Boyfriend does my makeup!

I've joked with my boyfriend Adam about him doing my makeup for ages, and now that I have a blog I convinced him to do it for the good of the blog. I did film it, but my camera cut out after 20 minutes and there was nothing worth seeing there, however I've taken some super flattering photos of the results.

I provided him with a box full of several options for each type of products and gave him free reign of the lot, including my makeup brushes.

Plenty of options to choose from.

He knew enough to choose a primer first, but I had given him 4 different primers to use. He decided to go with a mix of 2 primers. He picked the miracle primer from Primark as he said he'd heard me mention it a few times before (glad he listens sometimes!), as well as the (unfortunately discontinued now) GOSH Cream Foundation primer. The way he picked them was '...that says primer on it, I'll use that'. As he was looking for primers he also picked out my eyelash curlers, discarded them and said 'we won't be needing those'. Can't blame him there, they are terrifying.

The method of application he chose for primer was a single finger, cautiously spreading the product around my face, which worked well enough for him, apparently.

He then went back into the box in search of the next step, which he decided was concealer. He picked out the Maybelline Eraser Eye concealer, and when I asked what he was meant to do with that he said 'its an eye thingy', put it down and left it at that. I picked up my Freedom Pro Correct palette and handed it to him. He said that was a 'concealer thingy', and wanting a more in depth description I asked what each of the colours would be used for.

Green - 'goes on spots'
Lilac - 'freckles'
Salmon - 'scabs'

Well, he tried. I tried to explain the colour wheel/concealer concept but he wasn't having any of it, so that was also put aside and left.

Adam cleverly worked out that the next step would be foundation, and said he'd seen me mixing the 2 shades of Rimmel Lasting Perfection 25hr foundation together, and did the same, using the Real Techniques buffing brush. I have to say, he did really well on this. He even went over the blending with my Makeup Revolution blending sponge and blended into the jawline/onto the neck. The colour match wasn't exactly right, but by the time he'd finished you wouldn't have been concerned about the foundation colour match.

He picked out the Sleek Cream Contour kit and applied only the darkest shade into the hollows of my cheeks, around my hairline on my forehead and even down the sides of my nose, again blending with a sponge, as he'd seen me do before (and he read the blog post I'd done on it). I was starting to relax and feel like I was in safe hands here. He chose to use my Makeup Revolution Radiant Lights powder in Breathe as my setting powder with a 'big fluffy brush', as he said he'd seen me do before, and to be honest I was really quite impressed at how much he'd picked up from watching me do it.

Then he went for contour powder. Part of me died inside as I watched him pick up a ton of product on a fluffy eyeshadow brush and apply it to my cheekbones. I know how pigmented the powder in my Makeup Revolution contour palette is and boy did he go hard on that contour. He then decided to blend it out using the same little fluffy brush and I felt him blending it downwards, which resulted in a really nice orange jawline which you can see in the photos.

Happy with the face, he went on to eyeshadow. I was impressed when he went for an eyeshadow primer (I'd left my freedom one in the box in case he went for it), not so impressed when he used my MAC 226 crease brush to blend it. He chose to work with my Naked original palette for eyeshadow. He applied Sin all over the lid (and I was really happy with the fact that he chose a nice light pink shimmer for this as I use that too), but then he went for the interesting choice of Half-Baked (a gold shimmer) for the inner corner/inner v. He tried to define the crease of one eye using Toast but made the creative decision to do it more where my browbone highlight would go than in my actual crease, and when he realised that wasn't the effect he wanted, he left it there and didn't do the same on the other eye. Good choice. Very artistic asymmetric eyes.

Lovely uneven eyeliner and mud stripe.

We were both understandably terrified about eyeliner. He chose a felt tip pen from Primark for the easiest application (it was a good choice but in reality didn't help much at all). He tried to even out the wings with a very enthusiastic 'boom lads' as he applied them, and I guess he didn't do too badly for a first go. I hope he appreciates now how stressful eyeliner can be!

The mascara went really well, to be fair to him. He applied it evenly and very carefully, for fear of poking me in the eye with it (despite my insisting that years of doing that myself had made my eyeballs practically numb). He noticed that the mascara was a bit clumpy (which the MAC one he used can be) and tried a little wiggling motion to separate them, but they didn't look that bad. He used an eyeshadow/brow kit for the brows and they look pretty good considering the circumstances!

He was very excited to use the highlighter, although I doubt he'd admit it. He knew what highlighter was from me showing him, and he picked the 'fancy looking' one (MAC Mineralize Skin Finish in Lightscapade) and was considering using my Real Techniques Contour brush before (thankfully) switching to the Fan brush, and left me a very very blinding stripe of highlight.

As the last product he chose a nude lip by Rimmel, and again he didn't do too badly. He kept it all within the lines and gave a pretty even coverage.

I have to say, he really didn't do too badly. When I asked him when I should wear this particular look, he gave it a moments thought and said "When you get absolutely hammered and decided to do your makeup before you go out somewhere", which is great advice, and is an accurate description of the look.

Orange jawlines are the best jawlines... right?

That highlight tho

Let me know if you enjoyed this post! It's a bit silly and different from what I've been doing so far but I really enjoyed it (and I think Adam did too, even if he denies it!).

Thanks to Adam for allowing me to be blessed by your artistic talent.

See you again soon!

Paige x

My most used Make-up Brushes!

With my makeup fanaticism, comes my obsession with makeup brushes. So, I thought I'd tell you what my favourites and recommendations are. To be honest, my collection mostly consists of the Real Techniques collection, but I do have the Bold Metals, a few MAC brushes, and then a few randoms that I've picked up along the way. If you're just getting started with brushes, I'd fully recommend the Real Techniques kits, as they contain everything you could need to get started!

A few of the gorgeous brushes from the Bold Metals Collection.

Foundation and Concealer brushes, and the B. blending sponge.

Foundation/Concealer

For foundation I tend to use a nice dense buffing type brush, like the RT buffing brush from the Core collection. I really like the coverage this brush gives, as it's good for medium coverage. I would like to try their Expert Face brush, but with the amount of brushes I own I really don't need another foundation brush. I also like using the RT sculpting brush. I got this in the contour set, but I don't really rate it for contour because it's so wide, but it's surprisingly nice for foundation due to the density of it.  

Concealer

If I'm using a separate brush for concealer, which I don't always do because I'm too lazy, I use the Primark stippling brush. It's actually really good quality for something like £1/£1.50. It's soft and blends both foundation and concealer really nicely, but as it's small I tend to use it for concealer.

Blending sponges

I've tried a few blending sponges. My all time favourite was the original Beauty Blender, but the price tag (£16.00) is too high for me to justify repurchasing it. Now I use the RT complexion sponge (£5.99), or the B. makeup sponge from Superdrug (£4.99 but £3.32 until 28/06) if I'm only using it to make sure my foundation is completely blended.

Finishing Brush 

My all time favourite powder brush is the RT Bold Metals Arched Powder brush in 100, shown in the first picture. It's the softest thing I've ever blessed my face with, and doesn't pick up too much powder so I can get such a light dusting of powder which prevents caking. Plus it looks gorgeous in general. 

Blush Brush

The RT Bold Metals collection gets a shoutout again here, with their Tapered Blush brush in 300. Rose gold packaging is a winner either way, but the brush itself is again incredibly soft, and it's the perfect size for popping blusher on the apples of my cheeks. You can see this too in the first photo.

Eyeshadow Brushes and Eyeshadow Blending

Eyeshadow 

This is a difficult one for me. I have quite a few eyeshadow brushes now, but a few brushes stand out for me for general application. 

- RT Bold Metals Oval Shadow 200: a really big fluffy brush, perfect for those single eyeshadow days. Again, beautiful to look at.

- The bigger, fluffier side of the brush from my Naked palette. Really like it for packing eyeshadow onto the lid.

- RT deluxe crease brush: again, great for packing on eyeshadow, and I particularly favour this one for applying cream shadow bases. 

- MAC 213 brush. Fluffy, soft, slightly dense, lovely application. 

I also own the Eco Tools Eye Enhancing Duo, which contains 2 double ended brushes. One of the brushes has a blending brush on one end and a smudging brush on the other. The second brush of the set has a fluffy brush on one end and an angled liner on the other. It's a really good all round set, and the brushes are good quality and super soft, so I use these a lot too.

Eyeshadow Blending 

I've only recently really gotten into eyeshadow blending properly, so I haven't really invested in blending brushes, but I have 2 favourites for this so far. My favourite for crease blending and application is the MAC 226 - I find blending so easily with this brush! The other is a MAC brush, but I don't know exactly what it is, because it's a tiny brush that came in an eyeshadow palette from MAC. I think it's the 217, but I can't be sure.

Brow Brush

I've been using the RT Bold Metals 202 brush, which is an Angled Liner brush, but it's so small and thin that it makes it super easy to get really natural hair like strokes for my brows. This is the silver brush on the far right in the first photograph. 

Contour Brush

In terms of contour, I'm not much of a pro. I tend to stick to using small blush/bronzer brushes, such as the MAC 116, but I do sometimes use the RT Bold Metals Flat Contour brush.

RT Fan Brush and Setting Brush

Highlighting

My all time favourite highlighting brush is my RT fan brush, I just love the finish it leaves on my cheekbones, it's lovely and soft. It's a pretty brush. No complaints at all. I do sometimes use the setting brush from the same collection, as it's a small, fluffy brush that can be used to create a beautiful glow.

Like I said at the beginning, it really isn't essential to own a load of brushes, I just like to experiment and find which I like for application, and you might not like some of them that I do. Are there any that you recommend? 

The next post will be about liquid lipsticks so keep your eyes peeled for that! 

See you soon!