I've seen these little pans and palettes around for years, and I've always loved them. In my early "getting serious about makeup" days, I had several of these palettes with similar colours in them, or colours that went well together. They used to have them with cute art on the outside, but now I can only find the black ones.
Anyway, they are the BYS custom colours palette and pan sets, and basically you buy the palette empty and then fill it with colours of your choice, that fit magnetically into the pan!
They have a cute, but functional sized mirror inside, so they are perfect for beauty on the go.
Over christmas (and even still now, at a heavily reduced price!), I saw these sets with a palette and 10 shadow pans, which are really great value.
The palette I've put together here is perfect for creating a pink-based smoky eye look. My camera hasn't really picked up the colours very well here, but the lighter pink is more of a baby pink, perfect for highlighting under the brow, then there's the deeper pink, which I'd put on the lid and right up into transition, then the light grey I would blend into the crease and transition, and of course the charcoal for the outer corner and crease.
I really love the design, and the available colours are awesome.
What do you think? Would you love to make up your own palettes?
Browsing around Gloss the other day, I picked up this awesome little gem. I covered it a little bit in my Monday how-to post this week, but I'll go into a bit more detail on it now.
It's basically a glitter polish, but the glitter is really, really chunky.
It takes a bit of patience, but when you get enough coats on there, it's a really awesome look that will last for ages.
To make it look like it does below, you need to start with a base of colour. I used a blue from the OPI Texas collection. Then I did 4 coats of the 3D polish, then topcoat, waiting for each coat to dry before adding more.
It's the kind of nail stuff to do while you're watching a movie, or have a good half hour of quiet time.
I think you'll agree that the effect is well worth the extra time.
Lots of you have asked me how I put my nail art together so nicely, and I'd love to take all the credit on the back of my creativity, but I just can't.
Nail art has never been easier, thanks to nail art lacquers and polishes with very thin brushes, and my favourite ones are the ones from BYS.
They come in over 30 different colours, so there's one to match every nail look!
The best part is the price. Coming in at $4.95 each, they are totally affordable, and anyone can have gorgeous nails!
Working the same way as a traditional polish, but applied with a very long, very thin brush which doesn't take long to get the hang of, you simply apply straight lines and brush strokes with ease to create and kind of nail look you want.
All of the nail art looks pictured here were created with the help of BYS nail art lacquers. My collection is growing every week!
Matte nail polish is becoming a craze everywhere I look, and in my explorations on the interwebz this week, I came across some amazing ideas for nail art that mix trends, products and techniques, so I decided to give one of them a red hot go.
First of all, I want to show you how I found matte nail polish. I went looking for an actual black matte polish, and instead left the store with ChiChi matte top coat, which means that any solid colour nail polish that I have in my collection is now potentially a matte polish too! You just paint on your normal colour. I used the black from OPI's so so skullicious collection, and just used the matte top coat like I would any other top coat. It's super fast-drying and super effective, giving me exactly the effect I was after.
On my ring finger, I painted a blue and purple coloured glitter polish, as I am going for a stand-out one nail different trendy look.
Then, on top of all of my nails, I used my BYS nail art polish in black to create a criss-cross pattern.
Last of all, a coat of regular top coat over the ring fingers to seal the glitter. DO NOT use regular top coat over the matte top coat because you will make it shiny and undo all your hard work.
Here's what the finished product looks like:
What do you think? Do you like the subtle nail art?
It's no secret that I lovelovelove pink lipgloss. It forms an important part of my signature look. Here are some of my fabulous favourites for spring:
Natio Rich colour cream gloss in Happy is a deep, rich pink with a shimmery sparkle to it that really makes my lips pop!
BYS diamond shine gloss in Precious is an all-year-round favourite of mine that blends exactly to the natural colour of my lips to just give them a slightly deeper colour.
Benefit Posietint is a poppy-coloured lip and cheek tint in an almost salmon hue that I use for my lips and to give my cheeks a little boost when I don't want a blushed-up look.
Australis Plumptastic is for the times when I want a little boost in the fullness of my lips. It tingles and plumps up my lips while giving me a light pink tint.
MAC Dazzleglass in Smile is a lovely nude-ish salmon colour with a slight lustre to it, it was my very favourite lipgloss for many years, and has now fallen into my regular lineup all year round.
So there you go, my favourite pink lipglosses for spring!
What's your favourite gloss?
Most of these products were purchased by me, however, the Natio gloss was provided to me for review by the lovely people at Natio. My opinions are always my own, and it has earned its way into my favourites completely on its own merit.
This week's How-to Monday is by request from our lovely facebook friend Fay. I asked what you guys wanted to see, and made some suggestions, and she suggested that I look at the differences between pencil, gel pot/brush and liquid liner. What a fantastic idea! Thank you, Fay!
So in my first pic collage here, you can see that I've swatched the 3 different kinds of liner. The top one is a Face of Australia liquid liner that I got from Gloss, I think. It's a product I've used almost daily for months and months and it's still going strong. The two best things about using liquid liner, in my opinion, are that the product lasts for so long, you generally need to throw it away before you finish it because it's been months and it's time for a fresh one, and the precision you get with a liquid liner... but I'll go into that in a minute.
Next on the swatch is Rimmel gel liner, which I actually bought last night from Chemist Warehouse in preparation for this blog post. This gel liner has its own brush built into the pot, which is awesome. The greatest thing about gel liner is its staying power. Gel generally outlasts both pencil and liquid by a long shot, so once you've got it on there, you don't have to worry about it moving during the day/night.
At the bottom of the swatch is my trusty BYS pencil liner, which I also got from Gloss. Pencil liners are a little more forgiving, more versatile, and easier to use in waterlines. The best thing about pencil liners is the lack of mess. You have to sharpen them, but that is the only mess they make, and it can't happen by accident.
As you can see, I've chosen the black version of all three liners, because it's easy to see on pictures, and because black is the most common colour of liner used and available.
So, let's see what each of these look like on my face, and have a look at how they are different.
In the first picture, I've used the BYS pencil liner on my waterline, lower lash line, upper waterline (tightline) and upper lid. You will notice that it's almost a smoky look, because the pencil liner doesn't have that hard, precise line that many people prefer. I really like pencil liner for when I'm doing makeup looks with "bedroom eyes" or goth-y, emo type looks. The coverage is just wider and smokier.
In the second picture, I've applied the gel liner to my lower lashline and upper lid. I don't like to tightline or use gel or liquid liner on my waterlines, because it has a tendency to "bleed" into the eye and cause some irritation. Perhaps I'm not quite getting it right, but I've tried many different techniques, and as soon as I get anything softer than a pencil near the waterlines, that is what happens. With a gel, you get a more precise application than the pencil, and with this built-in brush, the line is quite wide. I really think this gel liner would be great for 60's bombshell looks, looks with wide winged liner, or costume makeup, given its staying power and general wearability.
Last, but not least, I've used the Liquid liner, again on my lower lashline and upper lid. Liquid gives the most precise application, thanks to it's tiny thin, long brush. I love liquid liner for my "classic" looks, and it's so versatile. You can wear just a fine line for a more natural look, or build it up into cat or winged eyes, big fat lines, or even costume makeup where additional face painting is required away from the eyes.
Everyday eyes.
My personal preference, and what I use every day is a combination. Generally, I use pencil liner on my lower lashline, waterline and tightline, then either a liquid or a gel liner on my upper lashline/lid over my eyeshadow. I'll usually apply the pencil first, then eyeshadow, then gel or liquid liner. That's just the way that I do it and I'm sure everyone has different ways to do it.
At some point soon, I'll pop a little tutorial for all three of these on the youtube channel, and I'll post it as extra content for you to have a look at.
See you on Thursday for my review of my awesome Australis Rush Hour palette!
