At last, the Sigma E25 (travel size) give away!

Okay guys, it's finally here.

I've had a week to test it out, and I give it a full thumbs up. I wasn't sure how I would feel about it at first, I felt like travel size would mean tiny, and I couldn't find the travel size on the website, I didn't know what was going on with it. Then it arrived.

Sure, it's not as big as my Fraulein 38 brushes or my e.l.f brushes, but it's roughly the same size as my Benefit fluff shadow brush, and I love that brush. It certainly isn't a miniature, and for me the size is just fine.

The brush is thick and soft, different to most blenders I have that are smaller and round, the Sigma E25 is for a wider and more smooth blend than the e.l.f. blending brushes, when it has to be a perfect gradient. Some people liken it to the MAC 217 brush, sadly I wouldn't know because I can't afford MAC brushes!
I am of the mind that the more brushes you have in your collection the better, so I wouldn't say that it should replace any existing brushes you have, but I would say that it will make a great addition to your collection.

I dislike not being able to shop at the Sigma store in my own currency, which means having to worry about conversion rates and charges. It took me well over a week to receive my brush because it has to come to the UK from America, (although I'm sure I've bout things on ebay from China that have arrived quicker,) but it was worth the wait, these are good brushes. The standard size E25 is $9.00 with $3.46 for the economy rate shipping, express shipping is a little ridiculous at $29.95 (over three times the price of the brush) and if you can handle the wait, it works out to around £7.55. If you go to Superdrug you'd be charged over £8 for a QVS brush, and the quality of those is awful. Fair enough, you wouldn't have to wait a week before you could take it home, but it wouldn't last you long and it wouldn't do as good a job.

So, all that out of the way, Sigma are allowing me to give away one of these E25 travel blending brushes to one of you lovely readers!

All you need to do is be subscribed and leave a comment saying "enter me!" and next SUNDAY (1st May) I will pick a winner! I'll get the postal address of the winner and pass it on to Sigma Beauty and they will post the prize out themselves. If you are in my neck of the woods, I am afraid that means it might take some time to get to you, but that's the way this works.

This giveaway is made possible because I am a Sigma Affiliate. This means that if you click the Sigma ad in the sidebar--> and buy something, I will make commission on that sale. This does NOT mean that I will say nothing but nice things about the company or their products in order to get you to buy them. If you want to buy stuff from Sigma and I get money that is great, but I am not a sales person and I'm not trying to make you buy anything.

Thanks for reading!
TTFN

Hell Thirteen
xoxo

Winner

Congratulations to Klayer, who won this week's giveaway for the Eyeko Line and Shine in Superstar and a pack of my fave lashes.

I've sent you an email, please reply with your address so I can get that in the post to you!

TTFN

Hell Thirteen
xoxo

Animal Prints 2 - Leopard print

Hello you wonderful people!

It's the last day of my Line and Shine + Lashes giveaway so please subscribe and enter!

Today I am testing out ideas for leopard print eyes. I definitely prefer one eye over the other. I did a different look on each eye, so I'm going to show you both.

First I primed my eyes with e.l.f. eyelid primer, blending it in with my finger. I left it a little while so it could dry.

Next I covered both my eyes in Scarlett & Crimson white eyeshadow from their In The Shadows palette.

I took the pink from the same palette and swept it over my brow bone right up into the brows and in the inner and outer corners of my eyelid. Then I blended in some purple from the Sleek i-Divine palette into the darker areas, and the outer edge of the brow bone. I blended it all with my Sigma E25.

I covered the other eye in the light shimmery blue from S&C, and added depth to areas with the deeper shimmery blue from the i-Divine palette. I blended in a little purple at the crease.

I lined both my eyes with liquid liner to create a cat eye.







On the pink eye, I went for the traditional leopard print pattern. This was extremely difficult with the liquid liner. Your hand is further away from the brush end, and that gives you less control. The brush dries out quickly and you keep having to re-dip the brush into the liner. I think a pen would do a better job.

On the blue eye, I got fed up and ended up going for splodges. The marks were more random and I did find it resembling another type of cat print, though I'm not sure which. My cat eye liner hadn't dried properly and transfered to the rest of the eyelid.

I fixed (or attempted to fix) this by adding matte black to the crease and blending it in.

I used the same black to go over my eyeliner and add black underneath the eyes.

I also put some silver liner on my waterline.

I added mascara, filled in my brows, and was done.

So there you go!
Obviously, these eyes don't match and are not meant to be worn at the same time. It will be an either/or decision, and doing one on each eye as practise saves a lot of time!








I'm gonna wear these whilst doing housework, and see how they stand up to the stress so I can see how wearable they are at a nightclub. I will post results later!

TTFN

Hell Thirteen
xoxo

Tiger Eye

Hello my lovelies!

I'm having a girl's night out with my besties at Decadence in a couple of weeks and I have been experimenting with make up for the night.

Decadence is all about the rock and roll, think 80s, think hair. Shuff is the DJ that runs the night, and it's been going on for a long time. I used to go to it back when it used to be at Gossips, and when Gossips closed down about 5 years back, Decadence moved to the St Moritz. It's a great club to go to, a night guaranteed to be filled with epic stripper songs to get you headbanging like Cherry Pie and Welcome To The Jungle.

There is an abundance of animal print in places like these, as well as big hair, glitter, and t-shirts with brand names of alcohol on them, ripped and knotted and safety pinned to show as much flesh as possible. Well, it does get really hot down in that basement!

So, I'm trying out animal print make up. It's a shame I don't live in the states, I gather Walmart carries a brand called Hard Candy that sells transfers of animal print eyeshadow. From my experience with Avon these transfer eye sheets don't work, but that was only one brand and maybe these ones work better? I'll never know for sure, I guess.

Today I've had my first go, at tiger print eyes, and here's how it went.

After putting on e.l.f. eyelid primer I covered my lid in a white shadow, I used the one from the Scarlett and Crimson palette because it has the best pigmentation of all my white shadows.

Then I took the pale gold from the same palette and ran that along my crease.







I loaded up a brush with Carrot, the orange from my Front Cover 08/09 rainbow palette, and covered my browbone, doing the opposite to what you normally do with eyes (darker in the crease, highlight on the brow), and trying to keep a cat shape around the eyes.






I blended the colours together, and took my Bourjois Clubbing Liner in Absolute Black (not ultra black this time!) and lined my eyes in a cat eye shape.

Then I started with the stripes, taking care not to make them uniform, and keeping my eye closed and my eyelid stretched until the liner dried so as not to smudge my stripes.

I tried going under the eyes but that didn't work.





I used a slightly glittery black shadow from the Sleek i-Divine palette to go along my lashline.
I defined my brows quite dark and thinly.


I added Too Faced Lash Injection to my lashes and I was done!

 What do you think? I'll keep posting these looks as I come up with them, and you guys can help me pick the best look.

Naturally when it comes to mimicking something like this and you haven't done it before, it's best to practice so you can figure out which colours you want to use before you put anything on your eye. That's why I swatched out a bunch of prints on different backgrounds so I could have a proper look.
Actually, the tiger print was originally zebra print before I put a mix of white and orange behind it, and it looked so good I had to try it right away!
Here are my swatches:

Thanks for reading and don't forget about my giveaway, see my previous posts for details!

TTFN

Hell Thirteen
xoxo

Trad goth inspired look

Hi guys!

I did this look yesterday but instead of taking pictures of each step, I videoed the whole process and sped it up so instead of taking 2 hours it only takes 8 minutes to watch!

Here's a scary fast video of me putting the look together, sorry guys it's my first attempt and I aimed to talk you through what I was doing, but it took so long I had to fast forward the whole thing. Haven't figured out how to attach music to it so the video is silent too!
There are pictures of the finished look below. Enjoy!

Don't forget about my competition for an Eyeko Superstar Line and Shine plus those wonderful eyelashes! Subscribe and comment to enter, you have until Friday at noon!

TTFN

Hell Thirteen
xoxo

Messing about with colour

Hi everyone. Today I think I'll let the pictures do the talking. There's nothing wearable about this look, but it does show you what the products are capable of. I'll caption each picture with what I'm using.

Eyeko Graffiti Liner in Navy and in Purple

Eyeko Line and Shine Duo Colour pencil, Electric Blue from Popstar and Electric Purple from Superstar. Smudged with a Sigma E25 blender.

French Blue eyeshadow, Front Cover/Benefit Fluff Shadow Brush

MUA Shade 9/ QVS Blending brush

Boujois Clubbing Ultra Black Liner

Sigma E25 Blending Brush

Collection 2000 Kohl Eyeliner in black

Lanmei Silver glitter on purple bits, Too Faced Kitty Glitter in Cat Fight on the blue bits, and Real Colors shimmering powder in Diamond over the eyelid.

Eyeko Line and Shine in Rockstar, Silver end.

Avon Cynthia Rowley blush in Peony Pink

Bourjois Volume Clubbing Mascara in Black Lumiere Noir (UV) with Eyeko Big Eyes on top

Eylure Tokyo Lashes "I'm Hiroko" demi lashes.

Eyeko London Lips in Primrose Hill.

One lash on...

Sorry about the randomnity of the picture placement, I have been having problems with the Blogger post composer. It never looks the way you expect it to!

Anyway, don't forget you can win a pair of the eyelashes I've used these past two looks, and the Eyeko Line and Shine in Superstar (the purple one) all you have to do is be subscribed and leave me a comment saying "enter me!"

Winner will be drawn on Friday.

Hope you enjoyed this look, and I'll talk to you soon!

TTFN

Hell Thirteen
xoxo