“When life gives you lemons, don’t make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back! Get mad! I don’t want your DAMN lemons, what the hell am I supposed to do with these? Demand to see life’s manager! Make life rue the day it thought it could give Cave Johnson lemons! Do you know who I am? I’m the man who’s gonna burn your house down! With the lemons! I’m gonna get my engineers to invent a combustible lemon that burns your house down!” – Cave Johnson, Portal
I am slowly trying to get back into the swing of colorful looks over on my Instagram. Part of it is because I like bright things and feel like I’ve fallen into the “easy/neutral” rut and part because when my feed is full of color, it makes me happy.
Don’t get me wrong; there is nothing wrong with simple, neutral looks that you can crank out in your sleep. From a social media prespective – I get more engagement on those type of looks as opposed to my avant or colorful looks. To be honest, the fact that more neutral or easy looks get more engagement or likes or whathaveyou frustrates me. I spend so much more time and effort into the creative looks only to have them flop. That’s part of the reason why I stopped pouring my heart and soul out on colorful looks for a time… because, to me, it seemed like nobody cared. And as a “micro influencer” … every little bit of engagement helps so I’ve been trying to play the game as best as I can.
I’m done playing the “basic” glam game 24/7. I’m making combustible lemons and am throwing them at the social media gods.
I will create looks that I enjoy creating and will try to stop giving so much of a damn about numbers and engagement.
Does this mean that I will stop posting the easy/neutral/basic glam stuff? No – because that way lies madness and content creation is a pain sometimes, especially for a Spoonie. This affirmation will, however, mean that I will be going back to my proverbial roots and making more artistic looks with more colors, textures, techniques, etc… and I hope that you stick around for that.
Enough with the rambling, let’s talk about this lemony look… but first, let me talk about this shirt.
It has lemons on it, and it is kinda snazzy. This shirt has been chilling in my closet since I purchased it at Ross back in late April. It is from the brand Gloria Vanderbilt (Jeans?) and is in the style Cassidy in Lemons (Style Number 60489159-GS3). I haven’t been able to find it online, for those that are wondering – but hopefully, if you are interested in it, you might have better luck. That’s the downside of buying clothes at Ross, or Ross-like stores, I guess.
I keep wanting to feature it with a makeup look since then, and I just haven’t been in the right brain-space to do so. Flash forward to last week – when I shot this look at 4 am, totally tired but inspired by lemons.
I wanted to riff off of the shirt’s palette of yellows and soft greens while incorporating maybe just a touch of glitter, so that’s what I did. I decided to make the focus of the look on the eyes and keep the skin sunkissed and lightly freckled with a complimentary lip color that wasn’t just another nude lip.
I love the way yellow and green looks together, especially grungier tones. Since I have a neutral to sometimes yellow undertone and brown eyes – those colors flatter me. Hence why I rock them when I can.
Eye Makeup Details:
Smashbox Lid Primer in Light
Melt Cosmetics Eyeshadows – specifically, Rubbish, Unseen, Rott, and Blurr
LimeCrime Venus 2 Palette – specifically Marsh, Mustard, and Fly
Lit Cosmetics Clearly Liquid Glitter Base and Ziggy Stardust Size 2 Glitter
Nudestix Rock’n’Roller Liner in Bronze Patina (ps: there’s a review coming for those this week.)
Milk Makeup Kush Mascara in Boom (Black)
I forgot not to look up or blink a lot after I put the Lit Cosmetics Glitter Base + glitter on my lids, so they creased and picked up some of the underlying shadows on the most mobile areas of my lid… which is okay for this look. If you have more mobile lids that are prone to creasing – remember to let the product dry before looking up/around a ton.
Note: The macro eye shot was taken with a light source very close to my face, so the colors (especially the green) are a little washed out and appear lighter than they were in real life.
Face Makeup Details:
Dermablend Flawless Creator Drops in N25 and their Translucent Loose Setting Powder
Milk Makeup Flex Concealer in Fair, Light Bronzer Stick, and Sunshine Skin Tint in Fair (mixed with the Flawless Creator)
Bite Beauty Multistick in Blondie
European Body Art Encore Alcohol Activated Makeup in Clay and Mud for the freckles
Lip Makeup Details:
Melt Cosmetics’ Ultra Matte Lipstick in 1969 (from the Unconventional Nudes Collection)
Farmacy Honey Savior Salve patted on top for a hydrated gloss. Read more about Honey Savior here!
For some of these shots/angles, I get very faint Kimberly Clark vibes. Does anyone else miss her presence on YouTube and Instagram? I know that Chris Giarmo is on tour with David Byrne, but I miss his sassy fem alter ego so much. I think the vibes are from the shape of the eye look, specifically the shading/linework on the lower lash line… but still – I NEED MORE ANTI-HAUL VIDEOS IN MY LIFE!
Anyways, I guess this little lemon better hop off here and work on content for the rest of the week. I am trying very hard to upload three times a week on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday… but for sure I will be uploading new blog posts of various kinds Monday and Wednesday.
