The Contour Kits Hype!

So since last year the hype of "contouring" hit social media with a bang! 'Contouring' is a beauty method that involves "carving" the face with a darker shade of foundation or powder - creating the illusion of more defined cheekbones, a slimmer nose, shorter nose, slimming the face, temporarily getting rid of a unwanted double chin and it's also used on the body for creating cleavage, abs etc - it's been used in the industry for years! Even Marylin Monroe's Make-Up Artist contoured her nose to make it look more narrow (she had her nose done and they said it still wasn't small enough so that's where contouring came to the rescue!)

using Sonia as my muse.

(This type of contouring is used for photo shoots and red carpet events)

Contouring isn't a new thing for people who have been in the industry for years, it's just become popular to the world because of social media, all the pictures and videos you see being posted on the Internet. I want to explain (my own thoughts) the types of contouring products you can get to use on yourself every day, I don't mean you have to spend two hours every morning drawing lines all over your face, Contouring is meant to be quick, easy, yet effective. If I could do it at the age of 18 with no social media pictures (I would have 15 minutes to get ready for college every morning) so can you! I would use a cheap eye shadow that was COOL toned and a shade darker than my skin to shade the sides of my nose and the tip, a little dust on the hollows of my cheeks too - in 5 minutes my contouring was done, I instantly had a smaller nose and high cheekbones!

Many companies out there have taken advantage of this contouring hype and created contour kits - but do we REALLY need those? do we need all 6 to 8 shades? Yes if you're a Make-Up Artist maybe, but I know of many Make-Up artists in the industry that don't store these contour kits in their make-up kit because there's either products that work better, just as good and they save more kit space. I have used almost every new contour kit out there, powder to cream to those contouring sticks, to realise what makes these so different to concealers and foundations? these companies have just stuck the word "contour" on anything so we buy them, it's the hype, the IT thing, we all want it!

I recently purchased the Laura Mercier contour kit, the shades are perfection, the consistency is heaven and I love how they glide on, but I realised the staying power of this product is not the best, I used it for weeks and I was really disappointed, it melts off after four hours and if you have oily skin it's not the best. People will say set it with powder contour but how many of us have the time to layer our makeup for work, school, college etc? not everyone is a professional Make-Up Artist with a whole day to do make-up and touch up. I decided to write this post to tell people out there you don't need to spend a ton of money on these hyped kits that have contour written on them when you can use any cream foundation or powder that's cool toned and a shade or two darker than your skin.

Many of us probably already have concealers in our make up bags that are a few shades darker because we use them for the summer or we got matched wrong - use those to practise your contour! I will give you a few examples of products that you can use to contour. I prefer cream concealers because they are quick to blend out, make sure they are cool toned - they help mimic colours of the natural shadows on our faces. (check out my post about cool and warm tones if you want to know how they are supposed to look.)

Fave products to contour with - that don't have the word contour on the packaging!

Laura Mercier Camouflage Concealer SC8

It has a warm and cool side - the warm shade is perfect for correcting and the cool is a great contour shade.

Milani Secret Cover Concealer Stick

lovely make-up brand with great products and the shade range for these are great, some cool toned concealer sticks that are affordable.

Cover Girl - TruBlend Fixstick Concealer 

love the tones and the easy use!

LA Girl Cosmetics - HD PRO Conceal

These concealers come in many colours, Love them for contour because it already has a brush applicator! 

Motives Color Perfection Quads

My most used, it's meant to be a foundation but I was one of the first Make-Up Artists on Instagram to use this for contour early last year. love the shades and consistency!

I'm not against contour kits, I have a fave too but for women who love to wear make-up you shouldn't have to break the bank to find the right beauty product. You can still be in trend but you don't have to follow what everyone else is using. Try any of these products and I know you will LOVE at least ONE, they save space in your makeup bag, easy to carry, pack and the staying power of these is much better because they are a concealer formula :)

I hope this helped some of you, I try my best to explain everything without going on and on. I don't always use high end products, I love to experiment with different brands just so I can give my feedback. If you have any confusion about shade picking be sure to check out my post where I explained all of that including powder contour products,

love, Fyza x

Read More

Possibly the best brushes you could own!

Hey guys, hope you're all well. I've been trying a bunch of beauty related products lately and usually wait about two months max depending on the product before I review it. As a beauty lover and Make-up Artist we have to have the right tools, I have been raving about Wayne Goss brushes for 3 weeks now, I even took them with me to fashion week (had to mark each one, ha!) I'm going to tell you guys why these brushes are worth every penny (I'm not just saying this because I'm a huge fan of his and have been for as long as I can remember)

If you follow me on Instagram and take a look at the most recent photos I have posted of my work you will realise a difference in my application of Make-up and that's because of these brushes. On Instagram people are always asking "what foundation, what concealer?!" or "what contour?" it's not always about the products it's more about how you choose to use them and what tools you use with the products.

Amazing quality and they look pretty too!

My favourite have been the eyeshadow brushes, you can tell how much effort has been put into designing each brush, so precise, the hairs are soft and they blend your shadows together beautifully. My favourite one from the smaller brushes is the brush 08 - it's tiny and it's SO good for precision, I use it to get eyeshadow closest to the bottom lash line, to tight line and to fill in eyebrows and create those natural looking "hairs" with brow powder. 

Taped and marked the brushes so they don't get mixed with others!

Everyone asks me about contour! I have started to use a powder only and the most light-weight brush for this is brush 14, it's so light, feathery, gives the most natural contour hollow without the harsh obvious line, fits right into the hollows of the cheeks, it doesn't make the foundation or concealer move at all because of the way it has been created - the shape and length of the brush hairs.

I love the simplicity of these brushes, the way they are not only for make-up artists. They make applying make-up so much easier and I did my own research on these to find they are 100% cruelty free, natural hair bristles (this is why they are SO soft and feel like heaven on the skin) and hand crafted! I love how he just didn't get any old brushes made and stuck his name on them, you can tell that there was a lot of thought gone in to this, he is an artist and you can tell from using his brushes. I've always used a mixture of brushes and recently I have found myself picking at them only. They look so good on your vanity, in your brush belt and I LOVE taking them out on shoots. 

I use brush 20 to smoke out colours on the lash line, brush 15 to apply powder highlight, the white holiday brush to dust face powder and bronzer lightly. The brushes pick up the right amount of product, especially when you are lightly dusting some loose powder to set your makeup.

Here are some of the looks I created using only Wayne Goss brushes - They are available to purchase on www.beautylish.com 

This blog post is my own opinion.

Fyza xxx

Read More

A tan really completes a make-up look

We have been obsessed with tanning since we were around 13/14 because we live in England and there is barely any sun here and we look so washed out! For years I have been trying to find a decent fake tanning product that didn't make me look like an oompa lumpa or something that wasn't expensive. I've tried every tanning product you can think of and Fake Bake was my fave but it was really pricey. Thank god we discovered this tanning brand called Million Dollar tan, it smells amazing and leaves the most beautiful natural glow! On Sonia we used the tanning lotion that builds up gradually, I applied it with a tanning mitt. There's a face tan and a body one, we saw results the next day. I loved the tan so much I decided to do a glow make-up look because I knew the make-up would look so effortless against the tan.

http://www.milliondollartan.com/

First we prepped Sonia's skin and used a Karuna face mask (Karuna skin care is amazing) The clarifying one. After I used Nivea moisturiser and let that sink in and then used Benefit porefessional primer. To conceal and highlight I used the Motives Cosmetics color perfection quad in medium dark to highlight under the eyes and the dark to contour the hollows of the cheeks, jaw, sides of the nose and sides of forehead I then applied foundation using my fingers I literally just 'Dot' Laura Mercier Moisture supreme foundation (Vanilla beige) all over her face and them using a damp Beauty Blender I blended the foundation out with the contour and highlight, I choose to do it this way because it gives a subtle finish and doesn't look took harsh.

To set the base I used Laura Mercier loose powder with a powder brush, I left some under the eyes so it could catch any fall out from when I do the eye-shadow. I primed the eyes with Too Faced Shadow Insurance. The first color I used on the lid was Pearl by motives, the inner tear duct color I used was Blizzard by Motives and using a pencil brush I did a subtle sort of cut crease using the color cappuccino blending it out. I then used a Bobbi Brown Eye Liner Brush to apply Little Black Dress Gel liner by Motives Cosmetics extending out only a little to create a slight wing. In the water line I used NYX jumbo pencil in Milk with a flat square eye brush to create more detail because I extended the white out to join with the black wing. I then swept off the under eye loose powder with a MAC #224 brush and with another flat square brush I got some black shadow and lightly pressed it on the bottom lash line. I curled her lashes and gave them a few coats of Tarte Cosmetics Mascara on top and bottom, finishing the lashes off with Huda Beauty lashes in Giselle on top and Alyssa on the bottom lash line.

These lashes are currently available at Sephora in the Middle East

        

I filled her brows with an angled brush using Anastasia Beverly Hills Brow Powder in soft brown. I set the Contour on her nose and cheek bones with Java contour powder by Anastasia Beverly Hills, dusted very lightly. Using Kiko Cosmetics eyeshadow in Light Gold I highlighted the cheekbones and brow bone (this product gives a beautiful glow!) On the apples of her cheeks using circular and stroke motion to apply Blush Baby Blusher by MAC blending it with the highlight.

I lined the lips with Urban Decay Wallflower lip liner and also filled the whole lip with this liner adding MAC creme d nude lipstick blending it together with the lip-liner using a lip brush. Lastly I sprayed some FIX + by MAC - this feels refreshing as well as taking away the cakey powdery look on your make-up and sets it!

I hope you enjoyed this post! I tried my best to remember every detail and product I used as well as linking you guys to each product so it's easier to find rather than searching for it. Majority of the links are for UK people :) xxx

Read More