Simple and Easy Summer Glowing Goddess | GRWM & Chit Chat

Hello my lovelies, I hope you're all well. It's been a while since I have done a chatty get ready with me and it's been a long time since I've worn makeup daily in general because I've been so busy. So just to have the time to chill, sit down, and do my makeup was actual bliss. So when I sat down to do this I wasn't entirely sure what I wanted to do apart from something summery, bronzey, and easy to put on. So I came up with this everyday glam glowing goddess kind of vibe and I was really feeling myself when I was wearing this look yesterday. So sit back, relax, enjoy, and let's chat. 

So I wanted a different kind of brown, I wanted an in between - something that wasn't too cool and something that wasn't too warm. So I was browsing through my palettes and I came across this khaki brown called Need which I'd never used before until I decided to do this look. It's from the Makeup Revolution Chocolate Vice palette - one of my ultimate fave palettes from the drugstore by the way. I blended that all through the crease using my Real Techniques Deluxe Crease Brush in circular buffing motions. I blended this shade for what felt like ages just because I wanted it to be fully blended out and smooth.

To carry on with the theme of in between; I wanted a gold-esk shade but I didn't want a full on shimmery gold because those kinds of golds are always really intense but I did want something with a bit of sparkle to give the makeup something eye catching about it. So once again I was rooting through my palettes and then found this golden peachy shimmery shade called Dirty Sweet in the Urban Decay Naked Smoky palette. Now in the palette and when I swatched it, it was as bright as it appears in that image. But, when I put it on my lids it almost like adapted to fit with the khaki brown shade whilst still giving off that golden sheen which you can see glimmering in the light. And I applied that with my Real Techniques Base Shadow Brush as well as my finger. 

I really like the mix of these two together, I think they contrast one another really nicely and it's that perfect middle ground of when you want to feel full on glam without feeling like you're wearing loads of eye makeup. Win, win! 

So what have you guys all been up to? Let me know in the comments or on my social medias that are linked in my header bar at the top. If you guys have read my previous Coffee Chats post you'll know I've been very busy, if you've not had the chance to check it out yet, I'd love it if you could go and give it a read: http://katielouisejohnson.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/coffee-chats-life-and-art-of-living.html 

But yeah if you've mainly been keeping up with on Instagram @ katiej0hnson, then you'll know I've been extremely busy over the last month and half with finishing my second year at university. I still find it crazy to know this September it'll be two years since I started uni and that this September is my third and final year. It is honestly going by so quickly and I cannot cope with that, haha. Recently some of us have been having conversations about plans for after uni is finished, which is also something I don't really want to think about. Simply because I want whatever happens to just fall in place naturally. Like whatever is meant to happen will happen. I'm keeping my options open at the minute for what I potentially might want to go and do and I know for definite I'll know by this time next year (hopefully). It's so strange to think though, even though I have no idea right now, that this time next year everyone in my year will all leave uni and we'll all have different plans for all of our lives and it's just crazy knowing how much your life actually changes in a year. For example, this time two years ago all of the people I have in my life now and who I can't imagine living my life without, two years ago I didn't even know them. I feel like I've grown up so fast and that school and college didn't even happen because of how fast life is flying by at the minute. Does anyone else have that same feeling? 

Then went on and applied my every day face makeup with a couple of new products I've been loving and been using every time I've done my makeup. Also, let's just ignore how my side eyebrow view looks, that brow was not co-operating with me yesterday. But remember darlings, eyebrows are sisters not twins. 

(if it's in 'bold' writing it means there's a new edition to my everday routine) 

• Maybelline Better Skin in 05 Light Beige 
• Then taking my Collection Lasting Perfection concealer under my eyes drawn in a triangle and taken down my cheeks, along my nose, on my forehead, around the sides of my nose, on my cupids bow, around my lips, and on my chin. Then of course on any blemish areas that I want to cover. Using my beauty blender from Real Techniques for both my base and my concealer. 
• Then using another holy grail of mine, the Rimmel London Stay Matte powder in Translucent. Powdering all over my face with my Makeup Revolution F104 powder brush. 
• Then I am taking my Ben Nye Banana Powder and baking under my eyes, down my nose, in the middle of my forehead, on my cupids bow, and on my chin using a makeup puff. Baking every where I am going to put highlighter just to really lighten up those areas and then I buff that bake out with my Real Techniques duo fibre face brush. 
• Then moving onto my eyebrows, I'm taking my classic Maybelline Satin Brow and just filling in my eyebrows in their natural shape with the arch over drawn slightly. Then applying Brow Drama brow gel also in Dark Brown to just set them in place. 
• Then shaping my face with the Tanya Burr Cosmetics Rosy Flush Cheeks palette. Taking the shade, Beach Bronze as my contour shade. Just taking the contour to sculpt out my cheek bones on a basic angled brush and just sculpting and buffing my cheeks, my temples, and my nose. I've been using this palette every time I put makeup on, I love it!
• Baked both my face contour and my nose contour with Ben Nye's Banana Powder. 
• Taking Makeup Revolution's F103 stippling brush to apply my blush from the same contour kit, a pretty flushed rosy pink with a bit of shimmer on the apples of my cheeks in the shade Pretty Peony.
• Finally taking Real Techniques cheek brush to apply my highlighter, Oyster Shell from the same palette. Placing it on the high points of my cheeks, my forehead, down the bridge and on the tip of my nose, on my cupids bow, and on my chin. 

Can we just look at that glow people! I've been loving this as a highlighter shade.It will look gorgeous on a load more skintones as it's a champagne shade which is much softer than gold. So if you're pale like myself, you can definitely pull this one off! 

I then went back to my eyes and just smoked out my lower lashline with that khaki brown, Need, on the same brush I used to run it through my crease. The applied that golden peachy shimmer, Dirty Sweet, once again on the same brush as well as my finger. Then in my crease and in the very corners of the lower lashline and the lid I applied that highlighter from the Tanya Burr palette in Oyster Shell. I think it really pulls the whole look together, I love it. I feel like my face is looking really pretty and flawless and that just boosts my self esteem massively. I said this in my last chatty get ready with me, but it is actually crazy how much makeup can do for a person. The power of makeup is a real thing and I absolutely love playing around with it and having fun with different eye shadow colours and lipstick colours and crazily intense highlight shades. I'm so grateful and thankful that we can express ourselves through all different areas, e.g. beauty, fashion, art, crafting, scrap booking, performing, writing, designing etc. 

I then applied my new favourite lip product at the minute which is the NYX Lip Cream in Cannes. It's a perfect every day neutral natural red toned lip colour but the pigmentation is phenomenal and the wear on this lip product is insane. I really want to get some more shades; but as you can see it's got a nice neutral vibe which keeps this look as an every day look.

Some of you might be noticing in these images that my hair is literally just brown again which is pretty much correct. I haven't lightened my hair since Christmas and the majority of my blonde ombre has washed out pretty much and has now gone to a more light brown tone because I haven't lightened it in so long. But also, a few months ago, whoever follows me on Twitter and Instagram will remember. I dyed the ombre lilac and because purple tones neutralise the brass in blonde hair it essentially stripped it all out and left me with just my natural brown hair and so I just left it like that for a while. When my hair was a lot longer before I got it cut you could tell the blonde was there but now it shows up when it really wants to.

You also might notice in these images that the ends of my hair have a bit of a tint to them and that is because I dyed my remaining ombre/light brown pink using the same Colourista hair dyes from L'Oreal that I used when I went lilac. I do quite like it but I'm at a bit of a stand still with my hair, I simply don't know what I want to do with it. It's at that awkward mid-length between short and long. I don't know whether to get it cut straight back into being shorter again, ie. when it just sat on my shoulders. Or wait it out and let it grown long for a while. But then I've got another hair dilemma of what shade I really want to be. I've had it pretty much just my natural brown since April-present and I really don't know if I want to keep it like this or ombre it blonde again. Thirdly, regarding the Colourista hair dyes, I've got a peach shade left to use that is only going to show up on blonde hair which means if I do want to use it I would have to fully put my ombre back in to the blondest it will go for the peach shade to actually take effect. I'm debating if whether or not I want to try a brown based shade out of the hair dye range as well, most likely turquoise or indigo. And finally (at last), this one is just an idea, I've not even fully thought it all through yet. I have been debating on whether dying the ends of my hair auburn for autumn and winter just because I've had blonde ombre for like two/three years now - even I can't believe it's been that long. But my only issue with that would be is once I dye it like that I wont be able to ombre it back blonde with the jelly treatment I use for a hell of a long time as it only works on natural hair that hasn't been dyed. So many decisions, if you guys have any suggests or opinions of what I should do please leave me a comment down below or drop me a comment on my latest Instagram post. It'd be much appreciated! 

And finally I got changed, ready for the day, and that is the finished look. I hope you guys enjoyed and I hope you guys like these chatty get ready with me type posts. I find them really fun to do because we can just talk about anything and just get ready together. 

I'm hoping that I'll be posting a lot more now that I am free of long days at uni for the summer. I go home for summer this Saturday (1st of July) and I'm really looking forward to spending time with my family and of course my three best pals, Chloe, Heather, and Charlie. I cannot wait to be reunited and catch up with all of them and just go on lots of summer adventures together. Oh also, I'm thinking about doing Blogust - blogging everyday of August. What do you guys reckon to that? Let me know if you'd want that and what kind of posts you want to see in the upcoming future. This is going to be a good summer of blogging, I can feel it. 

The next post you'll see from me will be my haul post which'll most likely be up on my blog this Monday, the 3rd of July. So stayed tuned for that. 

As always thank you guys so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed and until next time. 

Love, 

Katie 

Coffee Chats: Life and The Art of Living

Hello my lovelies, I hope you are all well and are having a lovely day and welcome back to a well overdue Coffee Chats. It has pretty much been a month since my last post. I'm sorry for not posting very often in the last month, May has been a really busy month for me due to Performance Practice. But anyway, I hope you have been enjoying the month of May and now the start of June. Can't believe how quickly my birthday month has been and gone. 

So as you all know I am now officially 20 years old *gasp*, and I... feel no different. I feel exactly the same as I did when I was 19, but it is weird knowing that I'm no longer a teenager and I'll never be a teenager ever again. I can't quite wrap my head around the fact I've been on this earth for twenty years; life is going too fast. 

So I am mainly doing this post for you guys today because A LOT has been happening in life in general that I want to address and talk about with you guys. So sit back, relax, get a drink of your choice and let's get going. 

So as May has now come to an end it means that 2nd year is also coming to an end and I am terrified. I cannot believe how fast 2nd year has gone. With less than a week to go until I finish for the year and sadly performance practice is over it means 3rd year will have already basically begun. In regards to performance practice, I've personally really enjoyed it. One day I want to go into this profession and being on the production team and watching it all come together has opened my eyes to truly how much time and effort and care it actually takes to put on a show from both the cast and production. I wont lie, it has been difficult at times in this process but it's all been a learning curve and super beneficial. It's been really special for me and most of that has come from having a positive outlook from the beginning. I'm a positive person anyway and I hate being negative as it's such an energy drainer and a waste of time. We should all be able to find the good in everything even in the most difficult situations. I really have loved every minute of this experience and I'd happily do it all over again if I could. It's also shown me I can work under pressure and to a deadline which'll be handy for future reference. 

Everyone who has taken this unit with me; it's really made us become more like a family as a whole year as we've all grown close to people we weren't even friends with before we started this process and that has been the most special part of the entire process for me. It's now crazy to think that before I wasn't even friends with some of these people beforehand. My friend Stacey and I were getting all sentimental about it the other day. Our lecture and director for this module has been telling us throughout that we work 'with love' and that at the end of the degree, you wont care about the grades you got. What matters is the friends you made and the experiences you have and I completely agree. I love all of these guys so much and I really cannot live without any of them. I will definitely look back on performance practice with fond and happy memories. 

Performance Practice Family

Speaking of friends and love we need to talk about the recent events happening in the UK and around the world. I know this potentially might be a sensitive subject for some of you so just be aware as you're reading. 

I'm sure the majority of you have heard about the recent tragic events in Manchester and London which both aren't that far away from where I live. I'm not here to talk about what's actually happened but more here to talk about life and about living. 

The recent events in Manchester, London, and the many other places of the world prove how precious our lives really are. It's crazy knowing that one day our lives could just be taken and we're gone. Making every day count even when we're just sat at home and watching movies all day is just as important as going out to a big event or a friends birthday. As long as it makes us happy and we enjoy the day that's all that matters. 

I watched the 'One Love Manchester' concert on the Sunday just gone (the 4th), if you have't seen it I'd urge you to watch it because it's absolutely beautiful. All of the artists who performed were fantastic and it was such a wonderful and uplifting event to watch, I can't imagine how it must've been to actually live at that concert and experience it for real. What Ariana has achieved is incredible. She truly is an inspiration for all and a courageous young woman. She's been one of my favourite artists for a long time now, she's one of my biggest inspirations singing wise, and what she has managed to achieve in her career at just 23 years old is phenomenal. She is one of the purest souls to grace this earth; I'm so proud to be from the UK. This event will definitely go down in history BUT, most importantly it shows that hate will never win. LOVE will always concur all and we have to keep spreading love, happiness, peace, positivity, and goodness. Because if we don't, the hate of the world from individuals will always ruin us. No innocent people should have died for going to something they love or doing something that makes them feel alive. Not only does it ruin their lives but it ruins the lives of others. If we don't keep living and loving then we're letting those innocent souls down. We HAVE to keep going and believing in love and we can never stop fighting for peace and happiness in a world full of hate and negativity. 

Going back to performance practice. The day I was writing this, 7th of June, has been a high emotion day. Everyone's seemed a bit tense and emotional today. I wont go into too many details, but as emotions were high it caused some negative energy to come into the space which affected the rehearsal process. Some of us got a bit upset so we took a break and cleared the space. 

We came back in and everyone was still a bit tense. An executive decision to sing 'Get By With a Little Help From My Friends' was made. We chose this song because it was played a lot at Woodstock in 1969 which is where we've set our play and it was all about love and peace after the Vietnam War where lots of innocent people lost their lives which is very similar to today's current situations so you can see why it's been one of our songs through this entire process. As well as 'Don't Look Back in Anger' - both are completely related to the time period, the events of Woodstock and the life events of today. Both these keep us all connected as the family we have become over these last few weeks and we sing either of these songs together to show we're united. 

So today (7th of June) we sang '... Little Help From My Friends' and it was all pretty emotional. Many of us cried including myself because our whole time whilst we've been doing this module has been underpinned by these tragic life events and it's just highlighted how important we all are to one another. Honestly, I would be nothing without my family and my friends and if I ever lost any of them I would lose myself. I cannot live without any of them and I don't ever want to be without them. The tears I cried today were bittersweet; mainly happy tears of joy because of how lucky I am to have all of these amazing people that are in my life. And how lucky I am to be alive and live my life everyday. I feel like people forget a lot that our lives our precious and we should live every day with happiness, love, peace, and positivity as much as we can. Yes we will all have bad days and one day will have to face certain things that we don't want to think about. But we have to live for right now, which I've touched upon before in some of my previous blog posts. We cannot regret our past or worry about our future. We need to live every single moment and cherish the time with the people we love and adore as one day something could happen like what happened in Manchester and London to one of us; we always say "that will never happen to me" but we don't know that, we can't predict that which is why I can't stress enough how precious our lives truly are. One of my friends' family's were at the arena the night of the Manchester attack and they are so luckily to be alive but regardless, no one should ever go to a concert and not come home. 

I know that because of events like this people are scared to go out and live their lives and if you are one of those people stop it right now. We have to keep on going and keep on living our lives, time will stop for no one. We can't let the small negative minds of others stop us from having from big dreams and big plans for our lives. Go out there and take that chance you've been contemplating, go out and experience something new, go to a concert, take a chance on love, challenge yourself, express yourself, love yourself, love others, be happy, try something new, treat yourself! Essentially, just ride that roller coaster called life. 

As we all carry on living our lives, a general piece of advice for you all from myself would honestly be to just live. So for example, once again, during performance practice we we're having a late rehearsal till about 9:00pm I think and by this point on that day it was already about 7:30pm. We we're all pretty low on energy so we decided to put on some music and play games etc. We put on High School Musical, Mamma Mia, and Grease etc and something incredible happened. We all just lived in the moment. We took no pictures, took no videos, no snapchats, no nothing. We just expressed ourselves through musical songs and played off of one another's energy. It was just us as a group of people having fun and enjoying each other's company and living our lives the way we should, being happy. I feel like this was a very rare moment in time where you truly live and where time felt like it didn't exist and we just enjoyed ourselves together. It'll be moments like this that I won't forget after this process.That might not be special to anyone else but it will always be special to me. It's something I wont forget. 

So as long as you guys just live your life in the best way possible, that is all you need to do to keep going through these tragic events. 

I want all of you guys to know, whoever you are that I love you and wish you the best health and the happiest life possible. Never ever stop living the life you want to live because of the events like Manchester. Always live your life with peace, love, and positivity because that is what it truly means to be happy. 

With Love Always, 

Katie