red, red wine....

Up until a few months ago, I never thought I could pull off a red lip. That's what happens when you are too scared to try something, you never know. Then I "womaned up" and tried it... and I'm in love! It makes me feel amazing, I can't describe it, it's just a really happy, confident feeling, AND it makes my teeth look whiter, so it's a win win! I learned that the key to a Red Lip is to down play everything else, let's be honest, unless you are a hooker you don't want to be walking around with like a heavy black smoky eye and a bright red lip, even then I don't think it's ok. To create the look you see below I used part of the Bare Escentuals Drop Red Gorgeous kit, the only thing I changed was the lip color itself. This kit came with Pretty Amazing Lipcolor in Strength, the first time I tried it I used it. The problem I had with it was since my hair is so long, 9 times out of 10 it ends up stuck to whatever gloss I have, with this one once I removed the hair it slightly rubbed up against my face and left tiny little red marks, like little cuts. Don't get me wrong, I like the Pretty Amazings, they are incredibly long lasting, hence my problem, I could not get the little red stains off my face. So I moved on to Red Zin Lip Stick, which has proven to be a winner. I also believe that if you are rockin' a Red Lip it should have a lot of shine to it, it's just a personal choice. Lipsticks don't usually have a lot of gloss to them, so I put 100% Natural Lip Gloss in Sprinkles over it, and wow, instant shine!

For the Lip this is what I did.

After I had all my makeup on & was dressed and ready to go, I did my lip. Let's face it, Red Lipstick/gloss/what have you can stain, so my best bet was to be ready to go and then move on to my lip. I outlined my lip using 100% Natural Lip Liner in Twig, Just to make sure I stayed "inside the lines", who wants to look like a little girl who just discovered her moms makeup, that was my theory anyways. Then I took the Red Zin Lipstick and lightly dabbed it somewhere in those lines, just to get the color going, then I spread it around using a lip brush that I also had dabbed in the color, taking a lot of time to make sure I wasn't making myself look like a clown. I just repeated those steps until my lips were entirely filled in and I had the desired amount of Red. Then I just took the Sprinkles gloss and threw it right over.

The rest of my look was just down playing my eyes with the 3 products from the Kit:

- virtue eye color

- strength eye color

- Big and Bright eyeliner in Charcoal.

I started by using the virtue eye color from lash to brow, then going back over the lid to make it a little darker than my brow. Then I took a small amount of the Strength eye color and worked it into the outer corner of each eye, that is something I do so the crease doesn't look totally detached from the lid, I usually only do this when I'm working with 2 colors. I then took my Tapered Crease Defining brush and worked Strength right into the crease, just moving back and forth, following the curve of the crease. I took the eyeliner and lightly brushed it on the lash line starting from the inner corner to the outer. Once that was done I took my Full Edged Liner brush to make sure the line was blended and as neat as I wanted it, I did the same process for underneath the eye as well. I finished off the look using the Light Show Eyeliner in Galaxy for my waterline. Toped it off with 2 coats of the volumizing mascara and done!

(I apologize the pictures are not the best quality, my iPhone was being difficult and I was in the tad bit of a rush to get out the door!)

and that my loves is the trick to the Red Lip, down play everything else then BAM right in the kisser ;)

until next time,

janine :)