above it carefully with my Maybelline Master Precise Liner. The star of the look is definitely the jewels, I used some Urban Decay orange toned jewels in the corners of my eyes and some false lashes that also have jewels embedded into the lash line. I finally got to use some of the blues from my custom Stila palette and now I want to wear blue eyeshadow for the rest of my life (oh gawd). 

I really like the mix of orange and blue tones and although I wouldn't be brave enough to wear this out currently, hopefully its in trend in the future because I absolutely love it! Thanks for checking out my blog and make sure you check out the other girls looks, as they're absolutely amazing! 

Monique xx

Come Play With Me: Winter Into Spring

When I think of spring beautiful flowers are the first thing to come to mind, bright and all different colours. So when the lovely Kats from Kat's Colourings decided on the new theme 'Winter Into Spring' for The Come Play With Me series, I was slightly stumped, but eventually decided to pay tribute to one of my favourite bright colours, orange!

Orange lipstick is one of my absolute favourite colours to wear, so I decided on showing two from my collection that are extremely comparable in terms of looks, although complete opposites when it comes to price. The Colour by TBN moisturising lipstick in the shade 'Kiss and Makeup' is a beauty I stumbled upon last year. At first glance I thought they were the Revlon Lip Butters, although after closer inspection they were nothing like the lip butters in terms of consistency, but instead very moisturising, opaque lipsticks. At $2.50 each from most chemists, I have since picked up another, they are so cheap and so good it's hard not to purchase them all! I have seriously fallen in love with these lipsticks and its pretty crazy that I find them extremely comparable to my Nars Satin Lip Pencil.

Top: TBN  Bottom: Nars

I own the shade 'Timanfaya' in the Nars satin lip pencil and it's another one of my favourites. As you can see in the comparison photo, the colour pay off and vibrancy from the two lip products is almost identical. If anything the TBN lipstick is slightly creamier and less 'in your face'. When wearing this shade out I'll often apply the Nars pencil at home, and then use the TBN lipstick for touchups out and about in case I damage or lose the pencil. Lets be honest having to replace a $2.50 lipstick rather than a $34 one is a lot less heart breaking! Although If you do decide to splurge, the Nars lip pencil is definitely worth it and is available here.

Why stop at orange lips when I can have orange nails too! These four are the oranges I have in my collection, I went for a more toned down orange today and chose the shade 'Barbados' by Rokk 96. It's a lovely burnt orange shade that applies opaque after one coat, sadly my nail painting skills weren't up to scratch today so you'll just have to ignore my horrific efforts!

And to finish off my orange tribute I decided to add an orange flush to my cheeks. My pick is the Fox in a Box blush by Hard Candy in the shade 'Skinny Dipping', a very suitable name considering the spring theme!

These blushes are gorgeous and I wish they were more accessible in Australia! I purchased mine from Allcosmeticswholesale.com and I haven't looked back since. The two shades can be used separately or together, I personally like a combination of the two. It gives my cheeks a perfect soft orange glow that complements orange lips so well without over doing it. 

Despite it still being winter, orange is a colour I'll rock all throughout the year! If you haven't already definitely check out Kat's, Indie's and Hailey's stunning takes on the theme. Thanks so much for reading and let me know if you have any orange beauty favourites!

Monique xx

Come Play With Me: Wing It Out

My friend Monique chose the next Come play with me theme, and to my delight it was 'wing it out', essentially creating a winged eyeliner look. I really want to go all out with this one, but due to having many errands to run today I kept it fairly simple so I didn't scare anyone in public.

To achieve this 'double wing' I used the maybelline master precise liner which I have been absolutely loving, followed by putting the Mac glitter liner in 'Blitzed' on the base of the wing. I put half baked from the Naked palette on the bottom lash line to add to the gold theme followed by both of the matte browns into the crease.

And of course I used the Benefit They're Real on my lashes. It was so hard to photograph the glitter on the liner and unfortunately my photos didn't really do it justice. In good lighting all the sparkles moved when it hit the light and I just fell in love with the look. It was fun to play around with liner and do something I wouldn't usually wear. So let me know, will you be taking on the challenge?

Monique xx

Come Play With Me: How Low Can You Go?

This gorgeous gal recently asked me to come up with a new theme for the Come Play With Me Series and after some thought I decided on the theme 'How low can you go!' And no, I don't want you all to go do the limbo or some squats, but see how many makeup products you can use to create your ideal look! For me on a day to day basis I use anywhere between 10-20 products (who keeps count lol) so being able to create a look I'm happy with, using 5 products was huge for me! The products I used were;

1. Revlon Age defying concealer for Base, Concealer and Eye primer

2. Hard Candy lip liner for Blush and Lip colour

3. Hoola Bronzer for Bronzer, Eyeshadow, Eyebrows

4. Revlon eyeshadow for Eyeshadow, Highlighter

5. Benefit Mascara for Mascara, Eyeliner (yep! haha)

So what do you think! I personally would totally wear this out, but sadly having combination skin would mean my face would practically slide off in a few hours time as I didn't use a powder to set my makeup. Using the benefit mascara as a liner was also easier than I thought it would be, I just dipped a liner brush into excess product on the wand to apply it. I can imagine it being a pain in the butt to wash off later though!

All I can notice is my slightly orange brows… haha. The whole process seemed to take longer than applying my makeup normally, so I really doubt I'll be switching to this routine anytime soon. So my challenge now to you, is too see how low can you go! Please give it a shot and if you do, leave your post linked below! 

Monique xx