Ma Face

Y'know, I've always thought of myself as fairly low maintenance... I'm not sure why, because I'm not sure I have ever actually been low maintenance. Traveling at Christmas this year really emphasized that, because, besides the necessities, like the fact that I have all my extra teeth stuff thanks to having had braces, and my contact lens gear, I have established a very extensive makeup routine since September.

Morning - hair undone, zero makeup.

Now that I'm growing out my hair and it is getting longer, I have started straightening it every day again, which is a LOT of work. My hair isn't exactly long, but it still takes 20-30 min for me to straighten it all, because I have to do it in so many small layers. The only good thing about this is it does last two days as long as I don't wash my hair, so I only have to do it every other day if I want.

The other bad thing with how thick my hair is is that, though it is not long at all, it still takes 5-6 hours to air dry completely (if you'd ever seen my hair after being blow dried, you'd know why I don't do that.. my hair has enough volume on its own thankyouverymuch). So showers have to be timed in accordance with when I need to have my hair straightened by.

My cute little straightener from Sephora - besides a crappy drugstore straightener that was utterly useless, this is the only straightener I've ever had, and it works great. I was really pleased that it didn't die when I came over here - the voltage in the UK is much higher than the voltage in Canada, so plugging stuff in over here has the potential for disaster (RIP toothbrush charger).

Straightening your hair all the time with dyed hair also makes the dye fade out faster - which I don't really mind. Makes my hair look more exciting, with bits of red in the black (plus, y'know, brown roots).

My nice, orderly, row-by-row system kind of falls apart when I get to the very back of my head, where it becomes more of a "grab chunks of hair to straighten until you've hopefully got them all" free for all type situation.

After I've done my hair, I start on my face - with my hair clipped back out of my eyes (growing out short hair is seriously annoying). First, I do foundation on any problem areas I've got - I've luckily got a really even skin tone, so I don't find it necessary to do foundation all over.

Next up, eyebrows! They are a recent addition to my routine - one of my new years resolutions was to up my eyebrow game, which I am endeavouring to do. I need to go and get them shaped though (waxing, joy!).

Next is either blush or bronzer depending on my mood and what palette I'm planning on using for my eyeshadow (I made the mistake the other day of doing pink blush and then pink eyeshadow... way too much pink on my face!).

I love the huge powder brushes. They're just so much fun to use... and so soft!

Skin all done and ready for eyes and lips.

I used my Too Faced Return of Sexy palette for my eyes (more specifically, the 'The Ingenue' set, on the far left). This palate was one of my Paris makeup purchases from the flagship Sephora store.

First on is a base coat of Naive that goes all the way up to the eyebrows.

Next, across the lid Innocent (brown) gets blended into New In Town (gold). For every day makeup, I will usually use 2-3 different eyeshadows, and if I'm feeling fancy, more like 4-5 eyeshadows.

Next comes eyeliner. I've just recently started trying to master liquid eyeliner, doing winged eyeliner. As you can see, I'm still not completely steady or even, but it looks good from a distance :P

Mascara is the final touch for the eyes - the best mascara I have ever used I actually got as a free sample, but it is completely amazing (Benefit They're Real! for anyone who is wondering).

Then, finally, lipstick (and/or lipgloss). Today was Mac's Moroccan Fresh, which was another Paris-purchase. Mac has gorgeous lipsticks, beautiful colours and wonderful to put on, plus they last forever. 

And I am done! The hair is really what takes all my time - if I skip the liquid eyeliner (which still takes me forever) I can do all of my makeup in 5-8 min. If I'm feeling lazy, I'll just do mascara and lipstick, which takes about ten seconds.

 Went out to a friends birthday party the night I took these photos and was feeling very punk rock ;)

Snapped this when I got home at 2:30 am... definitely worth the effort. Bit smudged, but stayed on super well, especially since I didn't use a setting spray. Also, please note that I was drinking water all night because the flat was boiling... but this is still what my lipstick looked like.

This has been a lot of photos of my face. Sorry about that.