VALENTINES MAKEUP

So its valentines day and we are all about to be bombarded with a million and one different 'valentines day makeup looks' either on Instagram, Youtube, Pinterest, blogs, pretty much every form of social media in existence, but lets be honest while they are gorgeous, a lot of them are a bit well… complicated. And I think it's fair to say majority of us are no where near as talented as these professional or "amateur" makeup artists with their super sharp cut creases and ultra supreme blended contour, so this valentines day we are going to strip it back down the basics and focus purely on enhancing what we already have (as opposed to sculpting out a whole new face). Instead focusing primarily on the one or 2 things that we think are our best feautures.

EYESHADOW

Depending on what type of eye shape you have (or which ever eye look you prefer on yourself), the 2 pictures shown above are super simple to re-create and require a maximum of 2 eyeshadows each, easy! For the 'halo' eye pictured all it requires is a darker shadow on the outer corner and inner corner of your eye, simply blend this same shadow through the crease, then using a lighter eyeshadow (preferably shimmery) place it onto the middle of the lid, blend it all in and you're done! Then for the 'wing' eye pictured, use a flat slanted brush with a dark eyeshadow (tip: brown is more forgiving than black) simply sweep across the lash line and wing it out at the outer corner. This is also a much easier way to do a wing if you struggle to get it perfect with a liquid eyeliner. Then to enhance it a little more use a lighter shimmery shadow right in the centre, leaving only the darker shadow on the outer corner to further enhance the cat eye look.

LASHES

If you don't think your eyes are your best feature you might want to go as minimal as possible on the eyeshadow or simply skip it all together, but one thing you should be doing whether you are trying to focus on your eyes or not, is to give yourself long full lashes. The best way to achieve this is obviously with some falsies but if you aren't that great at applying them you can easily achieve a similar look with tons of mascara, (no less than 2 coats! but more like 3-4, aka the more the better) but be sure to avoid any clumpy mascaras! Now if you're feeling extra fancy you could look into getting some lash extensions, that way you wouldn't even need to worry about applying falsies or mascara for the next couple of weeks, let alone just the one night.

HIGHLIGHTER

Having perfect glowy skin is something we all wish we had but very few of us were actually blessed with naturally, thankfully we all have highlighter. A cream highlighter adds a beautiful subtle glow to the skin that tends to look a lot more natural than most of its powdered counterparts, so I would suggest leaning more towards this for a valentines makeup look, however if you have amazing cheekbones and/or naturally beautiful skin that you want to draw more attention to then layering a powder over the top of a cream highlight will give you that extra pop.

BRONZE/BLUSH

Depending on your preference as to which one you prefer and which one you think looks best on you, we suggest picking either or when it comes to blusher and bronzer, we are trying to keep it as simple as possible for this valentines makeup and wearing both can be a bit too much in terms of us just 'naturally enhancing', but obviously if you want to wear both thats perfectly fine too, we just suggest using a lighter hand and applying a little less of each one.

LIPS

Lastly we have the lips, for valentines day we suggest doing a bit more of a glossy lip as it naturally makes your lips look a little more plump and no matter which colour you choose to go for, whether super nude or a little darker, it always tends to look a little more natural than a full on opaque matte lip. Now if you think your lips are your best feature then we suggest going for a bit of a darker nude like the girl pictured on the right and if you have chosen to enhance your eyes more, possibly go for a lighter nude. As a whole on valentines day we want our lips to look as kissable as ultimately possible, so our main tip would be to try and steer clear of a super sticky lip gloss, instead try more of sheer formula, if you can't find the right finish through a gloss maybe try a sheer/satin lipstick or possibly even just a tinted lip balm instead.

So depending on whether you're going on a romantic date or having drinks with the girls this Valentines, we hope this helped you panic a little less on how you're going to wear your makeup and showed you how to strip it back to the basics to simply enhance what you naturally have. Let us know in the comments below whether you will be rocking more of a simple makeup on valentines day or whether you are going to go full on glam like a makeup pro...