My Top 5 Beauty/Makeup Items For Surviving Life With Flair! {My desert island picks}

To wrap up 2013 and herald in the New Year, I am doing a Top 5 series. I will be working my way through the top Ask Sarah Posts, Beauty/Makeup, Fashion, Kitchen Tools & Recipes. If you find something on one of my lists you must have, there are still sales in the shops. I will try to provide a splurge and steal variation for each item on the list.

Remember that game where you sit with friends and talk about your desert island book/album/outfit? All that agonising over having only once choice forever. If my plane crashed on a desert island, I guess could live without everything! But the things on this list are the things that if an alien ship beamed up all my stuff, I would be at the shops buying again the very next day! We are all about Surviving Life With Flair here and these are my beauty essentials……..

I am not including a foundation here because it’s not super essential to my world but sunscreen is and tinted sunscreen is a two for one. I am currently loving tinted zinc in light but there is more about that and other options in this post.

Why red? Well you can sheer it down as lipstain, ramp it right up to red or use it as cream blush. I would avoid mattes as I think they are less versatile. I love MAC Russian Red or Rimmel Alarm 170, I have a post devoted to red lippies with swatches here.

I am so into the lovely, soft glow of liquid highlighter on the cheek & brow bone, down the centre of the nose and on the cupids bow. I completely in love with Benefit Sunbeam which suits my skin tone perfectly but others may prefer Moonbeam or Highbeam. For a steal try Designer Brands Liquid Illuminator or for a super cheap alternative, mix a little bit of a light, shimmery shadow with a drop of moisturiser.

Mascara opens up and defines your eyes. A good mascara will finish any look. I’m loving Covergirl Clump Crusher for the steal and Benefit They’re Real as splurge.

You may not think it but a liner pencil is super versatile. You can just tightline/waterline or go for a crisp line or a smudgy line or a smudgy winged liner or smudge up a smoky eye look. Depending on the colour of your brows, you can even feather or smudge it into your brows! Black, brown or a plum colour are the most versatile. I love the sparkly black of the Stila Smudge Stick in Stingray, the Napoleon Perdis Liner in Mexico City and the Rimmel Exaggerate Liner in Black.

I’m a big believer in more is more because you can’t have too much of a good thing but if I was down to the wire I’d choose these five things. As I mentioned, this is part of Top 5 series. I will be working my way through the top Ask Sarah Posts, Beauty/Makeup, Fashion, Kitchen Tools & Recipes, so stay tuned. I hope you enjoyed this post, I’d love to hear your top 5, so post them in comments or on Facebook xxxx