Guest Post | How to Balance your Make-Up with your Hair

Chantalle's Note: Hey guys, so I thought I would do something a little different around here by having a guest post. This post is written by Abby from My Hair Care. I've never really posted much about hair care on my blog and I thought what better way to start doing that than by having a guest post from a gal who truly knows her stuff! Read on to find out more and go check out her blog while you're at it!

Makeup is a cosmetic tool designed to enhance a woman’s facial features. The key to looking good with makeup is, therefore, choosing the right makeup to complement your natural features. If you can master that, you can effectively conceal imperfections while showcasing your best assets. One of the most neglected aspects of wearing makeup is building harmony with your hair. Most women focus solely on the skin tone. However, being able to strike a balance with your natural hair colour and makeup will help you achieve a look that stands out in the crowd. To make your life easy, you can follow this easy guide to finding the right makeup according to your hair type or colour:

Black Hair

Women with dark hair often have dark eyes. Hence, it makes any shade work with this kind of look and women with this hair colour can pull it off just fine. You can therefore play with darker shades and lighter shades depending on your mood. The best look to flatter your dark hair, though, consists of sheer plum pigments. Invest in makeup products that are of jewel tones and opaque plums. A sexy smokey eye will give more attention to your beautiful dark eyes. But you can also sport bold colours on your lip, such as red or deep plum.

Brunette

There are several shades of brunette so you need to identify your specific hair colour in order to achieve harmony with your makeup choice. For women with dark brown shades, pick makeup that will bring forth radiance to your skin and hair. Choose a bronzer with hints of pink or peach to give a nice glow to your skin. To be on the safe side, go for neutral or nude shades. But if you are going for an edgy, bold look, play up with darker hues like purple or blue as well.

Red Hair

Warm neutral tones like peach and copper are very flattering for women with red hair. If you want to go for bold makeup, though, you want to keep that on the eyes and opt for something neutral for the lips (or at least something light). There is no need to match your eye shadow palette with your hair colour, though. You can mix two to three shades for your eye shadow. In fact, you can opt for a contrasting shade to make your eyes pop even more.

Blonde Hair

The most basic rule for blonde haired women to live by when finding the right makeup is to avoid matte nudes. This type of makeup shade can create a washed out effect to your look, which is not flattering on your light skin and hair tone. Instead, go for something that will make your hair and skin colour pop, such as sheer berry cheeks and lips. A good bronzing product can also help to infuse more colour into your face. For your eye makeup, choose an ivory, taupe, blue or grey coloured palette.

Have you given consideration into your hair when choosing what makeup to wear?  

About the Author:

Abby is a writer and social media marketing manager for My Hair Care. If you want to get an additional resource for hair styling, hair and beauty information, visit their blog at www.myhaircare.com.au/blog

New In | EOS Lip Balm

EOS Lip Balms in Sweet Mint, Summer Fruit, Strawberry Sorbet, and Honeysuckle Honeydew

I first saw these weird looking balls on Kim Kardashian's Instagram a while back (not gonna lie I have little obsession with Kimmy K) and to say I was intrigued was an understatement. Like many other beauty bloggers I have a slight (read: major) problem with lip balm. I  have 1 if not 3 just about everywhere scattered amongst my room and handbags. At the moment I have about 4 lip balms on my bedside table, 5 in my work bag and 3 in my weekend bag, and god only knows how many in my make-up drawer. So when I finally realised that these were actually lip balms, lets just say it was my mission to get these in my possession on the ASAP. 

But like many great and wonderful things that exist in beauty land, they were not readily available in Australia (what's new right?). Well, that was all until my latest visit to Costco. If you live in Australia and you live near one of these and haven't been to one you are seriously depriving yourself, like seriously. Woolworths and Coles have nothing on this place! Anyway, I saw a 4 pack of these cute little balms in the toiletries isles for I think about $15 and of course I had to purchase them. As far as I know and feel free to correct me if I am wrong, this is the only store that I know of that stocks EOS products. 

EOS (or Evolution of Smooth) claim that these are the lip balms that make you smile, which I guess is kinda true due to the way you have to apply it. At first I found it a bit awkward but the best way to apply these is to smile and run them across your lips or else you look like you're going to eat them if you try them any other way (well I did anyway). EOS also claim that the lip balms are 100% natural and packed with shea butter, Vitamin E and jojoba oil leaving lips super soft and sensationally smooth. These are great for chapped and dry lips, especially for us Aussie girls going into Winter.

I love these balms because they are quite fun to use and are super cute to whip out of your hand bag and apply while on the go. My only problem is that they taste quite nice and I find myself licking them off before they can really do anything with my lips. Other than that, they are a nice addition to my collection but I don't find them to be particularly amazing at moisturising my lips and I have other balms that do the job much better. 

Have you tried EOS lip balms? 

Chantalle x

My Skin Story

Hey guys, I know I haven't posted in a couple of few weeks and I guess you can say I was a little bit reluctant. I've been planing to do this post for quite some time now and I have even had my photos set and all ready to go but I just couldn't bring myself to write it, but at the same time I didn't want to post anything else instead. You see, this post is slightly different. It doesn't really mention any beauty products and it isn't a review nor is it a wishlist. This post for me is very personal as it is about something that I've never really talked about with people, except those select few I am really close with. I guess you could say I was hesitant to share it with you all not because I am embarrassed but because I don't really talk about it in general. It's one of those things that I used to get quite snappy about if my mum or another family mentioned it and is still of some concern to me (though definitely not on such a large scale). If you haven't already guessed I am talking about my skin.

As I have briefly mentioned in some of my other blog posts I've been preparing a few posts regarding skin care but I didn't feel right posting anything as of yet until I fully explained my skin situation. As we all know everyone's skin is different and what might work for me might not work for you, and vice versa something that works for you most definitely might not work for me. My skin is a pesky and picky little thing sometimes. I've also mentioned my skin type on the odd occasion. At the moment I can say that my skin is oily, congested and blemish prone. Though it used to be so much worse (ask anyone that knows me personally and they will agree). So strap in ladies and gents, I'm not going to say it was gory but it definitely wasn't pretty. I probably should post before and after photos for you all to get a better understanding of my skin but my god I am so not ready to do that. I am quite content with my skin now but looking at old photos makes me more than cringe.

My skin dilemmas started when I was 14 years old and like any young girl in high school having skin issues it's something you definitely don't need at that age. It started out with small white heads across my forehead and while that was tolerable (to an extent) my problems really started when I began to develop really bad acne across my cheeks, nose, neck and chin. When I say bad acne I mean those big horrible one that were so painful touch, to those unsightly puss filled ones that you were told to never pop but did anyway (and I so regret that now). Gore aside, I can safely say that I had horrible skin. It was so frustrating for me too because I was someone who ate fairly healthy, drank a lot of water, exercised and went to bed at a reasonable time. But with such bad skin you can't help but feel dirty and feel like you did something wrong in regards to your hygiene. Looking back now, I know it was mostly based on my hormones and not my cleaning habits but having bad skin just makes you want to hide.

I also probably tried everything on the market. I tried Proactiv (which did nothing for me), various pills, saw various dermatologists and used almost every type of acne skin care in the market. Somethings would work but then my acne would just come back worse than ever. By the time I was 17 it was honestly a battle I thought I could never win and I thought it was just something I had to learn to deal with. It wasn't until I was around 19 and had saved up some money that I was able to afford some more expensive skin clinics. This is when I started various facial cleaning procedures, skin peels, facial cleaning and microdermabrasion (google it, it can't really explain aha). It set me back quite a lot of money but I am so glad I tried it as it was the only the thing that was ever able to clear my skin. My dermatologist also introduced me to a whole range of products that I had never tried before but worked like nothing else.

So here I am two years on with skin that I am not entirely happy with (but really who is?) but not embarrassed about and can face the world without make up (sometimes). I just wanted to share this with you all so you have some idea of what my skin is like now and then and when I recommend products for acne/blemish prone skin, I truly stand by them because honestly my skin is so darn picky only a select products work!! Sorry for the massive ranty story telling type post I hope I didn't bore you to tears (ha).

So some posts you can now look forward to in the near future are cleansers, face masks, spot treatments and various gels and lotions that I swear by that work for acne/blemish prone, congested and oily skin. As well as make up for oily and blemish skin and how to deal with these skin problems. If you don't have skin like mine consider yourself blessed but if that pesky little pimple (or group of) pops up, know I'll have some advice waiting for you here.

Until then,

Chantalle x