This is the makeup part of my Black Dahlia costume for a friend’s party last night! (The theme was movies, and let’s face it I am not going to be a Disney princess for anyone…)

1: Eye closeup - I used the beige, pale gold and black shadows from the Sleek Storm pallette.

2: Creating the all-important Glasgow/Chelsea smile with Prestige lipliner in Auburn. (nb I have used this precisely twice, having owned it for over six months. The other time was for my partner’s works Christmas dinner. I guess that makes it a versatile product…)

3: Filling my lips in with rosy tint from either Beauty UK or 2true (the writing has scratched off the bottle, the products are nearly identical and I have random items by both companies dotted around). This is to maintain some colour when drinking, although sticking to red wine also helped that effort.

4: The whole look, including a slick of Barry M Lip Paint in 141.

5: Another whole face shot, backed off a bit to show my hair since that took as much effort as the makeup. I curled it with rollers that were heated in the microwave - I’ll blog about those soon!

The foundation I used was Collection 2000’s 3-in-1 in Cream. The ‘3’ in question amounts to foundation, concealer and powder. This is the best match I’ve found for my skin colour, but I haven’t used it much because I’m not fond of the powdered look. It is, however, a good look when trying to resemble a 40s murder victim!

On another note, I was quite impressed with whatever force of makeup or sheer luck kept my eyeshadow in place during one particular catastrophe which fortunately took place before leaving home. Last time I put my contact lenses away, I was pissed as a fox’s fart. This isn’t unusual, as I tend to only wear them to go out in the evening. Trouble is, I put them away in the wrong compartments, so ended up putting them back in my eyes the wrong way around! Luckily I realised quickly (albeit after applying makeup) what had happened and didn’t go through the evening with my sight all blurred…