Love at First Swatch: Pigments Loose vs. Pressed

Here are swatches of the pigments loose & pressed to show comparison. Not too much chatter in this post, LOL too many pictures and I would hate to bore you all! *Swatched dry with no primer/base to show the true shade.

Here is the palette after I replaced Oddity & Tattooed

Top: Her Revenge, Jailhouse Jumpsuit, Skinny Jeans, Blueberry Lush

Middle: Just Bitten, Electric Lemonade, Immature, Fexi Girl (Harajuku Hunnies)

Bottom: Incognito, Bare Naked, Chocoholic, Secretive

Her Revenge

Just Bitten

Incognito

Jailhouse Jumpsuit

Electric Lemonade

Bare Naked

Immature

Chocoholic

Blueberry Lush

Fexi Girl

Secretive

Click the shadow names for more info & color descriptions! Some of them didn't really change much! The overall result is pigmentation increase in all of them. Shadows like Jailhouse Jumpsuit, Electric Lemonade, Secretive and Blueberry Lush are more sheer looking when compared to their pressed counterparts. Her Revenge still looks the same, as well as Immature. Bare Naked had some golden undertones brought out, making it look more like a foiled pigment when applied. The one I'm really excited about is my Fexi Girl pigment from Harajuku Hunnies. It's more intense, but not in a color changing sort of way if that makes sense. There is no before & after of Skinny Jeans because I used a baggie sample & there was non left in loose form for comparison.

I ordered 2 more palettes and pans to press the rest of my pigments (the non-mattes)

EXCITED!!

Purchase GDE here: http://www.glamourdolleyes.com

Purchase Harajuku Hunnies here: http://www.harajukuhunnies.com

.stayGLAM.

Drea

Pigment Pressing = LOVE

I love pigments... I love how they apply, and I love working with them, although some people don't. Another thing is I'm drawn to pressed shadows that act like pigments... you know the ones that people complain are too soft and have too much fallout. Yeah I'm weird like that, LOL.

I really wanted to press my pigments, so that they would be easier to store, travel with, and most importantly use on others. I love doing makeup on others and although I do not title myself as a MUA, I still think it's important to follow proper sanitation steps, don't you agree ;)

Pressing my favorite piggies into pans allow better cleaning for me. And since a lot of what I do on others tends to lean more towards bright & fun, I can trust that these shadows will work for that. Instead of rushing out and buying something new *cough cough SUGARPILL* , I stifled those urges by instead ordering a pressing kit from Beauty From the Earth (BFTE). The kit was only $18 and comes with a 2oz bottle of their pressing medium, a 12 pan MAGNETIC empty palette (with pans), a 10 gram jar, spatula, and a pressing disc. Only thing you really need is a cool fabric to press the pigments, if you care what they look like. I just used the little organza bag the items came in. That was cute enough for me!

The directions provided suggest you work with a consistency of a crumbly texture, that holds together. I went with Cora aka VintageorTacky's "cake batter" method found HERE. It just worked better for me :)

Here is the finished palette:

These are actually all Glamour Doll shadows. Most of my piggies came from there... yeah yeah I know I'm branching out lol

Top Row: Her Revenge, Jailhouse Jumpsuit, Oddity*, Blueberry Lush

Middle Row: Just Bitten, Electric Lemonade, Immature, Tattooed*

Bottom Row: Incognito, Bare Naked, Chocoholic, Secretive

*Oddity and Tattooed had to be scrapped because they both contain matte pigment which does not make for a good pressed shadow. I replaced them with Skinny Jeans (GDE) and Fexi Girl (Harajuku Hunnies) which I'm actually glad I did, because Fexi Girl pressed is pure LOVE!

I've officially become a pigment pressing addict. I plan on pressing the rest of my GDE, and any other pigments I order in the future are getting pressed as well! I'm debating on if I will press my HN piggies I just got. If I do I'll probably have to get another set just for pressing. I will do swatches of the shadows before and after in another post. Along with a picture of the palette as it is now. Below is the aftermath lol... not too bad.

.stayGLAM.
drea

Ringleader Recreation

Just real quick, I wanted to post these pictures of a look I recreated. The original look can be found HERE, done by Jordan Liberty. I love that it was a purple smokey eye pretty much. Gave me an excuse to use my recently pressed Fexi Girl quickie shadow from Harajuku Hunnies!

Side note: I have a blog coming on my recent pigment pressing and how it turned me into a pressing freak LOL...


ANYWHO, here is what I came up with. Pretty happy with it except I wish I had a better camera to take pictures, and shorter lashes on the bottom. But nobody said it was gonna be exact!

Items used:

[EYES]

Primer: TFSI

Base: Wet N' Wild White pencil liner; no name black gel liner

Shadows: Harajuku Hunnies-Fexi Girl, matte white from WnW Greed palette, MAC Bold & Brash pigment

Brows & Details: WnW Black pencil liner & no name gel liner

Accents: Glamour Doll Eyes-Her Revenge (I chose diamonds instead of hearts)

Lashes: Andrea lashes on top & Red Cherry on bottom (forgot the #'s)

[FACE]

Primer: Smashbox Photofinish primer

Concealer: Eve Pearl Salmon (Dark); MAC Select Moisture Cover (NC45); Benefit Erase Paste (Medium)

Foundation: MUFE HD (173); Black Opal Stick Foundation (Hazlenut) *contour*

Powder: Face Atelier Translucent finishing powder

[LIPS]

Benefit Erase Paste in Medium to nude out lips

MAC Call My Bluff lipstick

These last 2 pics I took the lashes off... and smudged the points above my eyebrow in the process lmao

Only thing missing is a big ass TPain top hat ;)

Who inspires you?

.stayGLAM.

Drea

Love at First Swatch: Heavenly Naturals

After much procrastination, I finally ordered some shadows from Heavenly Naturals! I've seen plenty of looks done with them by QueenBMakeup, and have heard plenty of praises sung by the Fexies and a few other people I am subbed to on youtube. I asked for recommendations on Twitter (what would we do without it lol) and got a lot of great suggestions... too many actually. I was looking at swatches, videos, tutorials, blog posts, FOTD's... everything & every suggestion made me want to buy it all. But of course... being one of limited fundage, I can't really do that. LOL it would take the fun out of ordering makeup anyway if I could, but that's another story for another day...

I decided on the Peacock Collection, added it to my cart, hit pay now with paypal and typed in my addy before I could go back and change my mind. It took about a week and a half to arrive, which I thought would be sooner, but I'm not trippin. The owner is having a little baby girl and I've never really been one to get my panties bunched for what others may consider slow shipping. (Except for that one time... -_-) Again, another story... yadda yadda.

Enough jibber jabber... ON TO THE SWATCHES!!

*My digital camera is no longer in my possession so until it is replaced, all swatches, fotd's and such will be taken with my HTC Hero camera.*

Swatches done dry, no base, with a q-tip:

Under Vanity Lighting

Top Row l-r: Dragon, Siren, Pandora's Box, Virtue, Sea Beam

Bottom: Temptation, Twilight, Intrigue, Courtship, Peacock

Natural lighting

I also received two samples in Couture (which was a suggested color that I didn't order) and New Mexico Sunset.

Vanity Lighting:

L-R: Couture, New Mexico Sunset

Natural Lighting:

I can't wait to use these shadows! They are so amazingly gorgeous & pigmented! You can purchase Heavenly Naturals here: http://www.heavenlynaturalbeauty.com/

And see many of them in action here: http://theoriginalqueenbmakeup.blogspot.com/

.stayGLAM.

drea

A Cry for HELP!

About a month ago, one of my cousin's friends was in a hair/fashion show. I had no knowledge of the show really until about the week before! As soon as I found out, though I jumped into networking mode and started asking questions about if they needed makeup done. It was a show for a bunch of different groups of people, not just one specific business/company. So needless to say, I had missed out.

The day before the show my she contacted me on Facebook asking if I could do her makeup! Aaannnd we all know I said yes! Duh, lol. Come to find out the MUA they had lined up flaked so the group leader was stuck doing everyone's makeup day of. We discussed the concept when she was en route to my house and so I didn't have time to really plan out a look. More like "let's just go with the flow" kinda deal. She said the group leader wanted each girl to have 2 colors (determined by their outfits) and so my girl was assigned pink & silver. I was like ok that's simple enough. I thought she was gonna say something off the wall!

Then came the curve ball... they had to have a white or silver stripe down the center of their lips. Uuuhhh... ok. I did it though lol. Not gonna lie it could have been better but eh... practice ;) Any tips on how to make a cleaner line? I'm all ears!

Here is what I did:

Hehe her hair wasn't quite finished so we kept it under wraps. Here she is backstage at the show:

I wish I remembered all of what I used on her.. but u know... Mommy brain and all! Of course, being last minute we were rushing like crazy, LOL. She was happy with the results, which made me happy. Before she left I gave her a big stack of my business cards ;)

stay.GLAM

.dreaj.

Red Lips Make Me Vain

I did this look a while back... well, maybe like a month ago? IDK I lose track of time like crazy. But after all the hype over the new Wet N Wild Colour Icon palettes, I finally took my behind over to CVS and bought them all. I saw my fellow Fexies Lala, Ale, and Jacqueline killing these palettes and banging out some amazing looks, so needless to say I was convinced that I would love them regardless. 

Now, when I started this, I had no idea I was gonna add red lips. If you know me, you know I was a lipgloss kinda girl for a loooong time. I just got into lipsticks a year or so ago, but I tend to stick to subtle pinks, and neutrals.... no berries, and definitely not red. But I have to say, after doing this look (and walking around with it on for a while) I love the red lips!

Fellow Fexi Tia from K&T Makeup Artistry recreated my look (I was beyond flattered for real!) check hers out HERE.

Enough chatter... picture time.

Products:

I don't know exactly what I used on my face, as far as blush and whatnot, but I used pretty much all the colors in the WnW Vanity Palette and for the red lips I used - NYX lipliner in red, Revlon Colorburst Lipstcks in Raspberry, and True Red topped with a clear gloss :)

Have you ever rocked red lips? What's your fav combo for YOUR perfect red lip??

stay.GLAM

.drea.

REVIVAL!

Ok, I am terrible at this blog thing... yes. I know I have said it before. This is attempt #2 to revive it and become better at blogging! I was a little discouraged after my camera & laptop were stolen -_- but my phone takes pretty decent pics. Decent enough for a blog post anyway, lol.

stay.GLAM
.drea.