Salon Melbourne 2016 Haul!

Hi lovelies,

I'm a little late with this post, which is all about what I picked up at Salon Melbourne a couple of weekends ago! If you're wondering what Salon Melbourne is, it's basically an industry event for professionals like hairdressers, makeup artists etc, but luckily, bloggers are also allowed in. I've already reviewed the event the last couple of times I went (wayyy back in 2012 and 2013, which you can read here and here). It hasn't changed overly much in the years so I won't review it again, but will just jump straight to what I purchased, though of course, some of the brands that were exhibiting have changed.

Salon Melbourne 2016
(image courtesy of Salon Melbourne)

I was a lot more restrained with my purchases this year, so here's what I ended up getting.

Haul from Salon Melbourne 2016.

I picked up 5 brushes from Crown Brushes, to fill gaps in my brush collection. Pictured from left to right, as detailed in the photo below, these are:

Fan brush SS023 ($19) - I'd been wanting a dense, fluffy fan brush for applying highlighter, and this was the softest out of all the choices that the Crown Brush stand had. I've already used this and I'm loving the result I get from this!
Dense powder brush 443 ($35) - This was the most expensive brush I picked up. This is a little like a kabuki, but it's a lot denser than all the brushes I own. I wanted something to really buff powder into the skin after the application of liquid foundation, so I can't wait to give this a good try. I've just washed this and there was a fair bit of dye leaking from it, but this should hopefully peter off after the first wash.
Contour brush C473 ($20) - I own a Zoeva contour brush but wanted something that had a bit more bulk to it. I've also just washed this but have yet to try it out properly. There was no dye leaking out which is good!
Eye smudger SS028 ($7) - The eye smudger brush caught my eye immediately! I've got one from Sigma which I love, but I wanted a dupe as a backup. I've washed this but have yet to use it.
Spoolie brushes x 2 C115 ($3 each) - I had to bin my last spoolie, so I really needed a soft spoolie to help brush product through my brows. Both of these felt quite soft, and as they were $3 each, I figured it didn't hurt to pick up two different ones!

Let me know in the comments if you want to see reviews once I've tried them all.

Keep reading after the jump!

St Patrick's Day, Simple Green Eyeshadow Tutorial & Nyx Jumbo Pencil in Milk Review.

Hello lovelies!

Happy St Patrick's Day! 'Tis a day to be wearing lots of green, speaking in a faux Irish accent (unless you're ACTUALLY Irish, of course, in which case you'd just speak normally), drinking green beer and eating lots of green goodies, to be sure, to be sure, to be sure!

(Image taken off Google Images,
credit Dazzlejunction.com)

I don't mean to be too blithe about it; St Patrick's Day is actually a Catholic festival meant to celebrate the life of St Patrick, who was a Briton captured by Irish raiders, and held in Ireland. He had a dream in which God came to him and told him to escape captivity, which he then did, returning to Britain and studying to be a priest. After he was ordained, he eventually moved back to Ireland, where he was known for using the shamrock to explain the concept of the holy Trinity to the Irish people. Incidentally, St Patrick's festival was actually associated with the colour of blue, but due to his fondness of using the shamrock, it eventually came to be associated with the colour of green.

I had meant to come up with a pretty green manicure to commemorate the occasion but I've decided to take the weekend off to just R&R (read more about that here), and so, I was quite elated when I looked through my backlog of unposted work and found this simple green eye look to share, which I created when I was experimenting with my Nyx jumbo eyeliner pencil in Milk. Apologies for the slight messiness, I was just experimenting and wasn't actually intending to post it until I finished and decided it actually didn't look too bad. Full details of products used provided below, together with a brief tutorial (if you're only interested in the Nyx jumbo pencil review, you can scroll straight to the bottom).

 

Products Used:
Brown shadow for brows (in hindsight, should've filled it in more and done a bit more grooming)

Nyx jumbo eye pencil in Milk
Inglot green-gold eyeshadow AMC shine #6
Inglot green eyeshadow trio M3
Maybelline master precise liquid liner in black
Maybelline Falsies waterproof mascara


The steps are actually very easy. Fill in your brows using a stiff angled brow brush and a shadow in a complementary shade. Then, take the Nyx jumbo eye pencil and run it all over the mobile lid, then use your finger or a brush, whichever preferred, to blend it out. Also use the Milk pencil on your lower waterline for added impact. Take the green-gold and gently pat it in the inner eye corner, then take the lightest green shade from the M3 compact and pat it over the rest of your mobile lid, stopping just at the crease. Take some of the green-gold shadow and gently pat some in the centre of your eyelid, before blending it into your base colour. Take the darkest green shade from the M3 palette and pat it on in the outer corner of your eye, then grab a blending brush to blend it all together in circular motions. Take a fine eyeliner brush and smudge some of the dark green shade under your lower lashline. Finish by drawing on a thin line on your upper lashline with liquid eyeliner, before curling your lashes and applying mascara.

NYX Jumbo Pencil in Milk Review

Pros:

• Stark white shade that's perfect for making shadows pop.
• Easy to apply/work with; glides over your lid without tugging, and you can blend it easily provided you work with it before it sets (in a few seconds).
• Moderately resistant to creasing once it sets, I get about 5 hours out of it before noticing any creasing if I don't use a primer underneath.
• Easily used on the waterline without causing irritation (I use contact lenses).
• Easy to remove.
• Very affordable at $6.70.

Cons:

• Not completely crease-proof without a primer underneath.
• Not easily available from retail stores, but you can purchase online from Crush Cosmetics.

I hope you enjoyed the eye look/tutorial/review! Gosh, I really made this a multi-tasking post, didn't I?

Are you going to get up to much today, lovelies? If you dressed up or made yourself up to celebrate St Pat's day, do leave me a link in the comments so I can come by and check it out!

Much love,

MM.

x

Note: The Nyx Jumbo Pencil in Milk was kindly provided for my consideration, but all other products used were purchased with my own money. This has not affected my opinion in any way. For more information, please refer to my Disclosure Policy.

Neutral Shades!

Hi lovelies!

I'm still alive! I'm so sorry it's been two weeks since my last post, I caught a terrible bout of the flu and it really took a huge toll on me! I actually can't remember the last time I was that sick! I was given antibiotics by my doctor, which helped me get over the flu, but unfortunately, really upset my tummy! I've basically just been going to work, then coming home and crashing, which didn't leave much time for blogging. I'm feeling much better today than I have for the past few days, so I've been visiting my favourite blogs to try and catch up!

I just wanted to share two of my recent EOTDs with you. I took a break from eye makeup for almost two weeks, but I picked up a new BYS 18 shadow palette (it's called Neutral Charm and retails for $7.95 from Kmart!) over the weekend and couldn't resist playing with it yesterday.

I used the gold shade (marked #1) all over my eyelid, then the aubergine shade (marked #2) in the outer corner/crease and just under the lower lashline, and finished with the steel grey/greenish shade (marked #3) to contour in the outermost corner. I apologise for the labelling on the photo, it's the first time I've tried to mark my photos and I think I need to use different software. I finished off with some brown eyeliner and Lash Architect 4D mascara (which incidentally, does not help my stubborn lashes hold a curl). Oh, and I also added a dash of gold pencil to my lower waterline.

Please click on this to enlarge the numbers.

Here's the finished look!

  

I quite like the palette, it's really metallic but the shadows are quite 'creamy' and blend together beautifully. I wore them all with primer underneath and they lasted all day without creasing!

I promised a second EOTD, and that's the one I wore to work today! I kept it quite light as I was wearing coral lips, so I wanted to keep the eyes neutral.

I used my Essence holographic effect shadow in Mystic Lemon with a bit of a bronze Inglot shadow in the crease, Revlon colourstay eyeliner in brown (top and lower lash line) and Max Factor false lash effect waterproof mascara to finish.

I hope you enjoyed that, lovelies!

Now, after two days of wearing neutrals/browns, I think I feel a colour EOTD coming on tomorrow...


Much love,
MM.
x

EOTD - Spring greens

Hi lovelies,

Another quick post on a spring green EOTD I wore out today. I know spring is a while away yet but I thought I'd liven up a winter's day with this simple look.

I used my Inglot green trio for this, with the pale green all over the eyelid, and the dark green in the outer corner/crease, before finishing off with black liner and black mascara.

The complete look!

I hope you all have a wonderful week ahead, lovelies!

Much love,

MM.

x

EOTD - Red love

Hi lovelies,

It's been a wet and wild day in Melbourne today, with the rain just bucketing down all day. It was anticipated that the rainfall today would be equal to the rainfall for the past month! How crazy is that?!

I'm still slightly under the weather, so I came straight home after work. I've just realised that it's been a whole week since I uploaded an EOTD post! Can't have that, can we?! I spent all day today thinking about red eyeshadow. I actually bought this gorgeous red shadow from Inglot a few months ago, but have yet to wear it out! I was a bit concerned I'd look like I had bleeding eyes, so I thought I'd better do a practice run with it before actually wearing it on a night out. Since I was home tonight, I decided it was the perfect time to give it a go!

Here's what I ended up with. I also decided to use my Harlotte half lashes as it's been a while since I last applied falsies and I need to practice! Funnily enough, they don't sit quite right because my own lashes are so curly from the lash perming! This post might be a bit picture heavy as I do my best to do this look justice. It's a little bit more vivid in real life but for some reason, it's just not coming through with the photographs.

I did this look with Mac Paint pot in Painterly all over the eyelid, the red Inglot shadow (pearl 450) over the eyelid (up to the crease), a grey Inglot shadow (AMC shine 47)  in the crease, and a bit of matte black eyeshadow from my Beauty UK Day and Night palette in the outer corner. I also added the purple shade from the Day and Night palette under the eye. I used a bit of gold from my 88 palette in the inner eye corner, white pencil on the lower waterline, Essence black gel eyeliner on the top lashline and finished off with Loreal 4D Lash Architect mascara.

I really did like playing with this red shadow and it's surprisingly versatile. I think I'll definitely be using this a lot more!

Much love,
MM.
x