I've really fell out of love with contouring at the moment. I just feel a bit like, this is my face. You might recoil in horror and violently spew when you cast eyes upon it, but tough titties. There's nothing I can do about it, mate. And seeing as I don't even have enough dollar to get the bus most of the time, there is no way I'm affording makeup artists like the Kardashians have, to deal with all this sh*t for me. 


Instagram contour isn't real life. I'm not a makeup artist and I don't live life via a Snapchat filter that rights all wrongs. I'm a human, who lived life just fine before all this 'CONTOUR YOUR FACE, NECK, EARS AND BODY' business came along. Even if my natural face did give people nightmares.


I'm having a bit of a makeup crisis, in all honesty. When you're too poor to afford top of the range stuff, you risk having a face that looks caked in mud or which ends up stripey as sh*t if your powder betrays you [which mine always does.] I love using cream contours and think they can be super effective [like this Born Pretty palette] but my problem is, I hate looking shiny - so I plaster myself in mattifying powder before I set off for work, which usually nullifies the effects of the cream contouring I had going on earlier. And setting sprays don't seem to work too great for me, either. 'Kinell, right?


Recently, I've been having a bash at the art of face sculpting using my Makeup Revolution contour brush and their contour palette, or just a bit of bronzer, if I can't really be arsed with life. These past few days however, I've noticed [in natural light] that I look diabolical. This problem was exacerbated even further when I was using the NYX Wonderstick, which was like I'd come fresh from a cult with mud smeared down my cheeks - but we'll save this review for another day. But yeah. Tidelines and weird streaks ahoy have populated my cheekbones recently - and have been knocking me violently sick. 


I bashed out an anti-contour tweet and was ready to pack it all in forevs, when I checked the post and I discovered that this ultra cheap contouring brush thing I'd ordered off eBay had arrived. I took this as being a sign from the universe that I'm too grim to pack it in altogether, and I thought I'd share this find with you. Before I have another change of heart.



I'd noticed these mad little brush things on some of the makeup artists Instas that I stalk regularly and was curious about them. And for £1.95 all in [the seller has since updated the listing and increased the price to £1.99] I went wild and recklessly pressed the 'buy' button on eBay without weighing the purchase up against my monthly food money rations chart #madbastard. You can actually get these brushes even cheaper than this on eBay [good old China] - but given the dire situation that was my face, I paid 95p extra to get it fast. The lesson here is, don't feel you have to fork out more than £2, on say Depop or something, to get these. You can ALWAYS get stuff cheaper, if you look for it. That's how these sellers get their stock in the first place. And probably how this eBay seller got theirs, too.

Back to the brush. It's really, really soft. And a lot smaller than it looks in the photos, which is good, as I imagined it to be like a pure massive paddle brush [I'm so clueless, lolz.] For the price of it, it's not bloody bad at all. And the seller is UK based, so it only took a day or two at most for mine to arrive.



It's also really good at its job. It's softer than a normal makeup brush and similar in its approach to a sponge; though unlike the perils of the beauty blender, this brush doesn't doesn't take half the makeup off with it as you blend. It takes a few uses to get used to how to use it (I was pure patting my face like you would a pet at first) but it blends really effectively and naturally and I was really impressed. The handle and size of this thing is great too; it give you ultimate control and precision and allows you to get right into the angle of your nose.

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I'm still not a pro-contour master and I still won't ever spend hours getting ready contouring, as I just can't see the point for me, personally. As Spongebob would say, 'I'M UGLY AND I'M PROOOOOOUD!' But I did really enjoy using this product and will continue to do so - I found that it helped me achieve similar looks to the ones I've seen in those millions of tutorials online and I actually contoured my face the best I've ever done it; trying a slightly different technique, this brush and lots and lots of cream contour. I think I'll probs be more inclined to use this brush for blending concealer and foundation, realistically; I wouldn't say this brush is a one trick pony by any means and it doesn't necessarily have to be used solely for the art of contouring. 

Let me know what you think - what are your feelings on contouring? Have you mastered it? Have you had any disasters? What products do you use? Have you tried a brush like this before? 


I'M NOT DEAD.

by Nikki LLL Blog, March 21, 2016

Life has been a right sh*tter recently. Soz to throw an unexpected swear out in the first sentence of this post [I did self censor it, like, if that redeems my reckless behaviour] but it's true. 


I've been counting on winning the Lottery to help me sort my life out; pure planning in my mind what I'd do and listing the names of all the people I'd swear heavily at when I had the money to not give two flying frigs about what they think of me anymore [namely the inconsiderate, noisy arsehole who lives in the flat above me *insert countless swearing middle finger emojis here.*] But it hasn't happened, and I'm fuming. And extremely poor. And sleep deprived, thanks to that UTTER UPSTAIRS W*NKER. 


I've been having a proper turd time with my health and stress levels recently, as well as being an all round tramp living off Smart Price crumpets. So the long and short of this post, is just to let yous know that I'm not dead. Though the way I feel today with this raging ear infection probably comes quite close. I'm just having a bit of a break, whilst I sort my life out a bit. 


I have loads of stuff to blog about, plenty of Expectation vs Reality bants and a beautiful little #PaperHaul box I was sent featuring the glorious designs of my favourite Dorkface. And I will get round to it all, I promise. I just feel a little bit swamped and overwhelmed by debt and stress at the moment, so I have decided to take the extra pressure of blogging out of my schedule for a bit, so that my head doesn't explode [though my ear might, thanks to this raging infection.] In the meantime, you can always check out my Twitter and Instagram [even add me on Snappy C if you like, I'm xnla88x] where I'll most likely be playing with filters,  carefully selecting an appropriate GIF, swearing or eating biscuits. 



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