Trend: Berry

I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays! Can you believe Christmas is 6 days away?! I cannot be more happy that classes are out and I spend my days listening to Christmas music, watching Christmas movies, and spending time with my family. I love that this time of year many of my siblings get to come home and our family dynamic reverts back to the time that we were all young. There's 6 kids in my family, and we're each 18 months apart, so while things get crazy, I love having (most) everyone back here, if only for a few weeks.

On to the makeup, one thing that I've always loved, whether it's a trend or not, is berry! Berry lips are absolutely beautiful, and they're perfect for people who want to try something a little different without being too bold. I remember when I was first getting into makeup and I would always just wear lip balm or a gloss. I would see people wearing pictures of women wearing red or hot pink lips and it look great but I always thought, "I could never do that!"

A few years ago when Revlon came out with lip butters, I remember the first one I bought was "berry smoothie" and "sugar plum", both plummy berry colors. They had color and opacity, but were sheer enough that I thought I could actually wear this outside my bathroom. Since then, I've gotten into bold colors, but trying a berry lip definitely helped get me there. BTW, I used a new lipstick from NYC, berry rich. It was super cheap and I instantly fell in love with the color. It's a little more sheer than the pictures show, but paired with a darker lipliner, it became more vibrant. I absolutely loved the combo!

By the way, let's talk about the elephant in the room, I forgot mascara. I know, I know, it makes a HUGE difference. But if there's one thing I usually forget, it's mascara. It's just that I have oily skin, and when I finish my face makeup, I use a finishing spray, and then proceed to get changed and head out the door. So yeah, I easily neglect my eyelashes. Whenever my younger sister sees me without mascara, she asks, "did you burn your eyelashes?" I already have teeny tiny eyelashes, so forgetting mascara is just weird. Oh well, I still wanted to post the look.

Also, this was taken at the end of the day, so my shine is starting to show. 

I also decided to pair this look with deep purple nails. I don't know if you could classify this as "berry" but it's so pretty nonetheless. I had many people complimenting me on my nails, even though they really weren't anything special. I don't know if this color was limited edition or part of a collection (I just borrowed it from my sister's stash). Let me just say it now, I am not a nail polish person! It's not perfect, I don't do nail art, and nail polish is just not my strong point. I do like it, but this is FAR from a nail blog. But if it's a cute color, I'd like to show it occasionally.

I'm still working on photographing these looks. It's harder than it look! But I've been reading up about it, I'm switching to natural light and trying to find a background that isn't as busy. Hopefully the quality of photos improves!

Anyways, this look is really simply, just  a brown smoky eye, with darker colors framing the crease and outer v. I usually don't pair brown and berry lips, but I really liked how it turned out. If only I would have blotted and worn mascara...

One of these days I'll see if I can post a tutorial of my eye looks (which I believe are the most interesting).

Products used:

Face:

Clinique DDM Gel

Hourglass Primer

Estee Lauder DW Tawny

Hard Candy Concealer Light, Medium

Milani Multitasker Power 2,4

ELF HD Loose Powder

Cheeks:

Jordana Blush TerraCotta

Milani Baked Blush Luminoso

Elf Bronzer/Blush Duo (Bronzer side)

Hard Candy Bronzer Tiki

NYX Blush Taupe

Eyes:

Lorac Behind the Scenes Primer

Wet n Wild Vanity, Greed Palette

Maybelline Cozy Cashmere Quad (Fall LE)

Sally Hansen Brow Powder Blonde (Discontinued)

Jordana Fabuliner

Lips:

Rimmel liner "Wine"

NYC lipstick "Berry Rich"

-Ella