My 4th of July look (featuring Violent Lips)

I know I'm pretty late in posting this... Meant to post it last week! Been having some technical difficulties which resulted in my unposted pics being scattered across multiple computers... But that's boring and off topic so.... Yeah. Makeup time.

My nails were the Inque Free To Be appliques, the consensus on which seemed to be that they made my nails look wrinkled (I agree). XD




This was actually my July 3rd look, a 'test run' if you will. It didn't turn out so great. I used:
Too Faced Shadow Insurance Lemon Drop
MAC Gesso on lid
Aromaleigh White Wedding over Gesso (just a little)
Aromaleigh Tainted Love in crease and on lower lashline
Fyrinnae 1.22 Gigawatts wet as liner
Urban Decay 24/7 in Deviant on waterline

The red bled and stained everywhere, but it's still my favorite red shadow. The 1.22 Gigawatts totally freaked out my camera. It's so blue... I don't have many blues bluer than that.





This one was my *actual* Independence Day look. My friend suggested something that looked like fireworks, so I immediately thought... GLITTER!
This was:
The silver half of L'Oreal HIP duo in Platinum (best silver ever) on lid
Middle of Stila Eyeshadow Trio in After Hours in crease
Pure Luxe OMG wet as liner
Fyrinnae 1.22 Gigawatts over Urban Decay 24/7 Shadow pencil in Clash on lower lashline
Urban Decay 24/7 in Deviant on waterline
MAC 3D Silver glitter (over Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy) on lid

Liked this one much more. The Pixie Epoxy is a lifesaver for preventing glitter fallout. Haven't had too much luck using it under shadow, but for glitters it's amazing.


Now for the cool part... the Violent Lips American Flag lip tattoo. This was my first try ever with them and I made a few mistakes, but the end result was still pretty sweet:

Here's how they looked on my lips. Like I said, I made a few application mistakes, but being only my first try, they didn't turn out too shabby looking!

Closeup of star detail- they are actual stars and not spots!

The application was not too complicated, just time consuming. All you do is measure the tattoos against your top and bottom lips, cut them to size and then wet them like a normal temporary tattoo to adhere them onto your lips.

Here are the mistakes I made:
On the top lip, toward the outer corner, you can see where I broke the design. This was because I scratched my lip while the tattoo was still wet. Lesson learned: don't mess with them while they're wet! The only thing you should do while they're wet is gently push them into place if you need to- otherwise don't touch them. The second mistake I made isn't very visible, but I cut the corners too straight and short. Next time I'll taper my cuts and not leave square edges. And the third mistake I made is I placed the bottom lip up too high while applying so it doesn't cover my entire bottom lip and left a loose part on the inner part of my lip, which tore off. You can see where it looks crinkly in the center/inner part of my lips- that's because I got the tattoo too far over the inner lip. Keep the tattoo only on the dry/outer area and it won't wrinkle.

The wear on these really surprised me in a good way. I thought they would be sticky and wear off right away. They didn't. They lasted all day long, through eating, drinking, lip balm application and an attempted removal. What happens is that the top layer of the tattoo does wear off after a while, leaving a less-vibrant version of the tattoo in a thinner layer on your lips. The thin layer seemingly lasts forever and was more difficult to remove than I thought it would be. I used Almay makeup remover pads and vigorous scrubbing to remove it.

The design is super cool and I'd totally wear these and other designs again.

The downside to them is that they make your lips feel weird all day. Dry and kinda... papery? You can put balm over them but it will decrease wear time. They didn't actually dry out my lips, but the sensation is weird and slightly annoying. But, it's a reasonable trade off for having a crazy design (that doesn't need to be reapplied or touched up!) on your lips all day.

Next time I'm going to be much more careful to cut them properly, place them more accurately and not mess with them until they're dry.

(The Violent Lips were sent for review.)