Bank Holiday Beauty

Hey, hi, welcome! I know this post is a couple of days late however I've been recovering from a boozy bank holiday! Whoopsie. (Always drink responsibly)
 With bank holiday comes the peer pressure from your friends to get absolutely wasted and of course they just make you put on a nice, dress blast music and force those jager bombs down your throat - not self inflicted at all!
 A lot of people hit the town as early as thursday through til monday however myself and my pals went out on Saturday and Sunday.  We had a more causal pub type setting on the Saturday and went clubbing on the Sunday. We made tons of new, funny memories and danced the weekend away!

Being an utter makeup maniac, my favourite part is planning the face of the evening, the curial lashes or no lashes decision. What lipstick will I wear? Smokey or subtle? You know the drill.

On Saturday I opted for wavy hair, a slightly smokey eye paired with a nude lip and light contour. I didn't actually get a selfie that night so I've had to crop out my friends from this picture but hopefully you can see the type of look I was going for.

For this look, I used Esteè Lauder double wear foundation (I reviewed this foundation here http://writeaboutbeauty.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/estee-hoarder.html ) with Collection concealer to highlight my under eyes and T zone. I then used the Sleek brow kit on my eyebrows and used the eyeshadow from this duo set in the crease of my eyes and blended it out. For liquid eyeliner I glided Collections black liquid eyeliner pen along my lash line of my upper lids. I then grabbed the colossal mascara from Maybelline and blinked on the wand a few times before applying Eyelure eyelashes in number 080. Under my eyes I used an angled brush and took the brown eyeshadow as previously mentioned and swept it along the lash line. On my cheeks I used Benefit's Hoola bronzer to contour in the hollows with M.A.C's blusher in peaches on the apples. I then went over the top of my cheek bones and under eye with M.A.C's soft and gentle mineralise skin finish. For lipstick I used Essense lipliner in nude and an Essence nude lipstick. 

Sunday was more of a full on heavy make up look as we were going clubbing so it was much more suitable, and I love any excuse to go wild with my make up brushes!

Eyes closed makeup.

I can only apologise again for the poor quality of the photograph but here I went for much more of a voluminous hair look with bigger girls and a fuller face of makeup

I used pretty much the same products here, I just applied them differently. This is a great skill to acquire as it stops you spending a ton of money on lots of products, as in most cases you can switch up your makeup look by the heaviness in which you apply. The differences I made here include mixing the double wear foundation with Rimmel Match Perfection in the shade 103 true ivory. The mixture of the two products created a much more glowy and thicker consistency. I set the foundation with Rimmel's Stay Matte powder in 003, when using powder be sure to only use a light dusting of it so that you don't take away the glow of the foundation. 

For my eyes I used an unbranded eye shadow palette it just says "colour couture" on the front (sorry for the lack of detail, this palette was a gift and I'm not sure where it was from). However you can use any brand so long as it includes dark browns, greys and blacks. I didn't use a base colour, just the foundation I'd put on my face; I went straight in with a crease brush from Real Techniques with a dark brown, I then applied dark grey tones. Once they had blended I took a black with the same brush and stroke it into the outer corners of my eyelids. Once that blended, I took a lighter brown and blended slightly above where I had previously applied. This method creates the shadowed look and allows the eyeshadow to appear much better put together than the appearance of chalky unblended eyeshadow. If you accidentally use too much light brown and lose the darkness of the black in the corner just slowly and lightly apply a little more black on the outer corners (be careful when using black eyeshadow, it can be make or break!)

I then used the Collection black liquid eyeliner and created a winged cat eye look and applied the same false lashes. This time I popped a little mascara on before the lashes as well as after.

The contour on my face was using the same products as before I just applied more bronzer and a little more blusher. 

Finally, for the nude lip, I used that same essence nude liner but used a mixture of nude lipsticks. By using different shades of the same colour you can create shadows with the darkest colour and highlight with the lightest colour.

Eyes open makeup

And they are my bank holiday beauty looks! What did you get up to over the Easter break/ bank holiday? I hope this is useful to some of you who struggle when deciding what look to go for. My top tip would be; when going for darker, dramatic eye looks, always go for a nude lip! If you are opting for a subtle eye look, go for a bright or dark lip.

Thanks for reading, Hayley x

What do you want to be?

For as long as I can remember, this is the most commonly asked question to exist. I can remember being a little girl with piggy tails and cute dresses, and the biggest concern I had would be what to name my new dolls (this took a lot of thought and consideration, usually based on my favourite Spice Girl/Girls Aloud member or princess), what I wanted for my dinner and trying to run around care free without falling and grazing my knees (although the worst part was always when you landed on your hands and they scraped along the pavement whilst you flew).
 Even at such a tender, vulnerable age, family and teachers would say "What do you want to do when you're older, Hayley? What do you want to be?" and the imaginative little soul I was would conjure up responses like "A singer!" as I jumped around belting out either a 60's love ballad, any of Cher's album (Believe and If I could turn back time being firm faves) or Lady Marmalade - I had a VERY varied taste of music. But whatever the genre, I loved the idea of performance and telling a story through song.
 Then when I would be asked again, and again, and again, over the years I had decided I was going to be a teacher, a dancer, an author, a hairdresser, a princess, a tennis player (I remember being adamant about this one and I haven't a clue where it came from, I was far from sporty), and the list went on and on. Back then, being so young and sweet, not feeling restricted and being around other children who were going to be spiderman, a footballer or a ballerina were the best days of my life. When no one would say "you can't do that", "oh that's a bit tricky Hayley".
 But then as we grow, and as we age, this question is asked more frequently but the responses you get in return get more and more critical. Now I'm not for one minute saying to become spiderman and physically live the day to day life of a fictional character is realistic but even careers you hear in day to day conversation, people tell you are impossible.
 For the last four or five years, I've wanted to be a barrister, this has been the aim. I had confident, clear visualisations of myself in a court room as a strong advocate and achieving justice for people. I studied law at A-Level and I'm currently in my second year of my law degree at the University of Law. In fact, I have an exam in two days time and really ought to be going over my revision notes instead of rambling on a blog. However my recent frame of mind and revision mode gave some sort of epiphany. I realised that over my journey of university my confidence has been on a downward spiral and at its lowest, I found myself saying "I can't do that" more times than I ever have in my life.   Law is a competitive field and I've met some wonderful people along the way, but also some
not-so-wonderful people who influence their negative mindset upon their peers, to a point where I began to believe these people. I've never been afraid of a challenge and it saddens me to notice my downfall of dedication recently.
 The point I'm trying to make here is, regardless of whether I still want to be a barrister, or a writer, or even a hairdresser, the question "What do you want to be" and the answers we give back become more and more apprehensive as we grow up. I know myself I have lied to people with my answers because I'm worried what response I might get, because I might sound too ambitious and need to be more realistic. Or I've felt a need to say a certain career because of the pressure of the necessity to be successful.
So rather than concentrating on what I wanted to be, I'm working on who I want to be. Because no matter what career path I end up taking, how much money I earn, or how many knock backs I receive, I want to be the kind of person that encourages others to achieve their goals. I've experienced the words and looks off negative people, and allowed them to effect my mindset and I know that I never want to do that to somebody else. I know that I want to be a friendly, approachable and loving person. I know that I want to see the world, care for my family and make memories with my friends. I want to spread positivity amongst people, become as charitable as I can, help the less fortunate. I have so many little goals which aren't feasible through what grades I ascertain or determined by the job I choose.

I'm aware this is a long, ramble of a blog so a huge round of applause to anyone who read all of this, but I needed to write down these thoughts somewhere!

Thanks for reading, Hayley x