Monday's beauty bit: Evening makeup for post-LASIK patients

Pardon the expression, it was one of those no-good-photo-days

It's been over a week since the LASIK operation and the liberty of a life without glasses or contact lenses has been amazing. Every morning I wake up bewildered that I can see, or panicking that I'd gone to sleep with my lenses in. Everything's been peachy keen with the exception of ONE thing.

No eye makeup.

Worse. No eye makeup for crazy New Year's Eve night out.

HOW am I to get by without any eye makeup? I'm not blessed with great eyes, no eye makeup means no EYES.

After a good wail and moan and overcoming of temptations to cheat, I gave in and decided to work the look and go with a strong lip. Looking up some catwalk looks I tried a matte red lip (too scary) a shiny red lip (less scary but still, vampirish), fuschia lips (better but not for the dress) and finally settled on strong berry-rose lips.



Contouring
Now, bare naked foundation looks very flat, particularly with nothing around the eyes. Also blush didn't go well with a strong look, so I decided to contour and highlight my face using Benefit 10.

I love this box of powder for the no-makeup-but-better-than-natural effect it gives. Using a small skunk brush, dust the brown shade under the cheekbones, along the sides of your nose, under the bottom lip, around the edges of the face, and over the browbone. Then using the highlighter side, dust on the apples of the cheek, down the bridge of the nose, over the top of your lips and under the eyebrows. Mix both together for a glowing, subtle blush/bronzer and dust over cheeks for a bit of a flush.

Remember, the effect is subtle, so you're not supposed to SEE the contouring. But you'll find your face looks a lot less flat afterwards. Less boring.

Lips

I ended up choosing Clinique's High Impact Lipstick in Magenta Rose, a warm bright berry lipstick that's highly pigmented and very long-lasting.

I applied a lipbalm, blotted my lips and carefully brushed the lipstick on. A quick blot and once more over with a brush. The rest of the night I simply touched up directly from the bullet. 

A slick of pink gloss over to add oomph. I used Shiseido's Luminizing Lip Gloss in Pop Life (pink) 

And I was done! It took all of 15 minutes, it's stunning how much time you save when you can't use eye makeup!

See what I mean about the expression? 

What do you think? A friend of mine was so inspired by the look she went out the last night sans eyemakeup with amped up lips.