Mini Facebook Giveaway!

Hi lovelies!

I now have 35 likes on my Facebook page and wanted to throw a random giveaway to thank all my followers for supporting my Facebook page! Unfortunately, for legal reasons, I can't do this on Facebook itself, so I'm sponsoring it here!

I've decided to give away a free nail polish and some product samples (so unfortunately, this is only open to followers in Australia), and I'm keeping the brand/shade a surprise!

All you have to do is post a funny caption for this photo below and I will choose the one that makes me laugh the hardest!

This giveaway will close on Friday, 9th of November, at 5pm. One comment per person, please, and you must be a follower of my Facebook page (so please also leave me your Facebook name and an email address to contact you with if you win)! You can like my blog Facebook page by clicking here.

If you don't have Facebook, don't worry, as I am planning a big giveaway to celebrate my birthday and my blogiversary (blog anniversary) very soon, and that will also be open internationally, so stay tuned!

( taken from smilepanic.com/funny-moments-of-celebrities/)

And the winner is: Abigail with her entry "ERMAHGERD! Where'd you get your hair permed at?!"

Congratulations, Abigail! I have sent you an email so do check it when you can!

Thank you to all who participated, all your entries gave me a good laugh and it was really tough picking a winner!


Much love,
MM.
x

Guest Blogging Special by All Made Up!

Hello lovelies!

I have a special post to share with you today, a lovely guest blogging post from a Twitter friend of mine, the pretty Mez from All Made Up. Mez hails from Britain, and a couple of weeks ago, she asked if anyone was keen on doing a blog swap, which I was super quick to put my hand up for! My post for her blog has been a bit delayed as I've been insanely busy, and also as I've been recovering from a bad cold, but I will be publishing a nail tutorial post for her very soon!

Without further ado, please give her a warm welcome as you read her blog post below on her top five picks for lip glosses/balms!

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Hi ladies,

My name is Mez and I hail all the way from the other side of the internet & world in a little beauty blog called All Made Up. Recently I did a series on my lip product collection consisting of natural lipsticks for WOC, plums, reds & lastly my lip liners. I'm ending the series here on this lovely blog with my favourite glosses and tinted balms (as the title suggests). I find that some glosses can look very different on fairer skintones whereas on WOC (women of colour) those same products aren't pigmented enough to show up. As I always do on my blog I have lip swatches so you can decide for yourself. I should add all prices will be in British pounds as I'm from the UK. Enough babble, off we go...

From top to bottom:

Revlon super lustrous lip gloss -Nude Lustre

No 7 lipgloss - Number 5 intrigue

ELF luscious liquid lipstick - Rasberry (that's how they spelled it)

Lanolips - Apples

Korres lip butter - Plum

Revlon gloss - Nude lustre

I included this as I like the formula and the colour range, however, although this slightly tints my lips this shade doesn't give as much colour as I would like and I'm not really into clear glosses. I should have bought a different shade in hindsight. The packaging looks great for the £6.99 price tag.

No7 - Intrigue

This is so smooth and surprisingly pigmented making it an awesome wearable everyday red gloss. I bought it on a whim as they were hugely discounted in Boots just after valentines day I believe (Disclaimer - I could be making that up). Other poppy king glosses retail for £10.50 on the Boots website.

ELF - Rasberry

This is a very different texture from the rest of the 'glosses'. As it is technically a liquid 'lipstick' it is creamy as opposed to a balmy texture and I believe this is what gives it decent lasting power. Again this is very pigmented, smells nice and I weirdly like seeing the product squeeze out of those holes (errrrr, I'm not weird I promise). A bargain at £1.50.

Lanolips - Apples

Again another fantastically moisturising red balm/gloss. I really don't like the applicator which means you have to first squeeze some out onto your finger but other than that I love the lanolips range. It's quite pricey but it definitely is worth £8.16 as it moisturises like no other. Another interesting fact for you readers out in Australia is that Nalini informs me that is where Lanolips is made :)

Korres - Plum

Finally the much hyped Korres lip butter. This is beautiful! Firstly (although possibly not too important) it smells and tastes gorgeous. Moving on, this shade is extremely pigmented. I couldn't get an accurate picture on my lips (I never can with these dark purple shades) but you can build it up almost to the colour in the container. I also bought a lighter coral shade at the time but sadly that didn't show up on my pigmented lips. This retails for £6 on Feel Unique.

So that was my Top 5 lip glosses/balms. I hope I get more use out of these now I've put them out on the blogosphere for all to see. Be sure to let me know your favourite gloss in the comments. If you liked this post, please visit my blog to see what else I have to offer. Even if you didn't, I might surprise you ;) Thank you for letting me take over your fantastic blog for my first ever guest post Nalini.

Till next time (hopefully)...Toodles! :)

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What a wonderful post on lipglosses/balms, Mez, thank you so much for contributing! How's this for timing; I have just managed to pick up Lanolips Apple, and I can't wait to try it out, especially after reading your glowing review! 

I do hope you enjoyed Mez's post, lovelies, do hop on over to visit her blog, she has some amazing posts on there! 

If you would like to guest blog on my blog or have me guest on yours, please send me an email and we'll work something out!

Much love,
MM.
x

Halloween Themed Makeup Looks!

Happy Halloween, lovelies!

As I mentioned earlier, I had wanted to do some makeup looks for Halloween but did run out of time as I spent a large portion of last week sick. Boo. Still, I spent some time doing up some quick looks two days ago and thought I'd share them with you here, so please bear with me as it could be a rather picture heavy post.

They aren't particularly original but they are quick, simple and good for doing at the last minute. Oh, and you can get the props from a $2 shop, another big selling point for me. Plus, you can actually wear two of these looks out on a night out (minus one or two details, of course). I'll just apologise for the photo quality as I was using my iPhone instead of my camera, it was a little easier to see what I was doing (I had no idea it would be this difficult to take decent photos of myself)!

Halloween Look 1: The innocent sex kitten. 

Now, obviously the innocent sex kitten look isn't particularly original but it works because it's cute, simple and super easy! I blended some gold shadow over my eyelids, winged a flick, patted on some pink blush, contoured with some brown shadow and added lipgloss (Bourjois Rose Exclusif, to be precise). I also filled in my brows with black shadow for a bit of drama/definition. Trace a little black shadow under your lower lashline (take it only to about the outer third), add mascara and you're good to go!

Now, add a little black kitten nose and draw on some whisker lines with eyeliner. Pop on a cute headband with glittery kitten ears and you're done!

Halloween Look 2: The Cats Meow!

What's that, you say? You want to sex it up and look like you're auditioning for a role as a cocktail waitress (or stripper)? No problem! All you have to do is smoke up the eyes a bit more, I added black shadow to the outer corners and blended it into the gold. I also took the lower lash line further in. Added some black dots where the whiskers would grow out of, and added a sexy ombré red lip (by tracing black liner around the lips and gently patting in the red). I also added a clear lipgloss and patted on some highlighter but it's not really showing up in the photos. Oh, and the last step? Squeeze yourself into a bustier top and add a diamante bow. ;)

Here's a close up of the lips.

Halloween Look 3: Psycho Tortured Mental Patient.

Well, if innocent and sexy aren't your thing, you might like to try escaped, tortured mental patient instead! I didn't have white paint so I mixed up baby powder into a paste and applied that all over my face. I also darkened my eyes by applying black shadow all over the eyelid and lower lashes, drew some patterns around both eyes and then drew a 'stitched shut' pattern over my lips, extending it over my cheeks, much like the Joker in Batman. Try messing your hair up for that out of control, crazy look.

And because I love black and white images, here's one last photo!

 

I hope that didn't spook you too much! I had a lot of fun with all three looks and kind of wish I'd dressed up to go to a proper Halloween party!

How will you be celebrating today? I will be catching up with friends after work, and we'll be having dinner at TGIF at Jam Factory. I know TGIF get into the spirit every year, with the waitstaff going all out and also decorating the restaurant, it's a lot of fun! Plus they have free face painting and treat bags for kids, and they have themed cocktails and desserts, what a win! As I'll be going along after work, I won't be able to dress up too much, but I might do my face up a bit and wear a cute headband/hat! I'll try to take some photos if my friends let me. :P

Have a wonderful Halloween!

Much love,
MM.
x

P.S - I'm participating in Aqeela's weekly makeup theme again so do jump over to her blog and check out what the other gorgeous girls came up with for the weekly theme of 'Halloween'.

Halloween Nail Art #3 - Dripping Blood Nails.

Hi lovelies!

As promised, here is my third (and final) Halloween inspired nail art look this year! I was partly inspired by the nails from the Prabal Gurung 2013 collection, but I also wanted to use the orange/black Ulta3 colours that Jasmine gave me in our swap, so I decided to make my first attempt at the dripping blood manicure.

I used Ulta3 Fire for the base coat, a fire red/orange shade, and then tried to emulate the dripping blood effect using Ulta3 Black Satin. Unfortunately, I found the brush a little hard to work with and also the polish a little too thick, so I switched halfway through to using Revlon Lunar.

First up, a shot of Fire on it's own, it's such a gorgeous shade, I just had to share. It's actually quite bright, almost neon coloured!

Ulta3 Fire.

And here's what I ended up with. Overall, quite happy with it, but I can already think of ways to improve it for my next attempt!

In direct sunlight.

If you're wondering why it looks a little lumpy in the last shot, it's because I decided to apply that BYS glow in the dark polish to the 'blood'! It actually worked quite well, although I did struggle a little with the BYS brush, plus the formula is a little thick so it was hard to get it looking like the blood drips. But it really does glow in the dark, I just haven't figured out how to take a photo of it yet. :P

Overall, I really do like this manicure and it's a bit less cutesy than the other two.

Which one of the Halloween looks have you liked best, lovelies? If you missed it, the pastel spiderweb manicure can be found here, while the pastel mummy nails can be found here.

Please come back tomorrow to see my three (well, okay, two and a half) Halloween inspired makeup looks)!

Much love,
MM.
x

New Hair Colour - 'Balayage'.

Hi lovelies!

Short (and sweet, hopefully) post to share my new hair with all of you!

Before photo.

Basically, I was interested in getting the balayage look but I didn't want to ruin my hair by bleaching it too much. My hairstylist decided the best option was to give me balayage foils, only it didn't end up quite the shade we had anticipated (apparently my hair is resistant to lightening or something like that...go figure), so we ended up with almost coppery tones throughout. It's actually quite hard to photograph as it seems to look different every time I try to take a photo!

After photo, wearing it straight.

I was wearing it pretty straight when I got home, and decided to try putting some waves/curls through (I don't know why but balayage always seems to look nicer with curls).

And these photos were taken the next day after the curls had relaxed a little.

Overall, I do like it, although it wasn't 'exactly' what I was going for, but hey, I figure I'll let it go for a bit and if I get sick of it, I'll just dye it another colour! Or I'll add in another shade and end up with dip dyed locks! Life's too short to be boring! :P

Oh, and after my hair appointment, I stopped at the market and got some lovely orchids for myself, because I'm worth it. ;) I love them, they are so pretty and summery, it makes me happy just looking at it!

What do you think of my new hair colour, ladies? Do you ever buy yourself flowers?

Halloween Blog Swap!

Hello lovelies,

Two days to Halloween, not long to go now! For all of you who asked about my new hair, I will be putting up a blog post very soon, I've just been struggling to get photos to do it justice and now I'm struggling for blogging time in between everything else, so please bear with me. :)

Today, I'm showing you the items I received in my Halloween swap! About three weeks ago, I was chatting with a few international beauty bloggers on Twitter and mentioned that I'd like to participate in a Halloween swap. As we were concerned that our packages wouldn't get to our international recipients in time, a few of us Melbourne based bloggers decided to host our own little 'secret' swap, which was kindly organised by the lovely Evelyn from Cotton Candy Diva. I was matched up with Jasmine from Sweetaholic Beauty, who I was also paired up with for the Australian Christmas in July blog swap earlier this year (read about it here). I received Jasmine's fantastic Halloween package last week, and here's what she sent me.

It all arrived packaged up adorably in orange tissue, and she thoughtfully decorated it with cute Halloween stickers too!

I was a little mystified to find this bubble wrapped bag, and opened it to find...

A bag of edible fake 'blood'! This really cracked me up! I was snickering so hard, I didn't even realise it was candy until a bit later (that you suck through the little 'drip').

Next up was this BYS Glow in the Dark polish. The formula is a little thick and gloopy, but I think it might be best applied over the entire nail, as opposed to used for nail art.

Jasmine also threw in these two gorgeous polishes from Ulta3. I really wish there was an Ulta stockist near me where I could pick up some of their makeup/polishes. The pharmacies near me only seem to have a rather disorganised bargain bin and the shades are never very nice. :(

The burnt orange shade, Fire, is surprisingly flattering on my skintone and applies like a dream, fully opaque in two coats. Black satin is a little thick but might be a one coater when applied over the entire nail.

As you can see, Jasmine really spoiled me with lots of candy as well, namely orange jellybeans and ghost drops, together with three cute little screme eggs (scream, instead of creme, geddit?). I've eaten one of the eggs and it was delish, with oozy green caramel inside. I'm going to share the lollies with my workmates on Wednesday, as I think I'll be on a serious sugar high if I ate them all myself.

Here's a quick snap of Jasmine's cute Halloween card.

 

And one last snap of the entire Halloween swap she sent me! I actually used the polishes Jasmine sent in my last Halloween manicure (which I just did today), so stay tuned for an upcoming blog post on that. :)

Thanks a lot, Jasmine, it was a lot of fun!

Remember how I said it was a 'secret' swap? Well, my recipient was Evelyn herself, and she got my parcel today, so do go visit her blog if you want to see what I bought her. :)

Are you getting into the Halloween spirit, lovelies? What will you be doing to celebrate?

Much love,
MM.
x