Get Your Glitter On!

Aloha Bloggerinos,

As October looms ahead, I think we are well and truly into Autumn. For me, this is the most magical time of the year. Trees turn golden, you get to treat yourself to lovely coloured gloves and scarves, dig out your winter clothes that you forgot about, turn on the cosy lamps and drape thick blankets all over your lounge.

I also tend to feel more attractive in the Autumn. I think this is because I feel confident wearing dark purple nails and dark smokey eyes, rather than the lemons and pastels that summer tends to suggest to us. With the festive season (by far the best time of the year) on the horizon, I also feel that is it perfectly acceptable to smatter yourself in glitter. Yes, SMATTER!

There seems to be a bit of a glitter issue though which I would like to address. Yes, children love glitter, yes, 12 year olds love a load of sparkle at a school disco, and yes, I know the rule 'less is more'. That's all very well and good but what if you really happen to like large amounts of glitter? Should you stick to the so called rules and have a light shimmer over your collar bone or a dust of luster on your eyelids? I say NO!

If like me, you love the sparkly goodness and feel repressed by the very un sparkly rules, panic not. These rules aren't set in stone like the old testament, it's just what people say. Who bloomin' well cares?!! If you can stand tall and have confidence, get your glitz on!!

There are many ways you can incorporate glitter into your look and here are my top tips on how:

1. EYES- There are quite a few ways you can go about this one.

You can apply whatever look you were going for with matte or shimmer finish and then with a small, dry brush, dab on a little bit of sparkle in the outer corner of you eyes to give a bit of joosh.

These are a selection of my glitter pigments. Clockwise from the top : Too Faced-blue irridescant, MAC- gold, Topshop- Pink, NewLook- Silver holographic.  

You could do your 'look' and then either over regular eyeliner or in leau of, apply a bit of glitter eyeliner. I have tried many a glitter eyeliner, right from the cheap 2true brand (£1.95 per item), to Ubran Decay (£15 per liner). In my shamefully extensive experience, the best brands for this are Collection 2000 an 2True. I found some of the more expensive brands to have a very thin brush and sparse glitter flecks, as opposed to Collection 2000 that has a dense line of glitter particles and a wide variety of colours.

My Collection 2000 liners.

My favourite, is the 'all over' glitter effect. I have a nifty little thing from Collection 2000 that is double ended (ooer missus). One end is glitter and the other is an adhesive gel. I apply black eyeliner, and then cover the lid (but not the eyeliner) with the gel. Then, using a small dry brush, I apply glitter thickly over the area. The gel allows the glitter to stick to every bit of skin so it looks dense. I do this look with my MAC Gold glitter pigment that I bought from a LE range last Autumn. The best picture I could find of this look is from a night out so please excuse my idiotic pose, I was a little worse for wear!! To add the extra wow factor to this look, I wear false lashes too. What I will say, is this is a rather full on look, so it's not for daywear!

2. LIPS- Like eyes, lips are a very versatile face part for cosmetics.

To add some lip sparkle then the obvious choice is either a glittery lipgloss, shimmery lipstick or a mixture of both. I would suggest you try sticking glitter pigment to your lips though, it would be a bit weird and scratchy. If you were feeling adventurous you could try adding your fav colour of glitter pigment to clear lipgloss but I would ensure the glitter is very finely milled so it's not 'bitty'. Pretty much all brands will have a few sparkly lipglosses to choose from. I love the MAC Dazzleglass ones the very most because I find them to be sheeny shiny on my lips rather than gloopy poopy. I also have a regular lipglass in 'Oyster Girl', which is a nudey pink with a slight gold shimmer. This is nice as it's subtle, a good choice for the office I find.

If you have a particular favourite lipstick but want to glitz it up, just add a layer of clear sparkly gloss and your away. Beware though, if you are doing sparkly eyes, try not to do sparkly lips (unless you REALLY want too) as that can look a bit much even by my standards!!

 

3. HAIR. This is not an area of sparkle that I personally pop into, but for fancy dress, I have been known to go there.

The easiest way to glizt up your hair is with Glitter Hair Spray. This is just hairspray that as you spritz it, particles of glitter shoot out. You can buy all sorts of varieties with different coloured sparkles and you can pick them up in places like Boots, Superdrug or Savers. I don't personally own any glitter hairspray because I tend to go glitzy on my eyes or lips. However, last year for a Halloween Party (please see embarrassing story at the bottom), I wanted to put glitter in my hair but didn't want to fork out for the spray that I would never use again. Instead, I generously added regular spray and then with my fingers in a 'pinch of salt' fashion, threw on some of my glitter pigment. Big mistake! looked good for the do, took about 6 washes to get out! Use this technique with extreme caution.

4. BODY. Glitter on the body is all about quantity control. Too much and you look like a mirror ball, too little and it's not worth it.

For big nights out (oh how I miss those now I have ze bun in ze oven), I like to add a bit of shimmer to bare arms, shoulders and collar bones. For this look you have to pick your glitter wisely. In my experience, the best ones are very, very finely milled. If you have big chunks of glitter wacked across your cleavage, you run the risk of looking a little cheap, and I imagine this is not the look you were going for.

To achieve the shimmery body look you can go a few different directions. I personally use my glitter pigments and a large fluffy brush and simply dust them onto the skin. By using a brush you can control how much you are applying and build it up as you see fit. 

You can buy many cream based products that you apply like a lotion and in the mixture there is sparkle which will then be applied to the skin. I have used these previously but found them to either be drying or sticky. This is obviously a matter of personal opinion though.

Another route I take with body shimmer is Lush's GlitterBug massage bar. It smells divine, is under £3 (I think) and applies tiny blue/iridescent sparkles to your skin. Note to self: buy a new one/locate old one asap.

Hopefully you have enjoyed my glitter tips and haven't slipped into an eye strain induced coma because of the length! Mwahaha! 

What are your tippy-pips or are you all together anti-glitz?

Toodlepip!

xx

Little story as promised:

Do you remember my niece Issobelle? Well last year, I was having her a lot after school and spending lots of lovely time with her. My Auntie Jackie asked me if I wanted to bring her to a fancy dress halloween party near where she lives, with her kids and her friends kiddlywinks too. I said yes and was really excited because I LOVE dressing up! I dressed Issobelle in her princess outfit and then set to sorting myself out. I wasn't working and didn't want to shell out for an outfit so decided to pop my creative cap on and see what i could do.

I decided to go put on a mish mash of mental clothes, do crazy mental makeup and huuuggeeee glittery dragged-through-hedge-backwards hair, I was a FASHION VICTIM, taadaaa! I thought I looked AMAZING!! Even Issobelle said "wow!".

Feeling pretty confident we went to the par-tay that was being held at a local Toby Carvery (so please bare in mind regular members of the public were also there, along with the mothers of the kiddlywinks). 

Issobelle and I walked in, feeling pretty cool as Princess and the Fashion Victim, only to turn the corner and feel horror to the pit of my stomach. NONE, and I mean NONE of the other grown ups were in fancy dress!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was stood there in a crazy mish mash of clothes and mental makeup and they were all in the restaurant like normal women!!!!!! Cuuurrrrrr-rringe!

xxxxx