Estée Lauder Double Wear

Hello again, all! Sorry for me being a bit quiet recently, I've gone back to college this week and have been busy busy! But it's my day off today and have taken the time to show you one of my latest make-up purchases.

I have been trying out a lot of different foundations recently to find the perfect one for my very pale skin. My skin is rather dry too so I have to be careful in what I choose or else my skin will just flake off, not cool. I was after a full coverage foundation which isn't too cakey and kept my pale skin tone. I came to the decision of buying Estée Lauder Double Wear and bought it in the shade Ivory Rose.

Oh, and before we start I would like to say I have not edited these photos because it looks like I have in a few! Just a bit of good lighting.

This is my face without any foundation. Just eye make-up and brows. 

This close up shows you some redness I have to my skin. My main problem area for this is around my nose. So let's slap on the foundation and sort that out.

There we go, much better! As you can see the foundation gives a very smooth and radiant effect which also avoids a cakey look. The colour is the perfect match for my skin. Before I apply my foundation I use a day cream moisturiser by Nivea. I use an Urban Decay foundation brush to apply my foundation which I love and use a buffering technique to make sure it as all blended equally.

This is the finished product! I apply Rimmel Stay Matte powder over the foundation and then use Hoola Bronzer by Benefit to contour. The lipstick is Chili by Mac! 

I highly recommend this foundation if you are after full coverage. It comes to a cost of £28.50...ouch. BUT, I would say it is worth it. I received a tester from Debenhams which I gave to my sister and she has fallen in love too!

 Also, before this I was using Clinique Superbalanced foundation which is a medium coverage which I also loved. But the bottle was insy tinsy and lasted only a couple of months. I have faith that this will last me much longer!

Betsy Jo

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Winged Eyeliner

As promised on my last post I am doing a quick tutorial on how I do my winged eyeliner. 

Winged eyeliner is a big statement for the 1950's style and is my default make up for everyday. Whether it be on it's own or with eye shadow it will always work for me.

I have used many different products for eyeliner, as I have been wearing it daily for around 3-4 years! But, for Christmas last year my mum bought me the Diorshow Art Pen and it is by far the best I have ever had. It has the perfect shape to quickly apply flicks, whether they be big or small.

At £24.50 it is a rather pricey product. But, considering I have had it since Christmas and I still have it shows it is a worth while investment.

Righty ho! So, start with drawing a line from the corner of your eye upwards, in the shape of the first picture. Make sure you don't start it too far out as it can make your eyes look too long and a bit funny. This line will determine the size of your flick, I like mine quite big but obviously it is completely up to you and depends what works for you!

Then, by starting just above of your first line, draw the second line. Draw backwards going towards your nose, use quite a lot of pressure so the pen doesn't stagger and create a messy line. Repeat until the line is to the desired thickness and then by pointing the pen towards your eye fill in the corner following the shape of your eye.

Then you just need to fill in the gap using the same technique as the second line. As you can see in this picture the pen is the perfect size to just do quick simple lines!

All done! Easy peasy lemon squeezy huh?

Remember girlies and guys, practice makes perfect!

Betsy Jo

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Big Beautiful Brows

Yesterday, I submitted a post to Make Up Addiction on Reddit using my picture from my Purple Power post asking advice about my purple lipstick. They all seemed to love it, and a few also asked about my eyebrows!

I thought it would be a good opportunity to show you all how I do my eyebrows. It is pretty simple and I don't use any spectacular products, just a MAC eye shadow (in shade Carbon) and a Real Techniques angled brush.

The eye shadow is very, very black and I chose this to match my hair... Well half of it anyway!

Here are my natural eyebrows. Pretty thin, pretty boring! I get my eyebrows waxed every 4 weeks and don't usually ever pluck them (mainly because it makes me cry in pain). You will see at the end of the post how different I look with my eyebrows done, good eyebrows are very important.

It looks like I have excessively photo shopped my face but I think it is just the lighting! 

I dab the brush in the eye shadow, I try not to have too much on there to start with as it's better to build it up progressively to avoid them being too dark. I start off at the corner, with the longest part of the angled brush facing my nose. I then brush a line to the arch, then down from the arch to the end of my brow. Simples!

Once I have that line I just fill in the rest of the brow using short brush strokes. I like to exaggerate my arch as it gives me a better looking resting face and a less of a miserable b*tch face.

I then turn the brush round so the longer part of the angled brush is facing my forehead and pull back some of the starting hairs. This gives the brow a more natural look.

I always use a matte skin matching eye shadow under my brow too.

All done!

I'll be doing a winged eyeliner tutorial next so make sure to come back soon. Keep up to date with my posts on Facebook!

Betsy Jo

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Purple Power

I'm treating you all to two blog posts today!

I thought being as in my other post I was wearing this stunning purple lipstick by Mac it would be good to show you all a closer look.

You've probably all seen or heard about Heroine. It was very popular when it was limited edition and now it's been made permanent! As you know I am a big fan of red lippy but I wanted to try something different. I recently tried pink but I've now gone even more adventurous with purple!

I wasn't sure how it would suit my vintage look but when I put it on I felt like it is what I've been missing all my life! It is perfect for spring and enables me to be a more bright and bold for my favourite season.

Who knows what colour I'll go next... Watch this space!

Betsy Jo

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Cupcake Skirt

The nicest looking packaging I have ever received!

Hello everyone! In this blog post I will be showing off my gorgeous skirt that I bought off a lovely girl from the US called Anna.

I follow Anna on Instagram and saw some amazing creations of skirts that she had been making, and me being me just had to have one! I requested a cupcake print one to suit my baking passion and when she sent me the picture of the print I just fell in love.

Anna took my measurements and told me it would be $71 (roughly £40), $55 for the skirt and $16 for P+P! The skirt has two pockets and is 26 inches long. The perfect circle skirt.

My eyes go very squinty in the sun!

The skirt fits perfectly, she's done an amazing job. It's going to be a big statement for my summer wardrobe and I can't wait to buy a petticoat to go with it... Maybe a pink? Blue? Yellow? All the colours!

I was expecting my skirt to take a long time to come all the way from the US! But she had sent it on the 1st and it came yesterday (the 9th). So the wait wasn't too painful.

If you can see, on my left hand I have a bright blue plaster. I cut my finger with a bread knife this morning, ouchies!

Anyway, I am so happy with my skirt from Anna, and it is really worth the money to have it custom made because it feels so nice to have a completely unique skirt and made so well too! Check her out on Instagram to see more, she has lots of lovely prints available! Her username is annanumbskull.

Betsy Jo

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The Best Brownies

Well, it's been a while since I've done a baking post! I'm back with a bang with some amazing delicious gooey fudgey brownies!

I did a bake sale at college a couple of weeks ago and knew that brownies would be a hit. I'm not a regular brownie maker so I was worried about how they were going to turn out. But, I found the best recipe ever and will probably only ever use this one from The Brown Eyed Baker.

Ingredients 

• 150g of Plain Flour
• Teaspoon of Salt
• 2 Teaspoons of cocoa powder
• 350g of Dark chocolate (I used ASDA Smart Price)
• 225g of Butter
• 1 Teaspoon of Espresso powder
• 300g of Granulated Sugar
• 100g of Light brown sugar
• 5 Eggs

Start off by combining the flour, cocoa powder and salt with a whisk.

Then, put in a bowl the chocolate (broken into small pieces), butter (also cut into small chunks) and the teaspoon of espresso powder. Place over a boiling pan of water and keep stirring until all is melted.

Your kitchen should be smelling like a chocolate factory at this point, mmmmm.

Prepare the sugars in a separate bowl from the flour. Then, pour the chocolate mix into the bowl whilst till warm and stir until combined. Finally add the eggs, don't whisk too much as the recipe says it will make it too cake like! 

Finally fold the flour mix into the chocolate and sugar mix. The mixture feels very gloopy and is very wet which is what makes it so fudgey when cooked! 

You can either line the pan with grease proof paper but I just rub it with butter. The recipe says to use a 9x13 inch pan. I don't have the size so I just used two!

Cook for 30 minutes, turning the pan around after 15. Take out of the oven and cut into however many slices you want. The bigger the better! After 30 minutes (a very painful long 30 minutes) they are ready to eat!

Enjoy!

Betsy Jo

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Victory Rolls

My previous hair tutorial on hair quickies seemed popular and I wanted to show you all how I do my victory rolls with straight hair. No curling, just a sh*t load of back combing and hairspray!

This is my super duper boring straight natural hair. It is also recently washed which is always more difficult to style so I've chosen the worst possible hair to have when wanting to create victory rolls. But it is possible and easy once you get the hang of it, trust me!

First you need to section your hair. I would suggest using a side parting as it is more flattering to the face, in my opinion. Divide the hair by putting your thumb at the tip of your ear and following the line back like in the photos.

Once you have got your two sections then put the rest of your hair up to keep it out the way!

If you're a regular here you'll know these are my hair saviors. I use the brush for backcombing and smoothing and the spray as a hairspray. But, to be honest for this style you could use any hairspray!

Start with the bigger section of hair and backcomb, backcomb and backcomb! Do most of this near the roots but also a little towards the end of the hair to make it easier to shape. Smooth it out and spray with hairspray.

Make a loop like in the second photo, it doesn't have to be super neat because you can tidy it up with pins. Roll it down until it meets the head and use a hair grip to pin it in the middle.

As my hair is quite layered I always get wispy bits of hair here and there. The best way to get rid of these is using the hairbrush shown above to smooth it against the rest of the hair and spraying with hairspray. Then run your hand over it and grip where possible. 

Once the roll is looking a bit tidier then grip into place. Remember to use hair grips that match you hair colour!

Then start on the other side. Do the exact same as you did on the first bit. This may need a little more backcombing due to it being thinner. Don't worry if it looks like a birds nest because you can easily smooth it out!

You don't want the roll to far forward so place it just a little bit behind the other and grip! If you find yourself using endless amount of hair grips, don't worry, it's for the best!

Pinch the two rolls together and put a grip directly facing them through the middle where my finger is pointing.

Now just the finishing touches. Some hairs may need a little tidying and the back so don't be scared of a little more gripping!

I then also just push my rolls down with my hands to get the slanted shape I like them to be.

And, the finished product!

I do love vintage curls but I am so lazy and don't have much time so I usually keep to straight hair.

Hope you followed this okay!

Betsy Jo

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