Hey Ladies!I am so glad to write this post for Shilpa, our friendship goes back long in time, about 5 years back when we used to be colleagues. I still remember her suggestions to me for wearing formal clothes to a client in Delhi, haha! I knew there was something in this girl even then 😉 Shilpa has given me a great opportunity to write a post on makeup after seeing my collection! I want to thank her first for noticing my interest and giving me a stage to share my thoughts. Okay, now right into the post!

I never really thought too much about makeup until I decided to do my own makeup for my engagement and wedding. I was inspired by one of my close friends who did this and I was closely helping her. It was so much fun and you don’t need to be worried thinking what some random person will do to your face on your wedding day! That thought used to scare me a lot, so I stepped into the makeup world myself to explore and decide the way I want to look myself!  (I make it sound like some big venture, LOL)

I am not going to be talking about bridal makeup of course; it is a wideeee topic and involves many products! However, as I learnt that, I discovered how to use few products to make yourself look bright – where people can’t say whether you have or do not have make up, just that natural look, highlighting your best features! I thought it would be best to share those tips here 😊
I will try to keep the number of products as minimum as possible, but please pardon me if I go overboard in a few places 😀 I am going to split it into face, eyes and lips as usual.

Face

• For a natural look, I usually don’t prefer to use any liquid foundation. For me it is just about touching up the face with a powder based foundation with light/ medium coverage. Try a Compaq powder if you want very light coverage.
• The product I recommend here is the MAC studio fix foundation powder; you can build this foundation powder to give more coverage as well. I know this is going to be pretty expensive, but I would spend the money on a good foundation since it is the base for your make up. If however,  you want to go for a cheaper product I suggest the L’Oreal true match series – they are my all-time favorites. A great alternative to the MAC one!
• Next, BLUSHES. I love blushes! I think using a neutral/ light pink blush gives you a natural look. It just adds so much sheen and color to your face. You can use a matte blush if you want a morning look and shift to mineralized blushes which come with a glow for a night look! 
• Again here I love MAC Petal Power blush! You can use a little for a light glow and build on to it for more glow for a night look! Honestly I haven’t tried many matte blushes, because I feel a blush should make your cheeks glow rather than just sitting there matte if you know what I mean 😏 Of course, everyone may not like it, so for matte finish I recommend the Revlon Matte blushes. If you want to go glowy (like me) then a cheaper alternative is the NYX baked blushes, I just loveee this product! It just makes your cheeks pop and make you look super cute, definitely recommend it! 👍  

  
From left to right: Milani baked blush, MAC studio fix foundation powder, MAC petal power blush

Those are the two basic things for the face. If you have lot of under eye circles, sorry I have to say that you need some sort of a neutralizer and a concealer (like me :/) But  I don’t use it for a natural look, they are a part of my face and I won’t let it bother me too much for an everyday look!

Eyes

• Eye Shadow : When it comes to eye make-up you need to shape your eyes and give them some depth so that they look nice and gorgeous. I recommend using a neutral palette for an everyday look. I love to always add a tinge of pink when it comes to my eyes! I don’t go for dark colors because I have dark circles and without properly concealing them, a dark eye shadow will make the eyes look even darker. That is something to remember for those who have dark circles around your eyes.
• I recommend using the Revlon/ L’oreal/ Lakme netural eye shadows. I also have a MAC palette which has one light color, one dark color and one light pink color. 
• So to sort of take you through it, use the dark color just on your crease to give some depth and shape to the eyes, the pink one on your lids and the light color under your eyebrows. That is the basic pattern, just apply these colors and blend them together for an everyday breezy natural eye shadow look! (Shilpa here hi guys! I really had to poke my nose here at this point and add, I realised adding white eyeshadow below your brow bone and ever so lightly to the inside corner of your eyes really make them look wider! My limited gyan I have now passed on to the world!) 

 From left to right: MAC eye shadow palette, Lakme 9 to 5 series eye shadow palette

• Eye-liner and Kohl : I sometimes use just eye liner since I have dark circles; I try to avoid the kohl since it may smudge. *Tip* : to avoid smudging, top your kohl/ kajal with some black eye shadow, it will not smudge since the powder will prevent smudging!
•  I love the Maybelline master precision eyeliner! In the Lakme series, I love the plain old liquid kajal, it is one of the best things I have used! For Kohl I recommend the Maybelline kajal and MAC Kohl 
• The best part of eye make-up is…wait for it…MASCARA! Believe me, whatever eye make-up you do, it will not be complete if you don’t finish it with mascara. If you want to go that extra step, applying mascara after curling your lashes will make a bigger difference than just applying mascara.
• I recommend L’Oreal’s mascara or Maybelline mascaras. Benefit’s mascara is really good too! I haven’t tried any high end brands, but I have used Dior once and that one is great too!

  From top to bottom: Benefit they are real mascara, Lake eye liner, Maybelline master precise eye liner, MAC black Kohl

Lips

• Once again for an au natural everyday look, I prefer a nude+pink color. In the picture below to create this color, I mixed a peach and dark pink color. I have always had a hard time finding a right color for indian skin tone in the US, I found this mix of colors to give the right blend I wanted, these lip colors are from Lakme! I also like the colors from Revlon and MAC. The NYX shiny lipsticks they are a personal favorite too!
• If you have some discoloration on your lips, use a lip liner before you put on your lip stick. A beige/ nude color would do the job perfectly; I use the NYX/ Revlon lip liners. This will form a great base to your lipstick and make it look seamless.
• Another great lip tip – just like how you moisturize your face before make up, don’t forget to moisturize your lips as well, put on a lip balm when you start your make up so that your lips are ready for make up by the time you get there 👍

  
From left to right: Revlon lipstick, Lakme lipstick, NYX Lip liner

From bottom to top: NYX lip liner, Lakme lipstick, Revlon lipstick, All blended – notice this color is between a nudish peach and pink – I thought this perfectly suited my skin tone and the lip liner has given a strong base to the two lipsticks which make the lipstick look flawless.

Oh and one last thing, I didn’t mention about brushes I used, mostly for this look I used the small brushes that came with the palette and also my hands of course. If you are interested, I suggest owning a couple of brushes for the face and one for the eyes (mostly for blending the eye shadows)!

Finally in the pictures below.. The natural everyday no make-up/ make-up kinda flawless look I created for a casual Saturday shopping with all the above mentioned products, but I used a concealer since this post is too special and I definitely wanted to make the make-up special, haha, anyway all the other products are just the ones I have listed above  (P.S. you can see that the blush on my cheeks becomes a bit glowy when the light hits my cheeks – the last pic was taken in the night in front of lights, please ignore my bag behind 😋) 

  
Overall, I hope this post was useful for you people out there and I hope it inspires you to try on make-up and feel dressed up and festive about yourself during special occasions or even daily to office!! I am not suggesting going overboard, but believe me a little of it will make you feel good 😃 

Oh and I hope you guys had fun reading! Take care you all!😊

A note from Shilpa : Deepika has explored makeup from scratch in a span of couple of years and I thought she ll be able to teach all girls (like me) who want to start their makeup journey but just don’t know where to start it! Recently I saw this picture on Deepika’s wall on Facebook and that’s when this guest post idea struck me and we got talking and the rest I would like to grandly claim is history!   

Plum Cosmetics Giveaway! 

A couple of weeks back I had reviewed the Plum NaturStudio All-day-wear Kohl Stick (read review here) And Plum found the response so overwhelming that they decided to host a giveaway on my blog! This giveaway runs for seven days (winners get announced with the post next Monday) Giveaway is open through my Instagram profile, blog and Facebook profile. 

All you got to do is follow my blog/Facebook page Click here/Instagram profile (@frillthrills_fashionblog/Instagram) and subscribe to the Plum mailing list here. Once you’ve done that comment in this blog post saying done and add one home remedy beauty hack you follow for your eyes and skin. One lucky winner gets a NaturStudio All day Wear Kohl and the second and third winners get the Choco-Latte creamy body wash and Choco-Latte luxuriant body lotion respectively! 

Giveaway open to Indian Residents only! Do enter and stand a chance to win these amazing products 😊 have a nice week ahead !!