A Little Beauty Haul

I went on a little shopping spree yesterday and picked up a few bits and bobs from the local drugstore/"colombian sephora".  I know I love to see what others buy so eve though I recently did one and probably will do a few more very soon, I figured I'd do one today as well, because a girl can never buy enough beauty products right?

Starting with the star of the haul, the Bioderma Micellaire cleanser has been on my wish list for quite some time now so when I saw it on the shelf I grabbed it before anyone had a chance to say "may I help you?" something they do every fifth second down here... Had my first try yesterday but I think I'll need to keep trying it before I say any big words about it.

Another product I've been eyeing is the Revlon Brow Fantasy which I have heard good things about from several bloggers and vloggers, especially MakeUpByTiffanyD. I got it in the shade dark blond but I think I could've got away with a brunette version. Haven't tried this yet, but a review will be up once I do!

Then I saw my little baby, the Hask Hair Argan Oil and well, I am now in possession of a fairly big stock of this life saver. I have one thing to say regarding this, and it is that it is the best and the cheapest hair oil I have ever tried. Double thumbs up.

Last but not least I had to get a new tub of the best leave-in deep hair treatment there is. The Orgnx EnRich hair mask saves my dry hair from being dry and leaves it nourished and healthy without being heavy or too silky soft.

 That was it for this haul, I have a clothes haul and a MAC haul coming up as well as another make-up post. Will try to get on with the OOTD's now that I am recovering form my long week of 'da flu'. Toodlepip!

Lots of Love

Em

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England Picks

Once again I bring you a little beauty haul from the shops of London, Manchester and Leeds. Not quite as much was brought back this time compared to my last visit in October, but I figured it was enough to make a post out of it. Let's jump into it then, shall we?

FACE:

Revlon Nearly Naked Foundation in Nude // Maybeline Dream Fresh BB Cream in Light // Revlon Photoready Eye Primer and Brightener in 003

Topshop Cream Highlighter Quad in Kick Start // Revlon Photoready Cream Blush in Pinched

EYES

Maybeline The Rocket Mascara (waterproof) // Rimmel Scandaleyes Eye Shadow Stick in Bulletproof Beige // Maybeline Master Smokey Shadow-Pencil in Smoky Chocolate // Rimmel Scandaleyes Waterproof Khol Kajal in Nude

LIPS

Revlon Just Bitten Lipstain + Balm in Flame // Rimmel Apocalips in Stellar // TopShop Lip Paint in Yeah Right (review here) // Revlon Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stain in Rendezvous

And that was that! It has definitely created a little bit more of a spring/summer mood over my makeup collection, just the way I like it. Most of the products are ones I have been eager to try for quite some time now so I am glad to finally be in possession of them! If there are any particular products out of the ones above that you want me to do a review on then let me know either here or on twitter (which I am using far more now a days!) And if you are interested in me making videos as well as writing reviews then let me know about that as well as I am very eager to try and do some YouTubing in the nearest future!

I hope you are all doing very well, and I wish you a happy easter!

I am going away (again) for a few days, but expect a new post to be up on Wednesday:)

Lots of Love,

- Em

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Back in business

Okay, so it is officially time to get back into business with my blogging. The lack of updates lately is frankly embarrassing, so what better way to come back than with a big, red boom - or maybe I should say pout?

As you may know, I went to England for a week last week, and as always when I travel - I picked up a few bits and pieces. One of them being the TopShop Lip Paint in Yeah Right. This has to be one of the most opaque orange toned red lip products I have tried! I suspect it is fairly similar to the YSL Glossy Stains (I believe that is what they are called) and the new L'oréal GlamShine Stain Splash, and I know that it has a very similar consistensy, finish and lasting power as the Rimmel Apocalips. In other words, for those of you who have not tried any of the products I just mentioned (such as me before I went to England...a little late on the bandwagon you say?) then I will jot down their magical powers for you.

The Lip Paint has a very smooth, non-sticky consistency, it is extremely vibrant and stains your lips so that the colour appears very true to what you see in the tube (so be careful when applying it - and if you make a mistake clean it up immediately as it will stain your skin otherwise..). As for the finish, it is in fact quite glossy, but not as in the sticky glossy look you often get from lip glosses (you may get the hunch that I don't like lip glosses...and well, I don't ) but rather a slight "wet-looking" sheen. Gorgeous I think. However, the best is yet to come. After a while (30 min-1 hr) the finish starts to turn matte, and you are left with vibrantly stained lips that stay stained for hours! Eat, drink, talk - whatever, once this sets it does not budge! I wore it yesterday at a 40th birthday party and only had to top it up with a quick new layer after the dinner and by then I had been wearing it for a good 3-4 hours already and it was only fading in the center. I am impressed by this beauty and as for TopShop's makeup - Je T'aime! 

Pick it up for £10 at TopShop. They do not stock this colour online at the moment, but they do have it in a gorgeous orange called Low Down.

And a quick tip: Scrub your lips and apply a little lip balm before you apply your lip colour to avoid it sticking to any flakey or dry bits! The Lush Lip Scrub's are brilliant for that, and they are even edible so you can just lick it off afterwards! I have it in Bubblegum. Pick it up online or in a Lush store for £5.25.

I wish you all a happy and relaxing Sunday!

-Em

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ChanelChanelChanel

So that was a strange title, but I have a reason for it. Chanel was my inspiration a few weekends ago when I created the make-up look that my good friend Siren is wearing above. You see I have been applying to universities and a few of them require a creative portfolio. Now I am not very good with sketching, drawing and all that stuff so to have something to put into this portfolio of mine, I ended up doing some of my friends makeup, and well...with one of them I became quite a lunatic and took my inspiration from Chanel's famous glitter brows from the Autumn 2012 Runway. 

It was a friday and I was going shopping for the bits and bobs I would need for this look I was going to create, and 1st if all - I am one to stick with high street products as I don't really have a budget for all the high end products out there, so to go into the more "luxurious" make-up stores was quite fun. Very fun actually - just imagine me as a little kid in a candy shop and you've got it! Secondly I had no clue as to what exactly I was looking for so I had to come up with something as I went along. But oh well, with Karl Lagerfeld's out-of-the-box brow designs in the back of my mind, I stepped into the streets of Stavanger and started this quite exciting little hunt which in the end led me to this:

Make- up Store had quite the selection of loose glitter, and such a gorgeous range of cream highlighters!  (I will add the name of the products later today as I am not at home right now)

Eyeshadow palette from Accessories which has surprisingly good pigmentation! Care for a review?

Smashbox HD complexion set with a travelsize foundation, concealer, primer and powder.

Very good sizes for the price (£30) and the quality is extremely good so I will definitely do a review of these soon!

I am not sure if any of you are interested, but here comes a quick run-down of how I created this look: I primed her face and eyelids, then used a pritt-stick to "cover" her brows (just remember to wipe away any of the glue that might have come outside the brows). I then applied the Smashbox foundation in Light all over her face. Next came the "Very Berry" pencil from Make-up Store which I used to outline and fill in the brows with. I then added eyelash-glue on a cotton bud and spread that on the eyebrows (one at a time) before I applied the glitter, gradually moving from pink to green/blue (I created a mix of the two colours for the middle part so that they would fuse together naturally. Then I cleaned up any fall down of glitter with a tissue and then applied some concealer where it was needed, which was pretty much nowhere :) (a tip is to make your model hold a  tissue paper under her eyes while working with the glitter to reduce the amount of "cleaning" needed. )  For the eyelids I applied the cream highlighter from Smashbox and a swipe of the eyeshadows Copper and Bootycall by Urban Decay (Naked2) all over with some mascara on the lashes just to keep it subtle and natural. To finish off the face I used my Chanel Soleil de Tan Bronze Universal (Review Here) to warm up her complexion and do a little contouring, and the Smashbox highlighter on her high-points set with the TopShop highlighter in Crescent Moon. And that was it, as simple as that. Well it did take me about 2.5 hours so I guess it wasn't that simple but its not too complicated, just very time consuming.

I will leave you with a few more pictures of Gorgeous Siren and the completed brows, and if you want to know anything more about the products, the procedure or just have any questions or comments then don't hesitate to write them below or send me a tweet :)

  

Have a lovely weekend!

-Em

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The Review: Chanel Bronze Universal

Before I applied it, and after. Below is with blush and contour as well. Apologies for the yellow light in these, I know that distracts from the true colours, but I did this in the morning so the lighting was bad... 

Ok so I admit that I have been cheating a bit with only posting polyvore creations for the past week, but honestly I don't know where the time went! All I can say is that I will try to resume to my somewhat more normal content, starting with my Chanel Soleil De Tan - Bronze Universal review which is coming just below the next paragraph.

As for what I have been up to, there's not much to tell other than that my birthday was last Thursday which meant a celebration was in order for Friday, then a birthday party for a friend of mine on Saturday - and then a visit to my grandparents on Sunday.

So here it is, the long awaited review of my beloved (yes I attach quickly) Chanel Soleil de Tan, Bronze Universal. I showed you a quick glimpse of the actual product in this post so I will skip that part today and stick to the fun stuff, which is how it works.

This product is raved about on quite a lot of beauty blogs and in even more beauty videos. It is a staple for many make-up artists and on the runway it happens to be one of those “instant bronzed face” staples. So how does it work for us non-models? At first glance it looks like someone popped a big dollop of chocolate mouse in a Chanel jar, with the consistency of cold, hard butter. But once you actually get some on your little synthetic brush (I use this one) and apply it on your face it blends into a smooth, velvety creamy bronze glow that doesn’t look cakey, powdery nor too “creamy”. In a way it disappears, leaving only a nice glow and some colour, because it is quite pigmented and has a slight shimmery finish (although nothing too overpowering). As for the colour, it is more on the orange side than the grey-ish brown,  so please, if you have a skin tone close to mine (I’m MAC NW20) then use it as more of a bronzer, and not so much a contour product as that can easily look fake and not so flattering. In the pictures above I have applied it just above where I normally apply my contour and then blended it upwards and slightly down to the hollows of my cheekbones. This does create an illusion of a contour but not a super obvious one. I then applied some of my Sleek Contour Kit in Medium (only the contour colour) to shape my cheekbones and my temples. To finish off I used a swipe of my Sleek Blush Trio in Lantern.

The lasting power for this badboy is quite impressive, at least on me and I have combination skin. It lasts a good 10-12 hours without too much budging and it’s only when I wear it for longer that I notice it going slightly patchy.

All in all I love this product and it is now an everyday staple in my make-up routine. I just love how it gives my face that little bit of colour and healthy glow.

Have you tried it or du you want to give it a go?

- Em

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The miracle liner

Review time! A few weeks ago I came across a little beauty that had been hiding in the shelves of my local H&M store (yes, they sell drugstore/high street makeup in H&M here). I have been searching for the perfect, smooth, long-lasting, pigmented, "blendable" and affordable eyeliner for a long time now, and I believe I have finally found it. Enter Maybeline Master Drama Eye Pencil. I believe this has been out for a while now, but I haven't heard a lot about it something I find strange as it is surprisingly good, with quality that hits the high end standards! I have it in the colours Dark Brown and Deep Purple. Dark brown is a matte while deep purple has some shimmer (see pictures below). 

They both slide on very easily and with high pigmentation so one "swoosh" with the pencil along your lash line + some touch-ups on the wing (if you want one) and you are good to go. Honestly I have never found putting eyeliner on easier than with these! If your want them smokey, then smudge until you have the desired effect and then it will stay like that for the rest of the day. They are said to last 16 hours, and so they do. The other day I put it on at 7 in the morning, and didn't remove it until 11 o'clock at night and it looked pretty much the exact same, except for a little fading of my wing, but considering I'd worn it all through a 16 hour long day, I can't complain. It's also lasted through sweaty work-out at the gym so to put it this way - this is a miracle liner that is unbeatable! Now I will shut my mouth and give you a little peek at what it does...

UK price is £4.49 which is a little lower than the Norwegian price which was NOK70 I believe, but it is still quite affordable considering its high quality.

When I put it on in the morning this is what it looked like:

Then about 10 hours later this was the state it was in; pretty good huh?

 So if you're ever in doubt of what eye liner to choose, then you know what I would recommend, because this is pretty darn awesome!

- Em

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Where to go and where not to go in Paris

What comes to your mind when i say shopping in Paris? I'm going to take a wild guess and bet that it is Vintage, Luxurious (Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Armani...oh the list is long) and oh, Champs-Élysées. Did I get it right? I know those were the first things I thought of before I actually went to Paris. I can't at all call me an expert when it comes to the best places to shop in Paris, but I do know how I felt about the places we went to and therefore I thought I would share where I think you should make the time to go and where you should not.

Firstly, unless you love tons of people pushing and rushing, noisy traffic and five of each different store up the same street then I don't see a reason to go to Champs-Élysées unless you actually want to be able to say that you've at least been there. If you fancy stores such as Tommy Hilfiger and Louis Vuitton then go for it - Champs-Élysées is probably just your thing, but personally I found it to make me exhausted from the moment I set my feet on that street's sidewalk.

Agood alternative though, actually a better alternative I would say, is Rue De Rivoli. It has tons of stores, everything from H&M and Zara to Sephora and Yves Rocher to a few of those exclusive and extremely overprized French brands. Not to mention that there are a few vintage shops and that Louvre is basically placed right on this street. Notre Dame is just across the bridge and the amazing shopping center La Fayette is only 5-10 minutes away. Oh and a street called Av. de l'Opéra that is leading down to Rue de Rivoli (intersecting right by Louvre) is also a nice street with more unique shops and boutiques! 

Other than that I simply suggest to take the metro to any stop, and start exploring the hidden treasures in the narrow streets. Hope this helped if you are going to visit this gorgeous city in the near (or far) future! If you have any suggestions for my readers or for me on shopping in Paris, then let us know in the comments!

La Fayette

Rue de Rivoli

Au Revoir!

- Em

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My Style: Animal Printed Top

Here is a little post on yesterday's outfit - thought I should share it since it features two of my current favourite clothing items. The jeans are the Leigh Skinny Jeans from TopShop and the top is from Urban Outfitters.

I love that these jeans are super skinny but not tight if that makes sense, they are simply amazing! I will definitely get my hands on a few more of these the next time I'm in a TopShop, and I highly reccomend you to try a pair too if you ever get the chance. As for the top - I love the print! And I have to say, Urban Outfitters has become my favourite store...it's like number 1, right on the top of the list. It is like shopping in a heaven. C'est incroyable!

Ok, now I will leave before I try writing any other languages...

What is your favourite place to shop?

- Em

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London Haul: Beauty Products

As a makeup addict, London with all its department stores and makeup shops is like a mekka, so I doubt it comes as a surprise that I picked up a few.. cough *a lot of* cough...  beauty products while I was there. However I know I am not the only one out there who enjoy to see what other people buy - especially when it comes to makeup and fashion- so I thought I'd share my new beauty bits and bobs with you. Now keep in mind that I do love makeup and that it is in a way my version of a "stamp collection". While others bid outrageous amounts of money on old stamps, I buy lipsticks and mascaras :) Ok, enough of the "justifying my deeds", let's get on with the pictures shall we?

Real Techniques brushes 

 From left: Powder Brush, Setting Brush, Contour Brush, Buffing Brush, Detailer Brush and Pointed Foundation Brush

From left: Bourjois // Bronzing Powder in shade 52, TopShop // Highlighter in Crescent Moon, and Rimmel // Stay Matte Pressed Powder in 001 Transparent

From Left: Sleek Makeup // Face Contour Kit in Medium, Sleek Makeup // Blush BY 3 in Pumpkin 363 (name of blushes inside: FL: P Pie, Squash and Lantern)

Eylure // Katy Perry Lashes - Sweetie Pie

From Left: Collection // Lasting Perfection Concealer in #2 Light, Rimmel // Wake Me Up Foundation in #103 True Ivory, Laura Mercier // Tinted Moisturizer spf 20 - Oil Free in Blush

From Left: MAC // Rebel lipstick, MAC // Costa Chic lipstick, Revlon // Candy Apple Lipbutter, 

MAC // Cherry lip pencil

From Left: Benefit // BrowZings in light, MAC // Customized Quad containing: Omega (top left), Espresso (top right), All That Glitters (bottom left) and Cranberry (bottom right)

From Top:Rimmel // Scandaleyes Mascara Waterproof, Too Faced // Lemon Drop Shadow Insurance, Rimmel // Exaggerate Waterproof Eye Definer in #261 Noir

From Left: The Body Shop // Tea Tree Oil, REN // Glycolactic Radiance Renewal Mask, REN // T-Zone Balancing Day Fluid, REN // ClearCalm 3 Clarifying Clay Cleanser

Soap & Glory // The Daily Smooth Body Butter, Soap & Glory // Flake Away Body polish (exfoliator), The Body Shop // Hemp Hand Protector (aaah-mazing hand cream!!)

From Left: Organix // Moroccan Argan Oil Shampoo and Conditioner, Hask // Argan Oil Hair Treatment, Batiste // Dry Shampoo (in Blush)

And that is it! I know it was quite a lot but oh well, it is not every day I go crazy shopping in London :) I can show you the clothes I bought too if you would like to see, or I can just take some pictures when I am wearing them and show them in future "My Style" posts. We'll see!

Now I have to work on a maths project, Whoop Whoop!

- Em

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