Using my Mac palette

My addiction to makeup is beginning to become a problem. You can only use one of each product at a time but yet I seem to have lots of each which is ridiculous. As I love makeup so much I am always watching tutorials on YouTube and trying them out myself. Because of this, I have picked up a few techniques that I use in my makeup all the time. I created a look the other day that I decided I wanted to show on my blog. I have used my Mac palette that I created a blog post on a little while ago. If you would like to read that blog post then I will put the link at the end of this blog post. So here is the make up look.

Foundation- Rimmel Wake me up- 200 Soft Beige.

Powder- Rimmel Stay Matte- 001 Transparent.

Blush- Nars- Orgasm.

Contour/ Bronzer- Mac powder blush- Harmony. 

Eyeshadow- Mac- Satin Taupe, Smut. Urban Decay- Virgin.

Brows- Mac- Charcoal Brown.

Eye liner- Bourjois Paris- Liner Stylo- Noir. Maybelline 24HR Lasting Drama Gel Eyeliner-08 Black Gold

Lashes- Just some really cheap ones from savers:)

Lips- Avon Lipstick- Matte Grape. Maybelline 20HR Super Stay Tint Gloss- Timeless Plum.

For my eyes I have Satin Taupe all over with Smut in the outer corner and Virgin on the brow bone. For my lips I have Matte Grape on first with Timeless Plum on over the top. I have contoured my cheeks and nose.

Unfortunately the lighting seems to wash me out in the pictures so you cannot see much contouring or blush at all, but you can see the eyes and lips which is the main part to this look.

As you can see in the pictures I also have a Halo braid in my hair. This look was for an evening meal look so I did use lashes and I have dressed up slightly. This is what the halo braid looked like. I got this idea from a hair tutorial on Zoella's (Zoe Sugg's) YouTube channel.

To create this I tied the top section of my hair back to keep it away from my face. I then took a piece of hair from behind my ear on each side of my head, plaited them as normal and then pulled them across my head and bobby pinned them into place. I then took out the hairband keeping my hair back, added a little bit of hair spray and brushed the ends through again just to smooth any knots out.

Thank you for reading this blog post <3

Link to Mac palette post: http://amzdancers.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/my-mac-palette.html

Confidence and Self Image

I have never been the most confident or outgoing person. From a very young age I have been shy and self conscious. At the age of 16 I got myself my first job. It was not a great job and I ended up quitting for a better one three weeks later, but for me that was an achievement. The better job is in fact still my job now. I am a door host in a restaurant. This fits in nicely with me being in education because it only requires me to work weekends and holidays which means that I can still do and have nice things but be benefiting from education at the same time.

My job includes me having to talk to people as soon as they come through the door. This at first was quite daunting for me as I was such a shy person but if I wanted to be good at my job I needed to get past this. I truly believe that if I had not had got this job, I would have no where near the amount of confidence I have today. I am still very shy about a lot of things and am by no means anywhere near as confident as I wish I could be, but this makes me who I am.

Your self image is an important part of who you are and you should create that yourself. Never let anyone else define that for you because they do not know who you truly are. 

Confidence is important in life, not just for academic or professional reasons but also for personal reasons. You need confidence to have a positive self image and without a positive self image you may find yourself doubting you abilities to do great things. For example, this blog is something that is important to me. I love writing blogs whether people read them or not because it is actually fun  however, I had only told a few friends about it because I felt to embarrassed to let someone I knew read it. Me and my friend Funto who has a YouTube channel decided a couple of months back to put links to our profiles in our twitter bio and then on our instagrams. A couple of weeks ago, we decided we were actually going to post our links onto our personal facebook's as a status and on our twitters as a tweet. I was quiet anxious about doing it because I generally care about my friends and family's opinions but I have had a really positive response and now I wish I had just built up the confidence to post them sooner!

This might not be a very interesting blog post to some, but I just wanted to stress the importance of confidence, self image and self belief, not just to anyone reading, but also to myself. In the future I can read this back and remind myself to believe in myself and be confident. Especially as I was so anxious to actually post this post because of the subject of it!

Thank you for reading this post, and believe in yourself<3

August Monthly Favourites

I have always wanted to do a monthly favourites post but have always been too late in writing it. So this month I have started writing this post in advance so that I would not forget.

My first monthly favourite would be one of the Nars multiples in the colour Copacabana. This is a lovely shade for highlight, it works beautifully with my skin tone and it looks very nice with the recent summer makeup looks that I have been loving. I have had some of the multiples for quite a while now but have not really got into using them until this month. They blend really easily and have excellent colour pay off.

My next monthly favourite is the colour Half Baked in the Naked 1 Urban Decay Palette. I have been using it in day time looks as well as night time looks and absolutely loving it. If you would like to see one of the makeup looks I used it in, check out my friend Funto's YouTube channel. We went out a couple of weeks ago and filmed a video for her channel along with a blog post from me. I will link both below so that you can have a look.

Funto's Video- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrTJ7FGipMI&list=UUNI_C4o8BzkXewb1nQCb1Fw
My Post- http://amzdancers.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/ootd-outfit-of-night-clubbing-edition.html

The next product that has been a favourite for me this month would be the Maybelline 24hr colour tattoos. My favourite colour being Number 35- On and On Bronze, but I have been using all different colours a lot this month for quick and easy makeup looks. They are really easy to blend and great on their own if you want to wear some eye shadow without taking a long time to do it.

Another product that I have been loving this month is lip liner. I have been using them as lipsticks whether I just put them on by themselves or with a clear lip balm over the top to take away the matte finish. Two that I have been loving are Rimmel's Exaggerate full colour lip liner in the colour 063- Eastend Snob and Rimmel's Lasting Finish 1000 kisses lip liner in the Colour 011- Spice. In the swatch picture bellow, Spice is on the left and Eastend Snob is on the right.

The last beauty product that I have been loving this month would be the Shellac Bluesky gel polish in the colour 40524, at least that is the number on the sticker on the bottle. It is not a very summery colour but I have been loving it anyway. I have my own UV lamp which means I can do my nails myself and not have to pay every time to get them done. My painting skills may not be as good and they may chip quicker when I do them myself but they still give the same effect.

I wanted to include a couple of other things that were not beauty products as they are also things I have been loving this month. The first would be the shop Newlook. At the moment, all the things I seem to be picking out of my wardrobe to wear have been clothes from Newlook. I have also been loving jelly shoes. I have been wearing them on a daily basis but also on nights out so have been getting plenty of wear out of the pairs I own. Because both pairs of my jelly shoes are from Newlook I thought it fit in with this favourite.

One other thing that I have been loving this month is iced lattes/ iced mocha's. I have been making these myself at home and they have been really refreshing in all the hot weather that we have been having. 

That is everything that I have been loving this month.
Thank you for reading this blog post <3  

My Mac Palette

I am a big YouTube watcher and one of my favourite things to watch is makeup tutorials, makeup hauls and makeup organisation. A lot of people I watch have shown their viewers their Mac palette which has actually influenced me to buy certain colours. I thought it may be interesting to some people that read this blog to see my Mac palette. I am in no way trying to show off. I have collected this palette over quite some time and used my own money to buy all of it myself.

My Mac palette is quite neutral other than a couple of newer colours. I would like to eventually build up a second palette with more adventurous colours.

I will talk about each colour from left to right, starting from the top line.

The first colour is Brule. In all honestly, I hardly ever wear this colour. It is the lightest colour I have and I only use it as a sort of under colour if I am using bright colours.

The second colour is Kid. This is one of the first colours I bought it and I like to use it if I am doing a really subtle eye look, something light like this through the crease is really nice.

The third colour is wedge. I think I bought this colour with Kid but I use them both for the same purpose.

Next is the well known Charcoal Brown. I use this for my eyebrows, in the crease or to darken up light natural makeup. I really do like this colour. I bought this by watching a Tanya Burr YouTube video and then becoming obsessed with the colour.

The last on the top line is Brun. This is another colour like Charcoal Brown. I use it for the same things on my eyes and I also use it sometimes in my eyebrows to darken them up a bit. I may need to do this when I have really heavy eye makeup on or when I get my eyebrows tinted just to fill in any sparse areas.

The first colour on the second line you can tell is well loved. It is All That Glitters. This was my very first Mac eye shadow purchase and I use it a lot! I wear this most days blended all over the lid with something like Charcoal Brown very lightly in the crease.

The second colour is Sable. I would say that this is like a darker version of All That Glitters. Not my favourite colour.

The third colour is Mulch. This is a very pretty colour that I like to wear blended all across the eyelid and just blended out.

The next colour, Satin Taupe is another popular colour in the YouTube world. I like to wear this colour a lot in the winter all over the lid with a darker colour in the crease.

The last colour in this row is Smut. This colour goes quite well with Satin Taupe or just as a eyeliner, maybe smoked out.

The first colour on the last line is Patina. This is still quite neutral but it has other tones in in that make it a really pretty colour that is different from the others.

The next colour is definitely not neutral. This is Cranberry, again another that is popular in the YouTube world. I like to use this with Patina.

Another colour I like to use with Patina is the next colour in the palette. This is Sketch. Patina and Sketch create a really pretty smoky look together.

The next colour is Beauty Marked. To be honest, when I bought this colour I thought it was going to be amazing but was disappointed with it when it was delivered and since I have not ordered anything from Mac online without swatching it in a store first. Looking at it in the pan it is a beautiful colour but when applies the glitter you see is not really there at all. A colour that is identical is Blackheart in the Urban Decay Naked 3 Palette but the difference is that the Urban Decay one is very good and the Mac one is not.

Lastly we have Carbon. The typical matte black colour from Mac. I use this whenever I am darkening my eye makeup because it is not a very strong black.

That is the last of the colours in my Mac Palette. My Palette is not perfect and does not contain all colours that I am perfectly happy with but I am sure with a little more searching I will find all the colours I love!

Thank you for reading this blog post <3

OOTD- Outfit of the Night- Clubbing Edition

The other night me and my friend Funto went out clubbing in our local town. As I have a blog and she has a YouTube channel, we decided that we would film/take pictures of our outfits and share them.

This is my outfit. The playsuit is from Topshop and the shoes are from Newlook. There is also some of the products that I used to do my makeup and also the perfume that I used.

This is my friend Funto's outfit. Her netted top is from River Island, the crop top/bralet is from Topshop, the shorts are from Zara and the shoes are from Asos.

 This is what the outfit looked like on and also a close up look of my makeup. On my eyes I have Charcoal Brown and Carbon from Mac and Half Baked and Virgin from the Urban Decay Naked 1 palette. On my lips I have Rimmel's Exaggerate full colour lip liner in Eastend Snob and I have used this as a lipstick with a small amount of Revlon's Colourburst Lip Butter in 053 Sorbet on the top just to take the edge of the matte effect of the liner..

This is how Funto's outfit looked. I also did her eye make up. On her eyes she has Liar, Factory and Blackheart from the Urban Decay Naked 3 palette. On her lips she has Mac's Posh Tone which is a Mineralize lipstick.

If you would like to watch Funto's video then here is the link to her channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/funtiwunti 

We have filmed a video together before where I did Funto's make up so if you would like to watch that then click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrTJ7FGipMI&list=UUNI_C4o8BzkXewb1nQCb1Fw

She also has lots of other great videos all about fashion so go check her out!

Thanks for reading this blog <3

OOTD- Summer Time Look (ISH)

There is only one conclusion that can come out of this post. I should have a ban from Topshop! For a couple of weeks I have been obsessed with a pair of patterned Leigh jeans that have been moved all around the store so no matter how much I try to avoid them they seem to find me and tell me I should buy them. Last week I gave into temptation and bought them. This outfit I put together, which is nice and light, can be worn on a warm summers day however, I would not recommend it if is too hot as the jeans may be a little too warm! 

Top-Newlook, Jeans- Topshop, Shoes-Newlook.

As you can see from the pictures, the outfit is nice light colours with the top having no sleeves as well making it perfect for summer time.

Thank you for reading this blog <3

7 Deadly Sins of Beauty Tag!

The other day I was watching the DailyMix channel on YouTube when I came across Lilly and Anna doing the 7 Deadly Sins of Beauty Tag. I thought it sounded quite interesting so I noted down the questions for a blog post.

The first deadly sin is Greed. This asks what are the most expensive and the least expensive beauty items you have purchased? My most expensive beauty item would be a pallet but since I consider that to not be a singular product the item I would say would be the Nars Multiple in the colour Copacabana. These are £30 each. My least expensive item would be the Natural Collection Blushed Cheek blusher in Peach Melba at £1.99.

The second deadly sin is Wrath. This asks for a product that you have a love/hate relationship with. For me this product would be the Porefessional Primer by Benefit. This costs £24.50 and can be a very good product. When used it does act as a primer and does hide the appearance of pores like it says it will, but I find that I get more problematic skin when using it. This includes things like more spots and getting blackheads too.

The third deadly sin is Gluttony. The question with this sin asks what your most delicious beauty product is? When I thought about this question the idea of smell immediately came to me and so did a perfume by DKNY. It is a limited edition summer art version of DKNY. It cost me around £30 however it could have been 1 or 2 pounds either way. The smell reminds me of summer and is very sweet. A smell that is good enough to be delicious!

The next deadly sin is Sloth. This asks what beauty product do you neglect due to laziness? This for me would have to be facial moisturiser. I try to remember this as much as possible but no matter what beauty routine I have, it is always the first step I seem to start skipping. I use one from Lush cosmetics called Vanishing Cream. It is a very good moisturiser, I just unfortunately do not use it as much as I should.

Next is pride. This asks what beauty product gives you the most self-confidence? This is a hard question, because I really hate my skin, so my automatic answer would be foundation, but I feel when I have foundation on, there are so many other things that I think make me feel so much more confident. Having this in mind, I actually think a bronzer/contour powder is actually the product that I think gives me more confidence. Not only does it add dimension to the face, but it can also make your face look slimmer which I think for me is a major confidence boost! However if this question was to say that you could not wear any other product then I would change my answer back to foundation.

Lust is the next sin. This asked what beauty product you are lusting after right now? For me this would be the By Terry shadow stick in the colour Misty Rock. I saw this first on Tanya Burr's channel and since then I have wanted to buy it however whenever I have the money to be able to pay for it, they are out of stock.

The last sin is Envy and this asks what beauty items you would most like to be given as a gift. Something I always really enjoy is lipstick and experimenting with different colours, so something like a lipstick or a lip product or even a lip stick pallet I think would be an amazing gift.

Thank you for reading this blog <3

Link to the video from DailyMix: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1haUsV7RrNw&list=UUfFEsrwBVM772LwYUhHXI0g