Christmas Party | FOTN

Instead of our usual Christmas dinner followed by a couple of drinks, my work decided to purchase us all tickets to an Alzheimer's Scotland Ball at the George Hotel in Edinburgh a couple of weeks ago. The night was packed with lots of yummy food, on-table entertainers, musicians, balloon artists and very inspirational speakers. I spent a lot of time planning my hair, makeup and outfit for the event, so I thought I'd go into detail of the makeup look I wore for you today. My outfit that went along with this makeup look will be posted on my blog next Monday- so keep your eyes peeled for that post!

This is definitely a look I've never tried before and a little out of my comfort zone. I created a very smokey eye paired with an orange lip. My dress was actually a royal blue colour, so I felt like the makeup matched the outfit perfectly.

I didn't take any photos of my base makeup, but I used Rimmel London's BB Cream Matte in the shade Ivory set with a quick dust of Rimmel London Stay Matte powder in translucent. 

I also filled in my eyebrows prior to photographing my eye makeup. My full eyebrow routine can be found HERE.

I used the shades Virgin, Darkhorse and Creep from the Urban Decay Naked 1 palette for this eye makeup look.

I started off by lightly patting the shade Virgin all over my eyelid and up to my eyebrow with a Real Techniques Domed shadow brush. This shade doesn't have a lot of colour to it, but it really helps brighten up my eyes to make sure they are the main focus of the whole look.

I then applied the shade Darkhorse to my eyelid using the same Real Techniques brush. I will usually use this shade as a contour colour for an everyday natural eye makeup look, however I found it looked great all over my eyelid for a heavier smokey eye look.

I then took the shade Creep and patted it on the outer 'V' of my eyelid using an Urban Decay eyeshadow brush supplied with the Naked 1 palette. Hopefully you can see the outer 'V' shape I created with the darker shade in the left hand side photo. I then blended this 'V' out in circular motions using the Real Techniques domed shadow brush.

Next, I lined my upper lashline with my favourite liquid liner - Supercat by Soap & Glory. I find the pen-like tip makes it super easy to create the perfect cat-eyed look. As I was going to apply some false eyelashes, I opted for a liquid eyeliner instead of a pencil to make sure my false eyelash placement wasn't as obvious.

I applied some glue along the strip of my 101 Eylure false eyelashes and blasted the glue with a hairdryer until it was slightly tacky. I'm not an expert at putting on false eyelashes, but I find gently placing them onto your lash line with your finger first and then pushing them into place with a pair of tweezers makes the process a lot easier. I've reused these eyelashes about 5 or 6 times and they still look great!

I applied one coat of Max Factor 2000 calorie mascara to blend my natural eyelashes in with my false ones. I finished off the eye makeup look by lining my upper waterline and outer half of my lower waterline with a Rimmel London Exaggerate eye liner in the shade Noir.

I re-discovered my Revlon Colorburst matte balms the other day in my makeup bag, so I thought they would look great combined with a smokey eye. I used the shade Mischievious and I absolutely love how well it went with my eye makeup. It did need re-applied a couple of times during the night, but I love how the balms are so pigmented like a lipstick and moisturise your lips instead of leaving them dry like I find some lipsticks do.

I'm really impressed with how this makeup look turned out. I'm not normally one to go all out with my makeup, but I was definitely tempted to try something new that night.

Please be sure to come back next week to see what outfit I decided to pair with this makeup look.

If you would like to see it before then, I've posted a photo of my outfit on my instagram (@alixstaines) and tumblr page (alixstaines.tumblr.com).

What is your go-to makeup look for a night out? Do you have any ideas of what outfit you would wear to a Christmas party this year?