My Go-To Makeup Routine

Every now and then, I get a little lazy. You know how it is, wanting to sleep in a little longer then waking up and realizing you have 10 minutes to get ready. Times like these I can't be bothered to go through the whole routine in my daily makeup, particularly now since exams are around the corner. So i turn to my go-to face routine, the makeup items i can just slap on real quick and look semi decent in public *I hope*

Mac Mineralize Skinfinish Natural Medium Dark- a light dusting of this is all I need, love the finish this gives. Very natural, hence the name;)

Mac Select Moisturecover NC42 - definitely my go-to concealer. Being a student, concealer has become my best friend and all though this is not a heavy duty concealer it's perfect for my under eyes. 

ELF Warm Bronzer- gives some colour to my cheeks and the slight sheen is perfect for daily wear.

Mac Haute & Naughty mascara- I cant be bothered with eyeshadow most times, it's the one step i would definitely skip in my usual routine but I can't live without mascara. Been loving this recently, perfect for lengthening and volumizing.

Milani Liquifeye Brown- I always line my lower lash-line just to give some definition to the eyes.

Mac Hug Me l/s- definitely a 'my lips but better' lippy, had it for ages and love it!

Milani Liquifeye in Brown, ELF Warm Bronzer & Mac Hug Me lipstick

Whats your go-to routine?

NOTD- Sally Hansen First Blush & China Glaze Afterglow

For those of you in Sydney you know that recently we have had CRAP-TASTIC weather ( I had to emphasize that) over the past week and i needed a perk me up. I'm already swamped with uni test and assignments so having crappy weather on top of that did not help. I needed a perk me up and that came in the form of pink nail polish.

Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear in First Blush & China Glaze Afterglow

First Blush applied a little streaky and needed 3 coats to be opaque. Afterglow is a sheer polish with a pretty pinky purple sheen, perfect as a top coat.

Pretty pinks always make me feel happy and ultra girly. What's your beauty perk me up?

My Winter Lip Routine

Winter, conjures up feelings of cold, windy and rainy days. Actually all though i'm definitely a summer gal, I  don't mind winter, I love layering my clothes, sorting out my jumpers/cardigans, wearing gorgeous coats and bringing out the boots. Despite all the drab grays and browns I still kinda enjoy it. The only thing I detest is having to deal with dry scaly skin. Yes, winter is when all the flakiness and dryness of your skin gets accentuated and its not a pretty look!

Don't you just hate it when your putting on your favourite lippy and end up just accentuating the flakiness and lines in your lips. Some lip formulas, namely cremesheens and lustres tend to do so more than others, but generally you would like to have your lips in good condition so you wont be fidgeting througout the day thinking "crap are my lips flaking off".So these are the few items I tend to reach for throughout the year but more so in the winter months to help combat this problem.

First up I try to exfoliate my lips at least once in three days with the Lush Lip Scrub in Bubblegum. It's an all natural lip scrub which is basically, made from sugar! The idea is to put a little on your lips, and I use a toothbrush to rub it in, then you can either lick it off together with your dead skin cells (sorry about the grossness) or just wash it away. It does leave your lips feeling a little tingly but I think its brilliant. Bye bye flaky lips is all i have to say:) It takes 5 minutes and it's so easy to do it in the morning just before applying your lippy.

At  night, I love my Body Shop Coconut Lip Butter. I've gone thru 2 pots of this and i love it! Not only does it smell so good that you could eat it, but it moisturizes so well. It's thicker in consistency compared to a normal lip balm and not as waxy. I tend to use it at night before bed and I wake up with much softer lips minus the cracked lines.

Finally I alternate between these 2 lip balms i have in my handbag to just moisturize my lips before my lipstick application and for on the go. My pick of the two is definitely the Nivea Kiss of Smootheness Lip Balm. This balm is moisturizing and does last a couple of hours without the need of constant reapplication.

Now the EOS lip balm I have to admit, I gave into the hype and bought it solely based on that. It definitely does not live up to the hype. It's not very moisturizing but it looks cute and for emergency use its fine.

So there you have it, that's my lip routine in the winter months. Whats yours?

FOTD- Exposed

As promised a FOTD with the Tarte Blushers I recently purchased. To see the swatches of the blush click HERE.

My opinion on the blushers, gorgeous!!! They blend well, and they pretty much last the whole time I have my makeup own, slightly faded but I find I still have some glow left at the end of the day. 

Exposed is a matte dusky rose colour which when I initially looked at it in the pan, looked more like a bronzer, but when blended out it gives a 'rosey' natural flush to the cheeks which is a really pretty look for the winter months.

Once again the obligatory *deer in headlights look*

Face - Bourjois Healthy Mix Foundation 55 Dark Beige, YSL Touche Eclat, Maybelline Fit Me Powder 310 Sun Beige

Cheeks - Chanel Bronze Universal, Tarte Amazonian Clay Blush in Exposed

Eyes - Shadows from Wet n Wild Greed Palette, Milani Liquifeye in Brown, Rimmel Lash Accelerator and Maybelline Colossal Volume Express

Lips - Bobbi Brown Rich Lip Colour Bare Pink

A Little Lippy Crazy

The aim was to watch Harry Potter and get home asap as it was a crappy day out in Sydney. But we had time to kill, and as it happened there was a Priceline sneaky sneaky near by. So the lovely boyfriend said 20 minutes thats it. I thought I'll just have a browse cause I dont really need anything, but who was i kidding... *hangs head in shame*

This is what I ended up with, 3 Australis Colour Inject Mineral lippys and the boyfriend even helped pick one!

Australis Colour Inject Mineral Lipstick in Salsa, Jive and  Mambo

Mambo

Jive

Salsa

These lippys are really creamy and shockingly crazy pigmented, even the nude colour turned out to be much pinker than it appeared in the tube. Only gripe I have is the smell, they smell like cheap lipsticks but hey i'm not complaining:) Overall i'm very pleased with them. 

You can get your hands on these babies at Priceline for AUD$12.95 and if your quick Priceline is now having a buy 2 get the 3rd lipstick free. 

Tarte Amazonian Clay Blushers

They finally arrived!!!! I was heaps excited to receive my Tarte blushers that i've been lemming for eons. 

So the hype surrounding these blushers are that they are infused with Amazonian Clay,which contain antioxidants and minerals that are all natural and good for your skin. The big claim with these blushers are, they're meant to last 12 hours. Now I am highly skeptical about that but if they last from the moment I put my makeup on at 8am till 5pm after a full day at uni, i'm impressed.

First impressions are the packaging is gorgeous, perfect to display on your vanity. Plus point, the colour of the blush corresponds to the outer packaging which makes it heaps easier to look for them especially if your a blush junkie like myself.

Exposed, Tipsy and Amused

From swatching them on my wrist, they seem to be really soft and easy to blend. Pigmentation is pretty decent as well. I shall be testing them over the next couple of weeks so I will be able to review them better, so look out for some FOTD's.

Have you tried any blushers from this line?  What are your thoughts on them?

Product Love of the Moment -Liquid Eyeliner

Every week I switch up my makeup to try and have a variation of products in my daily makeup routine. Last month I thought to myself, lets have some fun with liquid liner. 

Eyeliner...not something i'm accomplished at doing. I still struggle with the perfect cat eye so using liner let alone liquid liner can be an ordeal for me. 

First up I tried out the Face of Australia Liquid Liner in Brown and the verdict is LOVE!!!!!!  I never thought it would be so easy to draw a line thin enough on your upper lash line with such ease. 

Pros

The brush is amazing

So easy to manipulate

The colour payoff is awesome 

Last the whole day without any smudging ...amazing.

There's no hassles in removing the liner, it just comes off with a swipe of  makeup remover.

Cons

I have nothing negative to say about this, in fact I love the FOA liner so much I bought another one in black recently in the Priceline sales.

So once I had decided I had conquered my fear of liquid liner I thought, why not try out a liner with some sheen to it @ Mac Superslick Liquid Liner in Defiantly Feline

This liner came out sometime last year with the Fabulous Feline collection and I picked up 2 shades in this range. I decided to break this one out as I though it's still a brown liner and the slight sheen in it was just nice for daily wear.

Pros

Pretty much the same as the FOA liner

and all though the brush is very different, it still is very easy to manipulate and draw a thin or thick line.

Con

 One negative is when you remove it, it tends to ball up and you get flecks of liner under your eye, but nothing unmanageable.

Top - FOA Liquid Liner in Brown Bottom - Mac Superslick Liquid Liner in Defiantly Feline

So what's your beauty product of the moment? Have you been dabbling around with some liquid liner?

FOTN- Bling it On!!

The theme was Diamonds & Denim and obviously I opted for the bling. I had an amazing night celebrating a friends 21st.The night obviously ended with the poor guy spewing into a bucket but hey that's pretty much how a 21st goes.

I was most excited because I had an excuse to use my Inglot palette yet again. On a side note i'm looking forward to Inglot being at  IMATS 2011  * fingers crossed*. So because i was all decked out with a ton of bling, I thought I would go easy on the eye makeup and just have a pop of colour on the lips. This is what I came up with...

Face - Mac Mineralize Satinfinish NC40, Bobbi Brown Creamy Concealer Sand, Mac MSFN Medium Dark

Cheeks - Illamasqua Cream Blusher Seduce, Benefit High Beam

Eyes - UDPP, Inglot Palette, Mac Superslick Liquid Eyeliner Defiantly Feline and Mac Haute and Naughty mascara

Lips - CoverGirl Lip Perfection Darling

twinxNtrax Mini GiveAway (CLOSED)

I reached 50 followers about a week ago, shout out to the 50th follower MummaInHeels...thanks lovely!!! So I thought I would do a mini giveaway just to say thanks guys for the support for my almost 2 month old blog. I've been really enjoying coming up with various post and getting feedback and comments. It means so much to be able to share my crazy obsession with all things beauty related.

Now onto the good stuff. The prize is the Bright Idea! set of  Mini Opi Nail Lacquers. It comes with 3 nail polishes, that include That's Hot! Pink, Atomic Orange and Teal The Cows Come Home plus a mini Rapidry Top Coat.

Rules of the Giveaway

1. You must be a follower of my blog via Google Friend Connect
2. For an additional entry you can follow me on Twitter @pinks84
3. Another additional entry if you tweet about this giveaway!
4. Please leave a comment below stating your email contact and which step you've done.

This giveaway is open internationally. The winner will be chosen on random.org (if I can work it out) and the giveaway closes on the 3rd of August at 8pm Australian Eastern Standard Time ..so good luck and once again thanks lovelies!!!!!:)

NOTD-Essie St Tropez

You know when you see a nail polish colour and just cant wait to put it on...well this isn't one of them. Now looking at St Tropez in the bottle, I thought, yea its ok..nothing to shout about. But when I put it on, whole different story there. 

There is no other way to put this but this colour makes me feel sexy, yes you heard it rite a nail polish makes me feel sexy. I don't know how... but it does. 

Personally I think it goes really well with my tanned skin, as it just brings out the colour of my skin.

Now Essie polishes can be a hit or miss in my books. They can be streaky and not as opaque as I would like. This colour needed 2 coats for this opacity and applied very smoothly, so thumbs up from me.

It's just such a gorgeous nude colour, the perfect nude shade in my opinion.

Has a nail polish ever made u feel sexy? 

On the Hunt

It took a while...but I finally managed to hunt them down. I'm talking about my quest to find these 2 fingered cross rings. Ok let me back track a little, so the one accesory I've been obsessing about recently are rings. Particularly 2 fingered rings does that sound dirty, anyways I have been looking for these everywhere. I've seen them on some fashion bloggers/youtubers and instantly fell in love!

 I asked all the SA's at Diva, Lovisa, Equip, everywhere basically and everytime they would tell me 'Oh they're awesome, but they're sold out" *grrr*.

So one fine day while browsing at Sportsgirl, I found them in a little corner tucked away. It was truly a 'light shining down from the heavens above' moment for me,not joking. I had to grab not one but two, guess I'm obsessive like that.

My gold cross is a little scratched *boo* 

I just think they look really funky. A statement piece but not a in your face statement, and everytime I wear them I get asked about them.

What are your favourite accessories of the moment? Have you been on the hunt for them lately?