Illamasqua Liquid Metal Look and Review

Hi All!

I'm showing you a whole face look now, and incorporating a review of Illamasqua's Liquid Metal in Surge. It's a gorgeous color and a fascinating product, but it's a little tricky to work with.

Illamasqua Liquid Metal in Surge: 6 out of 10 

So, first off, I'll give you a review of Liquid Metal by Illamasqua in Surge. Surge is a highly metallic Pewter; you can apply it with your finger to get a sheer wash of color, or you can pat it on with a brush to get an opaque foiled look with a high metallic sheen. I don't think that this metallic look really shows up in the photos, but take my word for it, it's stunning. However, it's really hard to work with; it creases if you even look at it wrong. Don't even think about wearing it unless you have a good eyeshadow base (my favorite is NARS Smudge Proof Eyeshadow Base), and plan on setting it with powder. When worn like this, on my normal lids (not dry or oily!), I get very minimal creasing in the crease of my eyelid. Because of this, it's not a good look for a 16 hour day. However, it's stunning for a night out or a special occasion! I love this product, but because it's so tricky, I can only give it a 6/10. If you're willing to put up with this high-maintenance  product, though, the payoff is sooo worth it.  It retails for $26 for .05 oz, and it's available through Sephora.

So, instead of just showing you swatches of Surge, I incorporated it into a look. I'm sorry I didn't take pictures of the steps, but I really did just put on makeup in order to take pictures of Surge, and then decided I'd go ahead and tell you all everything else I did in case you wanted an idea of how to wear a product as nuts as Surge.

First: Pictures!

Here are some closeups of my eyes with flash:

And here are some without flash:

And here's a picture of my entire face without flash:

You can almost see how crazy-metallic Surge is on my bottom lash, here; it shines like that all over in real life! 

And another with flash!

So, here's what I did.

Face:

Remember that Sally Hansen Natural Beauty Your Skin Makeup I picked up on clearance from CVS in Ecru Beige? I put that all over my face on top of moisturizer (I used NARS Monoi Body Glow II), then used Kat Von D's Tattoo Concealer under my eyes and on my nose (I get lots of redness there!). I then set everything with Physician's Formula Pearls of Perfection in Translucent, and since Ecru Beige isn't warm enough for my skin tone, I used Guerlain Meteorites on top to brighten everything up. After that, I put a very small amount of  High Beam by Benefit under my brown bone, across my temples, and on the tops of my cheek bones- sort of in a C shape, stopping just short of the apple of my cheek. Then I used NARS blush in Sin on the underside of my cheekbone to contour the shape, blending up into the temple.

Eyes:

I always put foundation on my eyelids when I put it on the rest of my face, just to even out the eyelid area a little bit. After that, I used NARS Smudge Proof Eye Shadow Base all over the eyelid area; a little goes a long way! I used my finger to apply Urban Decay Eyeshadow in Sellout all over the lid, from lash line to brow bone, and then I patted Bare Escentuals bareMinerals Eye Color in Queen Tiffany onto just my lid, stopping just at the crease. I then used a small eyeshadow brush to pat Illamasqua's Surge on the lid, focusing on the inner and outer corner, and blending up to the middle of the crease, letting Queen Tiffany show through just a little bit in the center of the lid. I also put Surge on the lower lash line. I then patted Queen Tiffany lightly on the center of the lid again, and then put a little bit high in the crease on the outer third of my eye. After that, I used Urban Decay Eyeshadow in Sin to blend Surge into Sellout, and make the line between the two colors less stark. Finally, I used MAC's Kohl Liner in Feline on the top lash line, and the outer third of the lower lash line on my waterline. I just lightly pushed it into the lashes, since it's such a dark and pigmented liner, and has a tendency to smudge on me. Because of this, I went back over it with a bent eyeliner brush to smudge it out a little, and used the extra that was on the brush to lightly wing up to suggest a "cat eye" shape. A coat of Buxom mascara in black, and a coat of DiorShow Black Out mascara, and I was done.

If I'd remembered, I probably would have filled in my brows...

Lips:

Didn't do much to my lips! Just a quick swipe of Urban Decay's Pocket Rocket in Jesse (which is no longer available on the Sephora website, but is still on the Urban Decay website!).

Hopefully this has inspired you to go get fussied up, and if you're curious about Surge, try it out! It's stunning and wearable, if you're willing to put in some extra effort to get it to look nice!

Sorry I haven't posted more detailed "how-to" pictures, promise I'll get better at doing this! ;)