The Makeup Box

The Long Cat-Eye: Dramatic Liquid Liner Look for Small or Mono-Lid Eyes (and anyone else)

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This is a very intense black liquid liner look that extends straight out horizontally instead of winging up into the typical cat eye shape.

It’s quite common look among Asian pop stars because it emphasizes and flatters a small or mono-lid eye without having to change its shape unnaturally. Even if you don’t have a mono-lid or hooded eyes, this is a great look for a party or an evening out, and you can either pair it with nude lips and bronzed skin, or go all-out with dark lips as well.

You will need:

• A soft duochrome peachy-gold shadow like MAC Melon or Majolica Majorca BE286 (if you don’t have a duochrome, use a gold)
• A matte brown shadow like Revlon Rich Sable
• A very intense black pencil like Maybelline Master Drama Cream Pencil in Midnight Drama (or a black gel liner)
• A black liquid liner (anything with a fine brush is better for the super-precise edges we want to create here; I used Japanese brand Heroine Make’s Impact Liquid Liner)

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[Requested] Simple Bronze-y Wedding Makeup for keeganmae

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Keegan (if this isn’t your real name, sorry!) requested for a wedding look suggestion with perfect liquid liner, a glowy, bronze cheek/face, and nude/peach lips. I’m not fair and platinum-blonde like she is, but this is a pretty classic look that should work on most skin-tones with minor adjustments that I will mention below!

One key item that ties the whole look together is a shimmery beige/tan shade that is going to go on both your lids and cheekbones to create a dewy glow. I used MAC’s Tan pigment, which is a peachy-bronze. 

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[Requested] The Black-and-White: Soft gray-scale smoke with graphic Black and White Liquid Liner

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This is a simple white-and-black smoky eye with a more dramatic graphic liner twist. The eyeshadow isn’t hard to do, and is something that you can easily wear out, but the liquid liner is slightly trickier and it’s also not always hard to locate a very strongly pigmented white liquid liner, so it’s optional whether you want to follow the look exactly or just keep it simple and either skip the liquid liner, or only do the black.

For a basic liner application guide, look here.

The same rules apply when you are applying liquid and gels/creams. 

Products used:

• 88 Warm palette (3 shades used; matte white, black, and a deep metallic grey)
• Lime Crime Uniliners in Quill (black) and Lunar Sea (matte white)
• Black mascara (L’oreal Voluminous Carbon Black)
• White eye pencil (Revlon Khol pencil in White)

If you’re looking for budget white liquid liners, Prestige used to have one, but I am not sure if it is still available. Unfortunately, most of the good matte whites I know are from more expensive brands like Illamasqua, Stila and Lime Crime. 

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Multi-Colored Liner Eye Look

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Note: Sorry for those of you who left messages! If you don’t have Tumblr, do post below in Disqus if you have any short questions. Been a little caught up these few days (more details below). I’ll try to get back to you guys as soon as I can get everything together!

This is for those who like paying with liner. It works with all eye colors and you can swap out whatever liner shades you want, but this is the type of look that works better on regular double-lids. 

If you have mono-lids, you might need to make the top liner very thick, almost like a shadow. Not so recommended for hooded lids.

What you’ll need:

• A bright colored liner (I chose a metallic minty green; Maybelline Hyper Glossy Liquid Liner in Turquoise Blue)
• A dark colored liner (I used Stargazer Cake Liner in Blue; you can use black, navy, plum, magenta, anything deeper than the first shade)
• A very pale, matte white or beige pencil (I used NARS Rue Bonaparte, a beige)
• A black pencil

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January - February Favorites (2013)

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Here’s a round-up of things I’ve been impressed by recently!

Sikin79 Super Perfection BB Cream - I really like Skin79 BB Creams in general but I felt a need to mention this particular one because the more neutral coloring matches a medium-light skintone a lot better than many other grey or overly-pink BB Creams which give an unnatural cast to anyone with yellow/gold tones. Unlike typical tinted moisturizers, this gives a bit more coverage, and contains adenosine and arbutin to even out the skin. At the same time, it’s great for combination skin and sets to a natural soft matte finish.

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Laura Mercier Silk Creme Foundation - I’m using the brand new shade, Medium Ivory (great for NC25), and I absolute love this foundation. It’s a medium-to-full coverage creamy product that gives a luminous, natural-looking finish but is probably better for normal and combination skin types. I don’t find it to be too much coverage because I actually just apply it in areas as a concealer when I don’t need something very thick and opaque. If you’re sensitive to silicones, beware, but otherwise, give this one a try. 

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Graphic Winged Liner Tutorial: Tricky to do but makes quite a statement!

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Disclaimer first: this is going to take a bit of practise if you’re not used to working with liners. 

Also, I used a really bright purple liner from Lime Crime, called Orchidaceous, and I haven’t seen any dupes, so if anyone knows any similar alternatives, do reply to this post and let everyone know in case there are some who aren’t looking at spending too much on a colored liner!

You’ll need 3 shadows:

• Pale cotton-candy pink or beige (e.g. MAC Yogurt)
• A medium violet-blue duochrome. (I used a limited edition shade from Urban Decay called Omen, but you can also use more pink version like MAC Stars n Rockets or Coastal Scents mica Chameleon Violet, which is a great, cheap dupe of this shade.)
• A soft grey/charcoal (I’m not going to name any shades because you can use ANY deep grey.

For the liner, I used:

• A charcoal (grey-black) pencil from Bourjois, #51 Noir Effet Miroir
• Lime Crime Orchidaceous, as mentioned above

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Step 1: First pack the pale pink/beige shade into the inner 1/3 of the lids.

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Step 2: With the violet shadow, run along the lower lash line, and then pack onto the outer 2/3 of the lids, blending inwards slightly along the socket line.

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Step 3: The defined crease. Use a dark grey and a small pencil brush, and run it along the outer halves of your socket line to emphasize it. This is not the fold of your crease. It’s the hollow arc above your eye ball, where your eye contour is naturally. Feel for it with your fingers.

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Step 4: Just use the brush you used earlier (to apply your purple shadow) to blend out and soften the grey line. It shouldn’t look like a harsh stripe.

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Step 5: Use your dark grey-black pencil to draw the outer end of your flick first. (If you don’t have a charcoal color, a black would work perfectly well; a charcoal is just less dramatic.) Make sure it is parallel to your lower lash line.

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Step 6: Thicken the line by drawing from the outer tip INWARDS towards the center of your lid. Then fill in the gap between the 2 lines and extend it to the inner corners.

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Step 7: This is the trickiest step. Apply the bright violet liquid liner WITHIN the V of the black winged liner. The easiest way is to place the brush down with the tip pointing outwards. You’ll actually be “stamping” your skin with the liquid on the length of the bristles.

Then, just drag it inwards gently like you would when painting your nails. The length of the brush should be against your skin the whole time. If you need to thicken the line, repeat the same movement, always moving in the same direction. 

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Then finish by letting the ink dry, curling your lashes and applying mascara. It’s important to make sure you coat your lashes properly with black mascara, as there could be a lot of purple ink on them.