Beauty crafted in the dark chambers of the heart



Sunday, January 18, 2015

Ice Queen

Hello!
First of all I would like to apologize for the lack of posts this week. I was supposed to post on friday but I had absolutely no time, then it was delayed to saturday but I had to do some house cleaning and when I was done I was too tired to edit photos. So I'm sorry for the late post.
Also, Tânia didn't post this week because she had made one more post than me during the holidays so we decided that she wouldn't do one this week.

The good news are that we have a little surprise prepared for you! The following four weeks I will be doing a series of makeup looks inspired by the four elements, water, fire, earth and air.
The looks will be named after metal songs of our choice, according to the element.
We haven't yet decided if it will be done by both of us or not but I will update you on that soon.
So this week's post is a little introduction to that series.
I'm aware that ice is not an element but it is made out of one of those elements and I thought it would be fun.

I want to warn you from the beginning that the photography quality is quite poor in these photos because we were having a problem with the lighting. We use the natural light and I took a little while longer to finish this look, so when the photos were taken there was almost no light. I hope you understand.


This week's look is an Ice Queen look. This look was named after Within Temptation's Ice Queen and is not at all inspired in the makeup that Sharon uses in the video for this song.

I was inspired by one of last year's trends and also by a look that I've seen a lot on Instagram.


The eye makeup is very simple. I used a white eyeshadow all over my lid up to my brow bone as my base color and also as a blending shade. Then I moved to the lower lid and used a dark blue eyeshadow, I packed it on quite heavily and then used a blending brush to feather it out creating this reverse cat eye, very popular among Instagram beauty gurus lately. To connect this reverse cat eye to the top lid I used a bit of that same dark blue and simply connected it to my lash line, creating a triangle. Blending was the key in this look, I blended as much as I possibly could to make it soft and simple.

The dot eyeliner was a massive trend last year and I thought it went perfectly with the theme, so I went for it. I chose white to simulate snow and simply dotted along a low cat eye.
Popped some eyeliner on my water line and black mascara on top lashes and on my bottom lashes, although it may not be so visible, I used white mascara and believe me, in real life it did stand out from that dark blue underneath.

If you are questioning yourself about what's going on in my lower lid, the thing is, I have a natural wrinkle in that place and I used a bad base on my lower lid that made the makeup in that area wrinkle. I apologize for that.



On my eyebrows I used a dark blue eyeshadow that looks mostly black on photos.
For the lips I went black and over that I placed a metallic blue pigment that was in the same cold vibe as the eyes.

For contouring and highlighting I used a drag queen technique. The baking technique.
I basically did my foundation in white and then layered white powder on the high points of the face like under the eyes and top of the cheeks. I let that "bake" while I did my eye makeup and then buffed it out, leaving those point of the face much more lifted.
I used a dark blue shade to contour my face and a more royal blue color to serve as blush.
On my cheekbones, chin and forehead I drew some snowflakes with white creamy face paint and then dusted a bit of a reflective pigment over top to create a different way of highlighting the face.


I have loads of beauty marks and such on my face so I decided to cover them with a white metallic eyeliner so that they would look like snow. Sort of how I would picture an Ice Queen's beauty marks to be.

And that's it! That's how I achieved this look, pretty simple, yet different due to the dot eyeliner.

I hope you have enjoyed and I will be back with some elements inspired look next week!

Love, 
Anna


Sunday, January 11, 2015

Anna's Christmas Haul

Hi! I know it's a bit past christmas but I thought it would be a good idea for a post to show you what I got for christmas. I, by no means, am bragging or anything about what I got, just sharing with you what people gave me.


I'll start with the nature related stuff I got.

Himalayan Salt Lamp
Black Tourmaline and Citrine
Fluorite
Green Agathe

Cactus and Succulents 

Next I'll show books and music related.

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Within Temptation's Mother Earth and The Silent Force albums
She's Mad But She's Magic mixtape by Tânia
Onto beauty and makeup related presents.

Lady Gaga Fame perfume
Essence nail polish in "I love my blue jeans"
H&M Limited Edition (gunmetal) , Special Edition (rose gold) and Standard (black) brushes 

IDC Color Cosmetics palette 
Essence Effect eye pencils in 04 Iron-Hulk, 02 Gold-Digger, 05 Metal-Phantom and 03 Steel-Smurf
Essence Crystal eyeliners in 07 Blue Heaven and 06 Rosy Rush
And a very special present...

Phoebe and Joey
I also received pajamas and lingerie but I didn't take photos of that, so yeah. This is it.
I received some money as well from my family, part of which I'm saving for tattoos and concerts, and loads of chocolate (I already ate most of them obviously).
I have ordered some things from Ebay that were supposed to be on this post but we all know things take forever to arrive so I'll make a post on that when the things I ordered are handed to me.

This is it for this week's post, I hope you enjoyed seeing what I got this christmas.
I hope you had a lovely new year's eve, I hope your year is full of joyful things and that everything you wish for comes true.

Love,
Anna


Saturday, January 10, 2015

OOTD: Mafra


All pictures above were taken by my friend Mariana. Thanks grrrl!

Hat & Skirt - Local Shop
Cloak - Thrifted
Cardigan - H&M
Shirt - Zara
Shoes - Seaside
Rings - Unkind & Local Shop


Some extra pictures. Valéria's watch is from Ebay and her earrings are from Bijou Brigitte. Neither of these things are really my style but I think they're really cute and worth seeing.



LOTS OF LOVE,
Tânia

Friday, January 2, 2015

2014 Through Instagram

Hello! As I've seen this post on multiple blogs, I thought I'd be fun to do it myself. I've colected a picture from every month of 2014. These pictures are all available on my instagram account. I'll also speak a bit about each month and what relevant things happened in it. Hope you'll like it!


Early 2014 was in general quite weird, honestly. I don't remember much of what happened in JANUARY, FEBRUARY, MARCH, and APRIL besides me being really tired and overwhelmed with school. Anything wasn't going as expected and as usual, I was putting a lot of pressure onto myself, which made junior year quite complicated. Those months had really positive things going on too, but the general picture is more of a sad one.
The final moments of school madness for junior year were in MAY and JUNE. With some the most important exams coming up, me and my classmates usually gathered at my house to study.
When I was done with my exams, my parents and grandparents decided to go to Algarve. I was there in late JULY and looking back, it was a quite fun vacation. During this month I went to the beach in my hometown a lot (more than I usually would anyway), to hang out with my friends.
AUGUST brought one of the best moments of the year. Vagos Open Air was a wonderful experience. Both me and Anna (also Rita, who's in the left of the picture) met Epica and had lots of fun at the festival.
Flowers Of Doom was born in SEPTEMBER so it was a very special month. It was also the begginning of senior year, which so far is going well.
The last quarter of 2014 was fun. In OCTOBER school work included visits to my city's contemporary art museum and that made things much more enjoyable. NOVEMBER was marked by my 17th birthday (the picture for this month was taken by a friend during my birthday dinner) and my second time seeing Epica. Finally, DECEMBER was boring and tiresome at times, but it gave me time to think and recharge my energy for 2015.

I hope you enjoyed my quick overview of last year. I wish you a great new year, may the worst moments of 2014 be the best ones this year!

LOTS OF LOVE,
Tânia

Monday, December 29, 2014

New Year's Eve Makeup Look

Hello! Since I missed on the christmas makeup look, I decided that I would do a New Year's Eve makeup for you. New year's eve is such a fun time to play with makeup! You're entering a new year, you can use and abuse the glitter, the sparkle, the shine and the metallic shadows, it's a celebration time and nothing better than makeup to show how excited you are for the new year that is ahead of you.


So I did this look inspired in Simone Simons' stage makeup for Epica's Utrecht show with loads of glitter and sparkle! I was scrolling down her Instagram to find a photo that she has with Fernando from Moonspell and came across this beautiful makeup that looks so festive. I instantly got a boom of inspiration and decided that today I would do this look for the post.
My version of it turned out a lot less dark but still very sparkly, I hope you enjoy it.



In Simone's Instagram photo, her eyeshadow looked pretty metallic and in a grayish blue shade. That's what I tried to mimic with this metallic teal eyeshadow that reflects gold in certain lights. Most of the eyeshadows I used are from this new palette I was given for christmas that I will show in a future post in my christmas haul.
I used this color all over my lid till the crease. In the crease I used first a matte shade a couple of shades darker than my natural skin tone as a blending color. Then I placed black in the outer V, creating a cat eye effect, just like Simone had. I blended it all out with a fluffy brush I got as christmas present, which I will also show you in a future post. On the lower lid I used black on the outer corner, connecting it to the top lid and some of that teal shade along the inner third of the lower lash line. In the inner corner of my eye I used yet another eyeshadow from that palette that is very shimmery and that highlights the eye quite a lot.



Now for the fun part, the glitter!
Simone had loads of sparkle going on and that's what I tried to do too by using gold glitter. Glitter tends to fall out a lot if it doesn't have a base to stick to. If, like me, you don't have a glitter base, here's a tip: take your clear eyebrow gel, rub your ring finger in the wand and use that gel very lightly all over the lid. While it's still wet place the glitter on top. It will stick to it like no other.
I used a gel eyeliner to line the eye. I did a line a little more dramatic than usual for this one.
I also used that same gel liner on my water line, to give the eye a bit more of depth and drama.
You can't skip lashes with this look and that's why I used quite dramatic ones from Ardell in 131 Black.
I also filled in my brows with H&M Dark Brown eyebrow pencil and used a clear brow gel to keep them in place.


I don't use foundation. I have created some sort of aversion to foundation, I hate the feeling of liquid foundation. I just don't use it in general. I only used some moisturizing cream and concealer in my problem areas and to highlight under the eyes.
I then set all of that with a translucent powder and move on to face sculpting. 
Try to go with your natural shape, only enhancing it a little bit. That's what I did by placing a little bit of bronzer on my cheeks to define them and just a dash on my temples. I then went to a pinkish blush similar to Nars' Orgasm and highlighted the tops of my cheekbones, nose, chin and cupid's bow.

For the lips I used a lipstick that is the exact same shade as my natural lip color.
Simone had a peachy pink color on that seemed very glossy and quite a big outline on those lips, but I decided to leave it a bit more subtle there.


And that's the look complete! I'm not gonna do this one on myself but I've already got requests to do it on someone else. This year I've decided not to use glitter on myself.

I want to make a little note here and say that most of the photos for this look have zero to no edition. All credits to the amazing Catarina from the blog D'une Lune and a huge thank you to this girl for the spectacular job she did today.

This is it for this week's post! I hope you have liked it and gotten inspired for some new year's looks.
I will be back this weekend with a christmas haul with all the goodies I got for christmas.

Love,
Anna