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!