A Light Spring Makeup Routine

A giant eye shadow pallet is enough to make me want to create a new eye shadow look every. single. day.

Which is kind of what I’ve been doing for the past year, ever since I got Sephora’s giant eye shadow collection for Christmas.

One day it dawned on me how much time creating a new look adds to my morning routine, plus my day time look  was heavier than it needed to be. Not to mention the fact that I had almost used up all the good shades when I could have been saving them for special use.

Enter: my resolve to pair down my every day eye makeup routine. Spring especially is a great time to do this because everything gets lighter and we’re outside more, so we want to make sure our face is conveying our natural beauty and not a strong sparkly purple shadow.

Here are the three products I used to lighten up my look and my routine…

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1. Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion in Eden: I’ve been using the primer on my lids for years, but when I went in to get some more, the girl suggested using it under my eyes as well. Whoa girl – it does an amazing job of not only brightening that area but keeping my concealer in tact (sometimes I’ll even skip concealer…shhh). This shade is perfect for pulling double duty if need be because it’s light and matte.

2. Maybelline Color Tattoo Eyeshadow in “Bad to the Bronze”: I’ve written and talked about this product so much, it would take me half an hour to track down all of the other blogs I’ve mentioned it in. This shade is light, it’s shimmery but not over powering. It gives you a nice natural sheen that lasts for hours. And the fact that I can apply it simply with my finger means it goes on in seconds.

3. Hikari Blush in Tango: For over five years now I’ve been slapping on the same old boring blush thinking I was doing just fine. Then when I got this full size product in my Ipsy bag, it was as if someone turned off the black and white in my world. It’s bright, vibrant color translates perfectly on my cheeks making me look as if I just DANCED the tango and am now lit from within. A great blush, truly goes a long way to waking up your look.

Time to take a look at your everyday beauty routine – what can you improve?!

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Easy Glamorous Eyes for the Non-Makeup Enthusiast

Tonight is the annual Christmas party for the company I work for. It’s completely my brain child. One that I birthed, reared and have to clean up after.

So I’m going to try and make things as easy as I can on myself tomorrow. Starting with my makeup.

I’m going to demonstrate the look on my model, Dina, here. Thanks Dina!

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Start with a festive shadow. My favorite for this is gold because it really brings out the warmth of my brown eyes. And I think the flecks I have going on in there are gold. The mirror is way too far away for me to confirm that, and let’s face it, you probably don’t even care.

Look at what color the flecks in your eyes are and find a shadow that mimics it.

Apply that all over your lid (lightly) and put a little under your eyes. Ninety percent of the time I apply shadow below my eye as well because I like how it makes them look bigger, but you don’t have to if you don’t want to. What I’ll do next is add a little more shadow near my lash line. I always start with a light layer because, much like salt, it’s a lot easier to add more than it is to take it away. I usually do go back and fill it in a little more on my lid, though.

Next, get your eye liner. Take a black eye pencil (you do need an eye pencil for this – not any other liner) and run it over your lid, making it kind of thick. It doesn’t have to be perfect because you’re going to smudge it. Ok, now smudge it. Get it there and mess it up! Ok stop.

Now take the pencil and run it really close to your lash line this time. I like a little definition at my lashes to help them look fuller. This line you do want to be a bit more perfect, but if you mess up, it’s ok. Just smudge it again with your finger.

What this creates is kind of a gradient from black to whatever shadow you’ve gone with. Aka: an awesome party look!

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A Quick and Easy Smokey Eye with Gold and Taupe

Just because it’s called a “smokey eye” doesn’t mean it has to look like smoke.

Today I want to show you how I played around with gold and taupe to create a great sultry look  (and just for a quick resume, I’ve been taught by MAC professionals :)

Here are the colors I used and their corresponding brushes…

How to create smokey eyes with gold and taupe, up on the blog!

It’s very very very (very x infinity) important that you have the right kind of tools when applying makeup. The right brushes will take your techniques from novice to professional looking in seconds. So make sure you’ve got good ones (more blogs on that coming soon).

This is my model, Petunia, she's helping me demonstrate how to do a smokey eye :)
The left is blended, the right is more defined. Learn how to do them both!

Step 1:

Cover your whole lid with a very light gold. To do this, you’ll need a wide brush. You want you’re entire lid covered in this color so a brush that gets everywhere is perfect (like this one).

Step 2:

Take a slightly smaller brush and use a darker matte shade of taupe. You really want to stay away from doing smokey eyes with three shades that all sparkle. It’s best to mix texture and color when it comes to doing a smokey eye, but if all you have is all matte or all sparkly eye shadows, that’s fine. Just remember in the future to mix it up when you buy new ones.

(Here’s a link to a great brush starter kit!)

Step 3:

For this step you’ll need your smallest, tightest brush (here’s a good one). Because what you’re going to do is use the darkest shadow you’ve got and make a W shape starting at your lash line, going up slightly into your crease, and then bringing it down below your lower lashes (it’s a funky looking W, but you get my drift). You don’t have to go below your lower lashes, but I like to because it makes my eyes look bigger.

Step 4:

Now at this point you’ll want to blend with that smaller brush you just used for the dark shadow. Really try to work that shadow in so the lines are blurred (sing it: Blurred lines!)

Step 5:

As you can see on my lovely model (her name is Petunia, by the way) I blended her left eye, but not the right. So there are two directions you can go at this point. You can…

A. Take that first brush (the big wide one) and go over the whole lid making sure all the colors blend together perfectly.

B. Take that first brush, dip it back in that gold color to retouch the lightest shade and leave it at that.

It’s up to you, and how good your work looks after step 4.

Step 6:

Finally, I like to add a defined cat eye to complete the whole look. I really feel like it helps amplify your lashes, and perfectly punctuates the whole thing. Again, you can do it more defined, or you can blend it in with the brush you used to add the darkest color.

As you can see on the right eye, I let the end of the cat-eye line a little thicker. Don’t feel like it has to be perfect when you’re adding it to a smokey eye, because it’s not as visible.

Petunia was a little squirmy, but if you want to print out and practice on her before you do your own face, you can find the same picture here (but be warned, she complains a lot ;)

I really hope this helps! If you have any questions about this, or other makeup application techniques, feel free to email me elizabeth@thespiff, or of course you can reach me through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and now Pinterest!!

Get your toes ready for the warmer temperatures next week, check out these great shoes and toe nail polish pairings!

Have a very Spiffy weekend! :)

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Cloud Candy for Your Under Eyes

When I first read about this product, the beauty editor said that she wanted to, “Marry it third grade style.” I immediately wrote down both the product name, and the quote because I thought both were worthy of repeating.

Maybelline Instant Age Rewind Eraser-what word in this product do you not want, right?

It’s a fun little eye tool that not only erases, but treats.

Maybelline Instant Age Rewind EraserAnd if there’s one thing I like to do, it’s two things at the same time. And I definitely love to both get rid of something now and for the future.

The eye product I was using before had a roller ball which was ok. This has a cushy little sponge like head that just gently rolls across your under eye.

It’s very very very very important that you treat the under part of your eye very carefully. I once heard it described as being the same as tissue paper (which gives me cold chills) but really that’s how delicate we have to think about it.

If you’re running something hap hazardously across your under eye you could be stretching out the skin which will result in bags (and not the cute kind).

This stuff treats the darkness and covers it up, all while gently gliding across your face like a gentle little cotton candy cloud.

Aaaah.
I use it both on full makeup days and just tinted moisturizer-days and I love it for both.

One thing to keep in mind, is you have to twist the cap a while before product starts to come up through the pores of the sponge. Just remember that because it does take a while.

Tune in tomorrow to see The Spiff live on FOX43 at 8:45am! I’m going to be covering how to get ready in five minutes!

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A Lesson in Awesome Eyes

I bet you didn’t know you are reading the blog of a MAC makeup Associates Degree holder!

Yeah, that’s right. I’ve spent two whole Saturdays under the tutelage of a MAC make up professional. More recently, the makeup professional teaching the class was one who spends her carrier doing runway show make up. (Two classes equal two years in college-sooooo yeah. I’ve got a degree ;)

Lucky for you, I’m going to share some of the infinite wisdom I learned and allow you to now sit under my tutelage. Take notes…

Seriously though (words I hardly utter) I did learn a lot of great tips from those classes. One of which is how to do a proper water line-lining (good thing there wasn’t a test, because I’m sure that’s not the proper terminology).
First of all your water line is the area right inside your eye on which your lower lashes rest. Lining this area adds such a sultry/smokey/sexy look that takes your look from sweet to yowza! in seconds.

The mistake a lot of people make when lining your water line, is to line it with liquid eyeliner. But the problem with that is you’re putting wet on wet, and that doesn’t work. Eventually the black will slip right off (if not before you’re even done lining the next eye).

The trick to it is to take a very very clean brush (Sephora makes a brush cleaner for $6. Buy it. It’s got to be very very clean, because we’re talking about YOUR EYES. And we’re sticking this brush in YOUR EYES.



water lined eyes
Left: Regular/Right: Rock Star!

After you’ve thoroughly cleaned your brush, stick it in black eye shadow (that you’ve also swipped clean with a cotton ball) and just line the inside starting from the corner of your eye and going all the way out. I refuse to post a picture of this because close up eye ball pictures gross me out, so I have a comparison picture.

Please remember to clean your brush, and do not use sparkly black shadow as you don’t want one of those sparkles to mess up YOUR EYES.

Try it though, and walk like you’re a rock star cause you’ll sure look like one!
Ps: This look actually translates really well the next day. Giving you that “I’m a super model at night and now I have the rumpled-cool-without-trying” look going on.

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