Fancy Christmas Face and Hands: The Big Day...s

I like really love Christmas.

Christmas Eve: went out to see The Hobbit. Definitely wasn't overdressed. Definitely. 

Wore a lilac dress with a cute little perfume bottle print and a long knotted strand of pearls. I'm thinking I really need to keep better track of what make up I wear because this was two days ago and I have no idea, except that the lipstick was Bourjois Sweet Kiss 54 Rouge Glamour. I have an inkling my eyeshadow was two blended shades from my Soap & Glory Tricks of the Shade palette, which I've been meaning to review since I bought it nearly two months ago. I'm a terrible blogger. Le sigh. I also gave myself a Christmas haircut (chopped an inch or two off my "fringe", which had ceased to be a fringe and become just a slightly shorter section of hair. It's back to about cheekbone length now.)

Christmas Day, hurrah!

I can remember what I wore yesterday. For once. 

I wore the blue floral Topshop dress which I wrote about way back here, bow earrings and a Zara crystal cascade necklace, because if you can't go overboard at Christmas, when can you? In the festive spirit, I also piled on the eyeshadow at 11am (Bourjois Bleu Magnetique) and used the NARS Hungry Heart blush in the daytime, because putting gold glitter on your face is a very Christmassy sort of thing to do.

Amazingly, I have not yet started on the pink champagne in this photo.

This photo is unedited and was taken in full, unflattering daylight, and yet my skin still looks unusually good, because I'm wearing a(n even) heavier coat of make up than normal. You can kind of see the glow of the NARS on my face here, although I'm thinking it's more noticeable to me because I never wear colour on my cheeks so I'm not used to it. Trust me, in the picture above I'm positively tanned. I'm calling the NARS duo a success colourwise, though I'm still terrified of the glitter, which is very glittery, but also when I looked it up for the link I discovered it costs twenty nine whole pounds !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and then I had a panic attack and died because that is like the whole contents of my bank account at the moment and I just put it on my face what is happening right now oh my god. 

Since one of my New Year's resolutions is to be braver about trying new things, and apparently that includes make up (good job, self), I am thinking I am going to look around for something similar but pinker and very very matte. And much cheaper. Much much much cheaper. Much.

My excellently tacky and festive Christmas Day nails. This is the only day of the year I would let myself combine red and green, but what are you gonna do? (Also it is the only glitter polish I have.) The Givenchy Vernis Please! (that is really fun to say in my head in a dramatic French accent, like Vernizz Plizz!) in Bucolic Poppy was also passed on to me by the delightful The Moroccan Shopaholic. She thought it was too gloopy, which it kind of is, but I only used one coat for this and it was fine. (Sidenote: I looked up "bucolic" in bafflement and it turns out it means something completely totally different to what I thought it did - but it definitely sounds more like it means bloated and diseased and yellow than "pastoral". Still. Vocabulary!)

Bonus: Boxing Day nails! I'm starting to talk myself down from a cliff of glittery Christmassy delight with these. The coral colour is a Ruby Hammer Recommends polish that doesn't appear to have a name, probably because it came in a set (hello, making use of my stocking fillers already!) Then I mattified it (totally a word) with Rimmel Matte Finish topcoat to make even more of a contrast with the Max Factor Max Effect  Mini Nail Polish I slicked over the top part of my nails. This shade apparently is called Ivory, which is very weird since it is definitely gold. I thought this look was a good, easy alternative to doing tips, at which I am terrible. Because the top colour goes almost halfway down the nail, it doesn't matter if your whites are short (which mine are), and because the gold is semi translucent it doesn't matter nearly so much if your strokes are uneven (which, again, mine are). It's forgiving and pretty! Good news all round!

Happy holidays, you gorgeous thing, you. xo (I recently discovered that in America xo is the standard, so I am trying it out. I thought you were all just a touch pretentious, but no, it turns out when I sign xxx you just thought I was talking about porn or something.)