Sketches of a Life

Now let's see what I can do to enhance my appearance using only drugstore makeup products.

The products I'll be using are: 

FOR MY EYES: 

Wow, that's a lot of makeup to use all at once :/

Fast forward to 2 hours later, and we have the final results: 

Now, I am not going to walk you through the entire makeup application process. Instead, I'm just going to tell you what I though of the products used.

Considering the foundation, I must say I wasn't completely pleased with any of the products used. Catrice HD is too thick and heavy for my liking and I usually use it only to cover for my dark under-eye circles (unusessfully, though). Maybelline Affinitone, on the other hand, is my everyday foundation because it's much lighter, but I don't think I picked the right shade for my winter skin. I am most probably going to completely replace it with a CC cream some time soon. 

If you look closely, you'll notice that none of the products completely covered up my milia and dark under-eye circles. I'm getting Dermacol Make-Up Cover, desperately hoping this legendary high covering make-up would finally work for my severe condition of looking weary.

Oh, I almost forgot. I didn't do any contouring 'cause I couldn't find my contouring kit. The perks of living in multiple places. I only used some bronzing pearls in place of blush (and even though it says above these are by Oriflame, I think I had mixed them up at one point with another ones, but I can't remember which).

Also, I my humble opinion, that Instagram eyebrow trend is just ridiculous. I wouldn't want my face to look as if someone had glued a pair of moustache onto my forehead so, although mine are sparse and uneven, I do my eyebrows just by filling them up where needed. The listed set works just fine for me.

Moving on to my eyes.

I genuinely liked all of the eyeshadows that I applied. They are all highly pigmented and blend nicely. Mind you, the KIK one I got for approx. €3 and found that it contains the most beautiful bugundy shade I have ever seen. Also, the Captain of the Black Pearl is the blackest matte eyeshadow I have ever owned and I regularly use it in place of eyeliner because it comes off more easily. However, when applying it, you'll notice it is prone to heavy fallout. Too bad these photos do not show the eyeshadow colours faithfully: for the purpose of keeping it real, I was using only natural daylight. But I promise they are beautiful! 

Speaking of eyeliners, I didn't really like the Trend it Up one. I found it lacking precision, leading to clumsy and uneven application. Also, taking it off was a real struggle: it reminded me of taking off black eyelashes glue. Come to think about it, I really liked H2O Proof Liquid Eyeliner by Wet n Wild (which I didn't have at hand when doing this review). As for the mascara, I regularly use 2000 Calories for the first coat, and Get BIG Lashes! for the second. I must say here that the later was a revelation for me: following a recommendation by a friend, I bought this mascara (for €2.50!) and got stunned. I swear to God, this is the best mascara I have ever used. Just look at what it did to my lashes! I'm buying a 100 pieces stash and finding a formula to preserve them for when Essence decides to cancel this amazing product. 

Finally, the lips. NYX's soft matte lipsticks are my favourite, and I keep repeatedly returning to them. Prague is a beautiful, bold shade, perfect for nights out. For everyday wear, I prefer shade 11 Milan. They do come off easily, though. 

In general, I am quite happy with the way my look turned out. Drugstore makeup - thumbs up from me! 

To wrap it all up, in case you were wondering, my hair colour is a mixture of too much bleach and many, many hair dye products, but the last one I used was B98 Silver by Annyer. And I'm absolutely in love with this colour! 

Do let me know how you liked this post and whether you would like me to keep similar posts coming.

As always, thanks for reading!  

Then I proceeded to the body. The abdomen, tail, venom bulb and walking legs were made out of black polyester fabric filled with silicone sponge sheets cut into small pieces. I used a white chalk for marking the cutting lines, which proved much helpful. For accentuating the stinger and the claws on each leg, I used red organza fabric. 

After the arachnid body was all done, I sew it onto an old T-shirt and added some faux leather and stud rivet details on the shoulders to make it look more like an armour. I also wore a black corset above the T-shirt in order to prevent the costume from pulling my T-shirt backwards (luckily I had only sewn the costume onto the top and bottom of the T-shirt, completely forgetting about the corset!). As for the final touch, I painted the Scorpius Constellation with gold acrylic paint on the black leather pants I wore.

And by building it up, you can easily end up with your face looking something like this:

3. A sharp-nailed hand breaking out of my cheek

I am very proud of how this one turned out. I guess it would have been much more credible if I had used some fake blood and liquid latex to make the wound three-dimensional. Still, that wasn't an option since the whole purpose of the post was to show what can be achieved without using SFX makeup products.    

Products used: black eyeliner, white eye pencil, black eye pencil, red lip pencil, red blush, orange, purple and brown eyeshadow

Time: 60 minutes