Weddingbee Blog

OKAY, okay, you got me…I am not really vain, but I do love to play with makeup and check myself out in the mirror afterward (alright maybe just a teensy bit vain).

***Warning: this post contains narcissistic behavior. Viewer discretion is advised!

A couple months ago I decided to play with my wedding-day face and experiment with the look I want for my big day. Ideally, I would like a soft, romantic look with a little bit of vava voom in the eyes.

Something similar to these two looks (found here):

I started off with a clean palette…

And because I have short lashes, I decided to play with some falsies I had lying around.

(They are ridiculously long, BTW!)

The falsies didn’t look great, but I continued on and added my trusty Cover Girl yellow concealer stick to the mix.

And, I blended it in with my ring finger (this is important because it’s the weakest finger and pulls the skin the least) until it was smooth and even.

Next, I evened out the concealer and smoothed the look with a light application (using a wedge makeup sponge) of Maybelline’s Superstay 24 HR Foundation. I set the foundation in place using Neutrogena’s Mineral Sheers Powder because I find it gives a soft, natural glow without adding too much coverage. Last, I finished off my cheeks with a swipe of VS’s Very Sexy Afterglow Trio and lined my bottom lids with brown eyeliner. ***Note: My camera has all these weird settings that really threw off the color in this shot…my cheeks were not that red!

Next, I wanted to play with shadow, but before I played with my eyes I decided to play with the camera and check myself out from the side (vanity at its finest!).

After my mini one-shot photo shoot, I moved on and added some color to my lids. I went for a light, smokey-eyed look using plum and pink shades from my Revlon Cream Shadow Palette.

At that point I had decided the falsies were too much and pulled them off. And, because I am not a huge fan of my untreated lashes…

…I decided to do what I do on a day to day basis: curl, curl, mascara, mascara. I used a typical eyelash curler and brushed on two coats of Maybelline’s Waterproof Lash Stilletto Mascara to complete my look.

And, of course, I posed some more and I even gave the kissy face (I know, eww).

Overall, I was fairly pleased with the look and think that I achieved the soft and romantic feel I was going for. However, there are some changes I will definitely be making for my day-of look. I will play around with individual falsies like these to get that dramatic, doe-eyed look I want (without being OTT) and will not use a cream shadow (because it probably wouldn’t last). I will also trade in some of my drugstore makeup for the higher end stuff, and I may add a coat of lipstick or stain. I will also go for more natural shades of blush and shadows…I think the blush I used was a bit too pink and that something with a brown undertone might work better. I will have to go back to one of my favorite Lancome blushes, Shimmer Mocha Havana.

Source

I am also contemplating using a matte powder so that I can eliminate any weird highlights in flash photos, such as I was getting with the sheer powder. I am also considering taking photos using a better camera to see if they will even show up. In these photos it is a bit hard to tell what my face will look like in natural lighting because flash + indoor lighting + easy-shot camera = not-so-natural-looking photos. I ended up with highlights in weird places, and the self-portrait angle left me with a slightly bulbous looking nose. (I promise it’s not normally so knob-like!) The last picture shows more of what I was actually seeing in natural light, and as I mentioned, I like it, but am not 100% loving it.

What do you think? Have you played in the mirror to practice your wedding day look? Do you feel a bit funny checking yourself out?