Halloween make-up: M.A.C. creations & Chess Board face

The UK and the US went wild this weekend with Halloween madness. Tulisa worked a severe ponytail and smokey eyes as Cat Woman on the X-Factor, and Jersey Shore's Snooki hosted a M.A.C Halloween Face Off challenge on the M.A.C. facebook page (www.facebook.com/MACcosmetics). Six top M.A.C. make-up artists created fabulously wacky, crazy and a little bit scary Halloween faces, the winning look was Tim Burton meets Alexander McQueen inspired, the make-up artists described it as, "Hallow-Queen". To me it was less high fashion, more birds nest of death...! But please do make up your own mind:

M.A.C. Halloween Face Off winning look

If you are planning a Monday night of Halloween fun and still need inspiration, here are some of my favourite creations I captured on my adventures this weekend.

Beauty & Style Belle do Feather lashes and Flamingo Face

Doll Of Death

Mexican Sombrero of Terror

Boys love to wear make-up at Halloween

And as a little extra, my beautiful assistant Style Belle demonstrates how to create a fabulous chess board face...

Apply thick white paint as your base. I recommend applying with an art store paint brush and pot of paint

Pot of creamy white paint and large paint brush

Use a thinner paintbrush to carefully apply the black squares. Start by painting the outline of the square followed by filling in the middle with straight, thick strokes

Paint onto neck and fill in patchy areas with black. The finished look is almost there...

Add a slick of dark red lipstick and adorn with glam earrings. The chess board face is finished

What look is your favourite? Please do let me know what you think.

Winter maxi.

I’m not sure why, but the maxi skirt, as day wear, just wasn’t really seen last winter.

Maybe we weren’t ready to stick boots where sandals should be. Or maybe we thought a big rain coat + floaty maxi wouldn’t exactly flatter our figures.

However this year, maxi’s and winter essentials, are all over the cat walks and on the high street.

Alice by Temperley’s faux fur take on the Russian hat, teamed with a vintage lace and embellished, formal gown, doesn’t look out of place at all, instead it makes the look far more wearable and edgy.

Paul and Joe gypsy skirt, £646.00, along with their wooly jumper in my opinion is the perfect way to work the maxi skirt in winter.

With a pair on brogues, or even bovver boots, you could definitely wear tights +jacket + gloves/hat/scarf etc, none of which would take away from the striking, glamourous appearance of the maxi.

Love for jeans!!

I know I’m a little late, but at 20 years old I have found my love for jeans!

It took me a while but I now see what everyone has been talking about. I always thought they looked great on others but had never managed to find a pair that I felt nice or comfortable in.

I loved wearing boys baggy jeans when I thought I was a skater. Turns out I can’t skate.

I then spent years trying on bootleg, straight cut, skinny’s from Topshop that barely fit past my knee, high waisted flares etc.

The first pair of jeans I bought in 6 years, are a pair of black wet look coated (forgiving) skinny’s from H&M. £15, and they fit everywhere. They slide over my disproportionately large calves (that still haven’t disappeared since my day’s as a high jumper), and have quite a high waist which I have learned is the most flattering fit for my figure.

Since then I have been broadening my jeans horizon.

My favourite pair I have come across are these Vivienne Westwood jeggings a fabulous invention, a cross between leggings and jeans (told you I was behind).

I think they would be a fun addition to my jeans collection (which currently consists of 2 pairs, both black).

And to save some money, you could always buy a pair of black jeans from pri-mark and take some gold spray paint to them.

Or as an alternative Topshop has some really cool foil coated jeans and leggings.

Bare Minerals Get Started Kit by Bare Escentuals, perfect for sensitive skin

Frustratingly, my skin can never make up its mind over which skin type category to stake its claim. Sometimes I have dry, flaky patches around my eyes, other days I have an oily and shiny forehead. My skin is also very sensitive to my emotions. A year ago, after a stressful and worrying day in my new job, I woke up to find sore, itchy red patches on my eyes, cheeks and neck. A quick trip to the doctor made me see that when I'm stressed, worried or anxious my skin reacts accordingly. The doctor gave me simple, but stern advice: I must keep calm and find an outlet to deal with stress in a sensible way.   

One year on, I'm a Bikram Yoga devotee and have been fortunate not to experience another angry flare up. To conclude, I have very sensitive skin, hence the reason I was reluctant to try out Bare Minerals Get Started Kit. I foolishly believed that my sensitive skin, prone to dry flare ups would not take kindly to a "powder". I could not have been more wrong.

Each product looks like a powder but actually comprises of tiny particles of rock mined from carefully chosen regions in the US, 100% pure, completely chemical and preservative free. One of the key ingredients found in the foundation and concealer is Zinc Oxide which is calming for skin, promotes healing and can reduce spot size. The products are light reflecting and contain SPF15. 

 Medium Beige foundation, Mineral Veil, Warmth and Summer Bisque concealer

I've been using the starter kit for the previous five months, I've applied the products every day, sometimes a few times a day, I've used the products on my friends multiple times and I'm still nowhere near finished. For £48 I received two foundations  (one darker for summer skin, one lighter for winter), a bronzer, a concealer, one "Mineral Veil" (to finish and set make-up) and three (amazing) brushes. In terms of value for money it really doesn't get better than this (it would have been over £120 to purchase the products separately).

I've found that the foundation gives an amazing level of coverage while still allowing my skin to look natural and bare. For best results I apply Boscia B.B. cream followed by the foundation and lots of the beautiful "Warmth" bronzer. Unfortunately my eye area is still a little too sensitive and dry for the mineral concealer so I stick to YSL Touché Éclat for this area. 

My essentials: Boscia BB Cream, Bare Minerals Medium Beige foundation, YSL Touche Eclat

The starter kit comes with a DVD with helpful application lessons from CEO Leslie Blodgett. The DVD is very stylised and a little too American-cheesy, Leslie opens with the line, "Congratulations, you have made a healthy choice for your skin. You are now ready to set yourself free of old make-up options." A DVD with a British audience in mind would be good!

I'm now a complete Bare Minerals devotee, the application is quick and easy, the products last forever and the coverage is perfect - photo ready but still totally natural. I highly recommend this brand for those, who like me, have sensitive, sometimes dry, sometimes oily skin, I’m sure you will be impressed.

 Next on my Bare Minerals wish list!

Nails Inc. Gossip Girl Collection

Nails Inc. launched a new range of Gossip Girl inspired nail polish and overglaze top coat sets on 3rd October.

Nail polish princesses and Gossip Girl lovers can choose from either the Lily Collection (plum black base teamed with a red/ green overglaze), the Blair collection (teal black base with a blue/ green overglaze) or the Serena collection (patent black base with electric blue overglaze) for £20 each.

Statement nails have become super cool; they are now an essential for beauty journalists and fashionistas. They are less The Only Way Is Essex, more London Fashion Week. Throughout September London hosted the first ever nail art exhibition which brought the "art realm, nail world, and fashion enthusiasts" together (http://www.degreeart.com/blog/nailphilia-londons-first-nail-art-exhibition). So I'm sure you can imagine I was thrilled to try out all three sets on myself and my girl friends this weekend.

 The Lily collection on the left, the Serena collection on the right.

After much deliberating the Blair Collection made the final cut as the nails of choice for my Saturday night out.

Is Blair your favourite too? Please do let me know what you think.

VELVET REVOLUTION

In addition to our Daily Love List post, Wednesday, 5th October 2011, I would like to bring everyone's attention to Artwork Topshop's beautiful velvet boot's, that you can get in either green or blue. They are so elegant and comfortable. I think my feet would be so happy in them, you could wear anything and it would instantly be set of by these boots.

Men's jackets

D&G

This D&G Grey Tweed Elongated Man Jacket, is the possibly the best way to work the boyfriend look. Not only will people assume he is extremely stylish, he would also have to be pretty wealthy, as unfortunately the jacket costs £565.00.

The boyfriend look has been around for forever, in various forms. I remember buying my first pair of male baggy levis jeans, with my girl boxers hanging out at the back, and I thought I was the coolest thing to enter the Carling Academy (I was 14 so it's perhaps forgivable). Last year we were all wearing tailored trousers with shirts, maybe some braces, and sometimes even a bow tie. It’s fun having two wardrobes, and it’s payback for when your boyfriend was constantly wanting to borrow your jeans as his Topman pair just weren’t skinny enough.

H&M

I love the colour and shape of this jacket from H&M, and hallelujah! It’s far more affordable at £99.99.
I like that the shoulders are quite broad, and it doesn't button up tight around the waist.
However it is actually made for a man, and although the boyfriend look is what we are going for here, sometimes the fit can be a bit frumpy, whereas the D&G jacket is tailored to a female figure.
There are plenty of more affordable female versions of the D&G jacket on the high street.

Blink Brow Bar Mascara

Blink Brow Bar was an eyebrow threading bar set up in 2004 in Fenwick department store in London by Vanita Parti. Over the past seven years one threading bar has grown into a complete beauty brand - Blink Brow Bar's are now in UK department stores including Selfridges and Harvey Nicks. The brand has also created a cosmetics range including false lashes, eye liner and the brand new Blink Brow Bar Mascara in black, available for £17.

I've been lucky enough to have the pleasure of using this brilliant mascara. The long, straight brush is the perfect applicator and the innovative gel formula ensures glossy, thick and (this is my favourite part) smudge free lashes.

As Blink Brow Bar explains:

"The formulation wraps each lash with a polymeric film which creates tiny elastic tubes around each lash giving optimum length and volume... The gel formula is suitable for rain or shine, hot or cold climates... It's water-proof and smudge-proof."

I love that this product isn't available in all retailers - it feels like a great discovery. If you have a little bit more money to spend on mascara I would absolutely recommend splashing out on this one.