BACKGROUND PROPS FOR BEAUTY BLOGGERS

You asked so here we go. 

Lately I have been getting a lot of compliments on my photography (which literally makes me melt from happiness). Personally I was quite surprised since my backgrounds have always been quite minimal and simple (well, unless you go back to when I first started. But don't - my skills were awful). 

I get asked weekly what I use to shoot product photography with, especially in terms of props so I thought it would be nice to do a post and give you some tips as well as confessing some little secrets, the biggest one being that no, it's not a marble table and no, you don't need to spend lots of money to get the same results I do, in fact it's less than £5. 

I found my paper from Wilkinsons and it was super cheap but also great quality. It's easy to clean in case any makeup stains it - you just need a wipe - and it is also water resistant!  It's that glossy texture that fortunately doesn't show on pictures but bounces light nicely to make the photos brighter. 

For anyone who's not into marble, again from Wilko you can get samples of wallpaper for free. In some of my past posts I used fake wood and a white wrinkly background (examples below). Don't worry, you won't look like a weirdo carrying four or five samples home, just pretend you're redecorating your room or something and honestly no one ever approaches you anyway. I have done it many times and never got bothered by anyone. 

I haven't found a marble background in their samples pile but a blogger I talked to recently on twitter said she google image searched marble and printed out some backgrounds at home which, hey, it's brilliant. (and in case you're wondering, this post is NOT sponsored by Wilkinsons)

Wrinkly white background.

Beauty essentials for the retail worker - post linked here. 

Wood background. 

Bagsy post here. 

The latest addition has been flowers for me. I thought it would be nice to add a touch of colour to my continuously monochrome style so some wintery blue hues fit nicely with my theme lately. My choice here was from Debenhams since I had some flowers delivered from them. Obviously if you were into other shades, there's a variety of options available! A nice range of Christmas flowers has caught my eye recently and my mum has been lusting over them for the past month. 

Little clear photo of what the actual flowers look like. 

A way to use the flowers is to add them as full background for product close ups such as this Kat Von D lipstick. 

The way I personally liked using them was as a touch of colour on the side and mostly out of focus.

Cosmo post - here. 

I do think that depending on what you blog about, there's nice additions that you can have to make your photos stand out. For example, for this time of the year, a nice set of Christmas Hampers would be brilliant. I spotted many bloggers rocking a few of these lately as a background and it looked really cosy and professional. Personally flat-lays for me are always a win but with a nice lens that blurrs out things you can get away with almost anything in your pictures.  I photographed products with a messy room before and no one noticed because all they see is some stunning bokeh.  

So that's it from me, short and sweet. 
I hope you found it useful. In 2016 I'll be re-designing my blog and I will add a "blogging" section where I'll be sharing more tips and things I've learnt so far. I can't wait to get started! 

XOXO