Xo, Melissa Victoria: Happy Lunar New Year!

My favorite part about myself is the fact that not many people would be able to tell right off the bat that I have Chinese in me-woaaaaah shocker! But yes, it's true! If you ever wondered where I got my little eyes from, now you know haha. I'm a Guatemalan/Chinese mix with a last name of 'Mazariegos-Chang'. Anyways, to celebrate my asian culture today I decided to shoot my first ever beauty post to show you all my Lunar New Year makeup. It's really simple and pretty much my every day wear (lol) but red lips are just a little more special today! Oh and by the way, I realized of all days today why I need a tripod because if you guys could've only seen my shooting method, you all would've laughed haha. Oh and one more thing-I also learned how to shoot a video on my camera HAHAHA. I didn't know how until AFTER my shoot was done-so I'll keep that feature in mind for my next beauty post! Okay let's get down to the nitty gritty!

What I used:

Urban Decay's Naked3 Palette: shop here// Benefit's Brightening Face Primer: shop here //Benefit's 'They're Real' Mascara: shop here //Benefit's 'Hello Flawless' Face Powder: shop here //MAC's Liquid Liner: shop here //MAC's 'MAC Red' & 'So Chaud' Lipstick's: shop here + here// MAC Blush in the Peachtwist shade: shop here

Steps:

Okay so here's my face washed and toned with Clinique's three step system, now to moisturize the skin.

Next, I'm applying Benefit's primer to give my skin a nice coat against the makeup I'm about to put on.

The magical part-face powduuuuh! I've never been a fan of foundation or liquid face products, so I stick to pressed powder. I've been using Benefit's for a while now and love how soft my face feels after applying it on.

I'm doing a basic smooth pat down, making sure to get my under eyes, lids, cheek bones, top lip, chin and temples.

Next up, cheeks-your face cheeks not your bottom cheeks (because that would be really funny but weird)

I usually do a 'kiss' face to really get around my cheek bones, it gives a nice contour look. Don't forget to brush around your nose and t-zone for an extra glow!

The eye shadow is really simple: I'm taking the lightest color and applying it all over my lids, then a neutral color and applying it to only half of my lid. Then with a different brush, simply blend the colors together and you're done. Nothing too drastic because I'm applying a bold lip later on.

And now, mascara! I haven't switched mascara's in over three years because I'm obsessed with Benefit's 'They're Real'. The length is real people, sooo real. All I'm doing here is applying several coats of mascara onto my lashes, it's basically like brushing your eyelashes with a tiny brush.

Here's a trick, keep your old mascara's as tools to brush your eyebrows. The old brushes make for great combs as they still hold a tiny amount of mascara liquid that helps shape up the brows.

Next, lips. I'm taking a tiny lip brush to color mine, I feel like if I don't use one everything looks botchy. FYI, using a lip brush is an awesome way of skipping out on needing a lipliner-just simply brush around your lips and don't go outside the lines, like a coloring book!

I'm going to take my 'So Chaud' lipstick and quickly dab over the red I just applied to give it more of a bright, orange red tone.

Next up is the eye liner. I use liquid because it's the easiest one to use for me, and all I'm doing is drawing a line right above my eyelashes starting from the middle until I get to the last eyelash, and then from the middle all the way to my inner eyes.