A New Year's Eve Makeup Look With My 2019 Beauty Faves
My 2019 has been pretty bare-faced. That call for an extra 15 minutes in bed is too strong, and these days the most makeup you'll probably see me in is a bit of waterproof mascara too resilient for the micellar water. Remember when I used to wear faux freckles every day? Why do that when you could be catching those precious minutes of shut eye?
However, my lack of effort in the everyday-makeup department has made it a bit more special when I do slap on a bit of eyeshadow, and I've grown to love playing around with different looks. And even though I am enjoying the experimentation, some real beauty gems have shone through this year and I have found myself gravitating to some specific products and colours. So to close off the year, and in fact the decade, I thought I'd put all my favourite makeup discoveries and purchases from 2019 on my face to create a version of the pinky-purple soft glam look I've been digging over the past 12 months - perfect for an NYE shindig.
When it comes to base products, you guys know the drill. I haven't diverted from the classic colour corrector or concealer I've been using for years, nor have I found a foundation I don't want to immediately take off. So after a generous dabbling of the MUA Pro Base Prime & Conceal Corrector in Peach under my tired eyes, and the Collection Lasting Perfection Concealer in Fair, I was immediately onto brows. I have found a brand-new product for my brows this year, so finally the shade Sexpresso from my Too Faced Natural Eyes palette can retire after about 4 years of service. The Anastasia Beverly Hills Brow Powder Duo in Ash Brown is my perfect little brow compact. I take the lighter shade through the front of my brows on an angled brush to help fill in and define the shape, take it to the arch and create a little bit more shape. I then take the darker shade through the tail, which is a little more sparse. And as I always go overboard, a brush through with a spoolie is always necessary before a few mandatory eyebrow wiggles in the mirror.
My favourite part of the look is hands-down the eyes. I've really dipped my toe into bolder eyeshadow looks this year, and definitely found that I love warm pinks and purples (hence the Huda Beauty splash-out in September). All my favourite eye shades culminate in my first ever Urban Decay Naked palette - Naked: Cherry. I was very kindly gifted this from my parents for Christmas, so it is a very new favourite of mine, but after playing with it a lot and finding the dreaminess of the formulas match the dreaminess of the colour selection, I was sold. The brush it comes with is also brilliant, and is what I used to create a lot of this eye makeup - which was heavily inspired by Kaushal Beauty's final look in this video, but comes with my own, slightly grungier twist.
So before I ruined the brush with darker shades, I took the pink-tinged-white Hot Spot into the inner corners and as a browbone highlight with the denser, stubbier end of the brush. Then, with the other side, took a mixture of Feelz and Bing (which will never not make me think of Chandler from Friends) through the crease to create a nice transition shade. The colours blend so. well. which made this look easy to create even for an eyeshadow novice like me. Once that was all blended, I took Bing and focussed that on the outer crease to build up a gradient. With the other end of the brush, I then took the darkest shade - Privacy - on the inner (but NOT the inner corners) and outer third of the eye, leaving the middle bare. I really built this shade up, so even while it is very pigmented, I wanted to get it even darker. Once I got Privacy to the desired deepness, I packed on Young Love in the centre. A gorgeous shimmery magenta, this is the shadow that drew me to this palette, so I knew I had to use it for a glamourous NYE look. It ties beautifully in with Privacy and, while Kaushal Beauty added a lighter shade to add more of a pop of brightness, Young Love still opens up the eye and creates that halo-lid effect while remaining a little more subtle. I then took Turn On - a stunning pink-gold - on the inner corners with the shorter end of the brush to give some brighter sparkle, before going a little glitter-crazy by adding my one of my favourite products of the year - Fenty Beauty's Diamond Bomb - on top.
I took Privacy underneath the eyes as well with the stubbier end of the brush, before lining my waterline with MAC's Technakohl Liner in Photogravure*. While this product isn't cruelty-free, I've been using it since recieving it in a Christmas gift set last year, and can't deny what a great liner it is. It has a beautiful, creamy texture and stays put all night long. Photogravure is also the perfect match for Privacy, and helps keep the look much softer than a black waterline would. I also recieved MAC's In Extreme Dimension Mascara* in the same gift set, and have been using it pretty soildly ever since for its insane volume and lengthening. Even after curling my lashes and a few coats of mascara, a bolder eye look like this can only be finished with some falsies. I've only recently started using falsies, but a pair that I'm loving is Eylure's Enchanted Stars in their Eyes. I think these are a great gateway pair - they're not too extreme but definitely noticeable. They open up the eyes really nicely, so pair perfectly with a halo-eye look created by the shadow. And even as a first-timer, I found them really easy to apply with the glue and tweezers they came with. Before applying them, I took the elf Cream Eyeliner to the lashline. This was my first gel liner and has been a repeat purchase of mine - so pigmented, so longwearing, and so bank-balance-friendly.
I did the rest of my face while I waited for my mascara to dry before applying falsies, and pulled out a very well-loved palette of mine - The Balm Alternative Rock Vol 1. I'm really worried this has been discontinued as I struggled to find many online stockists, but if you can get your hands on it, I highly recommend it. You may recognise it from last year's Christmas Get Ready With Me, in which I used some of the palette's luscious shimmer shadows, but this year I've tested the face powders much more. I thought they'd be too dark for me, but used with a bit of control, the bronzer and blush are the most lovely warm-toned powders, which go wonderfully with the warm eye makeup in this look. I took the bronzer - named Iron More Than You - in the 3-shape across my temples, under my cheek bones and under my jaw, to create that sunkissed, glowing goddess effect - despite being a very fair, very sleepy individual. The blush - Of Quartz You Did - is a real highlight of this palette; a sumptuous warm pink with tiny flecks of shimmer. With a dense stippling-style brush, I focus this on the apples of my cheeks before dragging it outwards. This creates such a lovely naturally-flushed look, with the deeper warm tones making it my go-to autumn/winter blush. And although I love the highlighter in this palette just as much (called Basalt and Pepper, it's a gorgeous silver-y highlight with a pink reflect), I opted for a bit more of a recent purchase. Everyone and their cat has been harping on about Becca's Shimmering Skin Perfectors for years, but I finally bit the bullet over the summer and picked up a mini version of the shade Moonstone. This is a super pretty champagne highlight for any of my fair guys and gals out there. Its quite subtle, but to amp up its radience I use a dampened dense eyeshadow blending brush - think Real Techniques Deluxe Crease - which helps concentrate the pigment. Even without a damp or dense brush, this is an ideal everyday highlight for fair skin, and anything too OTT with this look could look too much with the intense inner-corner eye highlight and dark shadows. So yes, the Shimmering Skin Perfectors are very much worth the hype.
Since becoming an incy-wincy bit better at it, I think eyeshadow has overtaken lipstick as my favourite part of the makeup routine. That doesn't mean that I haven't found an absolute treat this year in the lips department, but for the most part I have been sticking to an oldie but a goldie. My elf Matte Lip Colour in Praline has had my heart for well over a year - in fact, it was my top beauty product in last year's favourites - and it's still the lipstick I reach for most. Its such a comfortable formula and lasts forever, even after food. And in its pencil-like component, its easy to outline and fill in lips with - which is what I did for this NYE look. But, I couldn't do my makeup with my favourite beauty products of 2019 without using one of my favourite purchases of the year. Introducing Charlotte Tilbury's Hot Lips 2 in JK Magic. Its celestial, its refillable - what's not to love? Aside from the incredible, very Ellie packaging, what's inside is actually pretty great too; its creamy formula is both nourishing and long-wearing, and the shade is the nude I've been looking for all my life - a flawless mix of brown and pink. For this look, I dotted JK Magic into the centre of the lips to add a bit of gradient. While Praline is an absolutely gorgeous shade, it is perhaps a bit too dark on me for day-to-day wear, which is where JK Magic has come in very handy.
And there you have it - my final makeup look, and blog post of the year! I absolutely adore this look, it really sums up everything I love about makeup, and utilises the products I've fallen so in love with this year. I can't wait to don this look on my New Year's Eve outing in Bristol - I'll probably also be wearing this top, which is from New Look.
While posts have been a bit more sporadic than I would've liked this year, the support has been immense - thank you so much for reading, sharing and interacting with my posts both here and on my new blog Instagram (@everythingeleanorblog). I can't wait to keep writing and sharing my adventures on here in 2020 and beyond.
Enjoy your New Year's celebrations and have a happy and healthy 2020!
* not cruelty-free
However, my lack of effort in the everyday-makeup department has made it a bit more special when I do slap on a bit of eyeshadow, and I've grown to love playing around with different looks. And even though I am enjoying the experimentation, some real beauty gems have shone through this year and I have found myself gravitating to some specific products and colours. So to close off the year, and in fact the decade, I thought I'd put all my favourite makeup discoveries and purchases from 2019 on my face to create a version of the pinky-purple soft glam look I've been digging over the past 12 months - perfect for an NYE shindig.
When it comes to base products, you guys know the drill. I haven't diverted from the classic colour corrector or concealer I've been using for years, nor have I found a foundation I don't want to immediately take off. So after a generous dabbling of the MUA Pro Base Prime & Conceal Corrector in Peach under my tired eyes, and the Collection Lasting Perfection Concealer in Fair, I was immediately onto brows. I have found a brand-new product for my brows this year, so finally the shade Sexpresso from my Too Faced Natural Eyes palette can retire after about 4 years of service. The Anastasia Beverly Hills Brow Powder Duo in Ash Brown is my perfect little brow compact. I take the lighter shade through the front of my brows on an angled brush to help fill in and define the shape, take it to the arch and create a little bit more shape. I then take the darker shade through the tail, which is a little more sparse. And as I always go overboard, a brush through with a spoolie is always necessary before a few mandatory eyebrow wiggles in the mirror.
My favourite part of the look is hands-down the eyes. I've really dipped my toe into bolder eyeshadow looks this year, and definitely found that I love warm pinks and purples (hence the Huda Beauty splash-out in September). All my favourite eye shades culminate in my first ever Urban Decay Naked palette - Naked: Cherry. I was very kindly gifted this from my parents for Christmas, so it is a very new favourite of mine, but after playing with it a lot and finding the dreaminess of the formulas match the dreaminess of the colour selection, I was sold. The brush it comes with is also brilliant, and is what I used to create a lot of this eye makeup - which was heavily inspired by Kaushal Beauty's final look in this video, but comes with my own, slightly grungier twist.
So before I ruined the brush with darker shades, I took the pink-tinged-white Hot Spot into the inner corners and as a browbone highlight with the denser, stubbier end of the brush. Then, with the other side, took a mixture of Feelz and Bing (which will never not make me think of Chandler from Friends) through the crease to create a nice transition shade. The colours blend so. well. which made this look easy to create even for an eyeshadow novice like me. Once that was all blended, I took Bing and focussed that on the outer crease to build up a gradient. With the other end of the brush, I then took the darkest shade - Privacy - on the inner (but NOT the inner corners) and outer third of the eye, leaving the middle bare. I really built this shade up, so even while it is very pigmented, I wanted to get it even darker. Once I got Privacy to the desired deepness, I packed on Young Love in the centre. A gorgeous shimmery magenta, this is the shadow that drew me to this palette, so I knew I had to use it for a glamourous NYE look. It ties beautifully in with Privacy and, while Kaushal Beauty added a lighter shade to add more of a pop of brightness, Young Love still opens up the eye and creates that halo-lid effect while remaining a little more subtle. I then took Turn On - a stunning pink-gold - on the inner corners with the shorter end of the brush to give some brighter sparkle, before going a little glitter-crazy by adding my one of my favourite products of the year - Fenty Beauty's Diamond Bomb - on top.
I took Privacy underneath the eyes as well with the stubbier end of the brush, before lining my waterline with MAC's Technakohl Liner in Photogravure*. While this product isn't cruelty-free, I've been using it since recieving it in a Christmas gift set last year, and can't deny what a great liner it is. It has a beautiful, creamy texture and stays put all night long. Photogravure is also the perfect match for Privacy, and helps keep the look much softer than a black waterline would. I also recieved MAC's In Extreme Dimension Mascara* in the same gift set, and have been using it pretty soildly ever since for its insane volume and lengthening. Even after curling my lashes and a few coats of mascara, a bolder eye look like this can only be finished with some falsies. I've only recently started using falsies, but a pair that I'm loving is Eylure's Enchanted Stars in their Eyes. I think these are a great gateway pair - they're not too extreme but definitely noticeable. They open up the eyes really nicely, so pair perfectly with a halo-eye look created by the shadow. And even as a first-timer, I found them really easy to apply with the glue and tweezers they came with. Before applying them, I took the elf Cream Eyeliner to the lashline. This was my first gel liner and has been a repeat purchase of mine - so pigmented, so longwearing, and so bank-balance-friendly.
I did the rest of my face while I waited for my mascara to dry before applying falsies, and pulled out a very well-loved palette of mine - The Balm Alternative Rock Vol 1. I'm really worried this has been discontinued as I struggled to find many online stockists, but if you can get your hands on it, I highly recommend it. You may recognise it from last year's Christmas Get Ready With Me, in which I used some of the palette's luscious shimmer shadows, but this year I've tested the face powders much more. I thought they'd be too dark for me, but used with a bit of control, the bronzer and blush are the most lovely warm-toned powders, which go wonderfully with the warm eye makeup in this look. I took the bronzer - named Iron More Than You - in the 3-shape across my temples, under my cheek bones and under my jaw, to create that sunkissed, glowing goddess effect - despite being a very fair, very sleepy individual. The blush - Of Quartz You Did - is a real highlight of this palette; a sumptuous warm pink with tiny flecks of shimmer. With a dense stippling-style brush, I focus this on the apples of my cheeks before dragging it outwards. This creates such a lovely naturally-flushed look, with the deeper warm tones making it my go-to autumn/winter blush. And although I love the highlighter in this palette just as much (called Basalt and Pepper, it's a gorgeous silver-y highlight with a pink reflect), I opted for a bit more of a recent purchase. Everyone and their cat has been harping on about Becca's Shimmering Skin Perfectors for years, but I finally bit the bullet over the summer and picked up a mini version of the shade Moonstone. This is a super pretty champagne highlight for any of my fair guys and gals out there. Its quite subtle, but to amp up its radience I use a dampened dense eyeshadow blending brush - think Real Techniques Deluxe Crease - which helps concentrate the pigment. Even without a damp or dense brush, this is an ideal everyday highlight for fair skin, and anything too OTT with this look could look too much with the intense inner-corner eye highlight and dark shadows. So yes, the Shimmering Skin Perfectors are very much worth the hype.
Since becoming an incy-wincy bit better at it, I think eyeshadow has overtaken lipstick as my favourite part of the makeup routine. That doesn't mean that I haven't found an absolute treat this year in the lips department, but for the most part I have been sticking to an oldie but a goldie. My elf Matte Lip Colour in Praline has had my heart for well over a year - in fact, it was my top beauty product in last year's favourites - and it's still the lipstick I reach for most. Its such a comfortable formula and lasts forever, even after food. And in its pencil-like component, its easy to outline and fill in lips with - which is what I did for this NYE look. But, I couldn't do my makeup with my favourite beauty products of 2019 without using one of my favourite purchases of the year. Introducing Charlotte Tilbury's Hot Lips 2 in JK Magic. Its celestial, its refillable - what's not to love? Aside from the incredible, very Ellie packaging, what's inside is actually pretty great too; its creamy formula is both nourishing and long-wearing, and the shade is the nude I've been looking for all my life - a flawless mix of brown and pink. For this look, I dotted JK Magic into the centre of the lips to add a bit of gradient. While Praline is an absolutely gorgeous shade, it is perhaps a bit too dark on me for day-to-day wear, which is where JK Magic has come in very handy.
And there you have it - my final makeup look, and blog post of the year! I absolutely adore this look, it really sums up everything I love about makeup, and utilises the products I've fallen so in love with this year. I can't wait to don this look on my New Year's Eve outing in Bristol - I'll probably also be wearing this top, which is from New Look.
While posts have been a bit more sporadic than I would've liked this year, the support has been immense - thank you so much for reading, sharing and interacting with my posts both here and on my new blog Instagram (@everythingeleanorblog). I can't wait to keep writing and sharing my adventures on here in 2020 and beyond.
Enjoy your New Year's celebrations and have a happy and healthy 2020!
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