Monster High Monday: Gloom Beach Draculaura

Hello peeps, long time no speak! Hope you all had a good Christmas and are looking forward to the new year. 'Monster High Monday' has come later this week, purely because I haven't had time to edit the post until now. I still took the pics on Monday though, so we don't have to worry about renaming it 'Monster High Sunday' or something! This week the inspiration was the ridiculously beautiful 'Gloom beach' Draculaura.

Now I don't normally collect the Draculaura dolls, my sister does. She's a bit too 'childish' for me, however when the Gloom Beach one came out and looked this pretty, I had to have her. It's possibly one of my favourite makeup looks and I don't want to disappoint you, but I feel like I failed massively this week! Either I didn't get the application right, used the wrong products or more than likely, I'm just not as cute-as-a-button as this little pink skinned vampire! I'm again loving the change in eye colour (this time to lilac) though (top and bottom images).

Now her makeup is actually relatively simple (so it's twice as annoying that I mucked it up), with one eye colour (mauve), pale lips and a little pink blush. Seeing as this was Christmas Eve, I didn't add the heart to my cheek for fear of people thinking I was muddling my 'holidays'! Initially I thought her eyes were very smokey grey, but upon closer inspection realised they were indeed mauvey and all one colour, with an exaggerated sweep. I knew I had a very similar colour with the Karen Millen Eye Colour Powder in Lavender 295. It's been a favourite of mine for years, although I've never used quite so much of it at one time (I usually confine it to the crease or just the lids up to the crease). It looks much more sheer in these images (with the flash) than it did in real life and I was a little sceptical about whether or not so much of it suited me! I swept it outwards and also smudged it along the lower lashline like Draculaura.

I wanted to create a really defined outer edge, so placed a piece of card, at an angle where I wanted the line to finish (you could use a credit card or something similar), applying my shadow up to and over it and much like the 'masking tape' method when painting walls; when the card is removed, you are left with a clean, defined line. Sadly my camera doesn't do it justice in the close-ups : (

My new eyeliner which I've completely fallen head over heels for is YSL waterproof long wear pencil, which is the blackest colour I have ever used, it photographs extremely well as you can see. When I first started using this, I feared it would smudge because it was so slick, but it's absolutely brilliant! I also added L'Oreal SuperLiner in Carbon Black for the flick. My mascara is YSL Shocking.

On my face I'm wearing YSL (again!) Le Teint Touche Eclat in BR10 with a little Illamasqua Rich Liquid foundation in 115 as a concealer under the eyes and finished with ELF Studio HD Powder in Translucent. I used Milani Powder Blush in Pink Craze, which is a very light pink on the cheeks.

I fell apart when it came to the lips. I was sure I knew a combo to get super cute, light mauve-nude lips. I'm pretty sure I've even featured it on the blog before, but I couldn't for the life of me recall the products I used. I ended up using a combination of things and in the end a base of ELF Matte Lip Color in Tea Rose, with MAC Cremesheen lipstick in Restrict over the top to lighten (it's almost a light grey), then added Mac Cremesheen Glass in Ever So Rich, a glossy pale pink gloss over the top. I wasn't 100% happy with the result, but had tried so many combinations, I was losing the will to live!

All in all, I wasn't too happy with what should have been a simple enough look and one that used colours that are normally right up my street. I feel I didn't quite capture the 'smokey eyes with pale lip' look (my lips looked quite dark and the eyes not smokey enough). That evening I added a little ArtDeco eyeshadow in 02, blending into the crease and softened that outer line and it looked a bit better. How do you think this (tamer than last week) look went this week? We'll see what I can come up with on Monday!