The Naughty Christmas Elf

This is going to be a perfectly wearable daytime look suitable for work... Just kidding! :D One of my readers asked if I could do a fairy or elf-inspired makeup tutorial and since that I have been thinking about elves and fairies a lot. Since it's almost Christmas the natural choice was of course to do a crazy Christmas elf look. :)

I didn't use contact lenses for this look, because I don't own any at the moment, but if you are going to use contacts I advice you to put them in before doing your makeup. Sometimes when putting in contacts the eyes can get irritated and start watering, and you wouldn't want to ruin your eye makeup, would you?

I can tell you that I probably never will use liquid eyeliner for my eyebrows again. Ever. It is extremely hard to get a straight line even if you have mapped out the shape with a white eyeliner pencil, and cleaning up afterwards just takes unnecessary extra time.

Now let's get to the tutorial! As in my latest post I have to apologize for the crappy lighting in the pictures and the somewhat inaccurate colors.

Step 1. Map out your cut crease with a white eyeliner pencil.

Step 2. Fill in the shape with Nyx Jumbo pencil in Milk. If you're worried about fallout you can do this step after you have applied the green and red eyeshadows.

Step 3. Apply a dark green (or black) base, mapping out the shape you want. I've used Envy by Makeup Geek, which is a dark green even if the camera picks it up as black.

Step 4. Above the green, apply a warm medium brown. The one I've used is Purely naked by Makeup Geek. This is going to work as our transition color between the red eyeshadow and the skin.

Step 5. Now, apply a Christmasy green on top of the dark green base. I didn't have a green that looked exactly the way I wanted so I used a mixture between Humid by M.A.C. and Ben Nye's pigment Chartreuse. Can anyone recommend a cruelty-free eyeshadow that looks something like this?  :)

Step 6.  Apply a highly pigmented red eyeshadow such as Sugarpill's Love+ with a small (read teeny tiny) eyeshadow brush. Blend out but do not overblend.

Step 7. Eyeliner pencil on your upper and lower waterlines...

Step 8. Apply your foundation, concealer and powder. Use a red and green gel liner (or liquid eyeliner) to draw a candy cane line along your lower lashline. I'm afraid there are no shortcuts here, you have to muster your patience and draw these by hand. The liners I've used are Poison and Mystic by Makeup Geek. On top of Mystic I put the eyeshadow Envy to darken the color.
I also used Poison to sharpen the edge between the green and the red eyeshadows.

Step 9. Using a black liquid liner (or gel liner...) draw a rather thick line along your upper lash line and extend it into a long wing, following your candy cane liner.

Step 10. Clean the candy cane line with makeup remover and concealer. You want it to be crisp and sharp. Apply mascara and false eyelashes. Draw on/fill in your eyebrows (if you're as bad as I am on drawing them on with liquid eyeliner you probably will have to clean it up afterwards with makeup remover and concealer...). Apply a green rhinestone at the outermost point of the shape. :)

Step 11. Apply a red lipstick (and your contacts, if you haven't done so already...) and you're done! Naughtiest Christmas elf ever. ;)

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So there you go, bold and crazy Christmas look with a lot of darkness hidden underneath those bright eyeshadows. :) Hope you like it!

Thanks for reading and have a lovely day!