Evening Makeup Essentials

Thank you SO much for all the lovely comments on my last post, I may have got slightly emo reading and replying to all of them 🙂 You guys are truly lovely. A lot of the comments were regarding my evening makeup look, and in all honestly it’s a very rare occasion when I decide to go all out with my makeup. You guys know me, I may be obsessed with cosmetics, but when it comes to what I actually wear on my face day to day I like to keep it very simple. However on a rather now infrequent night out I sometimes do decide to slap it on. To take my look from mundane to marvellous there are 4 products that I always rely on….

As much as foundations containing SPF are great during the day, when it comes to evenings where flash photography is more likely to be used they become a bit of a nightmare – HELLO flash-back, ghost face!   My favourite SPF-free foundation is my recent purchase – Giorgio Armani Luminious Silk. Think Chanel Mat Lumiere but SPF free and little less dewy on the skin. This stuff blends into the skin like a dream and leaves a nice silky, natural finish that doesn’t even need powder. Another great SPF-free foundation is MAC Face+Body, which although doesn’t offer much coverage can be layered up for a pretty full coverage look. Both foundations leave my face and neck looking the same colour in photos – hooray! 

Coming from a family of rounded-football heads, contour powder is a bit of a lifesaver 😉 Although it’s not something that I turn to everyday, when it comes to evening makeup it’s a must. A touch of contour under the cheekbones, instantly slims the face and gives you that slight ‘Victoria Secrets’ edge – you know? The best that I have found is the Sleek Contour Kit, I use the colour light. Like I’ve said before the highlighter in this duo is questionable, but there is no denying that the deep brown matte shade helps to chisel out some killer cheekbones! 

I am a firm believer of the ‘play one feature’ up makeup rule – whether that be cheeks, eyes or lips. And for evenings out I prefer to play up the eyes and keep the lips and cheeks simple and neutral. The easiest way to glam up eyes and create that much lusted after feline shape is to stick on a pair of lashes. When I first discovered the joys of falsies I went for the biggest ones I could find – however after the analysis of many a facebook photo I soon realised that these looked slightly ridiculous on me and now plump for much more natural, fluttery ones. The best I’ve found being the Eyelure Girls Aloud Kimberly style – these thicken towards the outer edges and instantly make me feel more glam.

Day to day I like to just have a wash of one colour over the lid, but to glam up my eyes for the evening – paired with false lashes of course – a darker colour added to the crease is a must. The darker colour I use changes (although my favourite’s at the moment are Urban Decay’s Buck or Naked), however the brush I use to apply it doesn’t. If you have watched even just one Youtube makeup tutorial, my money is that the ‘Guru’ used this makeup brush. It has a somewhat cult following in the beauty community and rightly so. Compared to other crease brushes I have used, the MAC 217 leaves them in it’s dust. It just does all the work for you and without too much effort gives the eye some instant depth. 

It may sound pretty straight forward, but out of all the tools and products I used in my previous ‘Face of the Day’ post, these 4 were easily the most essential things! What do you guys rely on to glam up for the evening? In other news, I spent the day getting covered in paint as I have been redecorating my room! Manual labour is never going to be for me, but at least the walls in my room are all the same colour, and hopefully soon there will be enough space to start doing some fashion posts 🙂 Hope everyone is having a lovely weekend!

Much Love,

Vivianna x