Tânia's Skin Care Routine

Hello! Today I bring you my own skin care routine. I've been using these products for more than a year and they do wonders on my oily, blemish prone skin. In this post I'll try to cover as many aspects of the products in my routine as I can. Hope you enjoy it!

MORNING

The first thing I do in the morning is going to the kitchen to leave my kettle heating up so I can have my matutinal tea, then I go to the bathroom and that's when this routine starts.

First I wash my face with a gel wash. I use Garnier's Pure Active Fruit Energy Daily Energising Gel Wash. It has extracts of grapefruit and pomegranate which are commonly included in products for oily skin.

After my skin is completly dry I use a micellar water. This type of product usualy serves as a cleanser but I tend to use it as a toner. It's not the strongest toner but since I have fairly sensitive skin it works for me. I use Garnier's Micellar Cleansing Water.

This last step depends if I'm going to wear foundation or BB Cream that day. I don't like moisturizers. During the Summer I only use them at night before bed because they're an important part of your skin care no matter what's your skin type.  But, in the Winter, the story changes and I use it if I'm not going to wear anything else on my face. My all time favorite moisturizer is Garnier's Hydra Adapt for Combination to Oily skins. It has a sorbet like texture and feels uncannily fresh.

NIGHT

My nightime routine changes if I've worn any makeup during the day.
If I have, my first step is to clean my face combining makeup wipes and micellar water. These two products get the job done but sometimes, if I've worn something very, very longlasting I use a makeup remover with a cream consistency.
After that I use a exfoliating cream. Garnier's Pure Active 3 in 1 Wash, Scrub & Mask is a product that me and Anna use. I also use Garnier's Pure Active Fruit Energy Daily Energising Gel Scrub, it's softer and gentler that the 3 in 1 and my sensitive skin sometimes deserves a little bit of that gentleness.
Then I finish the day with, once more my micellar water and my moisturizer.

EXTRAS

I decided that I'd talk about some more products that nourish the skin on other parts of my body or help me maintain my face during the day.

FULL BODY

As I've mentioned in my last video, I love bathtime. Yet, it's important to take care of all your skin, principally if you wash yourself in really hot water like I do. After showering or bathing I use sweet almond oil all over my body while I'm not fully dry. This kind of oil is commonly used during pregnancy to avoid stretch marks and it's, in fact, what my mother used when pregnant and during her whole life. I use it to keep my skin smooth and deeply moisturized. As I said before, it helps with strech marks, which I have in a generous amount, but it only prevents you from getting more, the oil won't fade the ones you already have. I use regular body lotion on the laziest days. The lotion I have been using is Sephora's Blackberry Red Currant and it's very liquid and thin on your skin I've used the same lotion in the scent Lemon Meringue. Body butters  are also a favorite item of mine. I Love... Cosmetics' Nourishing Body Butter in Rasperry & Blackberry is my all time favorite.

HANDS + LIPS + FACE

My hands are usually quite dry. I always have some hand cream on my bag and I've been using one from OBoticário that has almonds and vanilla.
For my lips I've been using the same chapsticks since I can remember. My aunt has been selling Yves Rocher's products since I can remember and I've been using chapsticks with shea butter or almond butter.
Finally I couldn't forget to include my (in)famous spray bottle of rose water that helps me keeping my skin fresh trough the day.

Once again, I hope you really enjoyed this post! And I'm sorry that I didn't post on Thursday like I usually do.

LOTS OF LOVE,

Tânia

Anna's Christmas Wishlist

Hi! This is an improvised post that I didn't plan on doing but as I was doing a Christmas wishlist on twitter I thought why not do a post about it!
I've had people ask me what I want for Christmas so why not.

Real Techniques brushes by Samantha and Nicola Chapman

http://realtechniques.com/

LimeCrime Venus Palette 

http://limecrime.com/

LimeCrime Velvetines

 in Utopia, Wicked, Black Velvet and Salem

http://limecrime.com/

Urban Decay Naked 1,2 and 3

http://www.urbandecay.com/

Melt Lipsticks

 in By Starlight, Space Cake, Blow, Bane, DGAF, 6six6 and Dark Room

http://www.meltcosmetics.com/

VPFashion Hair Extentions 

in 613A# White Blonde 

http://www.vpfashion.com/

Epica Discography 

(except The Quantum Enigma)

phttp://epica.nl/

Delain Discography

http://www.delain.nl/

Xandria Neverworld's End 

http://xandria.de/

Opalite Pendulum

http://www.ebay.com/

Annie On My Mind

I don't know if you can still buy this

Lies My Girlfriend Told Me

I'm pretty sure this is not printed anymore

I believe that that is all???

With all those new holiday season palettes I may have to update this, we'll see.

Love,

Anna

Birthday Haul

After all the issues I had with my software, I realised that it reduced the video quality from 720p to 360p. I need to fix this before I do another video. Once again, it features my awkward self and my broken English.

Nevertheless, I hope you like it.

I Love... Cosmetics

Cruelty Free and Vegan info, here.

MAC Dupes available at KIKO:

609 Cherry Red - Diva

914 Amaranth - Rebel

LOTS OF LOVE,

Tânia

Inspiration No.1

Hello! Long time no see, but I'm excited to be back. This is going to be a slightly long intro, so I think I should apologize in advance, but please, read it.

Since my birthday was last week, I was planning on posting a Birthday Haul video. I did film it this afternoon, but when I was trying to edit it, the editing software that I usually use kept shuting my computer down. I've managed to find another program but even if I finished editing the video today, it wouldn't be up until tomorrow. The solution me and Anna found was that I was going to make a post today and post the video on Saturday; as Anna's going through some personal issues that wouldn't let her post on Saturday so it's in fact a better arrangement for the both of us.

For this post, I've decided to let you in my little inspiration pictures for this late Autumn. The coming of Winter makes my mind wander into the 50s for some reason, so I guess you'll be seeing a bit of that here.


I've been really in the mood for some red lipstick. Also, this reminds me that I should clean the little compact that I own, which resembles these lipsticks, and start using it. I've too been in the mood for nice underwear and loungewear, too bad I can't find anything that really fits me.


There's a place quite where I live that resembles this. I've found myself going there when I feel the need for some fresh air.


I've been thinking about changing a few bits of my room. Maybe preparing a vanity area or just adding a few decorational pieces.
Finally, here's a little update on something. This is the main image on my inspiration board for the month of November. I've been participating on NaNoWriMo and Neil Gaiman, one of my favorite authors, has said some of the most motivating things.
All the pictures presented on this post were taken from my tumblr page and their rights belong to the respective owners. I hope you've enjoyed this small post. As I said before I'm going to post my Birthday Haul video on Saturday, until then I hope you have a wonderful Friday.

LOTS OF LOVE,

Tânia

Room Tour: Anna's Room

Hello! First of all, I want to apologize for not posting on Saturday but in order to do this post, I needed my dad to put up a new shelf I bought and only an hour ago did I get him to do it.
I also want to apologize in advance if some of the photos do not have such good quality, I forgot the camera I usually use in my girlfriend's house, so I had to use one of my old ones.

This is my room, so here it goes.

These are the three walls of my room I will be showing. I won't be showing the other one cause the only thing it has is my wardrobe which occupies the whole wall so it's irrelevant.

The desk wall

In this wall I have my desk that is just a very standard desk in a light shade of wood.
This is usually the messier part of my room. I put everything on top of this desk, everything.
In the two "boxes" above the desk I keep, in one, my perfumes and ,in the other, my books that are written in Portuguese and my CDs and some DVDs.

On top of my desk I have, on the right side, my Lady Gaga x Terry Richardson book and my limited edition full size English Vogue magazines. In the middle I keep my other Lady Gaga books and some more books that are written in English.

I also have some photos of me when I was a baby, a couple of glitter jars and Mr. Creeple, the skeleton.

In this wall I also have a mirror I personalized for my taste in which I may do a post soon.

If you know me, you know that writing on wall is my thing, so, since I had so much free space above my desk I wrote the quote "Nothing can shine left in the dark." from Tarja's song In For A Kill. 

In the space between the "table part" of my desk and those two top "boxes" I have a board that has some of my drawings, a drawing that a friend did for me and some photos.

The aquarium wall

This is the wall where I have my tv, my aquariums and posters.

I have a tall shelf on the right and another shelf that is the same as the one standing, but, so that it could support the weight of the big aquarium, it is on it's side. In these shelves I have all of my school books, jewelry in boxes, more CDs, shoes, nail polishes in boxes, some boxes with makeup and all the materials to maintain the aquarium.

On the right side of this wall I have an Epica poster that I got in Vagos Open Air and on the left side of the wall I have a Lady Gaga post I bought a long time ago in Fnac. 

Again, I decided to write in the walls and this time it was a John Green quote, "My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations" that I have to do a little alteration to because I forgot to put one L.

In this wall I also have a board where I put concert tickets, museum tickets, photos and I also have there the tickets of when I went to the Eiffel tower and Disneyland.

The bed wall

My room is fairly small, as you can see, so having the bed against a wall is a great way to save space and it also makes for a good improvised sofa. 

On the wall that I have my bed I have loads of paper sheets with a big image printed in black and white. It's actually made by dots in many shades and sizes to create this image of a city inside of a birdcage. 

On the left side I have my bedside table and a shelf. In this shelf I have my lamp. I put in this shelf the books that I'm currently reading as well as a candle and I also have there my mineral collection. I love stones so this collection is always growing. Some of these stones I bough in medieval fairs, some I got from mineral collections, some were given to me and some bought in shops that sell all sorts of healing stones.

A little bit above this shelf I have yet another quote, a very important one. Hopefully this Christmas I will have this quote tattooed on me and it says "One day we won't feel this pain anymore.". This is an Evanescence quote from the song Lost in Paradise. This is, to me, that one sentence that gets me through, so it's very special and it was the first thing I wrote ever in my walls. My parents got really mad but the second time they didn't even ask what it meant.

I couldn't get a good photo of my window but my window in sort of inside of an "arc" where I have a big old wood box that my godmother made me. I have transformed that wood box into a little sofa where I put some pillows to make it more comfortable, sort of to create a little chilled area. On my window I only have my cactus inside mason jars cause I'm hipster like that and seashells that my dad found in the beach when I was still very young. 

So this is it! This is what my tiny room looks like. It's small but it is very comfortable because of that exactly.
You may have noticed a bit of contrast between me and my room since I only wear black and my room is mostly in pastel colors. That is because, since it is such a small room, light colors make it appear bigger by reflecting the light. I also like to believe that I am fairy or some sort of magical delicate creature that lives in the clouds or something so yeah.

This post became a bit too long and I apologize for that as well.

I hope you have enjoyed, see you in a week!

Love,

Anna

Anna's Skin Care Routine

Hello everyone! Anna here again.
This week I'm posting twice and in Tânia's place because I had all these posts planned that I needed to get done as soon as possible because next week's post is going to be a look and I figured it would make sense to post twice this weeks with the posts I have been delaying. Also, Tânia is missing one thing that she wants to include in her next post, so win win.

In this first post I will be taking about my skin care routine.
I have discovered a couple of months back that to have a skin care routine is extremely important not to constantly have breakouts.

I'll start with the basics.

The first thing you have to keep in mind is to have a makeup remover of your preference.

I prefer to use Nivea's makeup remover, but any makeup remover will do.
Removing your makeup with only water and soap may cause great damage to your skin if it dries your skin too much or doesn't correctly remove the products.
I would suggest having one that removes normal makeup and waterproof makeup because the ones that remove waterproof makeup are rather oily so they may cause a breakout.

It's also important to exfoliate. 

I use this Garnier one. This one is specifically for oily skin.
By exfoliating you will be removing the layer of dead cells that accumulate over the skin during the day. This layer of dead cells often clogs the pores and doesn't allow them to breathe, causing breakouts.
I use this one because, as it says, it is a 3 in 1 product. It works as a cleanser, an exfoliating cream and a mask, which is perfect because you don't have to buy three different products. I usually use it to exfoliate but I have also left it on for a couple of minutes as a mask and it does wonders.

It's also important to use a tonic or a cleansing cream.

I use the Nivea Aqua Effect tonic and cleansing milk.
Usually I use the tonic on a daily basis. I use it after I exfoliate to further clean my skin.
The cleansing milk I usually use once or twice a week during the bath because it's easier to remove.
These two products leave my skin so soft, I can't even begin to explain.

To finish off I use a moisturizing cream.

For this part it's extremely important to know what skin type is yours.

I have oily to combination skin. I usually get very oily in the T zone and the rest of my face has just normal skin. I used to use a moisturizing cream for sensitive skin because my skin is fairly sensitive most of the time but that didn't get me so far in getting rid of the oiliness so I decided to change to a cream for combination skin. It has been helping a bit to prevent the oiliness around my nose and forehead.

In the morning I usually use the tonic and the moisturizing cream only.

Before I go to bed I cleans, exfoliate and moisturize.

Tips for oily skin:

• If you have oily to combination skin, you will find that you often breakout around the nose, chin and forehead areas. This is because those areas have fairly thin skin. The sweat and dead cells and all those things that build up on those areas will either create pimples or blackheads if you don't start acting on them. I would suggest using nose strips or peel off masks to completely remove those sorts of things. Or at least to help.

• To control the oiliness that builds up bacteria and unpleasant shine in your face, use blotting sheets. These little sheets have the magical power of absorbing all sorts of oils and shine. Just use them throughout the day when you feel that oily feel in your face.

To freshen up during the day, I also carry in my bag a spray bottle with rose water, smells amazing and helps clean and moisturize the skin.

That's it for my skin care routine!

I hope you have enjoyed this post and I will be back with another one on Saturday.

Love,

Anna

Halloween Night

Hi! I want to apologize in advance for not posting sooner but I just got the photos now, so yeah.
These are just some photos from my Halloween night, I hope you enjoy.

the stairs in the bar were filled with candles!

  

Love,
Anna