Urban Decay Naked Basics

Urban Decay's latest product, the Naked Basics palette, had caused a lot of uproar in the online beauty community. The new palette consists of six matte eyeshadow shades. There's a champagne colour, a beige, a sandy, a light brown, a dark brown and a black colour.

The one thing every beauty addict is wondering with this palette, is: Is it comparable to the other two Naked palettes? Do I need it if I have the others? The shadows are supposed to compliment the first two palettes, but are actually quite similar to the matte colours that come in the previous Naked palettes.

The Naked Basics palette is very small and so easy to take with you when travelling. But do we want all very toned down eyelooks? What if we want to go to a party? Then we'd miss the sparkles from the first two Naked palettes.

If you're a real make-up junkie, this palette might be perfect for you. The Urban Decay palettes are undoubtedly some of the best on the market. But if you have the first two palettes, this might be a bit too much of repetition for you. 

The Urban Decay Naked Basics palette retails for 27 dollars, 20 euros or 17 pounds.

Alexander Wang for Balenciaga

Finally the rumors have been confirmed, fashion designer Alexander Wang will become the creative director for Balenciaga, the brand confirmed. Wang will have to fill Nicolas Ghesquières shoes, who stepped aside the 30th of November. We're excited to see what Wang will do for Balenciaga!

Alexander Wang on the left, Nicolas Ghesquières on the right

Ladurée in Antwerp

The last weeks there have been rumors that the royal house of macaroons, Ladurée is coming to Antwerp. This rumor has been confirmed by banners that were hanging behind a window in a shop at the Schuttershofstraat. The banner says that Ladurée is looking for new shop assistants. Uuuh, I'd like to apply for the job!

Ladurée is known for its sweet, delicate and colorful macaroons. The little cookies were invented in the 1930's by Pierre Desfontaines, the grandson of Louis-Ernest Ladurée. Since then, the delicious cookies have gained a certain luxury status in our contemporary society, thanks to 'Gossip Girl' and the movie 'Marie Antoinette'.

The boxes that the macaroons come in, are already a collector's item on their own. Some top notch designers such as Alber Elbaz and Matthew Williamson have already cooperated with Ladurée in the past. The high-end macaroon brand already had shops in Paris, Tokio, Genève and London, and now it has one in Antwerp as well. I can't even tell how excited I am to buy my first box of Ladurée macaroons!

Hello Kitty collection for Forever 21

The Hello Kitty Forever collection has been launched in Forever 21 stores all over the world last week. The collection features all kinds of clothing items with mostly cute prints and polkadots.

There are the obvious Hello Kitty dresses and knitted sweaters, but there are some more mature and classy pieces as well.


 If you look up close, you'll see that most op the prints are tiny Hello Kittycats. That makes it more wearable than you might think. The collection is overall very cute and girlie. But if that's your thing or if you like wearing it cuter as pyjamas, the Hello Kitty Forever collection might be perfect for you!

Fall beauty favorites

Can you believe how fall is already coming to an end? Call me an early bird, but Christmas and winter is pretty much all I can think about. So even though we still have a few weeks of fall left, I already have my fall favorites ready to share!


Coastal Scents 88 Original palette

I've been wanting this palette for years, but always thought I wouldn't spend my money on these pretty bright colours. One night, I couldn't resist anymore and bought it online. When it arrived at my home, I was very impressed with it. Coastal scents packaged the palette so secure with meters of bubble wrap, so no damage could be done to the palette. I love the colours. It's not comparable to a MAC eyeshadow; but you definately get your money's worth. I don't use it daily, but I do use it weekly for nice colours to add to my eyemakeup looks.



Urban Decay Naked Skin foundation

I went to an Urban Decay night several weeks ago and got a discount. I was looking for a liquid foundation and had heard some amazing things about this one so decided to pick it up. I have been using it every day and am loving it so much. I was a bit concerned about wearing liquid foundation with my oily skin, but this might be the only liquid foundation that I could even maybe wear without a setting powder. I wouldn't, but I could. It leaves a nice dewy finish on the skin, has nice medium but buildable coverage and fits my skin so perfectly. Three words: I. Love. This!



Sleek Makeup Pout Polish

I heard some nice things about the Sleek pout polishes. I bought them in two colours, Perfect Plum and Peach perfection, but absolutely love the Perfect Plum colour. It works as a tinted lip conditioner and is very moisterizing. Also, I thought the colour would fade after about half an hour/an hour, since that's what happens with my Labello tinted lip balms. But I was surprised to see that it stays on for hours. I also love the colour, because even though it's pretty dark and red, the colour is very wearable and I've already used it a lot!



MAC Russian Red Lipstick

I got this lipstick as a gift for my birthday and have had in on my wishlist for quite a while. I remember putting it on my lips a few years ago after secretly trying my mom's lipstick on. I was amazed by its staying power and saw that it was MAC's Russian Red. Since that day I had been dreaming about getting my own. It's a bright colour so not the most everyday lipstick, but it's perfect for holiday partys or when you go out for drinks. I do use it on a daily basis, I just dab the colour on so it gives a faded and less bright effect.



Lush Tea Tree water

I can't believe I hadn't tried this before. I heard raving reviews everywhere about this product, but I try not to buy too much skin products, since I have testers lying around everywhere that I still have to finish. But when I bought this (the small bottle) and used it, it felt as if I was at a spa. It felt very nice, softening and revitalizing for my skin. This product is perfect for oily and acne-prone skin.



Rituals Facial Tonic

I've been using this product for a long time, but I'm running out of it sadly enough and now realize how much I actually loved it and how much use I got out of it. This toner freshens up my face and makes it feel really healthy and dewy.



Realtechniques brushes

 

 

Since I'm on my exchange program in England right now, I thought that this would be my only chance every to pick up the Realtechniques brushes. These brushes were made by Samantha Chapman, Youtube guru from Pixiwoo. I first bought the Expert Face brush which I use for applying foundation and it works wonders. As mentioned before, I've just started using liquid foundation because I always believed my skin was too oily for liquid foundation, but it got too dry for my MAC Studio Fix Foundation. So I needed a brush that made it very easy to apply foundation, since I am a newbie at the liquid kind. This brush really saved me and has made me more experienced in applying liquid foundation. I also bought the blush brush. It took me a bit longer to learn to love this one, but now I understand how to properly use it and how much to put on the brush, it does the job perfecty. I ended up splurging on the eye brush kit and the seperate eye brush, and those work amazing as well. I really have to keep myself from buying the entire line!

ELF brush belt 

I bought this in my make-up craze at the beginning of October. But I really got a lot of use out of this brush belt already since I had a lot of make-up jobs. It looks really professional, and it might get you more jobs. The MAC brush belt is probably better in quality, but I didn't feel like spending loads of money on a brush belt. I'm not a profesional make-up artist, but just someone who really likes make up and enjoys helping people out on (more amateur) photoshoots.



I hope you enjoyed this fall beauty favorites post!

Xx
Anine

Urban Decay Smoked 24/7 Glide-On Eye Pencil Set Swatches + review

Last week I purchased the Urban Decay Smoked 24/7 Glide-On Eye Pencil Set. The set is from their latest collection and matches the Smoked Palette, which I don't own. 

It started a few weeks earlier, when I went to an Urban Decay Night where the make-up artists showed all kinds of tricks to apply make-up and displayed their new products. It's there where I tried out the Naked foundation and was so amazed by it (blogpost about foundations is coming up). I also got to try the pencils and was pretty stunned by their pigmentation, staying power and colours. But I didn't want to buy them, because I had already bought the foundation and I didn't want to spend too much (failed at that).

Then for my birthday I got a discount card of 15pounds from friends, and decided to buy the pencils anyway since I just had to pay 11pounds with the discount card. The set costs 26pounds or 38dollars. Here are the swatches: first unsmudged, then smudged to create a smokey eyelook.

 

From left to right: Zero (black), Mainline (blue), Demolition (dark brown), Empire (purple), Uzi (grey) and Smog (golden brown).

The pencils is really creamy and feel more like a gel liner maybe than as a pencil liner to me. They are very pigmented and their staying power is amazing, even on the water line. I remember going out one night, coming back home hours later, taking my make-up off thoroughly, and the morning after, the colour was still on my waterline. Also, after applying the swatches, I had a really hard time getting them back off my arm. It's that good. 

You do pay the price for it. Even though they come in a nice colour range, I wouldn't have bought it if I didn't have the gift card. The pencils are also pretty small, way smaller than a MAC eyeliner or than the usual Urban Decay Glide-On pencils. They're almost half the size of a MAC eyeliner pencil, and a bit bigger than my handpalm (I have pretty small handpalms though). 

If you're ready to make a make-up investment, this is definately a recommendation. But if you're not used to spending that much money on higher-end products, I would go for a drugstore eyeliner. Overall a nice product!

Hope you enjoyed reading this review, 

Hugs & Kisses,

Anine

Teenager smokey eye look

I did my cousin's makeup the night she was going out on her first party - she's fourteen years old - and I wanted to give her a nice natural but smokey look! Check it out here:

Hope you enjoyed!!
xX

ELF unboxing + first impressions

 I got so excited when this package arrived! This is the first time I’ve ordered make-up online and it is so much more fun than buying it in the store. It’s like I get gifts from the mailman! An addictive but dangerous thing, beauty on the internet. This is also the first time I’ve ever tried ELF products (EyesLipsFace) and I’m curious to know what the quality is like, since ELF products are really cheap. I ordered the brush belt (because my brush holder had become too small), the brush cleaner, two blushes and the contouring palette as the NARS dupe. Now let’s get this show on the road!

 

The brush belt

 I read reviews on this online, where everybody said it would be better to invest in a MAC brush belt. But the MAC one is 40 pounds, while this one was 15 pounds. Also, I don’t need such an expensive one, because let’s face it, I’m not a make-up artist. A simple one will do. And it does its job perfectly. It holds all of my brushes and there is still a lot of room for more of them. The material is faux leather and a bit plasticy, but I knew that in advance and it doesn’t bother me. It fits me well and it closes nicely aswell.

The brush cleaner

I’m used to spot cleaning my brushes with the MAC brush cleanser and deep clean them with Johnson’s baby shampoo. But since the MAC one is way more expensive than the ELF when, and I kind of want to save it up, I wanted to try the ELF one. The pump is a nice system, but I have to use more product to have the same results as the MAC brush cleanser. It goes a long way though, I’ve been using it for a week now every night and it doesn’t look as if there’s anything out of the bottle yet, even though it feels as if I use a lot of product. I do feel that at the end of the cleaning, the brushes are not as perfectly new as they are when I clean them with the MAC cleanser, but what can you expect otherwise for that price. I don’t know yet if I would repurchase it.

ELF blush in Pink Passion

I was kinda scared when I saw the colour in the pan, because it’s really bright – almost neon. But when I put it on it’s a dark pink colour. It looks almost more like a dark soft pink on my cheeks. But I like it, even though I really wanted a cute pink blush shade. I haven’t really been able to test the staying power of it, but I don’t think it will be comparable to my daily used MAC Desert Rose since it’s way cheaper than MAC’s blushes are.

ELF blush in Candid Coral

This coral colour has a harder time showing up on my skintone, but that makes it perfect for a nice bronzy look with a heavier eyelook. I can’t wait to get experimenting with this!

ELF contouring blush & bronzing powder in D25

I’ve been wanting this for so long, and love the bronzing powder. It’s darker than my bronzing powder that I use daily, which is nice for a heavy contoured face look. I might try to use less product and maybe I can make it work to use with a heavy eye or lip as well. The blush is a very similar color to the Candid Coral blush, which I only realized as I unpacked it. It’s a shame, but I like the color, so I don’t mind!

These were my short first impressions of my first ELF products ever, hopefully you enjoyed it!

Kisses!

Grace Coddington for Balenciaga

We are a fan of the red-haired right hand of Anna Wintour! Especially since I saw the documentary 'The September Issue', in which we followed the royal family of fashion, I have been feeling a lot of respect for this woman on a quest of keeping creativity within the fashion industry. Of course we are talking about the famous Grace Coddington.

Exciting news: She is working together with Balenciaga-designer Nicolas Gesquière on creating a bag collection. The former model and famous creative director of American Vogue used her cat, Pumpkin, as an inspiration for the bags. That promises to be an interesting collection!

Chanel*wannabe*jacket

Yesterday I bought a jacket that will remind every fashion-concious woman of thé Chanel jacket. It isn't a real Chanel jacket ofcourse - I don't have that kind of money - I bought it at C&A and it's from one of my favourite cheap brands: Clockhouse. This brand is pretty cheap but has every year lots of edgy and classy pieces in its collection. I paid 22 euros for the jacket, and for once I feel like it is an item of clothing that fits me just as beautiful as it would on a skinny person without curves. 

 This jacket is a real high-fashion piece, perfect for making a simple outfit more fashionable. I found this picture online and thought it was such a cute way to combine the jacket with a chic blouse. The denim pants tone it down a bit. I can't wait to start wearing it!

Alexa Chung clothing line

Our favourite British it-girl Alexa Chung said in an interview with Japanese fashionmagazine Numéro that she is planning on creating an own line of clothing!
Does this news have the same impact on you as it does on me? I want to get my hands on those clothes! The news isn't official yet, but yet I'm already picturing myself as a wannabe Alexa Chung!

 

Hopefully Chung will pull through and create this clothing line, of which I'm sure, it will be B-E-A-utiful!

Turquoise breeze: A make-up look

Me and my friend Maxime decided to film a make-up tutorial. I had tried this look a few times on myself and felt like trying it on someone else. For fun we decided to film it and then decided to put it online! We had so much fun creating this! 

The song in the background is Maxime singing a song she wrote herself. I hope you like the video, the make-up, the music, everything! Enjoy, I hope it makes a difference for you :)

 

Kisses! xX

OOTD

 Hey Sweeties!

Here I am with an outfit of the day!
It's really hot in Belgium right now, and we're not used to the heat here. That makes it really hard to find a stylish outfit to wear and still be able to stand the heat. I put this together for my outfit as I went shopping in the city with a friend of mine.




BAND GEEK shirt: Forever 21
Skirt: H&M
Belt: H&M
Necklace: H&M















Earrings: Bijou Brigitte

Gold bracelet: vintage
Rose bracelet: I am
Navy blue and gold chain bracelet: I am

  

That was it for this blogpost, I'm sorry it's so short, but I've been really short on time lately. I'm sorry guys!

Kisses!

Drugstore haul & review + cotton pad storage

Hey everyone! Just wanted to share some drugstore products with you that I picked up a while ago.

 

First: I wanted a new night cream since my skin tends to be really oily in the morning. I chose Oil of Olaz as a brand because I used to use the Oil of Olaz moisturizer and it worked really good. Recently I had found an extremely oil-free day cream/moisturizer (MAC - check my mac haul post!) so how impossible could it be to find a good oil-free night cream? Quite impossible, as it turns out. The first night I simply applied it and covered my face with the product. When I woke up about six hours later, my face was so incredibly oily and it stayed that way during the entire day. It was awful. The night after I applied it extremely thinly on my face. My skin was just as awfully oily as the night before, so I just decided this product did not work for me. I gave it away to my cousin (which she totally did not mind of course) and she loves it, so I'm happy she still gets some use out of it. 

Secondly: I bought these face strips, simply because it looked fun and I had used face strips before that worked miracles but that was ages ago and I totally do not remember what brand it was. Let me warn you, these don't do anything for your skin. I followed the instructions carefully and when I took them off, it had nothing on the sticky side. Usually, a big mess comes off and you know that the strips have helped. But they didn't stick, they didn't change anything at all so unfortunately they were kind of a waste of money. 

Thirdly: The labello fruity shine lipbalm. I love this! This is already the third one I bought because they make my lips so soft, so beautiful and they give off a nice berry-like color. It is my all-time favorite lipbalm.

Fourthly: I don't think these are of any particular brand. I bought them 70% off (I know right!) and they're bubble bath products in the shape of cupcakes. I'm going to give these for my friend's birthday as well (check last post). 

And lastly: how I storage my cotton pads. I have a pack of cotton pads in the bathroom, but since I take off my make-up in my room (because I'm too lazy to walk to the bathroom when it's already that late again) I have this little box of cotton pads in my nightstand. As you may notice, it's an old Ben & Jerry ice cream box. I think it's cute! Of course I washed it out very neatly after eating all of the ice cream. 

That was it for today, I hope you enjoyed reading this!

xX

LUSH Haul

I went  to Lush! Finally! I've heard people rave about this store for so long and finally decided to try out some products. Now, don't get all worked up yet people, I bought most of this stuff for a friend's birthday that is coming up.

When you enter a Lush store for the first time like I did, I can imagine that you get addicted to the amazing smell. "I can't believe I ever lived without this stuff." was my first thought. Okay, that might be a little exaggerated, but it is amazing though. It's perfect if you just want to take a half hour or hour out of your oh-so busy life and just pamper yourself. 

The first product I bought was the Whoosh shower jelly. It might sound funny or icky to some people, but it's basically just hand soap. Only, it's a jelly and not a bar of soap. Come on, how awesome is that? I hope my friend will like it.

The second thing I bought was the Sugar Scrub. The saleswoman said it was very popular since it is famous for decreasing cellulite. Now I'm not so naive to think it would actually work. I just thought a bum and leg scrub sounded fun. It's never bad to have soft skin there, right? I've only used it twice, so I don't know if it's actually working but the skin feels really soft days after using it. 

I bought this Karma bubble bar because I wanted something to moisturize my skin while I bathe, because I tend to bathe a lot. (I love bathing a lot because it's the only personal relaxing moment I have, I usually read a book while I bathe. Now during the exams, I bathe even more because I study the best while I'm in the bathtub. I know, that's weird.) Bathing too much tends to dry out the skin, so that's why I bought this in the scent Orange. It smells sooooo good. You're supposed to break a piece off and crumble it underneath the running water. 

  

And lastly, I bought the stepping stone foot scrub for my friend. She tends to walk around barefoot in summer, even when she's walking on the streets. Not if it's like a high street or something of course. It's supposed to soften the skin of your feet. I'm curious to hear from my friend if it works.




I hope you enjoyed my small haul/mini-review!
See ya! xX

New: Springfield cosmetics

The all-known brand Springfield has decided to expand to the cosmetics market with a brand new make-upline! Springfield is known as an affordable, down to earth brand with fun, young and colorful clothing. The new make-up line blends well into that Springfield profile, which seems a good thing to me. What immediately drew me to the Springfield cosmetic collection, is the packaging.

Yeah. These yummie desserts are àctually lipgloss or lipbalm jars. How cute is that? I'm thinking about getting the ice cream sundae lip balms just because of the packaging!

The Springfield cosmetic collection is allround affordable, you pay around seven euros for the lip glosses and the lipsticks and about five euros for the lip balms.


The colors are very cute and ideal for summer. They should really pop when you apply them.


I'm so excited about the cute packaging and since the price is comparable to drugstore make-up, I think I'm gonna try a product of this new make-up line. Usually I don't just go ahead and buy make-up without reading and watching loads of reviews about them, but I can't resist the packaging!

If you can't resist these fun colors either, go ahead and check out the Springfield website!


Kisses, xX

Scoop: Marc Jacobs is coming to town

A véry reliable source recently informed me that the Marc Jacobs store is finally coming to Belgium's fashion city, Antwerp! Marc Jacobs stores are quite rare, especially in Europe, where there are only 12 stores, though Europe contains the most (traditional) fashion cities in the world. According to the Marc Jacobs website, Japan has 78 Marc Jacobs stores. For some reason the Japanese really seem to like the brand!

Last year, Steve Madden and Jimmy Choo entered the Antwerp fashion scene, so let's hope many international designers will follow in their footsteps!

High five!
xX

It's MAC time!

MAC is one of these stores where you could live in. Where you can stay forever, without worrying what's going on in the outside world. Unfortunately you have to leave sometime, usually with that weird feeling of "Damn. I did spend quite a lot of money. *check wallet* Okay, way too much money." You just get swapped away so easily with that feeling that you really NEED that eyeshadow, or you really need that lipstick. So without further ado, I will show you my guilty pleasures I purchased last week, and I am loving them!

1. The MAC Oil Control Lotion:

I've got a very oily skin and I hate it. I have to reapply my make-up all the time and because my skin has turned all shiny, it usually looks really cakey. I saw some reviews of this product on youtube and decided to try it. From the first time you apply this product, you notice that it starts working. I use it as a moisturizer/daycream and especially apply it on the T-zone (usually the most oily zone on the face). My skin has been dryer since I started using it. Due to the exams I haven't been using it regularly, so I'll have to check if it works even better when I use it daily. All in all, LOVING and recommending this.

2. The MAC All that glitters! eyeshadow

and

3. The MAC 15x empty palette

My first MAC eyeshadow ever. I bought a 15x empty palette so that I can save up for the different eyeshadows. I decided to get All That Glitters! since everybody (like literally everybody) on Youtube recommended it as a first MAC eyeshadow. At the beginning I was a bit disappointed, because the color is exactly the same as my skin tone so basically, all I see when I apply it, are small glitters. But after applying other colors as crease and highlight color, it really pops and is nice, glamorous, yet subtle enough to wear daily. I usually apply it with Oh My Darling as a highlight color and Sorcery as a crease color (both from the MAC Devil May Dare mini-palette, that I'm reviewing some other time). What especially blew my mind, was that there wasn't any excess powder. I'm used to tapping it off and usually loads of product fall off. With MAC, that doesn't seem to be the case and I'm very happy with that. The colors of the eyeshadow stay on long, but I should get a primer or paint pot to apply before the eyeshadow, because it tends to blend a lot during the day. When I get home from school in the evenings, all has blended away and I am only able to see one color anymore. But remember: I have hooded eyes so that might totally be not the case when you use the product.

3. The MAC Studio Fix Powder in C4

I've been using this product for years as my everyday foundation/powder. Because that's basically what it is, a powder that seems to melt in a foundation when you apply it softly on your face. I apply it with the MAC 134 brush. This kind of foundation works good on oily skin in comparison with liquid foundation, which tends to get very cakey on oily skin. I wouldn't know what to do without this product, I bring it everywhere with me! 

So, this was my MAC haul + review, I hope you liked it! I will be reviewing the MAC Devil May Dare mini-palette in the future and I'm going to the MAC store this week (again! Hey don't judge me, I hàve to go to buy a gift card for my mom's birthday!). I'll probably get a primer or a paint pot, don't quite know yet. I'll keep you guys posted!

Greets and kisses,

xX