Just wing it. Life, eyeliner, everything

Well, hello everyone! It's been a while hasn't it?!

I'll be honest, I decided to spend the past month really enjoying the company of friends, and going out, whilst we still could. As most of you will know by now, Boris Johnson announced yesterday that as of Thursday the 5th of November, England will be going back into a national lockdown. So, although I've missed writing on here, I'm glad I've managed to enjoy the past month or so going out and about and making some special memories.

I've got a lot of content stored up for blog posts, and thought I'd start with a look that I enjoyed creating the most! This post is going to be all about the classic black eyeliner. As the title says; 'Just wing it. Life, eyeliner, everything'.

As my friends and family can vouch for, I'm a real liquid eyeliner kind of girl. However, over the past few months, I've seen more and more people lean towards a pencil eyeliner when creating their smokey eye look. This, of course, got me intrigued!

As I've said before in other blogs, I find platforms such as Instagram and YouTube a great resource when looking for something new. On Instagram I tend to search for hashtags, so in this instance I typed in #pencileyeliner and also #cateyeliner. The number of results you get are thousands, sometimes millions! I tend to go by the top results, rather than by frequent. This allows you to review pictures, mostly by fellow MUA's, not only showcasing their pencil eyeliner of choice, but also how they create their looks.

There was definitely a favoured popularity around a pencil eyeliner by Charlotte Tilbury. Now, I have a number of products from this brand, so know the quality is good however, I've never purchased any eye makeup from them before. This is where YouTube always comes in handy! I always read product reviews before purchasing something, and watch several different YouTube videos. It allows you to see the product in action and helps with your decision on whether to invest or not.

As you can probably tell from the picture above, I decided to take the plunge and purchased the Charlotte Tilbury Classic eyeliner in Black.

Even though I received this eyeliner through the post on a Wednesday, I decided not to try it until the Saturday... this is extremely good self control on my part! Saturday morning couldn't have rolled round fast enough, and even though I was only going to a friends in the evening, I decided it was the perfect chance to go all out experimenting with a new smokey eye.

Following all the content review I did before purchasing this eyeliner, I knew it would work best blending it out using a soft brush. So, the first thing I did was prep my eyelids and applied just a gentle dusting of a neutral colour eyeshadow all over the lid. Then I completed a number of following steps:

- I started by using the eyeliner to line the top of my eyelids. When you first use the pencil it takes a while to soften. I decided to rub it a little on my hand to warm it up, this worked a treat! I also decided to slowly build this product up. It's always easier to add more than remove.

- Once I'd added the eyeliner to the top of my eyelids, I then created the wing effect. Again, I started off slowly and lightly and built it up.

- When I was happy with the amount of eyeliner, I got a soft, thin angled brush, and started blending it out. This product blends really well and creates such a soft, yet intense look.

- I then took the eyeliner and did the same along the bottom lash line. I feel this really helps create that smokey, cat eye effect. Remember, it's important to blend out the bottom lash line too.

- If you want a really intense finish, you can also add some to your waterline.

I finished off this look with some false strip lashes by Tatti Lashes in B*tch is Back, my all time favourite strip lashes! I also paired it with a soft nude lip, I didn't want to distract the eye makeup but having a bold lip. However, if you were going somewhere special for the evening, you could definitely pair this eye makeup with a red lip, (I might have to try this one day!).

I hope you liked the finished look (I was pretty chuffed with it), and let me know in the comments section below whether you prefer liquid or pencil eyeliner?

That's all from me this week, I promise it won't be such a long gap next time!

In the mean time, make sure you all stay safe and look after yourselves.

Love

Jesse Joy xx