My Week at Work- in “Non-Work-Appropriate Makeup”

I follow all manner of “makeup gurus” on Youtube and the like, and therefore, I have no shortage of suggestions for “makeup for work” types of looks, all of which tend to feature 500 shades of nude eyeshadows, often from ridiculously overpriced brands. I can’t say as I find a single one of them to be interesting in any way. It’s not that I think everyone everywhere should wear bright and colourful makeup every day (I certainly don’t; in fact I often don’t wear anything at all), but I grow tired of the stereotype that all work makeup should be extremely boring.

I am extremely fortunate that I work for a firm that has embraced my weirdness as part of its own personality. My work colleagues seem to both enjoy and take a genuine interest in my slightly odd out-of-work activities, and the sight of me with my bouffant and brightly coloured makeup has just been accepted as part of the firm’s identity.

All in all, I’ve had a crappy couple of weeks at work, and this week, I’ve been flexing my irritation with some traditionally “inappropriate makeup”

Look 1, which I wore for more than one day out of the week, was probably the most “work-appropriate”, with its neutral brown tones. For this, I started with an all-over wash of a neutral transition shade, and then built up the colour over the brow bone and into the crease until I went in with a bit of black. I haven’t worn this look to work before, but I liked how it turned out; it was mostly inspired by the fact that I wanted to wear my Apocalipslick in Coven Cream from Lunatick Cosmetic Labs, which is a badass “greige”.

Look 1; please forgive the crappy "taken at work" photo. You can't really see in this picture quite how dark the crease came out- definitely a black cut-crease!

Look 2 was bright as hell, since I dipped into my Sugarpill eyeshadows. This look was based purely on the fact that I wanted to use my Burning Heart palette. Usually when I wear something like this, I’ll blow out the crease colour as I wear glasses and I want to make sure the colour can be seen over my frames. For work however, I muted the look by trying to confine the blend to sit mostly within the frames of my glasses, which is a nifty little trick to make bright colours more subtle; scarily, its application begins with the same all-over wash as Look 1. You may feel like you’ve seen the look before, and that’s because this look is very much “inspired by” (by which I mean utterly ripped off from) Victoria at Biohazardous Beauty, when she did her Burning Heart Collaboration, which I will link below.

Look 2- everyone loves red eyeshadow for work.

Check out the original tutorial from Biohazardous Beauty here:- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrXHyS4IWUQ

Look 3 may be slightly surprising, in that this is a look I wear quite frequently at work. I feel like its kind of an edgy look, as I usually create an elongated shape (almost a wing) with the blues in the crease, and then I use a makeup wipe to create a severe edge (which I do really only because I often get watery eyes, and this stops things from running!). For a time, I did this entire look using my much-loved 88 palette, but since I’ve had my Sugarpill eyeshadows, (why yes; maybe I will just marry them) I’ve been using Velocity out of the Heartbreaker palette as my darkest blue. Compared to cheaper blues, this is so pigmented, and most importantly, the pigment stays put, which many dupes I’ve tried before simply cannot do.

Look 3; one of my favourites for work

Most despicably in Look 3, I team this with the Lunatick Cosmetic Labs Apocalipslick in London Bridge. Now, I’ve always maintained that purple is my signature lip colour, but London Bridge is the most amazing muted blue tone that I could almost rethink that statement. I get a lot of compliments when I wear this shade at work; I think that although a blue lip is unusual, this shade is dark enough and contrasts so well against the pale skin/black hair combo I have going on that it carries a certain “goth” charm to it. If you feel like you want a dark lip, but are bored of burgundies, purples and blacks, it’s definitely worth checking out.

Apocalipslick in "London Bridge" from Lunatick Cosmetic Labs

Check out Lunatick Cosmetic Labs here:- http://www.lunaticklabs.com/

I feel pretty lucky that I work in a place where I can wear the makeup I want to work and nary an eyebrow is raised about it. When you’re having a shitty week, there’s nothing quite like facing it with a face full of obnoxious colour.