My Attempt at Smoky Eye and A V-Day Gift

Yesterday, Matt and I decided to do all the Valentine's Day stuff. We both have to work on Tuesday and I never like celebrating any holiday on a weekday but Christmas and Thanksgiving, at least during those you get the next day off. Valentine's on a weekday isn't romantic, it's rushed. So we wisely picked Saturday to let ourselves celebrate a day for lovers. If the idea of people celebrating their love makes you sad or jealous you should discontinue reading this post because I'm about to lay it on thick.



Now when special occasions arrive, I really do like to do it up right. I like to look great, smell great, do the hair fabulous, and have the nice dinner. The next time I do all this will be my birthday, actually our birthdays. Matt and I have birthdays, one day the other, mine is the 29^th of April, his the 30^th so this year we've decided to celebrate both our birthdays on his birthday, he got the lucky draw this year so his on a Saturday. So that will be my next time doing myself up big time because last night is not typical with me. I rarely if ever wear makeup, the most I do is maybe liner, mascara, and some lip gloss. It's not that I don't like makeup I do, I'm just not the girl who had any kind of artful ability to applying makeup. It's not like my mom didn't wear makeup when I was a child, she did and always looked so beautiful. Her only makeup advice to me was never wear red lipstick, I still stick to that one, thanks Mom. So I discovered not too long ago via Socialite Dreams website, which is a wonderful site for black women who want great tips on beauty and style that I could find online tutorials on makeup. What? Where have I been? Online tutorials on making myself up, I was excited. Because I needed help, I wanted to attempt something with my makeup I'd never done before, the infamous smoky eye. Now, I'm sure you've seen the smoky eye makeup on countless starlets and may have wondered how they got that beautiful sexy look. Well, I certainly have and I wanted to imitate it, so my Valentine's Day night out was the chance to do that. I found a tutorial at youtube about how to apply the smoky eye look, with a young woman she's got a great accent, watch it just for fun you'll love that accent. She did a good job at the tutorial although she seems to have lost her makeup brushes as she did the tutorial LOL. That's another thing I need, new makeup brushes, the ones she's using you need to use, makes things so much easier. I was also kind of pissed last night to find that I'd lost a very expensive MAC eyeliner brush; I'm planning on tearing up my bedroom tomorrow to find it. I'm sorry 20 bucks for an eyeliner brush yes it's gonna be found. So I did the best I could with my rag tag brushes and this is the result.

 
What do you think? Do you think it's the effect I wanted? I took the photo in my bathroom and it doesn't have the best light but I need another opinion. I thought it looked okay but I think with the correct brushes and primer makeup it could be better. No problem, I'll be trying it again on my birthday so I'll show you those results, maybe do a comparison.



Along with my smoky eye, I exchanged gifts with Matt. We kept it a minimum amount, $50 for the gift but he's got a bit of a surprise coming on Monday, something he won't expect. He got me the silver bracelet in the picture below and took me to dinner at Ray's Boathouse a world-class seafood restaurant on Shilshole Bay, those Blushing Bellinis were fabulous (just a note to my friend, yea I went with the fishnets and it was hot). He also got me two small bags of Turtles candy which I adore, that was a surprise he's such a sweet and thoughtful man. I got him a nice holder to put on dashboard or the window of his car to hold his iPhone, as I've said before Matt has a bad habit of driving and multi-tasking which usually involves that dang iPhone so this way he can use the iPhone and shuffle songs and answer calls pretty much without having to use both his hands. I'll be glad when he puts it in his car, that way I don't have to worry about him killing himself going back and forth to work. I love my bracelet, it isn't the charm bracelet but they cost way more than $50, so maybe I'll save that for my birthday gift request. Yes I request gifts, it's not romantic but I get what I want check out Letting Go of Crap-The Gift Edition to know why this is sound advice. I hope you all had a nice Valentine's Day if you did it yesterday or will have a nice Valentine's Day if you do it tomorrow.