Grins & Needles

Dead Club City Makeup Tutorial

8/31/2023

Hello friends,
Happy August! If there's one thing that's been getting me through this year, it's been music. And podcasts, but let's talk about the music.

I've done a few posts like this in the past, where I speak about some of my favorite albums, then create a makeup look inspired by the album art. Some previous favorites of mine were where I discussed Highly Suspect's "Midnight Demon Club" album (because holy smokes I loved that color palette), Hozier's "Wasteland, Baby" album, and Foster The People's "Sacred Hearts Club" (lots of clubs, I guess). Today, I want to chat about the newest album from one of my very favorite bands, Nothing But Thieves.

I was supposed to see NBT in concert back in 2020, for their Moral Panic tour, but obviously the pandemic was brewing super quickly. Things got cancelled, and I've been eagerly awaiting a North American tour since then. Well I'm in luck, because they're about to tour in the states! They dropped their album in July, and it's been pretty different from their previous albums.

I was excited for this drop, not just because I love their music, but also because the branding and previewed merch looked absolutely sick. This album feels a lot more pop-inspired than other works they've done, in my opinion, and I think I felt that rising from some tracks in "Moral Panic", their most previous album. The beats are faster-paced, Conor seems to be singing in more of a falsetto pitch than he has in the past, and there's a lot less heavy guitar and bass lines. The guitar is still there, but it's a lot more subtle it feels like. I appreciate anything this band releases, so I'm content with their heavier works and their lighter songs, although the heavy ones feel nostalgic since that's how I first found them.

I think my absolute favorite track on this album is Keeping You Around, since it feels more gloomy and I'm also a sucker for rise-and-falls in songs. Also the symbols crashing in the 1-and- beats of the measure is just a detail that I appreciate. Another song I adore is Do You Love Me Yet?, most notably the bridge, where Conor's parts harmonize and grow until the regular beat picks up again. It's just an overall groovy song. My third favorite might have to be Members Only since it has that harder feeling to it, like the nostalgic heaviness I referenced earlier. I truly do enjoy this whole album, but those are just my top three. Honorable mention to Welcome To The DCC, the intro to this album and their first drop from this album. I had that song on repeat one day and was able to run my first non-stop 5k (whereas I previously had to walk here and there). This song was just so groovy that it kept my energy up and kept me focused.

Now let's take a look at the album art. Like I said, I was obsessed with all the branding around this album. These colors are phenomenal. We've got white text and symbols at the header, a radial gradient in the background, starting with yellow in the center and flowing into a beautiful scarlet shade as it expands across the cover. There's an interesting couple of structures in frame, with ominously sharp shading and stunning blue and tan touches. So many geometric details happening in this piece, and I'm sure it took a tremendous amount of time to create. Major kudos to the artist(s) who made this one happen.

I was so wowed by the colors that I knew I wanted to create a look with this. It's been a long time since I did an intricate makeup look, so I figured--why not focus on the red and yellow on my eyes, since I know those can blend well together, then I can have my eye color represent the blue shades, and have my eyeliner and lipstick match the shading and tan moments.

So that was the plan! Enjoy the walk-through of my look. (Disclaimer first: I try to stick to vegan beauty products, or at least cruelty free, so the Morphe palettes I have and other high end items that aren't listed, like the lipstick, are most likely expired. I don't want to be wasteful over the items I bought years ago. I'm sure there are comparable products that are affordable and confirmed cruelty-free. Plus most of the products I'm using in this are still inside my ethical standards, but I just don't like to share brands much since I don't even buy fancy makeup these days. If you want to recreate something similar, I want you to be able to use things you already have without feeling like you need to buy something shown here! If you're curious about a product, though, feel free to ask.) Anyways, rant over. Let's get into it!

I started by moisturizing my skin. Gotta have a clean and happy base to work with, especially when we're about to work with color. I use my moisturizer as a primer, and I'm not sure if that's controversial, but it's been working for me for this long.

I then added white shadow, to again help as my base for when I add brighter colors later. I laced it in the inner corner of my eye as well as along my brow bone, just under my eyebrow. Just focusing on the standard highlight areas. I also added touches of foundation (used as concealer) to cover any distracting blemishes.

Next, I dug into some color. I took a bit of a medium-ground orange shade and put it on my lid, not intruding too much on where I placed the white. It's okay that this is messy for the time being, since we'll add a bunch more color later.

I then grabbed a neighboring orange shade, one that's slightly richer, and ran it in my crease (above my lid) and in the outer corner of my lid. Again, I was still fine with my makeup looking messy at this point. It's a method, we're just slowly building!

It was then that I realized I wanted more red. I dipped into another palette and used a vibrant red around the crease, then blended everything out. I left the lid more of an orange still.

I also took a second to add more white since my blending was getting a bit out of control, and I also added some of those orange shades along my lower lash line.

Next step is where things got wild. I dug into an even deeper red, and added touches of that burgundy to the outer corners of my lid and crease for depth, then tapped into a yellow shadow and finally added that to the highlight areas (inner corners and brow bone). I kept building things up until they felt nice and vibrant.

Next, I was ready to fill in my brows and add some liner. I went for a classic cat eye shape. Everything's coming together!

I then added mascara. I forget where I saw the hack, but I always use a regular mascara first to create the curl, and then do the waterproof mascara on top of that to hold the curl. I've been doing this for months now and it's worked well for me!