Tag! How did my love affair with make up start.

Tagged by Magpie Sparkles, Ta very much for my first personal tag! YEEEEEEAH!

I tag Ohmakemeup and Macosophy! I'm tagging at the start as this has turned out to be a huge post and I doubt anyone will get through it! haha

Ok, As I was reading this I was thinking "What an interesting question..Blimey! When DID my obsession with it start?!"
Then saw I was tagged and had a slight panic as all memories of anything were momentarily wiped from my brain so I had to sit down and have a proper think.

It all definitely started with my Mother *lies down on the therapy couch* and older sister.
My earliest memories are of sitting watching my mum doing her daily make up and of stealing my sisters nail polish which she hid under her bed at the age of three.

My mum is 53 and was part of a very small music scene in london when it first started in the 70's, She was the girlfriend of one of the most recognized bands in the scene and it all ended up exploding in the late 70's and has seen many revivals in fashion, music and make up ever since, It was punk.
I'm saying this because a lot of my friends parents are not really that bothered with fashion or make up (I think the two go hand in hand), But in my house it was a massive part.
We never had any money but I remember she always had fabulous viv westwood clothes and a massive draw full of interesting make up.


I first got my own make up at around 4 or 5, I used to go to the post office and buy this little children's make up palette they made for a pound which had a few pinky lipsticks and few bright eye colours, blush and a few little brushes and my mum would draw on liquid eyeliner for me which i've worn everyday since. I was always very good at applying make up to myself and there are a million photos at my mums house to prove it (must try and get my hands on some to show you lot!) but I would always get over excited making over friends and there are many photos of my male and female chums looking like 5 year old trannies.

At about 12 I developed horrible acne on my forehead and started to use foundation and concealer with the mascara eyeliner and lipgloss I wore everyday and that was the start of full face make up. I had a big tight group of girlfriends who weren't and still aren't that interested in make up so anytime we had to get glammed up it was my job to do everyones make up and I had started getting interested in hair by this pont so I would offer to do that as well.
All through my early teens I was a drugstore queen! Spending what little pocket money I had in Superdrug, I nearly died when they opened a Sephora in the Angel (my local shopping hang out as I grew up in london) I was in heaven and would spend whole days just looking at everything. I was introduced to the likes of Two Faced, Urban Decay, Eyeko, DuWop and Benefit. I cried when they closed the Sephoras.



So I sailed on with an ever growing make up collection full of Rimmel, Eyeko, Urban Decay eyeshadows if I had saved and Miss sporty if i was broke with a few Two faced palettes and Sephora's own brand stuff chucked in. I still have everyday staples from this time that I could never give up.
Rimmel Exaggerate liquid eyeliner and their Stay Matte powder being my favorites to this day still, and of course Urban decay eyeshadows are still absolutely fantastic.



It was not until I moved to Brighton that I got into high end make up.
At 17 I'd come to visit an acquaintance, fell in love with this town and decided to move in with her.
I went back to london, grabbed a large handbag put a few clothes in it, my GHD's, my make up, £10 and got the coach back for a quid three days after leaving.
Then started the most amazing and awful time of my life. Me and the girl I had come to visit squatted in a very big kitchen just up from the seafront and lived on £10 a week between us which was spent on fags and alcohol and what was left went on food. We never bothered to get a job as we could not be arsed and were having too much fun.
So not much new make up was brought but it was still a HUGE part as every single day consisted of getting up, getting ready for three hours (I had glam rock hair and that took an hour by itself) eating some plain pasta, going out and sweet talking our way into mod or glam rock clubs, getting blokes to buy us drinks dancing madly and having the best time of our lives. We thought we were right little Club Kids.

Me at 17 thinking I was the shit with my new tattoo.

Eventually we got kicked out of the kitchen and spent a few months sofa surfing in the flats of people we met while wondering about and sleeping on the beach. Looking back I'm amazed that nothing awful happened to us
At 18 I had decided to sort my life out and was in college doing my NVQ 1 in hairdressing, was working P/T in a salon and I met and fell in love with my bloke.

After we had been together a few months I had said to him I needed to go to boots to get some foundation, as I was scanning the Rimmel shelf he grabbed my hand and pulled me into the high end section and said "Remake your everyday make up bag, I'll pay, but it has to be stuff that you can't afford yourself." and the best two hours of my life followed!
Chanel, Dior, Clarins, YSL. It was amazing, and I started to realize that the price difference in make up actually mattered and that high end stuff on a whole worked better and had better colours. As I could not at that point carry on buying extreme high end stuff but wanted to carry on trying new and more expensive brands I scouted around ad found MAC.



It was love at first sight and the first thing I brought was Antique Gold glitter reflects pigment, which is my favorite piece in my WHOLE collection today.
I loved it so much and as it was L/E I got on ebay and got another pot from hong kong.
God knows how I thought I would use one whole pot let alone two!
It's actually been re released as part of the Chill collection and I recommend anyone who has magpie tendencies and is not afraid to wear a bold eye get it. It's GORGEOUS!

On ebay I also ordered a Heatherette lipstick in flesh pot which was a miracle for me because I had been doing Edie Sedgwick 60's make up with mega dramatic eye, false lashes and flesh toned lips to go out for years at that point and I was amazed to see that there was a lipstick in the colour I needed and that I wouldn't have to deal with the cakeyness of concealer anymore!



Last year I really got into YouTube and started watching tutorials by the likes of Pancea 81 and Amy 04, Then in autumn I came across Lollipop26 and that was it!
I was done. It opened up a whole new world of make up I started to look at it as something to collect, like art or records.

I think I will stop here as I seem to have written a book...

But I suppose make up has just been such a huge part or my life from such a young age that I couldn't bring myself to not write all of that!
Sorry to bore you to death!!!

xoxo