Golden Spring

Hello! Today I bring you a Spring inspired look. This is a colorful look that will certainly not be "something" for everyone but it's fun and you can always tone it down, use some neutrals to make it more wearable to suit your daily activities.

Let's get started!

I came up with the idea for this look after I saw Oriflame's spring campaign. They have this girl with gold and purple shades in her eyes and it looked delightful! It was so pretty that I decided to try it out.

I had no idea purple and gold would go so well together!

This look can be toned down by using colder shades of purple rather than warmer, as I did for this post.

The warmer the purple you use, the stronger that sunset feel will be. When blended into the gold, the purple can mix up with the yellow tones of the gold and create a beautiful gradient. 

Any type of purple will suit this makeup really, you just have to find out what kind of purple suits your complexion better.

Usually warmer purples go better with yellow/golden/olive skin undertones and cooler purples will be best for pink skin undertones because they will complement the skin better.

I used only two pigment to achieve the gold and purple gradient. Unfortunately I only have the littlest bit of these two pigments so I store them in tiny Z bags and I did not identify them so I can't identify them for you with accuracy. Instead, I'll be presenting alternatives that will help you achieve this same look.

I used a light gold pigment, that is very reflective, on the inner half of my eye. Some alternatives for this would be Makeup Geek's New Year's Eve or Sweet Dreams pigment for lighter skin colors and Makeup Geek's Afterglow pigment for darker, warmer skin colors.  The pigment I used if very very similar to New Year's Eve and it is best for pale skin tones. If you have a medium skin tone, Sweet Dreams is a great option and Afterglow is best for darker skin tones. If you're not a fan of pigments, Makeup Geek's Shimma Shimma eyeshadow, for light skin tones, and Makeup Geek's In the Spot Light foiled eyeshadow, for deeper skin tones, are also great options.

I used a very warm purple pigment on the other half of my eye, the pigment that I used has no shimmer to it so I think you'd achieve the same effect with an eyeshadow. A couple of options to this are Sugarpill's Poison Plum eyeshadow and Sugarpill's 2AM eyeshadow. Poison Plum is a darker version of 2AM, both are very warm purples tho. I would say that the pigment I used is similar to 2AM because it is lighter and a more vibrant shade of warm purple. If you want to darken up the outside corner of the eye, Poison Plum is a great option. But, if you're going for a darker look, Poison Plum is purfect too.

Both these eyeshadows are matte and shimmer-less.

I blended the gold and the purple together, achieving this sunset'ish effect. I had to darken my lashline, and for that I used black eyeshadow and I buffed it out to soften it. I also used a light beige pencil liner on the inner half of my waterline and black eyeliner on the outer part of my waterline. This gives a more elongated shape to my eye, brightening up that inner corner.

If you want a more dramatic look, go for black in all of your waterline.

Top it up with some mascara and the eye is finished!

I decided to bronze up the face a little, after contouring, and I used a pink blush that will match the eye makeup a little. I used highlighter in the highest points of my face to enhance that glow as well.

For lips I used a lipliner in a brownish color a tad darker than my skin color. A good pencil for this would be OCC'S Cosmetic Colorful Pencil in Pennyroyal for lighter skin tones and OCC'S Cosmetic Colorful Pencil in Sybil for darker skin tones.

I used this to outline my lips. Then I used O Boticário's lipgloss in 223 (which is a great dupe for Nars' Orgasm Lipgloss) all over the lips and I used a little bit of that gold pigment I had used before in the center of the lips. 

This combo gives me a fuller pout that looks effortlessly natural.

And that's it for this week's post! I hope you have enjoyed this spring look. I find that these colors are perfect for spring since they're so colorful!

Tânia told me the other day that one of the girls from her class did a frame inspired in my Valentine's Day DIY frame that I did in January and she showed me the final result and I loved it!

I love to know that someone out there that sees our blog gets inspired by what me and Tânia do, so if you recreate any of our looks or get inspired by our posts, please let us know! We'd love to receive your feedback!

I hope you have a wonderful week and I'll be back in the next one.

Love,

Anna

FOTD: Untitled

Uma foto publicada por Tânia (@vinnishbabydoll) em Fev 26, 2015 às 7:29 PST

FACE:

Essence All About Matt! Oil Control Make-Up Base

Essence Cover Stick in 01 Matt Sand

Maybelline Dream Pure BB Cream in Light/Medium

H&M Eyebrow Kit in Blonde

Rimmel Powder Blush in 129 Terracota

BROWS:

H&M Eyebrow Kit in Blonde, Brown & Black

Essence Eyebrow Designer in 02 Dark Brown

Essence Lash & Brow Gel Mascara

EYES:

Essence I Love Stage Eye Shadow Base

H&M Eyebrow Kit in Blonde & Brown
Sleek i-Divine Palette in Au Naturel
Essence Lash & Brow Gel Mascara
Catrice Gel Eyeliner in 010 Jack Black with Jack Black

Essence Lash Princess Mascara

Essence Kajal Pencil in 04 White

LIPS:

Essence Lip Pencil in 03 Hot Chocolate

KIKO Shine Lust Lip Tint in 02 Beige Rosè

LOTS OF LOVE,

Tânia

Keeping Busy No. 1

Hi! Today's post is about the things I've been loving lately and things that inspire me.

My "fashion goals" are to have a pin-up style. Everything about it fascinates me, there's the sexiness of the tight pencil dresses and the classic the past-the-knee petticoat dresses. The perfect wing of eyeliner, the iconic red lip, the carefully sculpted wavy hair. 

Everything about vintage clothing is just so beautiful and it makes me wish I lived in those times.

In this photo Julianne Moore isn't really dressing like a pin-up but her clothes are just beautiful, that full skirt is just adorable, and her hair is so chic. 

Also, Julianne is a great inspiration, such a beautiful woman. And she just won her first Oscar!!!

And, of course, the beautiful Dita Von Teese, another major inspiration of mine.

Spring is the season when all flowers bloom, it's one of my favourite seasons (together with Fall/Autumn).

Spring and Fall are complete opposites, Spring's bright and colorful, Fall's more on the dead and dark side.

A new season is about to begin and the days are starting to get warmer and full of new scents in the air.

Now peonies are a flower that you won't find easily in Portugal but they are my absolute favourite flowers, they're so beautiful. In fact, the blog's logo has a peony in it because it's my favourite flower.

I've always had an enormous love for stained glass windows. They're so intriguing and complex and they give such a rich feel to room. It's my favourite part about churches and cathedrals, I swear I could stay there looking at them forever. 

And the reason why this is here is because I've found a way to produce a stained glass kind of effect that you can do at home with very cheap materials, so I'm excited to try it out some time!

Being the cat lady that I am, I've been trying to teach my cat how to walk on a harness and leash. He doesn't seem to love it so much, so far, but I still have hope. The warmer longer days are here and me and my family always take a walk at night after dinner on these Spring/Summer days and I'd honestly love to take the cat with me. I'm aware that I would have a lot of people staring at me thinking I'm absolutely stupid but do I care?

Minerals have always been a huge passion of mine. Their colors, their shapes, their energies, everything about them mesmerizes me.

I'd say these are a constant source of inspiration to be honest, everyday I keep finding out new things about all sorts of different minerals and it's like there's as many different minerals as there is numbers. If you can connect with them, they're an extraordinary way of reaching inner peace, they could help you understand yourself even!

Astrology is something I've never been too much into to be completely honest, but recently I've found myself searching about it, learning new things about it. I've been really interested in the zodiac signs, the meanings, the ascendance of the signs, the planets. There's so much to discover in astrology!

As you may know if you saw my Christmas Haul post, I got two turtles for christmas. Sadly, Phoebe died shortly after due to soft shell disease, there was nothing I could do to help.
Some time after she died, I bought another turtle because you could see how bored Joey was alone in a huge tank. Phoebe junior is the new inhabitant of my 16 gallon tank.
I've been loving playing with them so much! They're such cuties! I've managed to teach them to climb my hand while inside water and Joey specially loves to swim around my fingers and bite them sometimes.
I'm excited about teaching them some tricks, they're super fast outside water! It's a shame that they usually part different direction, one usually starts walking when the other moves. They're so fun to watch and such interactive animals! It took Phoebe a bit to get used to being handles but now she loves to run around my bedroom carpet!


So this is it! These are the things I've been into lately, I hope that was interesting for you and it probably helps in understanding the kind of person I am outside the makeup world.

All photos taken from Pinterest.

I hope you have enjoyed I'll be back on saturday with a spring look.

Love,
Anna

Cristina Scabbia Inspired Makeup Look

Hi! Today I bring you a slightly different post. Tânia did something similar to this close to the holiday season where she posted a photo from her Instagram page and identified all the products she used under in the post. This post will be something like that.

This look is inspired by Cristina Scabbia and I posted a photo of this makeup on my Instagram page, which is now private due to my sister that has been stalking me lately, so sweet of her. But anyway, this look is a recreation of that dark smokey eye Cristina loves to wear so much and the red lips that she also seems to love.
She usually goes for a full on black "panda" eye but I find that that look doesn't suit most eye shapes so I decided to highlight the inner corners instead of doing them black as well like she does.

Eyes:

Essence I Love Stage Eyeshadow Primer

Avon SuperSHOCK Gel Eyeliner Pencil in Black

Avon True Color Eyeshadow in Blackest Black

Catrice Absolute Eye Colour Mono Eyeshadow in 660 Ice White Open

H&M Gel Eyeliner

Avon Mega Effects Mascara in Blackest Black

Brows:

Essence Eyebrow Designer in 02 Brown

Essence Lash & Brow Gel Mascara

Essence Big Bright Eyes Jumbo Pencil in 01 Nude

Face:

Catrice Prime & Fine Face Primer

Garnier Oil Free BB Cream in Light

Catrice Camouflage Cream Concealer in 020 Light Beige

Catrice Nude Illusion Loose Powder

H&M Bronzing Powder in Gorgeous Tan

Lips:

Essence Lip Liner in 13 Transparent 

Rimmel Lasting Finish By Kate Moss Lipstick in 01

I hope you enjoyed this slightly different post.

I got very inspired by Tânia's post and I'm thinking about doing something similar next and I'll probably post it on tuesday or wednesday since I have some free time after my Portuguese test (Fernando Pessoa is killing me). I've been posting more than usual..

Anyway, I hope you have a lovely weekend.

Love, 

Anna

Inspiration No. 2

For some reason these posts seem like a seasonal event for me. Everytime I feel the season changing I get a few ideas to make this kind of post even though I hate spring, I truely do. Where I live, rains more than should be allowed and there's always things in the air. You know, little particles of powders and pollens and my health doesn't react too well to them. In spite of all this, I'm excited for warmer weather. I can't wait for longer, sunier days.

Without taking much more of your time, let's get to this Spring-to-be inspiration post.

I'm still very trapped in the 50s like I was during late Autumn. I guess I blame Twin Peaks for this. Twin Peaks was made in the 90s but keeps a wonderful 50s, or early 60s, feel to it .I finally got around to finish the second season and I'm still very in love. (I can't hardly wait until 2016!) Audrey Horne is my favorite character (I'd say: No suprise there) and her outfits are beyond beautiful. Audrey's played by Sherilyn Fenn, who in my opinion resembles Elizabeth Taylor a bit. I love how during the second season, Audrey wore more coral-y lipstick instead of reds. Maybe that's something I should try, even if I think coral lipstick wouldn't suit me too well. If you have any suggestions on coral lipsticks for fair maidens like myself, I'd love to hear them!

I keep a folder of pretty study environments to keep me motivated for school. I already started revising for my finals in June. I hope I do well, I really want to go to college.

I love velvet for the cold weather. But I find it even better for Spring/Autumn because you can easly layer it for more comfort. I've recently bought a velvet headband and I can't get enough of it. Oddly enough 90% of the velvet pieces I own are deep blue. I think velvet works best on dark colors, preferably burgundy, deep blue, emerald green and black.

Honestly, I love the post-rain feel. The slight fog and the dense humid air. I just sit close to my window or in the patio and take it all in.

All the pictures presented on this post were taken from Tumblr and their rights belong to the respective owners.

I hope you've enjoyed this small post. Have a wonderful weekend.

Until next time

LOTS OF LOVE,

Tânia

Valentine's Day Madness

Hi again! I promised another post this week but, as it turns out, I'm not going out for Carnival tonight so I won't have photos of that for you so I'll do this post about Valentine's day instead.
I was asked to do my friends' hair and makeup for their dates for Valentine's day and we took some pics so that's what this post will be about. I hope you like it.

On the left is Marisa from amagoefemero.blogspot.com and on the right is Catarina from

dune-lune.blogspot.com.

Marisa asked for pin curls for her hair so I figured I would do a pin up'ish makeup on her and Catarina wanted dark lips so I only did a winged smudged liner and defined her crease a bit. 

I want to apologize for the poor quality of some (most) of the photos. And that's it for this Valentine's day inspired post. I hope you have enjoyed it and I will be back soon with another post.

Love,

Anna

Skin Care and Makeup Haul

Hello! Today I bring you a skin care and makeup haul. Well, it's not really makeup but makeup brushes. I hope you enjoy!

I went on a bit of a splurge this month but I'll proceed to explain: I had ordered these brushes a bit after new year's but they only arrived this monday so I can only share them now.

I've admired and watched Pixiwoo's videos for ages and ages on end, they are a true inspiration and when they came up with a brush line some years ago, I automatically fell in love and, well, I had to have them sooner or later. They day has arrived for me to own some of these brushes and here's what I got!

Sam's Picks

Starter Set

Core Collection

Travel Essencials

 So here's a list of all the brushes that came on these sets:

• Buffing Brush
• Contour Brush 
• Pointed Foundation Brush
• Essential Foundation Brush
• Detailer Brush
• Buffing Brush
• Setting Brush
• Domed Shadow Brush
• Base Shadow Brush
• Deluxe Crease Brush
• Essential Crease Brush 
• Accent Brush
• Brow Brush
• Fine Liner Brush

Some sets came with brushes that already came in other sets so I have duplicates of some brushes.

Here's a little review on them:

I had really high expectations for these brushes since I had been waiting to own some for years and they did not fail to fulfill the expectations at all!

They are extremely soft, they're cruelty free (which means they're all made of synthetic fibers), they blend color in so so well, I am so satisfied with them!

After playing with them a little bit and doing a full face of makeup with them, my favorites are the Multi Task brush, the Contour brush, the Essential Crease brush and the Fine Liner brush.

I highly recommend the Contour brush and the Fine Liner brush. The Contour brush helps sculpting the face beautifully, it fits right in the hollows of the face, making it so easy to achieve flawless contoured effects. The Fine Liner brush is, by far, the best eyeliner brush I've ever used. It's perfect for super precise and sharp lining with gel eyeliner. It's recommended for people that have a little bit more of practice with eyeliner since it's best for freehand drawing of eyeliner, so if you're a beginner with eyeliner I would go for and angled brush instead.

One brush that I had really high expectations for was the Setting brush. I read review of people saying wonders of it for highlighting the face and setting concealer under the eyes and I'll have to say that it didn't fulfill my expectations. I found that it was great to set concealer under the eyes but I didn't find it so good for placing highlighter on the face. It's still a great setting brush for small areas of the face.

The brushes are overall very soft and of high quality.

I also bought some new skin care products since I didn't have moisturizing cream anymore.
Here's what I got!

Garnier Pure Active Moisturizing Cream for Oily Skin with Imperfections

This cream is the bomb! Combined with the exfoliating cream from the same brand, it helps you achieve flawless skin. I find that it is very refreshing and keeps shine away from the skin for the whole day. 

I've been testing it out and I like to apply this one in the morning and let it sink in and do its job during the day.

Garnier Moisturizing Cream for Oily to Combination Skin

This is an amazing cream, I find. Once the skin is used to it, it controls shine beautifully while keeping the skin deeply moisturized and nourished. Its formula is rather thick and textured, which I believe is best for oily skin. The texture of it leads me to believe it had some ingredient that absorbs oil and that's why it is so good at controlling shine.

I use this one as a night cream and sometimes during the day as well.

Nivea Replenishing Night Cream for Normal to Combination Skin

This cream was a huge disappointment and a waste of money.
I was hoping that it could be a good night cream for my skin and I also thought it would help reduce the oil that it naturally produces but one thing I'll tell you is that it doesn't help eliminate oil, it only makes the skin feel greasier.
It has a super thick consistency that reminds me of that traditional Nivea moisturizing cream that comes in a blue round tin. It's not bad as a replenishing night cream, my skin looked very healthy in the morning after using it, it just doesn't do its job as a cream for combination skin. Although combination skin isn't as oily as oily skin, it still has some areas that produce more oil than others and I wouldn't use this cream for those areas.
But, if your skin the rather a normal skin type, you'd be just fine with this as your night cream. It just didn't work for me.

And that's it for this post! I may have another post up this tuesday or wednesday that will be carnival themed, so I hope to be back then!
I hope you have a fantastic weekend and a great valentine's day and carnival, if you celebrate it.

Love,
Anna