Christmas party face and outfit of the night!!

Hello and a big festive, christmassy morning to you all!

Last night was my works Christmas party, and I wanted to share with you the look I went for! I have also been lucky not to have a hangover this morning! Yay!

So firstly what did I wear?

This dress came from Debenhams Red Herring. I really like how simple it is, but also looks quite dressy. I didn't like the original belt that came with it so I bought some cream ribbon and fashioned my own belt. At only £35 I was very pleased with this dress!

And what look did I go for with my make-up? I tried to keep it quite simple and 'English rose' with some bronzer applied over my neck and shoulders, and I concentrated on highlighting eyes and lips. I also had my hair done yesterday as well, so was pleased with my final look for the party!

With Flash

Without flash

Finally the tools I used to achieve this look:

• Bare Vitamins skin rev-er upper for a base under foundation
• Estee Lauder Double wear light
• Bare Minerals prime time for eyes
• Bare Minerals Flaunt eye shadow
• Bare Minerals Volumising mascara
• Bare Minerals eyeliner
• Vivo Gold Dust bronzer
• Bare Minerals Lip Gloss from the Cocktail Party set

I would love to know what you think about my Christmas party look!

If you're off to  Christmas party tonight have fun and stay beautiful!

Stace x

17th December 2011



My first ever Face of the Day!

My first ever Face of the Day!

Ok so I have finally braved it and done my first FOTD!!

I love reading all your FOTD's so thought it was time I did one. We have been trying out lots of products over the last few weeks and we thought it was about time to show you them put into practice!

So firstly here are the tools for the job!!

• Liz Earle Superskin moisturiser as base before foundation application.
• Bare Minerals Foundation and bisque concealer.
• Vivo Cosmetics baked blusher.
• Lumiere cosmetics amethyst eye pigment.
• Bare Minerals volumizing mascara.
• Make Up Academy lipstick.
• All the brushes are from my own collection of Bare Minerals and Body Shop.

And here is my finished face:

A close up for you of the eyes:

And a closer look at the lips:

I have really enjoyed using all these products, and most are now part of my everyday routine!

I am hoping to do some more of these now I have done the first one, and will hopefully bringing you some Christmas party FOTD's!! I am getting excited about Christmas already and will be getting the decs down from the lost this week!

Stay Beautiful!

Stace x

p.s. Mags has just returned from holiday, all tanned and relaxed, and will be back blogging soon!

28th November 2011

VIVO Cosmetics - the final face!

All week we have been sharing our thoughts on VIVO Cosmetics products, as well as showing you how we have used them on Stace's face, and today is the final day as we finish the look!

The final two products are the Bronzer Gold Dust which retails for approx £4 for 22g, and the Baked Bronzer in shade 2 which retails for approx £5 for 12g.

First impressions, the gold dust is huge! And we could tell from the glitter it will be an instant favourite this year at Christmas parties around the country.

You can see from the swatch how dazzling the gold is. The only disappointing thing is the glitter gold is only on the top surface of the letters and doesn't run all the way through. However it goes quite a long way and will probably last quite a while. We loved the grandness of this big palette, although it probably wouldn't make it into going out bags due to the size.

We had similar love for the baked bronzer as we did for the baked blush earlier in the week. Great consistency, lovely shimmer running through. Only concern from the swatch was would this be too dark for Stace's complexion?

As it turned out, you can be fairly liberal with the baked bronzer, as it is no where near as dark on the face as expected. We loaded the brush and gently swept the colour in circular motions around the face. We did this several times to build up the colour, as it is easier to add to the colour than take away. We used it all over the face, and it added a lovely gentle glow of someone who has just returned form holiday. The gold was not yellowing at all which is really important to ensure the natural look.

And here is the final 'flawless' finished face!

The gold dust we added right at the end of the makeover, imagining the taxi waiting to take you to the Christmas party and you literally sweep this over your face and any bare skin on the way out! Not too much was needed on the brush, and we worked it in a little bit to the skin to ensure a more natural look that would stay put all night. It's not too overpowering, but adds a great finish for events like Christmas parties - we can't wait to get it out in December!

Final thoughts on VIVO?

Mags - "A great range for the price tag. My favourite products were the baked blush and baked bronzer, not too strong and were able to build up the product gradually over the face. I also liked the primer and thought this had a great consistency, and will be using it again! My least favourite product was probably the highlighter, I just didn't think it looked natural"

Stacey - "VIVO is just what the high street has needed, a quality brand at an affordable price. I love the eyeshadow pallete, so easy to use and a long lasting impressive finish, I can't wait to try out some different colours. I also am very excited about the gold dust to finish my Christmas party look. I agree with Mags on the highlighter, not my favourite, but then am not used to wearing highlighter normally. I am looking forward to trying the rest of the eye range and the lip range."

We hope you enjoyed our VIVO week, we had great fun trying out the products and writing these blogs!

Have a lovely weekend and stay beautiful!

Stace & Mags x

VIVO Cosmetics week - part 4!

Tonight is is the turn of the eyes! And you know how much we love eye make-up at Beautiful You!

The eye palette from VIVO cosmetics, available at selected Tesco stores retails for approx £2.50 for three shades. Yes just £2.50, this is one of the biggest bargains of the range as you are getting three colours.

The one we have tried is Innocence - a palette of classic shades that ooze sophistication for soft and natural eyes.

The compact the eye shadows come from is a really good size, small enough to take on nights out. Included on the back is a great tutorial on how to make up the eyes as well. The shadows are moist, and very compact, not loose powder, indicating they will stick well to the eye lid.

As you can see from the above swatches, the colours are nice and natural, a good shimmer to them, but not so much that it is overpowering. These are the types of colours we would pick for a classic daytime look when at the office.

So now for application to Stace's eye!

Firstly we used the lightest colour and applied this to the whole lid, including right up the to the eyebrow to give a good base. This colour provided a solid base, and we would have felt comfortable wearing this colour alone for a day look.

The middle colour was then applied to the lower half of the eye lid. This colour was just dark enough to highlight the eye area, without making the face look drawn.

Finally we added the darkest colour in the palette, just to highlight the top of the eye nearest to the lashes. This is not as dark as it appears in the compact which is good as it is not too heavy for a day look.

Overall we were really impressed with the colours of this palette, the finished look was great and looked really natural. The colours blended really well.

A few negative things, the application was quite hard as you did need quite a lot of the product to build up the colour, however once you had done this it really did stay in place. We did get a bit of eyeshadow falling off during application but I think this was due to overloading the brush.

The brush that comes with the compact is not that robust, and we used our own brushes, but then we find that with the free brushes in high end eyeshadows as well. This also got us to thinking, do VIVO do brushes, so please let us know if they do!

Overall really like this product, and will be visiting our local Tesco to check out some of the more adventirous colours for Christmas parties, at that price it seems only right to try out a few more of the colours!

Next time we will be completing the look with baked bronzer and gold dust.

Stay Beautiful!

Stace & Mags x

VIVO cosmetics week - part 3!

Hi guys! Hope you're enjoying our VIVO week as much as we are. Today we will be looking at the VIVO baked blush in Rouge Shimmer, shade 4. This retails for approx £4 for 8g in selected Tesco stores.

The first thing you notice about this baked blush is it really is baked! It looks very similar to some high end products we have used before like Laura Geller. There is a lovely shine to the colour which hints at the highlighter being mixed into the product. Like similar products, you cannot really tell how much product is in there until you start using it, so not sure how long this would last.

The product has a good consistency, indicating it will stay on the face well once applied. We really liked this colour, and although it looks quite dark in the compact, you can see from the swatch that the colour is much lighter and more 'english rose'.

Stace's face with baked blush Rouge Shimmer applied

We applied the blush to the apples of the cheeks in light sweeping motions with a big blusher brush. This brought colour to the part of the face where the sun would hit, giving a lovely natural glow, perfect for this time of year.

This product is so lovely to use, and the final effect of the blush is one we were really happy with. Often blushes can produce a clown like affect that does not look natural and you would not feel comfortable wearing in public. This had a brilliant finish and we are looking forward to adding it to our daily make up routine.

With this product, the VIVO brand is really punching above its weight...and its price tag.

Join us next time as we look at adding colour to the eyes!

Stay Beautiful!

Stace & Mags x

VIVO cosmetics week part 2!

So yesterday we talked about primer and highlighter, today we are looking at the mattifying loose powder and the blush and highlighter duos from the VIVO cosmetics range.
For the next part of our make over on Stace, we used the mattifying loose powder. This retails for approx £3 for 9g.

The powder had a good consistency, but still loose enough to be picked up by the brush. It was a lot looser than some high street brands I have used before where you have to literally scrape the product out of the pot. It had a yellow colour to it which will be good for taking down the redness on the skin.

Hopefully you can see from the above picture the looseness of the powder and the colour. We applied the loose powder to Stace's face next after applying primer and highlighter. This was to reduce pore size, give a nice finish to the base, and leave us with the foundations to start building the colour on the skin. We applied this by pouring some into the lid and swirling it onto the brush. The product applied well and gave good coverage.

Face with mattifying loose powder

The finish was definitely matte, felt comfortable and took away any of the shine from the highlighter. We liked this product, but less is more and you don't want to use too much of it.

Next was the blush and highlighter duos. These are an amazing price at approx £2.40 for 7.2g, and you get two products in one!

Sweet Peach shade 3 and Sugar Candy shade 2

The Sweet Peach colour is good for the winter as it is quite subtle. The product really feels like it will stick to your skin. The consistency is where the product shows it is a cheaper brand, but then for this price that is what you would expect!

Sugar Candy is more of a Summer colour, and we loved the brightness of this shade. You don't want to use too much of this colour though, and less will probably be more. It would also look fab with a tinted gloss in the Summer.

Face with Sweet Peach

This was probably our least favourite out of the two, on Stace's face it just looked a bit bright and not very natural but this is probably down to skin tone, and the Sugar Candy colour was better suited to Stace's skin tone.



Face with Sugar Candy

Sugar Candy was our favourite colour. It was lovely and bright, but we would still use it in Winter to lift our spirits on dark and gloomy days. The product was really easy to apply, and with the added highlighter in the compact, these blushes are great for taking on nights out.

Final face with both blushes

These two products really worked well at building the colour onto the face, and we were impressed with the natural look that we were creating.

Visit tomorrow to find out the next stage in our VIVO face!

Stay Beautiful!

Stace & Mags x

Vivo Cosmetics week!

This week we thought we would do something different, and taking a break from our fave high end make-up brands, we are trying the new supermarket brand which has been taking the blogging world by storm 'VIVO' available from Tesco. Stace was lucky enough to win a twitter competition VIVO ran and won the make-up needed to create a flawless face. So what did we think??

We will bring you the different stages to create the perfect flawless face over the next week or so, and end with our conclusions on the brand.

First impressions of the brand when looking at the packaging were very promising, it didn't look cheap, and wouldn't look out of place next to some of the more expensive brands on our make-up table.

The first products we tried were the primer (Approx £6 for 25ml) and the highlighter (approx £3.60 for 50ml).

 

So first off the primer. This is one of the most expensive VIVO products. The product had a good consistency, very thick, and when we first tested it on the back of our hands, the results were no different to high end brands we have used- silky smooth hands!

The next product we tested was the highlighter. This felt slightly runny, and the hole the product comes out of is quite large, resulting in far more product than needed coming out, it also had a funny sheen to it.

Then we began to make-up Stace's face with the products. Before hand she had just cleansed and toned. The primer swept over the face easily, and only a little of the product was required. The product did not stick on the skin surface, instead soaking in leaving a lovely silky base perfect for the next layer of make-up. This felt like a very substantial base that would hold make-up in place.



Stace with primer on her skin



Next we applied the highlighter. As mentioned before it does come flying out and you really don't need a lot of this product. I love the idea of highlighters, especially as my skin gets older, but it does always feel like another extra step to the morning routine. The product applied easily to the face, and did not feel uncomfortable at all on the skin. It highlighted the skin well, and definitely made the skin look more radiant. There was a bit of a pink tinge to the product once it had settled on the face, and this may have been a result of using too much product. The photo shows excellently how it radiated the skin.



Stace with the highlighter on her skin

So far, so impressed with the brand VIVO! Stay tuned over the next few days to watch us build up the face with the rest of the products, and find out which products we loved the most!

Stay Beautiful!


Stace & Mags x

Vivo Cosmetics competition win!

This is not what I had planned to blog tonight, but I was too excited and had to share this with you rather than my scheduled blog.

A few weeks ago I entered a Vivo Cosmetics Twitter competition on my personal Twitter account @stace15 (follow for my non-beauty related ramblings). I love these Twitter comps as it really is as simple as retweeing the competition details, great coverage for the brands and gets people talking. Anyway, I actually won!! Yes little old me! Needless to say it made my week!

So how excited was I when I got home from work today to find a shiny package of Vivo cosmetics goodies:

Look at all my shiny new make up!!!

And yes another photo for added impact!

So what was included in my winnings?

• Highlighter
• Primer
• Gold dust bronzer
• Mattifying loose powder
• Baked blush
• Baked bronze
• Trio eyeshadow palette
• Blush with highlighter duo - Sweet Peach
• Blush with highlighter duo - Sugar Candy

The blogosphere has been swarming with talk of Vivo Cosmetics lately so I am so excited to be able to try out all these products and give them an honest review for you all to enjoy!

In the meantime, have any of you tried these cosmetics, and what do you think? Let us know @beautyu on Twitter.

Stay Beautiful!

Stace xxx