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Sorry guys, no more anonymous commenting. I knew that leaving anonymous comments as an option was going to inevitably backfire at some point, so it's been turned off. If you want to leave me a hateful comment, you're going to have to take the time to register an account so that you actually have to put some effort into it.

Flawless Skin : Tutorial

To me, the worst thing that can happen to you, makeup wise, is losing your "perfect" base. What do I mean by that? I mean skin troubles. I think of my skin as the base to all of my makeup looks and when my skin and I are not getting along, I feel like nothing else looks good. Unfortunately for me, the last few weeks have been really bad in the sense of my skin being a total jerk. Granted, I put it through some horrible things, but its retaliation was stupid and childish... or at least teenagerish. Yes, friends, my skin broke out horribly, so horribly in fact, that the last few tutorials you saw that were photos were done far in advance of the worst breakouts. My skin is finally starting to clear up, but I thought that this would be the perfect time to show you how to go from not-so-amazing to flawless with the help of makeup.

We're going to start with clean, moisturized skin. I usually use a very gentle cleanser in the mornings and leave my more abrasive cleansing (i.e. my clarisonic) for night. I've been using micellar water in the mornings and leaving it at that, but since my skin was freaking out, I stepped it up and started using Boscia's Purifying Cleansing Gel. I went back to my normal moisturizer, Clinique's Dramatically Different Moisturizing Gel, after unsuccessfully trying a few other brands. This is where I start, every time. No matter how badly you're breaking out, it's not an excuse to skip moisturizer.

I move on to foundation, which when my skin looks horrible, is always Revlon Color Stay in Buff. I blend it into my skin using the Real Techniques Expert Face Brush, but a Beauty Blender would work wonderfully as well. I don't typically use primer, but you would obviously prime before this step if you do. 

And then conceal! I use two different concealers; one for undereye and one for blemishes. For under my eyes, I've been using NARS Creamy Radiance Concealer in Chantilly because it's super opaque, but moisturizing so it doesn't crease. For my blemishes, I like to go in with Dermablend's Quick Fix concealer in Ivory and spot treat. If your blemishes has texture, exfoliate before hand to get rid of any flaky skin or apply a creamy concealer so that the flakes aren't amplified.

This is one of my tricks for flawless looking skin; cooking your concealer. This is a makeup tip learned from drag queens, but doing it makes your cheeks look amazing and luminous and overall fabulous. I use MAC Studio Finish in NW20, which is the completely wrong everything for me (I was poorly matched a year ago... I should have taken it back), but it works so well for cooking. To read up more on cooking concealer, read here. 

And then I used my typical setting powder and did the rest of my face. All of these photos were taken in natural lighting, so this is as true as it's gonna get photography wise. 

And here's the difference. Do I do this look every single day when my skin is in a sad state? No, absolutely not. I generally like to stick with my normal routine until it's over, but sometimes, you just need a pick me up or need to go somewhere and not have 16 visible zits on your face.

I hope this was helpful and if you'd like me to do a video showing this, let me know in the comments! Feel free to leave any other comments or questions as well.

xx, 

Bisous Darling

Easy Sultry Look : Tutorial

A sultry look doesn't have to mean dark eyes and lips; it can be easily achieved using light and mid range shadows and bold lip! This is one of my favorite looks to play with and you can wear the eyeshadows without the lip for a daytime look or change the eyes and play with the bold lip for a statement look. However, put together, they do create a bit of a sultry look (ignore my cheesy smile above) that is easily recreated. Hit the jump for the video tutorial and more photos of the completed look.

Garnet Eyes : Tutorial

Back when I did the 30 days of Makeup challenge, I created a red and purple look that I liked quite a bit. After the challenge, I didn't give much thought about until I was flipping through my instagram the other day. Since I've been promising to make a video tutorial or really, just any video, I thought that I would try my hand at it with this look. So, without further ado, here's the video!

Please let me know in the comments if you like this sort of thing or if you would prefer for me to stick to the photo format. I will still be doing product reviews in the form of photos and text, but tutorials are up for grabs. Thanks guys!

Jasmine Eyes : Tutorial

I don't know if I've ever referenced, on the blog, I know have on Facebook, the fact that I am a Reddit user. I frequent Makeup Addiction over there and I recently took place in a makeup exchange. My partner sent me the Jasmine quad from the Disney Princess for Sephora collection. The colors are gorgeous, so I decided to put together a look!