Black Smoke

       Hey everyone! Hope you're having a good week. Today's post is a full tutorial on a black smokey eye. I received a request by a really sweet girl to do a look like this, so this is for Ash Leigh :). I absolutely love your all's requests, so keep them coming and I'll get them up for you as soon as I can! Let's get right into the tutorial. As always, all tips will be in the captions below each picture. Enjoy!

To prime my face I used the L'Oreal Revitalift Miracle Blur Instant Skin Smoother. I really like this product, but you have to be very careful how much you use. If I use too much, my makeup doesn't blend in as well as it normally does. A good thing I've found is that this does keep me more matte throughout the day than the Benefit POREfessional.

For foundation, I used the Covergirl Outlast Stay Fabulous 3 in 1 foundation in the color 842. Now, I do have to mention that with this type of a look, you may want to do your base after you've finished the eyes. Black is a very tricky color to work with, as it can have quite a bit of fallout. Once the black eye shadow fallout gets on your face, it's hard to get it off without wanting to re-do your entire base. So, with that being said, do whatever you're comfortable doing. In my case, I didn't think about that...

After putting on my foundation...which I thought I had a picture of, but I guess not...I moved on to my eyes. To prime them (very important for this look!) I used the Lorac Behind the Scenes eye primer.

Black is a difficult color to build up, so I decided to lay a black cream base on my eyelids using this NYX Jumbo Eye Pencil in Black Bean. Be careful not to put too much of this on, as it can make the eye shadows you put on over it crease.

I just applied this messily all over the lids. We'll blend out in a second.

Well...this is a creepy picture...Anyway, that's the area you want to keep the black base in.

I took a fluffy duo fiber brush and blended that cream base out.

This is what you should have after blending.

Now, take any black shadow you have, and pack that onto the lids, being careful not to take it up too high.

After packing that black shadow on the lids, I took a big fluffy brush and just blended out the edges. Blending is key for this look. 

After I blended, I went back into the black shadow and packed more onto my lids. When we blended everything out, we lost some of that color. So, I packed more on until I got the color saturation I wanted. A tip for applying black eye shadow: When you are putting the color onto your brush, tap the excess shadow off the brush before putting it onto the lid. You will get less fallout that way.

Next, I tight-lined my eyes using the Urban Decay 24/7 Glide-On Eye Pencil in "Zero." When I say "tight-lining" it just means that I lined my upper and lower waterline with the eyeliner.

Lining the lower waterline.

Next, I wanted liner along my top lashes, and for that I used the L'Oreal Carbon Black Lineur Intense liquid liner. And I created a pretty dramatic wing on each eye.

Then I moved back to the face. For concealer I used the Maybelline Instant Age Rewind.

I wanted to really highlight under the eyes, because when you have such harsh colors like black, you can easily look tired. The concealer will help brighten you up!

All concealed.

To set the face, I used the MAC Prep + Prime Translucent Setting powder all over the face.

Face is set!

To contour, I used the Benefit Hoola bronzer. If you'd like to see how I contour and highlight, I just posted a tutorial on that this past Monday. You should be able to find that post on the right-hand side of your screen.

After contouring, I went back into that Hoola bronzer with a fluffy blending brush, and blended that right into the upper crease above the black eye shadow. That will bring more warmth to the look, and it won't be so harsh.

Blending away!

There, now. That's better! It just takes the edge off a little :)

I also added that to my lower lid for that smokey effect.

To highlight the inner corners and brow bone, I used the "Cream" shadow above.

We're getting there!

To add some color to the face, I am using this Jordana blush in the color "Passion Rose." This blush is a beautiful color, great pigmentation and wears nicely throughout the day.

All blushed.

For brows I used the Anastasia Beverly Hills Brow Wiz in "Medium Ash." I wanted the brows to be defined, but soft. Since we have such a bold look going on on the eyes, I didn't want the brows competing with it.

Nice and soft brows.

For the lips I used Revlon Super Lustrous Lipstick in the color "Primrose." I looooooooove this color. It is the perfect pinky-nude. A definite must-have.

Soooo pretty!

To add some shine, and a bit more color, I used the NYX Butter Gloss in the color "Eclair."

Love this lip combination!

And lastly, for mascara I used the Jordana Best Lash Extreme Volumizing mascara. I packed that on both top and bottom lashes.

And here's the final look!

       So, there you have it! A black smokey eye! I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. Let me know what you think in the comments below, or on my Facebook Page "Beautymark." Again, if you have any requests for things you'd like to see me post about, feel free to let me know. I love getting requests! Thank you all soooo much for reading, and have a great rest of the week!



                                      XOXO - Tabitha

How I Contour and Highlight

       Hey everyone! How was your weekend? Mine was amazing! My boyfriend and I took my sister out to dinner and a comedy show for her birthday. It was seriously the best night. Good food, hilarious show and great company. Love nights like that. Also, I'd like to wish an early Happy Birthday to the sweetest, kindest and prettiest sister in the world. I love you, Pamela!

       Onto today's post. Today is all about how I contour and highlight. Now, I want to preface this post by saying I am definitely not a professional. I don't claim to be doing this the correct way at all, haha. I just know how I like to contour my face, and I'd like to show you how I do it :). So, with that said, all tips will be in the captions below each picture. Enjoy!

I went ahead and worked on the rest of my look before I started on the contour. You can see that my face looks sort of one dimensional here. Not bad... you just can't see the shape and certain features very well.

How to find your contour area, Tip 1: Take a brush or a pencil or whatever you have on hand. Place it on the top of your cheekbone, like so. Then roll the tool down your face until you feel the dip or hollow place right under your cheekbone. That's where you contour. It's pretty much always from the top of your ear, and diagonally down towards your mouth.

Tip 2: Make an awesome fishy face, like so. Your cheekbones should stick out enough for you to be able to see the dip, or hollow area, right underneath your cheekbone. Again, that's where your contour should be.

To contour, I'm going to use Benefit Hoola bronzer.

It is the perfect color. Not too warm and not too cool. I love it. Tip 3: you always want a matte bronzer to contour. Using one with a shimmer tends to look muddy. Basically, we're wanting to create natural looking shadows on our face. We'll add the shimmer when we highlight.

There are quite a few brushes you can use to create your contour. I always use this big brush here. This is a horrible picture of this brush. What you can't see is that it has a nice tapered edge in the middle that gets right into the hollows of my cheeks, while the edges of the brush blend everything out. I got this brush from Sally's, and I love it. I'm sure I'll try other contour brushes in the future, but this one works very well for me right now. You could always take a big fluffy brush like this, and squeeze it together on the sides so that it will easily fit into the hollows of your cheeks.

To contour smaller areas of your face, like your nose, you can use a brush like this. This is just a regular fluffy blending brush for your eyes.

I got lucky when it comes to finding your contour area. My face has a very obvious hollow area right under both cheek bones about a third of the way onto my cheek from my ear. It's kind of weird actually. I don't remember having these hollow places on my cheeks until after I got my wisdom teeth out. Then BAM. There were dips in my cheeks. My wisdom teeth must have been abnormally large... Anyway, haha, right where my brush handle is is where the dip is, and that's where I'll be contouring my face.

I dipped my brush into the Hoola bronzer, tapped off the excess powder, and made a line from the top of my ear, diagonally downwards, like so. For an everyday contour, you only want to go in about this far onto your face. Any further than that will start to look unnatural. Now, if you want to really chisel out your face, and you want a strong contour, go for it. But for an every day, wearable look, you just want to stop about midway down your cheek. That creates a natural shadow, and really makes your cheekbones pop out in the best way.

Again, on the other side, I'm pointing out the natural dip in my cheek... that you can't even see in this picture...

I just take my brush with the Hoola bronzer on it, and create a soft line. Where my brush is is where you want to stop.

Again, it just creates a natural shadow underneath your cheekbone. If you feel like your contour is too strong, don't worry. I'll show you how I blend mine out here in a bit.

Here's a front view. Now you can see my cheek bones, and the slight shadow that brings them out.

After doing your cheeks, you want to contour the rest of your face where you think you need it. I like to do my hairline/temple area and my jaw line. I basically just focus the brush with the bronzer on it right on my hairline. I blend it from right here, where my brush is in the picture to right above about where my brow starts. I make sure and blend that out VERY well.

Then I move down to my jawline and blend that bronzer in back and forth right where my brush is in this picture.

This is my contour before I blend it all out.

To blend out all the harsh lines of our contour, I use my foundation brush with no additional product on it. And yes, I have already powdered my face. Using your foundation brush with no additional product on it will blend out your contour beautifully. It has just enough color left on it from your foundation to blend those lines without fading your contour line out completely. And it will not look cakey at all.

Blend out, like so.

And now I have a very soft and subtle contour.

You can see how contouring really chisels out the face. It's amazing.

For blush, I used the Milani Baked blush in "Berry Amore." Side Note: I actually went out a couple days ago and got a ton more drugstore blushes to try! So, I'll be branching out from my beloved Milani on future posts, yay!

Here I applied blush to half of my face. Contouring accentuates your features, and blush brings in the color to make those cheekbones pop.

All blushed!

For my highlight, I went for my Stila single eyeshadow in Kitten. I have a few other highlighters, but I just love this eyeshadow for my highlight. It is so pigmented and buttery soft. Seriously, everyone needs this shade. It's perfect on the eyes and the cheeks. It's amazing.

I took a little bit of "Kitten" on my ring finger...

And applied it to my cheeks, like so. You want to focus your highlight on the tops of your cheekbones, where the sunlight would naturally hit.

Such a pretty highlight shade!!

Again, applying it to the tops of my cheeks...

To the bridge of my nose...

And to my cupids bow. Doing this will make your lips look fuller.

I'm all highlighted!

I added lipstick to finish up, and here's the final look!

      So, that's it! I hope this tutorial helped you and taught you a few things :). I really do love this blog and I want to thank each of you for reading it and being so sweet and supportive of my passion. If there is anything you would like to see me post about, please leave it in the comments below, or on my Facebook page "Beautymark." I hope you all have a great week, and thank you again for reading!!



                                     XOXO - Tabitha