Golden Holiday Party Makeup Look

Consideration was provided by Target    

I love any excuse to
try out a new make-up look, and the holidays present a great opportunity to try
a new look that is festive and perfect for gatherings.  Whenever I’m trying something new, or buying
things for a specific look, I stick to affordable beauty products over the
higher-end stuff.

Target has always been my go-to place for affordable beauty products as they
typically have cheaper prices than a lot of drugstores, but I am especially
impressed by their new Beauty Concierge service.

Carla, the beauty concierge at my local Target, immediately greeted me. I
explained to her I wanted a “holiday” look that would work for any type of
holiday party. She started with skincare. Being that she’s an esthetician, she knew
her stuff.  She started rattling off all
the benefits of the Neutrogena gel eye cream, and even though I couldn’t
pronounce some of the stuff she was saying, I knew I needed it.

We moved to
foundation, concealer, and eye primer where she helped me match my color in
foundation and concealer. That was really helpful, because it’s tough to do
when you’re by yourself and can’t see your face next to the bottle. She asked
about my skin type and picked a foundation that would work with it. I love that
it’s not super matte for the winter months where your skin can be more dry, and
it’s got a great buildable coverage.

Next she led me to
the new Maybelline Gilded in Gold holiday palette. This palette has pretty much
everything you need, but she recommended a different eyeliner and lip color. I
told her I love a cat-eye and she recommended a gel liner because you have more
control, and even let me know that brush that came with it wasn’t the best. She
led me to a thin angled brush that would work better for precision and I am so
glad she did, as I would not have thought to do that.

She also pointed out
that it would be fun and festive to put a gold liner on top of the black liner,
which was such a great idea, and I absolutely love the way it turned out.

For mascara, she
pointed out the new L’Oreal Voluminous Superstar mascara. She said it was the
same formula as the Voluminous mascara that is highly coveted, but they’ve
added the volumizing base.  She said if
you layered it, you could achieve the same look as a certain designer mascara
that is super expensive.

Now I consider myself
to be almost an expert in make-up, but I definitely learned a lot of new things
from Carla, and it was so nice to shop with someone helping who knew their
stuff.  She knew a lot of dupes for
high-end makeup and also a lot about skincare – and I think they go hand in
hand. She was extremely helpful in helping me find affordable, good quality
makeup to create my holiday look.

What do you guys think of the final look? I love the dark lip as opposed to a
standard red, and the touch of gold eyeliner is so stunning, that even pictures
don’t do it justice.