Mac Quite Cute inspired look, Using no Mac!

Hello there, pretty young things.

Today I thought I would put together a look inspired by and indeed somewhat similar to the new M-A-C Quite Cute collection. I own one M-A-C product, a single eyeshadow in Parfait Amour (frost) so there's no way I could do it using the proper shades. I'm simply not financially liquid enough to go out and buy it to review for you, I wish I was and hopefully when I'm a more established blogger I can review the more expensive products, either because they send them to me, begging me to review their products (doubtful, but a girl can dream) or because I make enough money from the Google adverts on my site to be able to buy them myself.

Anyway, I've put this look together with various products; most, if not all, cheaper than M-A-C.
Starting with the foundation, I used L'Oreal Infallible 16hr foundation in Porcelain, my favourite foundation because of its coverage and being pale enough to match my skin, and applied it with an e.l.f. studio powder brush, which acts like a flat headed stippling brush and can be used with a liquid foundation because of the Taklon bristles.

Then I ran some e.l.f. eyebrow treat & tame in ash through my brows. I love this product, I just can't deal with using eyebrow pencils and powder to fill in my brows, it always looks ridiculous on me. This is great because it just darkens the hairs a little (my brows are thick and riddled with blonde hairs that are invisible in most lights) but doesn't colour the skin underneath.

I used this Scarlett and Crimson blush powder - no shade, I think they only had one - to give my cheeks a glow. I really like this blusher (thanks, Kayleigh!) because of the beautiful colour and finish it gives, but the packaging isn't too well thought out. It's nice to have a loose blush, but when you dip your brush in you may get a lot more product than you bargained for!

I swept an eyeshadow from a Front Cover Rainbow Eyes Winter 08/09 palette over my lid, the colour was Lime. I love and hate these Front Cover palettes, they give you so much product - I think I got it in a sale so it was £15 for 25 eyeshadows - and you get some really fun colours in decent sized pans, but the colour payoff wasn't always up to scratch and their version of Eyeko's magic liner was rubbish and didn't work at all. This may have been because of the eyeshadows, but wasn't this designed to be used with those specific products?! I have found that when I'm not using the brushes they came with the payoff is much better, and I don't think these magic turn-your-eyeshadow-into-a-liquid-liner things ever work as much as we'd like, but I'd recommend using the Eyeko one over the Front Cover one and preferably, use a mixing medium or just wet your eyeshadows and use them with a liner brush.

I used the light pink shade in this Scarlett and Crimson palette on the inner corners of my eyes. It's quite a salmony pink with a decent colour payoff. Not sure about the consistency, as it's a little too powdery. Scarlett & Crimson is basically a teenage make up brand directed towards goths and emos, and the make up is put together by Ruby and Millie (that brand you always get money off vouchers for from Boots).
I later used the bright magenta shade on the inner corner of the brow bone, but forgot to take a picture.

This is the green from the same palette, used in the outer corners of my lids to darken the lime green.
I used a small flat brush from QVS. They do fairly cheap brushes, but they rarely do what they say on the label and are generally suited to a different task. I have their blending brush and it doesn't look anything like any other blenders I've seen, it's flat and stiff. I will always choose e.l.f. over QVS for brushes now, the range and quality are infinitely better at much lower prices.

I used a mixture of Wisteria and Viola from the same Front Cover palette on a Benefit fluff shadow brush to colour in my brow bone.
Another thing I forgot to mention about the Front Cover palettes is that they are made from cardboard and they are huge. This makes them hard to store and when someone inevitably puts it at the bottom of a pile the cardboard bends and because half of these shadows are domed (not sure why some are and some aren't, means you get less of some colour and more of another) they all get smashed to bits.

After I put the magenta shade in the inner corners of my brow I used a blush brush from Fraulein 38 to blend the magenta into my temples. I don't think I'd go out with blush so bright or so obvious on my temples, but I was going for editorial fashion make up so I think it's alright for today!


 I put some more Lime above my cheekbone to balance the eye a little better, and softly lined my eyes with the purple from the Scarlett and Crimson palette and the e.l.f. studio eye crease brush.

After blending the colours with the e.l.f. essential blending brush, I coated my lashes with Too Faced Lash Injection mascara. I love this mascara so much for everyday wear, because it doesn't dry and tug as the day goes on.

(Thank you Kayleigh! For those who aren't Kay, she's the lovely girl who gave me most of these products to try out!)

 I realised that I needed to darken the blush on my cheeks to match my temples, so I used the magenta again, and added the Carrot shade from Front Cover to warm it up a bit. I gave it a good blend with my flat powder brush so it wasn't too harsh.

 I slapped on Deborah lipstick in 6 Star Kiss, a shimmery pale lavender colour with a lovely sweet smell. 

I topped it all off with Eyeko London Lips in Soho, which looks a lot like the M-A-C Candy Yum Yum lipstick in a gloss. To start with, I only placed the gloss in the centre of my lips, to mimic the M-A-C Quite Cute look shown in their campaign photo. Later I spread the gloss to cover the whole lip.

The original model and me!

And here's the result!

After spreading the gloss.

I hope you've enjoyed reading this post, and remember that you don't always need to get the new M-A-C collection, you can just choose to be inspired by it instead!

Don't forget that I'm giving away an Eyeko London Lips gloss in Soho on Friday! That's the same one I used in this look. Just subscribe to the blog and comment "enter me!" I'll be announcing the winners on Friday (no more entries accepted after 12 noon on the day) and starting a new competition on Saturday, so you've got a day and a half to get yourself entered.

TTFN,

Hell Thirteen xoxo