Hooray the big ball of yellow fire (also known as the sun) has finally decided to grace us with it's presence, I couldn't actually believe my eyes this morning when I opened my curtains to see I wouldn't need to rock my thermal vest and a hot chocolate in hand after all. Can you believe I was starting to think I'd packed my Winter woolies away too soon? Madness! Today marks the beginning of the bank holiday weekend and I for one am excited, three days doing hardly anything? Yes please!

Nearly a month ago I turned a quarter of a century and as a birthday gift my darling bestie Gemma bought me a MAC make-up lesson voucher, what can I say? The girl knows me well! You can imagine how elated I was when I arrived at Debenhams for my lesson to discover all beauty products had 10% off and mentally I apologised to my sorry little bank balance, it was going to get a whole lot worse. Arriving at MAC I met the lovely Holly H who asked me what look I'd like to create. Now ya'll who know me well will know that I'm pretty much the poster girl for natural make-up with the occasional butchered smokey eye and many a bright lip - it's not that I don't love a winged liner or a really sexy eye look, I'm just not able. Explaining my make-up woes to Holly we decided on a bronzed smokey eye with a vibrant lip for a day time look which could then be partied up with the addition of winged eye liner.

Holly was brilliant from the word go, not only was she incredibly patient but she'd talk me through what she was doing and then ask me to copy what she'd just done on my left hand side - yes guys I did most of the left hand side of my face all by myself! So what tips did I pick up? Be a little less heavy handed with the make-up brushes (this was a biggie!) MAC products are so pigmented that you only need the tiniest bit so I need to try and hold my brushes further down than I do usually - give it a go, I bet you'll notice a difference. Struggle with winger eyeliner like me? Build up your liner on your eye lids gradually with thin strokes before going under your eye and following your natural eye shape upwards to get an easy flick, you don't have to flick out from the top if you can't. Always line your lips first if you want your bold lip colour to last and finally if there's one MAC brush you need in your life it's a 217 but MAC MUA's prefer theres a little more worn down, not when they're new and uber fluffy - you heard it here first


I was incredibly pleased with not only my finished make-up look (well done me) but also the service at MAC - all the girls were friendly and the lovely Holly was amazing. I'm sure it'll come as no surprise that I spent a pretty penny on make-up lesson must haves but with 10% off and a whopping £50 voucher from my girl Gemma all my new make-up booty came to a grand total of £39 (the two lipsticks pictured were from the Back To Mac scheme). Will I be doing all my friends make-up from now on? Probably not but I know I can recreate this beauty of an eye make-up look, just remind me how I managed the winged liner again... 

Have you ever had a MAC make-up lesson? What look would you want to master?

If you love all things Cagney and Lace then I'd be ecstatic if you'd vote for me in the Cosmopolitan Blogger Awards sponsored by Next. I've been blogging for less than a year so hop on over to the Next site here and vote for Cagney and Lace in the Newcomer Award.