Gem and Jo's Valentine's Lips Picks

Ah Valentine's Day, the smell of roses, the cute romantic couples proposing to each other everywhere and then there's us. We will be celebrating the occasion with some frozen pizza and a tub of Ben and Jerry's Cookie Dough. Exciting, we know. However, if you have managed to bag yourself someone special, we are here to help with the toughest decision of the day: What lipstick should you wear?

In this particular situation you have a couple of things to consider:

• How much kissing will you be doing? Cheek or otherwise. 
• What's your outfit like, would a little lipstick push you towards hoochie mama? (You don't want that.. or maybe some do, no judgement!)
• Are you going to a meal? (P.s. don't pick ribs.)

If there will be kissing or eating a dark, hard to maintain lipstick is out of the question. There is nothing worse than passing by your reflection and realizing all that kissing has smudged your lip colour all over your face. The actual horror. However a light, subtle colour wouldn't be as noticeable or leave your date with red-face! If you want lips that are sure not to budge keep reading:

Lip Stains
This has to be the best way to go. You get the coloured lips you want and you won't leave said colour all over your dates face. That's gotta be a plus in our opinion! However keep in mind, stains may dry out your lips, so keep a little translucent lip balm with you to keep those puckers kissable.

Maybelline 10hr Stain Gloss

(adds a little shine when first applied but fades to a unmovable stain)

Primark P.S. Love lip Stain Pen. 

Lip Balm
You could always go the route of no lip colour and let your natural lip shade shine! Just bring along a little lip balm! You could bring scented, unscented, etc! Plus if it's scented your date will probably get a whiff and be more inclined to smooch! A lightly tinted lip balm is a safe enough area too, just try to steer clear of intensely pigmented balms though, the same principal applies: dates face = lipstick-ified *shudder*.

Here's some lip balms that would work perfectly:

Nivea Essential Care Lip Balm

Vaseline Aloe Vera Lip Therapy 

(Pretty sure everyone has a billion of these in their house!)

Nivea Fruity Shine lip balm in Peach. 

(a soft tint and this stuff smells amazing!)

Lipstick
If you're gonna go the route of lipstick (you are brave and we salute you!), here are some of our top Lipstick picks for this Valentine's Day:

Elizabeth Arden: Red Door Red 

Elizabeth Arden: Breathless

Natural Collection: Sweet Pea. 

Ladies, we do have one thing to ask of you. Please, please for the love of that's holy and sacred: don't wear lipgloss! Lads do not like it! To them you have the lips of a two year old: sticky and unappealing. We asked around and they confirm this, for some reason most boys don't understand the wonderous-ness of lipgloss. Weirdos. 

Don't forget to check out our DIY Lip Scrub to prepare your pout!

What are you planning this Valentines? What's your lip pick gonna be? 

Until next time,

Gem and Jo's Valentine's Polish Picks

To go along with our Valentine's eye shadow looks we decided to keep up the trend and show you guys our Valentine's Day polish picks. 

We would like to point out that we were approximately 163Km apart when we painted our nails, it was a very strange coincidence that we happened to do practically the same pattern! Weird best friend telepathy going on up in here!

Gem's Pick

You will never guess how much I paid for this polish! Never!! What's that? You wanna know how much I paid? Okay then, are you ready? Are you ready for this jelly?

Here it comes....

I paid 50c!!

And the best part? It's a matte polish!!!!! I love Primark!

I only applied one coat of the matte grey/purple shade because if you apply any more it tends to crack way more easily. One coat is plenty anyway as it gives a fully opaque look which is what we all strive for, am I right? 

The formula is a little thick and getting it to cover your entire nail without streaking is a bit of a challenge but hard work pays off! 

I added a matte top coat from H&M to seal the deal before I added a little purple heart on my accent nail to give the look some Valentines feels! If you look at this picture close enough you can tell my heart is god awful and I cannot paint freestyle for my life. Ah well, everyone loves a trier, right? (Is that the right saying? It doesn't sound right...oops!)

Jo's Pick

I'm gonna let you guys in on a little secret, but before I do please no judgement. I personally am not a big fan of pink. I know I know, I'm practically betraying Barbie herself here, but who says you need to be covered head to toe in pink to show a little Valentine's spirit?

So for my Valentine's day nails, I chose to be a little different (or so I thought until I saw Gemma's nails and realized that we  must actually share a brain!). I first painted a coat of Topshop's Easy Peasy on all but my middle finger. This polish is great, has fantastic staying power and brilliant shine. 

Next to jazz them up a little and add a wee bit of Valentine's flair, I painted my middle finger with this pretty purple pink colour from Primark, which I purchased for €2.00. I then used a piece of Sellotape to make a love heart stencil on my ring finger. Trés Valentines(y) if I do say so myself. This polish applies really smoothly and has a large brush for easy application. 

This look would be great for anyone who wants to get into the Valentine's Day spirit without dousing themselves in pink sparkles and and red love hearts!

What's your polish picks for this Valentine's Day?

Until next time, 

Gem and Jo's Valentine's Eyes.

This week is an important one for most girls, all the planning, stressing and preparation for one of the most romantic days of the year: Valentine's Day. Now as we are currently lonely, desperate single people, we decided to bestow our knowledge (albeit limited knowledge we may add) of the looks you can create without the need for a fantastic makeup artist. Today we're talking eye shadow, specifically Sleek I-Divine palettes.
If you haven't heard of Sleek, you need to Google it right now, like right now! Their palettes are amazing, incredible pigmentation and a great range of colours, plus they are only €9.99!! For 12 shades per palette!! We've picked out 2 palettes which we feel are the best suited for this occasion, one a flirty, cutesy look which is perfect for younger girls and the other a dramatic, sultry look for someone looking to seduce their man, woman, mineral or vegetable.

Oh So Special

The Oh So Special palette by Sleek is the perfect tool for creating a soft, girly and flirty look, which is perfect for Valentines. The shades you get can create a really pretty look which is guaranteed to reel that someone special in! 

The palette comes with some really cutesy shadows, some of which are their infamous shimmer shades! Plus you get some nice darker colours which can be used to create an intense, more sultry look. Personally Organza and Wrapped Up are some of my favourites and together they can be used for a quick 2 shadow look. 

For this Valentines, if your looking to be more flirty than sexy, the Oh So Special palette is perfect, using Bow as a base colour (it's such a nice neutral shade for most skin tones) you can carefully blend Wrapped Up into the crease, the last 2/3 of your eyelid and a little underneath the lower lash line. You need to be careful with the darker shades as they are super pigmented and can come out waayy too dark! A little goes a long way in this case. Once your sufficiently blended, pat Pamper onto the center and inner lid and cover over it with Organza for a little glitz! Use Bow again to highlight the inner corner and voila! A pretty, girly look that's perfect for fluttering your lashes! 

Top Tip: Add a set of flirty, but not over the top lashes to make this look really pop!

Vintage Romance

For a valentines night you can't really go wrong with the Vintage Romance palette from Sleek cosmetics. Even the name conjures up images of love hearts, strawberries and the awkward moment when you are trying to make small talk with your date as you guys are waiting for your meal (We've all been there).  

All of the shadows in this palette are super pigmented and blend really well. Plus they have really cute names which, lets face it, means more than we'd like to admit. I mean you can't not feel all romantic and gooey while sweeping Forever in Florence across your outer corner. 

For a sultry night time look sure to wow your date and emphasize your pretty peepers; sweep Meet in Madrid over the lid, blend Propose in Prague into the crease to warm up your look. Next place a small amount of Honeymoon in Hollywood into the outer two thirds of your crease and blend some of Bliss in Barcelona into the outer corner to darken up your look. Sweep on a subtle lip and you're good to go. 

What's your makeup plan for this weekend? Are you going flirty or sultry? 

Until next time,