Collab with Ms Jess Louise Pt 1 | Tutorial-ish: Neutral Summer Daytime Look

Fact of life: when you leave high school, you lose touch with people. People who you saw everyday and thought you couldn't live without become further and further away from you, unless you put in that extra mile of effort. As someone who is terrible at putting in extra effort, I lost touch with a lot of people I was friends with in high school, using Facebook as a way to stalk keep tabs on them. That being said, it's amazing how many new things you can discover about old friends, just from paying attention.

I was so stoked to learn a few months ago that my old school friend Jess had a YouTube channel! She's got tutorials, fashion videos, lifestyle videos -- and so much more coming. In high school, I don't think I was as completely aware of Jess' interest in beauty and fashion as I should've been (after all, I myself had none) -- but I decided a little while ago to see it as an opportunity to reconnect and see if we couldn't create some awesome videos and blog posts together!

Obviously she did too, otherwise this post and her video wouldn't exist!

Despite being in the dead of winter, we decided to try and bring some warmth back by aiming for summery beauty and fashion posts! As you'll be able to see at the end of the post, Jess has filmed a video on some of her favourite summer dresses, and I have created two looks -- one daytime and one evening -- that will fit the dresses she has picked out!

Neutral Summer Daytime Look

In the photo that Jess sent me of her dresses (the one below), you'll see a beautiful dress with pink roses, as well as a gorgeous blue and black dress. To me, these are dresses that I'd wear on a nice day out, so I used them as inspiration for an everyday, neutral daytime look. It is a full face of makeup, but it should last really well through the day, and it will keep you looking awesome while making the dress your main feature.

So let's get to it!

My friend Belle is also featuring today.

Prepping skin is always important if you want a full face to last through a hot summer's day -- or any day with some warmth to it. To start out, I used the L'Oreal Paris Skin Perfection Concentrated Correcting Serum; I'm not 100% sure what the purpose of a serum is, but I have noticed that using this product in combination with several others has made a difference in my makeup's longevity. After letting that soak into my skin, I go in with the L'Oreal Paris Skin Perfection Correcting Day Moisturiser, a really nice and creamy moisturiser that doesn't make my skin feel as though I've applied something to it -- a real pet peeve of mine.

From there, I wanted a base for glowing skin, not shiny skin, so I reached for Benefit's That Gal Primer. It's salmon pink colour is meant to counteract yellow tones to produce a more even, almost pearly-glow skintone. It's not something that I'd have thought would be any good for my skin, but I really feel like it's helped the appearance of my makeup, and generally prevented it from getting too shiny.

Rather than head straight for foundation, I decided to work on my eye makeup next. I really like to use the MAC Pro Longwear Paint Pot in "Soft Ochre" as a primer, as my eyelids get oilier than a frypan being prepped for breakfast, but with this particular eye shadow, I find that it doesn't always help along the colour; on top I added the NYX Jumbo Eye Pencil in "Milk" to strengthen the pigmentation a little more.

The eye shadow palette that I used was the I ♡ Makeup I Heart Chocolate palette, which is essentially a really affordable dupe for the Too Faced Chocolate Bar palette (I've written both a review and a comparison post, so you can see how they stack up). Using a shadow brush, I patted "Meet Chocolate" -- a light pink -- in the inner corner of my eyes, to add a little light as well as a touch of colour. It's not a very strong pink and it can blend away easily, so if you want it to show up then you'll need to pack it on. Using the other side of the brush, I used the shade "One More Piece" -- a plain milk chocolate brown -- all over the lid. I swept a light sable brown shade -- "Thank Friday" -- gently into my crease with a rounded blending brush, to blend the eye shadows together, using circular motions on the outer edge of the crease to create a little more shape and dimension. Then, with a pencil brush, I took "Stolen Chocolate", which is a deep, dark brown and built it up in the outer v and my outer edge of my lower lashline, as well as slightly into my crease. I then went back in with my crease brush to make sure that the shades were all blended together.

Have the Chocolate Bar Palette instead? You'll want to use the shades "Strawberry Bon-Bon",  "Milk Chocolate", "Salted Caramel" and "Triple Fudge" in the same order as the shades I listed above.

"Is it almost time for my close-up?" --Belle

For liner, I opted for the Kat Von D Tattoo Liner in "Trooper", to draw a sort of cat-eye wing. I like this liner because of the precision I can get with the tip as well as the opacity of the liner. Any liner that will give both of those things will work just as well. For lashes, I wanted something that was nicely defined, with volume but not too much volume, and length but not lashes-for-days. The mascara I ended up selecting was the By Terry Mascara Terrybly Growth Booster Mascara in the shade "Black Parti-Pris" -- given that this mascara is so expensive, you do not need to go out and buy it especially for this look; have a poke around your stash and select the one that you find gives you what you want! Maybe you do want more volume than a complete set of Brittanica, maybe you do want lashes-for-days -- it's fine if you do.

"Wait, I thought you said close-up!" --Belle

This was the point where I moved onto the rest of my face, as it would allow me to sharpen up my eye makeup and clean up any potential fall-out. Usually, for a summer face I would opt for a light foundation, but I was having some skin issues, so I reached for the Rimmel London 25HR Lasting Finish Foundation in "Soft Beige", before going in with the Benefit Perk Up Artist Concealer Kit to cover up any imperfections that the foundation did not. Apparently this concealer kit isn't available anymore, so use any cream concealer that does the job.

A key feature that often comes with summer are hot, hot nights that render the bed uncomfortable and sleep impossible -- and, delightfully, dark circles. To cover them up, I took my Rimmel London Wake Me Up Concealer in "Ivory" and chicken-feathered my skin.

"Shae, what in the name of Scully and Mulder is chicken-feathering?" I hear you ask, probably with concern in your voice.

Can't you see the chicken feathers? No? Just me? Okay.

Ta-daaaa!

Introducing what I call "chicken-feathering", where I apply concealer under my eyes in such a way that it's as though I've drawn chicken feathers onto my cheeks. I like doing it this way -- as opposed to triangles or whatnot, as I've seen YouTubers do -- because I'm not using a whole lot of product on my skin, and it sets a lot better into my skin.

After that: contouring. To warm up my skin, I used the MAC Bronzing Powder in "Matte Bronze" in the hollows of my cheeks, my temples and around the top of my forehead. I don't like to go too heavy, especially in summer, because otherwise you'll be able to tell that I've dipped my brush in bronzer. For blush, I used the Hourglass Ambient Lighting Blush in "Luminous Flush" on my cheeks -- lightly. If you use too much, it will overpower the rest of your face (trust me, I learned that the hard way). I then took "Incandescent Light" from the Hourglass Ambient Lighting Palette and lightly dusted it onto my cheekbones, Cupid's bow and the bridge of my nose; then I followed it with "Dim Light" from the same palette, which I gently buffed into the rest of my face.

The great thing about summer is that your lipstick choices are practically endless! You can go with pink, red, coral... Anything that suits your fancy. I wanted something more on the nude side, however, so I selected the Elizabeth Arden Beautiful Color Moisturising Lipstick in "Desert Rose".

And that completes the look!

It might not look like too much, but I firmly believe that if you want a neat, neutral look that will look good no matter the dress you decide to throw on, this is the way to go.

Let me know if you'd ever wear this look -- and don't forget to watch Jess' video, which is right here!

Shae xo