Beauty Blogging For Bellydancers with Special Guest Liora K!

 

Are you guys excited? Because I'm excited! In case you didn't read about it earlier this week, this past weekend I went over to Liora K's studio and we teamed up to bring you a special edition of Beauty Blogging for Bellydancers! Liora did my makeup and took the photos. I provided the makeup and the words! Together we are an unstoppable beauty blogging team! Above you can see all the things that we put on my face, minus the concealer/powder, and the lipstick which somehow escaped.

 

 Here's my mostly naked face (with the usual primer/foundation/powder routine I discussed last week) ready to get greenified! We decided that since I wanted to review the new eyeshadow pencil and green lip tar I bought last week, the theme would be "How to do a monochrome green look without looking dead" because there's nothing worse than looking dead when you're not trying to be a zombie bellydancer.

We started with the Aqua Shadow Waterproof Eye Shadow Pencil from Make Up For Ever in color 8E. It's a really nice bluey-teal-green, a great compliment to the emerald shades that are in this year. On one eye you can see the basic shape she colored in, and the other eye shows how she blended it out with a pointy eyeshadow brush. This will serve as the base for the rest of the look.

Make sure to blend it out to where you want it pretty quickly, as it will set into place nicely and then if you decide you want to blend it further, you'll have to add more. Once it's there, it stays nicely! I didn't test this product out with dancing, but I did wear it all day and it stayed perfectly. 

 But wait... How about we layer some other colors on top? A little shimmery green from Belle Pierre (a review of their cosmetics is forthcoming)...

 ..and some matte teal from Urban Decay and a little light green from NYX makes for a nice gradated teal-green look.

 I'm liking it so far!

Let's finish those eyes with some golden olive liquid eyeliner from Urban Decay and that green mascara from the Pantone Emerald collection. Now those are some green eyes! Liora also defined my brows with some brow powder she had, and they're looking quite nice, don't you think? Now onto the lips!

 Wait, Liora, you want to put concealer WHERE? On my mouth?

 Oh, ok! It looks kind of like I have a weird milk mustache going on here. Lining your lips with concealer helps keep creamy lipsticks from wandering around your face, and it also makes your lip color pop a bit by slightly lightening the area around your lips. Pro tip from Liora K!

Blend it out smoothly so it no longer looks like a milk mustache. You can also do this before you apply your foundation if you're worried about the concealer looking too obvious.

 Now what to do with my lips? It's really hard to do all-green on lips, it can really wash you out and that's how you get the dead look! So we used that lovely warm brown Minx blastflipstick (hahaha, that name never gets old), then dabbed a bit of Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics Lip Tar in Power Plant on top of it and blended it out. This gives a lovely iridescent green sheen, while still maintaining the warm tones that keep my face looking alive.

 After warming my face up some more with some blush for a youthful glow, Liora decided we could add even MORE GREEN to my lips, and since MORE GREEN is a rule I live by, we went with it! A little dab of pearly green pigment from NYX adds an extra pop to the center of my lips, but as you can see, I don't look the least bit dead. In fact, I look pretty full of life and ready to go out for dinner!

Speaking of which, I did go out to dinner with this look on, and that lip tar stayed put! By the time I went to bed, I had eaten a meal, drank through a straw, from a glass, and from a sport-top water bottle and I still had plenty of green on my lips. This is a really durable product, and I am looking forward to trying it out in a more "normal" color to see if it can be my new go-to lip option.

 Let's have one more look at those pretty eyes. Ahhhh! Love the contrast between the green eyes and the pink of the blush. Of course, if you wanted to make this look even more green, for instance, if you're doing a character piece as a faerie, or mermaid, you could brush a little light iridescent green mineral shadow across your cheeks for extra sparkle. You could also line your waterline with green, or bring more green under your eyes. You could even color your eyebrows green, though that would probably look weird if you're not also wearing a green wig. Just make sure to really balance it out and try to stick with warm colors that bring life to your face.

Thank you again Liora for doing my makeup and taking all these great photos! You rock, lady! If you all aren't already familiar with her photography work, which ranges from fashion shoots to weddings to feminist art, you should definitely visit Liora K Photography and see what you're missing!

PS: If you've got any questions about the specific colors used, leave a comment and I'll dig into my train case for brands and item numbers and whatnot.