Make Up Look: Out on the Town

Alba Avram Temmuz 13, 2021

As I get older, the more I appreciate the simple things in life. A lie in is a treat exclusively for the weekends instead of everyday, I enjoy watching Strictly Come Dancing on a Saturday night and Sunday is a day of rest. In my busy schedule of trying to fit nothing into my weekends, I try to avoid anything that stops me from mentally preparing for another week of work. All too often this plan does not go my way and I in fact end up doing something in my valuable time off. This usually entails meeting friends for brunch or doing a little bit of shopping. Less frequently it is hitting the town and having a party. Back in my University days I used to go out at least three times a week but now I can't lie in everyday and I have genuine responsibilities. This means my partying days are almost over.

For those of you who work, you will know how heart breaking it is to lose a colleague. Well I've lost two of my faves this month so it has been a particularly hard month. However to celebrate them finding new jobs we went out which meant leaving my weekly take out night and spending my money getting drunk instead. As I don't go out too often, I am not given the chance to go ultra glam with my make up so this gave me the perfect opportunity to test out some make up I have been waiting to try. In case you are going out and would like some make up inspo, I am going to share with you the look I did. Beware there is glitter ahead!

I started off by applying my base however in hindsight this might have been a mistake. As I just said, there was glitter involved in this look and it did fall out a little bit so it possibly would have been better if I had applied my base after, just so I could have removed the glitter more easily. Anyway as always I started with my concealer and I am still using MAC Studio Finish in the shade NC20. I used this under my eyes, to cover any spots and redness. After I had blended out my concealer, I applied Estee Lauder Double Wear in 2N1 Desert Beige. Recently I have been wearing the Fenty Beauty foundation as I have been loving it but for a night out I wanted something I knew was going to work and which I felt comfortable wearing. For me a night out is all about comfort in small details as I don't always feel at ease on a night out. Double Wear is my fail safe foundation: the colour is a good match, it is long wearing and has good coverage. I love my Fenty Beauty foundation but the colour is an exact match for my skin and I like something a tad more tanned for a night out. It has a good wear time but I wasn't sure how it would fair if I was dancing and I worried about whether or not it would flash back so I thought it would be best to I stick to what I know.

Once my foundation was on, I applied a shit ton of Benefit's Hoola Bronzer so that I didn't look quite as dead as I look in my average life. Plus I had fake tanned the rest of my body but I never do my face out of fear that it will go patchy so I use bronzer to get my face to match my body. Additionally I like to use bronzer to add an element of shape to my face but it doesn't quite define my face structure as much as contouring does. In order to define this shape, I used the Kat Von D Shade and Light Palette which will always be my contour of choice. It creates a colour which looks like a genuine shadow so you don't look muddy, you just look chiselled. To add balance to this definition I added a spot of blush and at the moment I have been loving the Kiko Tri-bal Soul Baked Blush in Wild Muave. It is quite pink and it is very pigmented but with a light hand it adds a bit of colour which looks natural and feminine.

On the other hand one thing I do not like to keep natural is my highlight, I like to pile it on so that everyone can see me coming. Which is usually the case on a night out as I tend to be stumbling around yelling at someone but my highlight acts as that all important warning sign that I am approaching. At the moment I am seriously loving the Fenty Beauty Killawatt Highlight Duo in Lightning Dust/Fire Crystal so much so that I have actually hit pan on one side. One side adds a soft glow and the other is blinding. Combined they are unstoppable. As more is more on a night out, I seriously packed on both sides and I loved it! It is one of the few highlighters which actually works as a highlight on me so if you too are quite fair this will be a perfect shade.

Once my base had been perfected, I started on my eyes which I always like to make the most of during a night out. As a base I have been using the Make Up For Ever Aqua Eye Cream in the shade 13. The shadow looks stunning and I have been enjoying using it however I prefer it on its own rather than as a base. I'm not sure it holds the shadows well but I haven't replaced my MAC Paint Pot yet so I have no choice but to use it . Even though I'm not sold on the Cream Eye Shadow, the palette I used on top was in my monthly favourites last month.

The eye shadow palette I have been using religiously since I bought it is, the Morphe x Jaclyn Hill Palette and this night out was no exception. I wanted to go for quite a smoky eye as I knew I was going to be using something on the inner corner of my eye to brighten it which would also be the stand out part of the look. I started off by using Silk Creme all over the lid and in the crease to set the eye cream and to blend everything together. I then started to build up the crease; first of all I used a mixture of Pooter and Pukey in the crease, blending back and forth but concentrating mainly on the outer corner. Once I had built that up I then applied a mix of Chip and Mocha more to the outer corner, only blending it to about half way through the crease. This allows the depth to remain in the outer part of the eye. Then to complete the smoky eye, I added a little bit of Soda Pop only to the outer corner of the eye and a little bit to the lash line in a V shade to define the eye.

After all of this blending and all of the work I had done on my eyes I then went back to the product that this whole look started with, the MAC Studio Finish concealer. I applied this to the majority of the lid but I left the outer corner alone. With the concealer placed, I could then create a soft cut crease and place the Stila Glitter and Glow Shadow in the shade Diamond Dust over where I had just put the concealer. This allowed the glitter to be bold with the contrast between the smoky outer part of the eye and the glitter in the centre. Previously I had been too nervous to test out the Stila Glitter and Glow Eye Shadows as it is a BOLD look and for my everyday make up I thought this could potentially be a little bit much. However a night out seemed like the perfect occasion to test out the glitter. I tried to concentrate it more towards the inner corner of the eye and blend it out towards to outer corner so that there was a gradation of glitter. It sort of worked, sort of didn't. This product dries so quickly that by the time I had applied it and tried blending it out, it was already dry in places. Once it has dried, if you even touch the glitter it starts to flake off, so you have to make sure you don't play around with it too much or it does start to drop onto your face. That is why it would have been better to have done my base after applying the glitter but by that point it was too late.

As I was using glitter, my eyes really were the stand out part of the look and I wanted to continue this with my mascara. To curl my lashes I used the Shu Uemura Eye Lash Curlers, which I have been using for years. L'Oreal no longer sell Shu Uemura make up in the UK so I can no longer get the pads for these curlers so if you have any recommendations for a new pair of curlers please let me know. My mascara of choice at the moment is the L'Oreal Miss Baby Roll Mascara which I have been loving since I tried it back in May. It gives the most voluminous lashes, holds a curl but doesn't make them look spidery. This mascara has allowed me to stop using my Estee Lauder Little Black Primer which I have actually lost somewhere in my make up collection. Really I would have liked to have used my Little Black Primer for a night out as I know it really does act as a glue and my mascara would have gone nowhere but alas at the time it was lost. However I did find that the L'Oreal mascara held quite well on my lashes and didn't give me massive black rings around my eyes. On some days it does but I was quite lucky on this night out. Clearly I didn't do enough dancing.

Once my lashes had been built up to how I like them I started on my brows. I have been using a brow duo from Soap and Glory. I started out by shaping my brows with the Archery Two-in-One Brow Filling Pencil in Brownie Points. I have been using this pencil for years, the colour is a perfect match for me and it makes it easy for me to get a good shape to my brows. This pencil also allows me to fill in my brows so that they look fuller. I then used the Archery Volu-boost brow gel to define the shape and to place the hairs where I want them. I actually prefer Benefit's Gimme Brow but it has recently faced a product recall so I can no longer buy it. To be honest my brows are not in the best shape at the moment. It has been a long time since my last trip to Blink Brow Bar and I really should book my next appointment.

After my base and my eyes had been completed, the only thing that was left was my lips. As my eyes were so bold with all the glitter and the bold lashes I wanted something more subtle on my lips. I've spoken about the Kat Von D Everlasting Liquid Lipsticks thousands of times. If you couldn't guess by now how much I love them, then you haven't read enough of my blog posts. Once again this is one of my fail safe products. I know this is going to work for me and I know it is going to last without looking overly cakey if I need to top it up. This is in the shade Ludwig and it is the perfect nude. It is a beige, fawn nude rather than a pinky nude. I loved the look of this lipstick with the overall look and I felt it finished it off well.

Overall I was quite happy with the way I looked on that night out. I didn't buy a new outfit so I was stuck wearing something old so it was nice to feel confident in the way my make up looked. Plus I technically has a new product on my eyes so I can count that as new if I want. Look out for a full blog post all about the Stila Glitter and Glow Eye Shadows as I have quite a few thoughts on them now I have tested them.

You might also like: