Illamasqua Lipgloss in 'Violate'

First of all, I want to say that this post and this entire look was pinched copied stolen inspired by the beautiful Aoife whose blog Vicious Beauty (why do I keep trying to type 'viscous beauty'? It's probably because my mind's on lipgloss) you're no doubt aware of. If you're not already aware of it, it's a really great blog. Please check it out!

Having recently bought Illamasqua's sheer lipsgloss in 'violate', I was thinking of ideas for how to wear it when it I remembered this post by Aoife where she layered it over mac's satin finish lipstick in 'cyber' and wore it with very dark green, sparkly eyes. Anyway, I fancied having a go at the look myself when I was getting ready to go to my cousin's wedding last Saturday.

'Violate' is a sheer lipgloss full of flecks of deep green and it's pretty awesome. I imagine you can, of course, layer it on like tar if you want it to look really super green, but I took a leaf out of Aoife's book and have been layering it very lightly over other colours for a subtle green sparkle that only shows up when it catches the light.

I wore the slightly altered Restyle necklace that I wore to our own wedding. I still just love it.

Again, inspired by the Queen of the Night look on Vicious Beauty, I used a thick black pencil to prime my eye and patted a shimmery deep green eyeshadow on top to bring out the green in my lips (now there's something I've never said before. Is that like when you wear something to bring out the red in your eyes?) 

My uncle snapped a photo of my at the wedding

And a photo of my husband showing some leg. Phwoar.

Illamasqua Lipstick in Kontrol

Last week, I was very excited to have a parcel from Illamasqua waiting from me when I got home from Edinburgh. I had decided to make use of their special offer on lipstick and lipgloss if you order them as a pair. The lipstick I chose was kontrol, an awesome purple lipstick that's tones in with my hair, and the lipgloss I went for was violate which I'll be going into detail on in another post.

My family came over for my birthday the other night so I decided to try out kontrol, knowing that family are the only people you can really rely on to be brutally honest and tell you if you look like a freak because you're too old to be wearing purple lipstick. Anyway, at the end of it, I think I passed the sister test and the even the brother-in-law test and my little 3 year old niece seemed to love it!

I did my eyes in blue and green and decided to go full-on dolly-mode with pigtails and my new lace collar from New Look (£2.50 in the sale, reduced to £1.25 since it had a fault in it I had to sew. I'm turning into a bargain hunter like my dad). Hope you like the look!

Illamasqua Skin Base Foundation in no.3

 It's my birthday at the end of the month so my sister was asking me what I wanted. I've been wanting foundation for quite a while now and I've heard good things about Illamasqua who apparently do good foundation if you're a pale little snail like me. I've never worn foundation before since my skin's fairly ok, but I've always liked that ever so slightly caked-on, china-doll look (I think the natural look is overrated these days) so I went into Illamasqua in Debenhams to test some out.

The result looks… well, judging by the photos, exactly the same as the way I look without foundation! But in real life it’s quite spectacular, trust me. You don’t know what you’re missing.

Also I have fuzzy hair and still can’t take pictures of myself without a mirror.