mbbinstachallenge

It’s week three of the #mbbinstachallenge! I was really excited about this one because it’s totally in my wheelhouse. The theme: smoky taupe.

Funny… When I was digging through my makeup drawers looking for makeup to use for this look, I grabbed a whole bunch of golden taupe powder eyeshadows that I thought might work with it, like Urban Decay Dark Horse and Secret Service. And Mushroom, in particular, was one I thought would totally work.

Oh, and I also tried this old MAC Starflash shadow called Smoke & Diamonds from 2009’s Love That Look collection, which is golden taupe perfection incarnate.

I tried all of them in various combos, but they just didn’t read quite like the inspiration picture below…

The gal in the picture has a hint of glossiness on her eyes, and I couldn’t get that same effect with those shimmery powder shadows I grabbed, so I ended up going with some cream shadows, like this one from Tom Ford called “Spring 2015” (yes, that’s its actual name, and I love it so much that I stocked up on it). It’s a fan-friggin-tastic dark golden taupe. And another TF shade called Platinum.

I used the dark golden taupe all over my lids, hit the outer V with dark matte brown MAC Brun (a powder eyeshadow), and then I smoked out the lower lash line and the edges with satiny golden brown MAC Soba.

So I did end up using some powder shadows for depth and to transition, but the glossy effect was thanks to the cream shadows.

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Just an FYI: If you ever want to take yourself seriously, don’t combine a headband with cat ears and pink glitter lips.

It’s just too hard. You’ll just be laughing at yourself all day long! 🙂

The cat headband is from Etude House, and it’s $5.20. Mine was a gift from a friend, but I love it so much that I’m ordering a backup (side note: Do you want me to review it? LOL!).

Without further ado, it’s #mbbinstachallenge time!

It’s week two, and this week’s theme is kitten flicks and glitter lips.

I chose to stick closely to the O.G. inspiration pic this time, so I drew sharp black kitten liner all the way into the inner corners but kept that center area on my lower lash line bare, for negative space.

I suppose I could have done something like a bronze or a gold liner in that area instead…

Ooh! That could be super cool. I might try that next.

I used Tom Ford’s absurdly expensive liquid liner, which is SO bomb (despite being absurdly expensive. I was reminded why I love it so much as I was trying to place it into the inner corners and needed to be super duper precise. It’s amazeballs.

And for my glittery pink lips, I used sticky pink MAC Big Baby Plushglass, then patted a multicolored pink glitter on top, concentrating it in the center of my lips.

I wanted big, chunky, flashy glitter, so I went with MAC 3D Pink Glitter.

Here’s something I learned while doing this look: If you pop glitter on top of gloss, don’t rub your lips together right afterward, because the gloss will mix with the glitter and bring down the sparkle and shine several notches.

As a bonafide lip rubber…I struggled with this.

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