Beauty On A Budget: Drugstore Holiday Makeup Tutorial

After spending all your money getting gifts for family and friends, a trip to Sephora might not be in your immediate future. That being said, sacrificing your annual right as a beauty addict to go full-on glam during the holidays is not an option I will allow you to take. Though you might have to dig a little deeper to find gems in the drugstore, they are there. For instance, my search this past week has led me to find some new favorites in the NYX Nude Matte Shadows and the Covergirl TruNaked Palettes. For being so budget-friendly, they certainly pack a punch and I'd definitely recommend them even if money isn't an issue. Also, before I get on to the tutorial, I wanted to stress how important it is to utilize all of your options--use your products for more than one thing, look out for sales and cash back, get creative. There are no limits unless you create them ♥


Tutorial

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1♥ I primed my eyelids with the ELF Shadow Lock Eyelid Primer, which reminds me somewhat of my favorite Lorac Behind the Scenes Eye Primer, except it has a slightly drier texture and it blanks out the color of your lids a bit more.

2♥ When you're on a budget, my best bit of advice is to multi-task your products! There are so many ways to use one piece of makeup, so break the "rules" a little. As my transition, I'm using the lightest contour shade from the NYX Highlight & Contour Pro Palette and sweeping that through my crease up to my brow bone using a medium sized blending brush.

3♥ Again from that same palette, I'm taking the darkest contour shade on a smaller blending brush and concentrating that directly in my crease. I make sure not to take this color too far in--I go about halfway into my crease with this shade.

4♥ To futher define my crease, I take the NYX Nude Matte Shadow in Skinny Dip (medium plum) on an angled shader brush and trace over the area that I just defined in the last step. Once again, I don't take this shade in any farther than halfway through the crease. If the definition creates any harsh lines, feel free to take the smaller blending brush and gently blur out the edges.

5♥ Now it's time to clean up and polish the look a bit. Taking Shell (light beige) from the Covergirl TruNaked Nudes Palette, I swept that over my lid with a large flat eyeshadow brush. Doing this creates a blank slate on your lid. If you want, you can blur out the edges with a blending brush, but I wanted to keep the edges crisp so as to give the effect of a cut crease.

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6♥ I liked the faux cut crease effect so much that I wanted to intensify it just a teensy bit more. Taking an angled eyeliner brush, I took Sable (deep dark brown) from the same Covergirl Palette and defined that same area some more. Be sure to blend out the edges with the small blending brush again.

7♥ Create your winged eyeliner. For looks like this, I like to create a thicker more pronounced eyeliner so that when I add the glitter, you can still see the liner peeking out. Lately, I've been trying out the Milani Eye Tech Extreme Liquid Eye Liner in Blackest Black and I've really been liking it. I would go so far as to say that it might eventually replace my Stila Stay All Day Waterproof Liquid Eye Liner because of its affordability.

8♥ Now for the part that takes this look up a notch--glitter, of course. Directly above where I created the winged eyeliner, I drew a line following the same direction and curvature using the NYX Liquid Crystal Liner in Crystal Gold. If the glitter goes over your winged eyeliner, you can always use your black liquid liner to go over it again and correct the shape.

9♥ As always, every look is about balance, so I smoked out my lower lash line. I didn't have a black kohl or gel eyeliner from the drugstore, so feel free to use whichever one you like. I, then, smudged out the eyeliner with a pencil brush and the Sable eyeshadow. Afterwards, I took Skinny Dip on the angled shader brush and blended out the dark shadow to make it more seamless.

10♥ Last up are the finishing touches--the lashes I used were from Elite Eye Lashes in style # 18 Black.

Face Deets

♥ Foundation - L'Oreal Infallible Pro Matte

♥ Concealer - LA Girl Pro Conceal

♥ Brows - NYX Micro Brow Pencil in Taupe

♥ Bronzer - ELF Contour Palette

♥ Blush - NYX Baked Blush in Ignite

♥ Highlight - Wet n Wild Hollywood Boulevard

♥ Lips - Milani Color Statement Lipstick in Matte Naked

XO♥

Sexy Female Werewolf Makeup Ft. Spooky Eyes

I guess Halloween has come around twice this year for me thanks to Spooky Eyes. They sent me this awesome pair of werewolf contacts that I'm rocking in this post and I have to admit I've never tried such a crazy design before. I think it really makes the look if I do say so myself! And if this style isn't exactly your thing, don't worry they have tons of styles from Zombie Contact Lenses to Cat Eye Contacts to White Contacts, even your run of the mill Color Contacts. All of your bases are covered.

Above is how the contacts came packaged to me. This particular style is the "Color Vision Orange Werewolf Contact Lenses" (side note: once I put them on, they turned into a yellow-green against my dark brown eyes). They were wrapped individually (as is the norm) in rather large encasements with a lot of saline solution. I like when companies do this because it allows you to redampen the lenses in the case you're having trouble putting them on. These were, in fact, very easy to put on and were comfortable for the five hours that I had them on for. On top of that, Spooky Eyes so generously and thoughtfully provided me with a lense case, so that I could protect and reuse these lenses as much as I want for up to a year! Did I mention these arrived all the way from the UK? Such an exciting fact for me as I've never received "Royal Mail" before (haha).

As I mentioned before, Spooky Eyes have many other styles of Halloween Contact Lenses. Truth be told, when I was picking out styles, I had such a hard time deciding because of how many options there were. So I thought it would be helpful if I gave you a few of my TOP picks:

♥ White Lizard Contact Lenses

♥ Color Vision White Mesh Contact Lenses

♥ Skull & Bones Contact Lenses

♥ Stitched Mummy Contact Lenses

♥ Yin Yang Contact Lenses

Product Deets

♥ Eyeshadow - Lorac Pro Matte Palette & Mac Melon Pigment

♥ Eyeliner - Stila Stay All Day Waterproof Liquid Eye Liner & Inglot Gel Liner # 77

♥ Lashes - House of Lashes "Smokey Muse"

♥ Glitter - NYX Liquid Crystal Liner in Crystal Hip & Coastal Scents Crystal Ball Glitter

♥ Brows - NYX Micro Brow Pencil

♥ Highlight/Nose/Werewolf Hair - Maq Pro Fard Creme Palette in PP22

♥ Lips - NYX Liquid Suede Cream Lipstick in Stone Fox (main picture also has Sandstorm in the center) & the dark purple lip is Anastasia Beverly Hills Liquid Lipstick in Potion

XO♥

*Samples in this post have been sponsored/provided to me, but all opinions are my own.