Favorite Nail Polishes For Spring/Summer 13

Hayya my lovelies. Today I have another spring/summer 13 favorites, this time its on nail polishes. now I love nail polishes and have a lot of them but right now I haven't really been wearing them except the 6 i'm including in this post. 

Little Disclaimer- Most of my nail polishes are OPI the reason for this is I get my opi for £6 at sally's. 

As you can tell I love purple! I love changing nail polish colours I love painting my nails and I love my nails to look perfect. 

As with lipsticks I love bright Nail polish and I love Glittle polishes even now there a pain in the but to get off. 

Do You Lilic It? -is a beautiful more pink based lilic. I were this one alot. 

Your Such A BudaPest - Is a gorgeous more blue based violet colour. Right now i'm eating palma violets and it reminds me of them. 

Polka.com - is a pretty malty shade glitter. it has blue purple pink mixed into it. 

Last Friday Night - Has been my favorite nail polish for a very very long time since it came out like 2-3 years ago. its a blue clear base with blue and silver glitter.

Obsess - This is a nice bright magenta pink from illamasqua. 

Gemma - Is a bright bright orange like neon orange from illamasqua. its a best seller. 

So what do you think are your favorite spring/summer nail polishes for 2013?

Remember to go and enter my giveaway, you can find the link in the side of my blog. 

Favorite Lipsticks For Spring/Summer 13

Hello my lovelies. feels like I have not spoken to you in a long time as I have been away doing makeup for the Edinburgh Collage of Art costume show the past few days, it was amazing and I will be getting photos soon so keep an eye out for them. Todays post was actually a suggestion request from jessica on twitter  she suggested I did a post on my favorite lipsticks for spring. 

Anyways lets get on with my favorite lipsticks for spring/summer 13

Lipsticks are one of my favorite makeup items as they have the ability to change a day time look into a evening look, they can also help to change your mood a bright lipstick always makes me more happy then a nude or a red lip. 

My 5 favorites for spring/summer 13 are all MAC lipstick's this is pretty easily explained I only have MAC lipsticks in my own collection. If you take a look in my kit you will see things from illamasqua mac and revlon but take a look in my own collection all thats there is mac. 

Now if you want I can do a post on my favorite spring/summer lipsticks for other people if that would interest any of you. 

as you can tell all of my favorites are bright bright colours keeping away from red and brown. all of them have a pink undertone as well because I love the pink shades on my skin tone and they soot many other people as well. 

Girl abut town - Is a bright reddier toned pink. this colour is gorgeous and lots of people love it £14

Up The Amp - this one has been a favorite of mine since I bough it end of summer last year its a light purple with pink undertones £14

Candy Yum Yum - this lipstick is a cult favorite and I need a new one as this one is about 2 years and 2 months old, I know kind of minging but I cant let my self get rid of it. £14

Betty Bright - is a pink based coral. it has alot of orange undertones as well. perfect for a darker skin tone £16

Daddys Little Girl - I keeped the best for last. Daddys little girl is on mt lips every single day but i'm going to have to cut down on wering it as this little beauty was limited edition :( £16

what are your favorite lipsticks for spring/summer 13?

do you like my new blog design done by the amazing foreverglamx?

make sure to go enter my giveaway for a chance to enter a few of my favorite things 

50 Day Spending Ban | Week 1

Hello my lovelies. so you may or may not know that I started a 50 day spending ban last Wednesday. I picked to only do a 50 day for 2 reasons, 1 last time I tried a 100 day I failed Missrably and 2 I want it to be finished before imats. 

So I decided to do a spending ban for quite a few reasons. 

1. I need to prove I can control my spending as i'm moving out on my own

2. I have to save for moving out

3. I need to save for imats london

4. I just really need to stop spending 

Anyway this is day 8 of my spending ban and i'm doing better than last time I tried. I have alot of makeup that will last me the next 42 days so that's good, the only thing I think I may ran out of is my concealer but its around £4 so maybe I can justifie getting that, what do you think?

Anyway this week I have had to pay for my beauty insurance which was very important for me to get. 

Total spent - £19

what's on my wishlist - The makeup forever flash palette and some crown brushes. I will get these items at imats

Now I really hope I can stick this spending ban out this time!

Good luck to everyone else doing a spending ban, if you are let me know and maybe we can help each other. 

IIllamasqua Skin Base Foundation Review

Hayya Lovelies, today i'm doing a review on Illamasqua skin base. This foundation is the newest one from Illamasqua and its also the most expensive being £27 per 30ml. 

I bought this foundation after many recommendations from other makeup artists and bloggers. 

Illamasqua say | "Inspired by the cult Asian market Beauty Balm creams, Skin Base Foundation is a brand new, refined formula unlike anything on the UK market. Easily blendable, it effortlessly creates a perfect complexion, and like the entire Illamasqua foundation range, is undetectable in a professional HD environment. Suitable for all skin types, it smoothes, softens and conditions your skin whilst providing natural, buildable coverage."

There is many shades of this foundation so there will be something for everyone. 18 shades all together, some have pink undertones some yellow and some natural.  

If you need to pick a shade I would recommend going into a store and get matched as the swatches online are not too good. but there is a comparison chart of other makes of foundation to this foundation. 

what I love

I love that this foundation is grate for all skin types from dry to oily, If you have really dry skin I would really recommend exfoliating your skin and using a strong moisturizer as this foundation will cling to exema and dry skin. I love that there is many shades of this foundation so there is somthing for everything. I love the bottle for east sweezing so its so easy to get the product out. 

It's so nicely applied with a flat foundation brush and a buffing brush such as the ones from real techniques. the coverage is grate, its a medium coverage but can be buildable. I also really love the smell of this foundation, its a vanilla sent.

The not to good

It's not very easy to find as there is not very many stores or counters in the uk or any were in the world. The price is quite high but not as high as somthing like nars sheer glow or laura mercer silk cream. I dont mind paying the price even if I didn't get 40% of this foundation. 

This foundation looks grate on the skin and in photography. 

Illamasqua is a UK brand so that is grate and if you are a makeup artist you can apply for pro discount. 

this foundation is available on illamasqua web sight. 

Another Illamasqua Haul

Hayya Lovelies.... I know I know another Illamasqua haul, I'm naughty and just cant help my self when it come to illamasqua products defiantly when illamasqua decided to give us makeup artists 50% off this week. Ok so now I have maid this order I DONT need anything else until imats so I need to save so i'm going to try a 50 day no spending challage I started on the 17/4/2013.

So I bought 7 things which is quite a bit to some but not much to others but I did save quite a lot of money on these items so please dont judge me. also these items I bought are for my entry to the illamasqua makeup competition.

So we will start of with the face products I got first. 

- I first got the illamasqua skin base foundation in white. skin base I love on myself its a beautiful foundation but I needed a white foundation for my kit as sometimes I get a really pale client of for things like a costume show or of coarse fantasy makeup. this white foundation looks amazing in photography as well. 

- Illamasqua Lies cream blush, This blush looks quite pink in the pan but its not pink its actully a high lighter. its beautiful and I know I will be using this so much in shoots and just on my clients. 

For eyes I picked up too eyeshadow's. illamasqua eyeshadows are so supper pigmented and there all matte. I picked these to for the illamasqua comp. 

- illamsqua Vulgar eyeshadow. this is a fire orange colour which is exactly what I was looking for. Orange eyeshadows allways come in handy as they look grate with blue eyes for a pop of colour. 

- illamasqua Imagin eyeshadow. This is a bright blue. its not really dark or really light its mid toned and its soo pigmented. 

so then lastly I bought 3 lipstick's, well actually I bought 2 lipsticks as it was buy 2 get your 3rd free. yay. 

- immodest lipstick. its a supper bright matte pink its gorge and I dont have a colour like this in my kit and I have really been eyeing it so thought I would get it. Its from the im'perfection collection.

- Disciple lipstick. this is a dark blue lipstick, it looks black on photo but its actually a navy blue. grate for editorial work. 

- sonnet lipstick. I bought this colour mainly for my brides but would be grate for shoots and stuff as well. I didnt have a pinkie nude in my kit which is quite weird as I have about 30 lippys in my kit. 

So thats what I bought. this will probably be my last haul for a little while but my next haul if i can manage the chalange will be a huge imats haul. woop. 

hope you enjoyed and if you want to win somthing from illamasqua and other brands make sure to go enter my giveaway

All About Colour Correction

Hayya There My Lovelies. Today i'm doing a post all about colour correction. I was actually going through my giveaway comments looking for inspiration for today's post and saw Jade Wiggins wants to see a post about Anti redness, I decided to just do a post on all colour correction. 

So colour correction is not actually used to much now a days but people with lots of redness find it quite use full. 

Most people would use things like concealers but brands such as smashbox have actually bought out colour correcting primers.

The thing that ushaly freaks people out about colour correction is the colours of the product, but once you know what the colours are for your pretty much good to go. 

Think of a colour wheel 

Green | green is for redness. green and red are oparset each other on the colour wheel so green will cancel out redness. 

Purple | purple/lavender is for sallowness. Purple will brighten up sallow skin.

Peach | peach is for blue tones such as under the eyes. 

Colour correction is a wonderful thing and is grate for people who have very problematic skin. some good products for colour correction are illamasqua cream pigments, there a grate consistency and are grate colours for colour correction.

P.s dont forget to enter my giveaway for a chance to win some of my favorite things from lush illamasqua and elf. http://makeupbyelysa.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/few-of-my-favorite-things-1-year.html.

Finding The Perfect Foundation Match For You

Hayya Lovelies. Today i'm doing one of my more requested blog posts! If you follow me on twitter *which I would recommend doing @elysajamesmua * then you would of known on Thursday I asked what post you would like to see most out of a list of a few and everyone said a Foundation Match post, so that's what i'm doing today. 

As a makeup artist i'm always having to match people to the right shade of foundation and surprisingly a lot of people are not to sure how to match there skin to a shade of foundation, I hope this post will help a few of you. 

When picking a foundation you need to think about a few thing's, 1. what type of foundation you like, 2. what shade you need and 3. what undertone you need. Now today i'm just going to cover the what shade you need and in another post I will talk about undertones. 

When it comes to matching foundation your always going to want to match it with your neck as other wise your face will look a little funny and like it will not match the rest of your body. 

• the fist thing to do when matching foundation is to pump out a little of the colours you want to test on to ether your hand or a palette. 
• Take your finger or a small foundation or concealer brush and stripe a stroke from your jaw down your neck
• if your in a shop go outside with a mirror, look at your neck and see which foundation blends in the best in the natural lighting 

You should always cheek the foundation colour in natural lighting as store lighting or artificial lighting can sometimes be tricky and make the foundation look a funny colour. 

I were Illamasqua Skin base in 02 which is the lightest skin base and its a perfect match for me. 

what shade of foundation do you were. did this post help you at all? I hope it did.

P.s Thank you so much for helping me reach 901 followers it means so much. remember to enter my 1 year giveaway http://makeupbyelysa.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/few-of-my-favorite-things-1-year.html

Small Illamasqua Haul

Hayya Lovelies. Today's post was going to be a foundation match video but I had another no makeup day today as i'm still ill so decided to do sundays post and swap them around, so today i'm doing a small illamasqua haul. 

As a Makeup artist I have tried many different brands and grew to love illamasqua a lot for there crazy colours and there wonderful campaigns, Illamasqua products are slightly more expensive than mac but right now I would pick them for my kit for some things over mac.  

So as you can tell I only got 4 things, Its a lot for some but little to others. To tell the truth I would of bought alot more but I dont have much money right now and i'm moving to edinburgh in the summer and going to imats so have to save like crazy, the good thing is I actully get 40% off illamasqua for being a makeup artist. 

So I bought two face products for myself. I needed a new foundation as my belovid nars sheer glow is totally gone, I have used two full bottles of that baby and will miss it a lot but thought it was time to try somthing else, I also needed a new primer as I had ran out of my smashbox photofinish. 

I picked Skin base in the colour 2. This colour is perfect for me its pale enough for me witch makes me very happy. I got it as everyone raves about it and I thought well I will try it for myself. I got it for £16.50 I think (there will be a review on it very soon)

I then got Satin Primer as I have dry exima prone skin and I need a base other wise foundation dose not sit well on my patches of exima. £13.50 or so. 

I then picked up two lipsticks from the easter egg hunt plus the easter 10% off. so these lippys were only £7.20 each, AMAZING

I got Atomic which is a pink with red tones. its so pretty and I all ready know what shoot I will be using this in. 

Sangers is a pure red colour its matte and has more of a orange undertone to a blue. 

both these lippys are for my kit. 

So thats my haul, hope you enjoyed and let me know if you have bought anything from illamasqua lately. 

Simple But Effective Nail Art | Stripes and Gems

Hello Lovely people. I know I havent been blogging much and there is no excuse. i'm sorry. But today I have a new series so I hope you can forgive me. My new series is called simple but effective nail art, I decided to do this series because in the past 8 days since my giveaway opened I have been asked to do nail art tutorials, i'm going to grant your wishes and do more nail art. 

So this look is not the best in photography as you cant really see the glitter, trust me this look is beautiful in person so I think you should all try it and send me the picture on twitter to @elysajamesmua

What will you need 

~ Nail polish of your choice. I picked OPI You're such a budapest

~ 2 stripers, Black and glitter

~ Top coat to stick on gems

~ Dotting Tool to stick on gems

~ Gems

Step one Paint the nails with your colour of choice, you may need a few coats to get the colour intensity you want. 

Step Two Take your black striper and paint on 3 lines in a diagonal motion. 

Step Three Taking your glitter stipe diaganal lines in between the black so it looks kind of like a fan

Step Four Taking your dotting tool and top coat get a hold of the gem and press the gem in to the corner of the nail. 

Finish of with a top coat. 

And that is my first simple but effective nail art tutorial. Hope you enjoyed. if there is any nail art you would like to see please let me know. 

Review | L'oreal Infallible Foundation

Hayya my Lovelies How are you all? Hope you had a good easter!  

Today i'm going to be doing a review on a item I resently hauled, the l'oreal infallible foundation. I have now used this on a few photo shoots and on my self and think I can now tell you what I like and dont like. This foundation was recommended to me by the amazing Jillian Elizabeth MUA.

I have this foundation in 2 shades, the lightest one they do in 15 and the darkest one they do which is 260. the reason for this is I can mix the colours to make other colours. also I do have other foundations in my kit as well. 

What I Like

This foundation has quite a thick consistency which I quite like to work with but I know some dont. It has a medium to full coverage and has a pump so its east to despence the right amount of product. This foundation is very easy to apply with ether a damp beauty blender a buffing brush or a plane old foundation brush. I also love that the lightest shade is even light enough so I can ware it.  this foundation looks flawless on the skin. 

What I dont Like

Ok there is one stupid thing that I dont like. This foundation Oxadises like crazy. if your not sure what I mean by that, it gets darker when it dries just like the MAC studio fix fluid. also it lies a bit, it dose not last 16 hours but it dose last a good 8 hours. 

(Photographer- Alan Jones, Model- Rhianna Louise, and Makeup artist- Elysa James MUA) 

Final thoughts 

This foundation is amazing it looks good in photos and in day light. Its easy to apply and blends beautiful and it looks flawless. 

I give this foundation a 4.5 out of 5

thanks Jillian for recommending me this foundation. 

Have you tried it out?