Tutorial Try-Out: Girl Next Door

tutorial try-out: girl next door

Welcome to my first Tutorial Try-Out! One of my goals this year is to make an effort to boost my beauty skills, particularly when it comes to doing my hair and makeup. I’ll be perfectly honest, I’m perfectly fine going out into the world without any makeup on and hair air-dried straight. In fact, it’s my go-to look most days. But, not taking the time to add a little style to my hair and makeup is falling right in line with my tendency to dress myself in jeans and a t-shirt everyday. It hasn’t helped me rekindle my sense of style, and it doesn’t make me feel great about myself!

Tutorial Try-Out will be my platform to share my attempts at learning new things with the help of the internet. There are so many awesome You-Tubers and Bloggers out there that share their skills, tips, and tricks with us, and hopefully I’ll learn a thing or two with this new project. I’ll be linking to each tutorial and walk you through both my Eureka! moments and my blunders. I’ll also be attempting these tutorials with the tools I have on hand. They won’t turn out perfect, but maybe they’ll turn out not-half-bad. Anyway, on to Tutorial Try-Out No. 1!

For this Tutorial Try-Out I’m attempting the Girl Next Door tutorial by xteeener. I decided to start with this one because Christine did both a makeup and hair look in one video and the products she used seemed to easily be replaced with things I already had. The look was simple but put-together, and it seemed like a great everyday look.

tutorial try-out: girl next door step by step

I got through the first few steps easily enough. I love the Etude House BB Cream Cotton Fit (it has SPF 30!) and it always evens out the redness in my face perfectly. I own the Etude House Face Blur primer, but I don’t usually use it. Since Christine started with primer I decided to use it, but honestly didn’t see a difference from just starting with my BB Cream. Maybe I’m just not using the right stuff?

I’ve been using the same Mac powder for years but haven’t really touched my Physician’s Formula bronzer in a while. I don’t think it’s dark enough for me these days, it didn’t really show up super well, but did give just a bit of definition. My eyebrows are a work in progress. I’m still trying to figure out how other people make them look so good. Maybe that will be a future Tutorial Try-Out.

So things went pretty well until the eye shadow steps. I am still amazed at how smoothly Christine adds that dark brown shadow (just look!). It did not go that way for me. I was using the Naked 2 pallet, so my brown wasn’t as rich, and my brush technique is definitely not up to par. The other things I probably needed was eye shadow primer. Since I hadn’t used out my old tube in ages, I pulled it out and tested it on my hand first. It smelled so terrible, there was no way I was adding that to my eyelids.

Primer probably would have made everything hold better, but probably wouldn’t have solved my issues. I think I just need practice in mastering how to wing out my eye shadow and liner and how to make them both work with the way my eyelids hang out on my face.

While the eye shadow was tricky for me, I did have one Eureka! moment while applying the liner. I love how Christine does her liner, with the outer half of the lower lid under the lash line, and the inner half over it. This trick is staying with me.

Once the eyes were done, the rest went really smoothly. The hair is just like I usually wave it (I did it the same way in this post). I could probably invest in a real curling wand, but for now my 1″ Iron and I are going to stick it out.

All-in-all, I really love how my hair and makeup turned out following this tutorial. While I don’t think I got the look exactly right, I love that I learned some new things. I’m looking forward to the next tutorial I try out, and maybe once I get a little better at this beauty thing, I’ll revisit this one again.

Is there a tutorial you have used that has really helped you learn a new makeup or hairstyle trick? If so, please share a link!


Products Used: Etude House BB Cream / Etude House Face Blur / Mac Skin Finish / Physician’s Formula Bronzer / Anastasia Brow Wiz / Naked2 Pallet / Benefit They’re Real Mascara / Ulta Eye Liner / Nars Lip Pencil / Mac Blush

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