Halloween Special: Death

Today's makeup look is, finally, a Halloween look! I'm one of those annoying people that make Halloween a year long holiday, and I love everything about it. Too bad it isn't really celebrated here in Portugal.

I bring you one of my favorite comic book characters as inspiration for this first look. Death, of the Endless, is part of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman series. She's the main character's older sister and she's often described as the "goth girl next door".

There is a very important thing missing from my look, but I'll get to it later.

Death's makeup consists on bold eyeliner and black lipstick. Since the first publication of The Sandman, there has been various interpretations of Death and her look but the Eye of Horus inspired cat eye and black lipstick have, along with the all-black outfit and Ankh neckless, defined her.

All contour was done with a medium grey eyeshadow and it looks (surprisingly) almost natural. I did my eyebrows just a little bit thinner and darker than usual. With black gel liner I created an thick cat eye. On the inner corner of my eyes I used a smaller brush to continue the line I'd made before, designing a little triangle when connected to the lower lash line, which I also lined with the gel liner.

The trickiest part of this look is the little spiral that you should do on your right eye, for the sake of accuracy. I did this with black face paint instead of eyeliner because it was easier to create the shape with it.

I also used black pencil eyeliner to tight line my eyes and mascara.

GET THE WHOLE LOOK

• As I said earlier on this post, the most important thing is missing. The Ankh neckless is what differentiates Death from her siblings. It's her token and the symbol of her power.
• Her clothes are casual, all black, so it isn't really hard to find a pair of black trousers (she's rarely seen in dresses or skirts) and a black top. Her shoes are, most of the time, winklepickers.
• She's a huge fan of floppy hats so, why not using one to complete the outfit?

I hope you enjoyed this post, and that you've found some ghoulish inspiration for your own Halloween celebration!

LOTS OF LOVE,
Tânia

IMPORTANT NOTE: Both me and Anna are going to do two Halloween looks and we'll be posting them on the same weeks, spacing them with a different post each!

Shoe Collection

Hey! So, today I bring you a "collection" of my favourite shoes.

This post was suggested by my best friend, since I had no idea of what to post this week, so thank you so much, sweetie.

I thought of including all of my shoes in this "collection" but that would make a huge post and also I don't use most of the shoes of my "collection" that often, so I chose my favourites.

You will notice that most my shoes are black because, again, I wear mostly black.

I cannot recall the price of the shoes, so I will not be mentioning that.

Starting off with sandals.

I got these sandals in Summer because I didn't have any platform sandals.

The platform of these sandals is made of some sort of foamy material and the strings are made out of synthetic leather. They are very comfortable because, although they have a "heel", the platform makes up for it. I chose this pair because they are a bit more closed in the front, which is perfect.

excuse my veiny feet

These wedges are kinda old already, I bought these for some special occasion and I was terrified to death that I would fall in them. They are very comfortable for people who are used to walk in heels but after a couple of hours your feet start to get sore. Since they are wedges, they are very easy to walk in and you feel very stable on top of them. They have an 18 cm heel.

These flats are also an old pair, probably about 4 years (?).

They are from a brand called Melissa. I was so obsessed with this brand some years ago that I had to get a pair, and I was lucky that when I went to buy them, they were on sale. It's only a shame that they didn't sell them in my city back them, I had to go to Lisbon to find them.
Flats are generally comfortable but if you are not used to tight shoes, these can be a bit hard to get used to since they are a bit hard to mold to your feet.

Anything black and studded has my heart and these moccasins were just love at first sight.

These are my "go to" shoes and that explains how old they are already.

They are a cheaper version of the Skull Studded Loafers that Jeffrey Campbell has. I obviously can't afford Jeffrey Campbell anything. They are extremely comfortable, obviously.

These pair of flats is an old purchase as well. I bought them because I was obsessed with UNIF's Hellraisers  but these turned out to be very hard to wear because they are made out of some really stiff material that hurts my feet a lot. I love them but I can't take much use out of them yet. 

I don't need to say that I used these a lot last year, it's clearly visible. They were my "go to" platform shoes of last year. I used them with anything, they're really comfortable and don't hurt the feet at all even if you use them the whole day, as I did last year. They needed to be repaired a lot of times because I used them so much but right now they're in perfect conditions, except that they are not completely black anymore.

My mom decided that she was done seeing me with the platforms above so she told me I had to buy new ones, so I bought these. They were not my favorite type of shoe at all when I got them, but I've grown to love them and now they are my "go to" platforms. They're perfect for winter since they are very warm and don't let rain in, and also perfect for summer.

Since Autumn is already here, I figured I had to buy boots. These are my latest shoe purchase and I am so so happy with them.

Again, anything studded and black has my heart, so these caught my eye right away. They had a very small heel and are full of studs! They are extremely comfortable and I find that they are great to pair with skirts and dresses since they are so sleek.

This is all for this week's post. I hope you have enjoyed and I'm sorry I didn't post on saturday as I usually do.

I hope to start with the Halloween looks next week, so I'm looking forward to that.

Love,
Anna

Rust

As promised, I bring you once again a makeup look. This is another look that I wear often. It consists of a red/copper smokey eye and and darkish red lips.

I'm a somewhat pratical person and smokey looks are quite easy to obtain as long you have the right tools. Make up brushes, especially blending brushes, are the most useful to get perfect looks.

I applied, as usual, a medium taupe color on my crease. Then I filled both upper and lower lids with my favorite eyeshadow, which is KIKO's Eyeshadow in 137 Pearly Copper. I added a little bit of a brown eyeshadow close to my upper lashes and tight lined my eyes with Essence's kajal pencil in 08 Teddy. Followed with my usual mascara.

On my lips I combined three lip products. A lip liner and a mix of burgundy and purple lipsticks.

(From top to bottom) Purple lipstick, GOSH's Velvet Touch Lipstick in 154 Burgundy and red lipliner.

On my cheeks I used a little of Essence's Viva Brasil blush in 02 Destination: São Paulo! As for the rest of my face, I followed my own routine.

October is my favorite month and I'm preparing two Halloween looks, so I'm really excited and looking forward to do those posts. As always, I hope you enjoyed this post!

LOTS OF LOVE,
Tânia

Lipstick Wishlist + OOTD

Hey! Today I bring you a lipstick wishlist and an outfit of the day.

Lipstick Wishlist

To be completely honest with you, this was a really hard list to make because I initially had 27 lipsticks in my list but I had to reduce it to around five, so you lipstick addicts can feel my pain.
I will have to admit that I am still not that much of a lipstick addict for two simple reasons: it requires quite a lot of maintenance and I'm really clumsy and all so I'm constantly scared that I will smudge it and make a mess out of it during the day.
Lately I have been trying to get into the lipstick world a bit more just because a lipstick makes a huge difference in a person's face, specially if, like me, you tend to do the same eye makeup every day.

Going through all the lip products in my list, I actually found out that some of them were discontinued, so I am only including lipsticks that are available in stores and online at the moment.

There's no specific order to this list.

MAC's Cyber 

I have had a crazy obsession with MAC's Cyber lipstick since I found out about it in a makeup video, quite a long time ago, so I decided that I would have to include this gorgeousness in this wishlist.

Cyber is a deep, dark, reddened purple, as described by MAC.
Since it is a satin finish lipstick, the pigmentation seems to be a little on the sheer side, which is, is my opinion, unfortunate since the color is so beautiful.

OCC's Technopagan

This is not a lipstick! But I had to include it in here.

Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics came up with this genius idea of making a lip product with loads of pigmentation and you don't even have to use a lot of product!

Technopagan is a metallic tip tar from the Unknown Pleasures collection, their fall/winter 2014 collection.

Technopagan in a blackened purple with blue pearl, as described by OCC. This lip tar attracts me so much for it's beauty on the lips. It comes out as a very dark metallic blue that has a purple base.

OCC's Black Metal Dahlia

Black Metal Dahlia is a blackened burgundy with red pearl, as described by OCC. This lip tar is in their permanent collection of lip tars and is a metallic version of the original Black Dahlia lip tar. It is so beautiful! It shows off on the lips as a rich metallic deep red color.

LimeCrime's Serpentina 

Serpentina is a metallic, iridescent green with a snake-like sheen, as described by LimeCrime.

This is, unfortunately, a limited edition lipstick. I've been dying for this lipstick since I saw it in their last collection. It's a true metallic emerald green.

LimeCrime's Poisonberry

Poisonberry is a bright berry-purple with a snake-like sheen, as described by LimeCrime.

This one is, again, a limited edition lipstick from the same collection as the lipstick above.
I've been in the purple mood lately and this is metallic!!!

As you can see, most of the lipsticks in my wishlist are rather dark or bold colored.

The last four lipsticks remind me of jewels since they are metallic and have amazing color payoff. They just look so precious and beautiful!

OOTD

I thought of adding an outfit of the day to this post just because I thought it would be too short only with the wishlist.
This is just a little "sample" of my "fashion".

This is the outfit of friday actually. It wasn't the best, to be quite honest. I just threw on a pencil skirt, an oversized top and a jacket and I was ready to go.
Since I wear mostly black, textures and fabrics are really important to make things a bit more versatile, so here I decided to pair a black satin pencil skirt with a loose cotton top. I also decided to wear fishnets under regular black tights, just to mute it out a bit. 

Oversized top: H&M
Skirt: Zara
Jacket: Stradivarius
Shoes: Seaside
Skeleton hand ring: Unkind
Labradorite ring: Medieval fair
Necklace: Swanheart
Sun glasses: Bijou Brigitte

I hope you have enjoyed this week's post.

Love,

Anna

Tarja Turunen Inspired Look

Today's my day to post a look. The title is pretty self-explainatory but for those who don't know who Tarja Turunen, she's a Finnish singer. Tarja was initially noticed as the lead singer of the symphonic power metal band Nightwish, which she left in 2005; then she pursued a sucessful solo career. This specific look is inspired by Nightwish's video clip for their song "Bless The Child". When I can't decide what to do with my makeup, it's very common for me to do this.

What I love the most about this look is it's simplicity. It is actually pretty quick. It takes three eyeshadows, all purple, but in different tones to achieve it. Placing the medium purple on my crease first, it helps to set ground for the following shadows which are lavender on the lid and a slightly darker purple than the first one to further deepen the crease and make the contrast between lid and crease, bolder.
The liner is just a medium line on the upper lash line and on the water line. I used black gel liner for both and smudge the lower lash line with a bit of the darkest purple eyeshadow.
Then, I used Essence's I Love Extreme volume mascara, my personal favorite.

For the lips I used KIKO's Smart Lip Liner in the shade 710 Rouge Noir with a matte brown lipstick on top. Unfortunately, none of the photos captured the actual darkness of the lips. In the second set of pictures, in which, I removed all forms of light filters, even the eye look is washed out.

Lip liner (left) & Lipstick (right)

For the rest of my face I did what I usually do.
Of course, in the video,  Tarja's eyes look darker and her lipstick is almost black but I guess it's because the lighting in both situations is really different.

I hope you liked this post. Hopefully, I'll post more looks in the future!

LOTS OF LOVE,
Tânia

Autumn Vampire

Hi! I'm back and this time with another look!
I intended to do a fall look but turns out i got carried away and what turned out was something more vampy'ish than I was initially expecting.
I had a lot of fun doing this look and shooting the photos for this look, so I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

I chose these reddish colors because, to me, they resemble fall and all the leaves that we see on the street.

Another major inspiration for this look was the gorgeous dress Manuela Kraller used in the video Xandria made for the song Valentine.

This look is what most people would call a "party look" since it's a wearable look for most people on a daily basis.

I used a mixture of matte, satin and shimmery eyeshadows to achieve this cat eye look.

I placed a brick red in the center of the lid and brought it a bit in to the inside of the eye but not completely till the inner corner. 

MNY eyeshadow by Maybelline in 333

After placing that red color, i used a gel eyeliner to add that darkness and then blended it out and into the red with some black eyeshadow. In the innermost part of the eye I used an old pink satin eyeshadow that gives me loads of shine and brightness, which is what I was going for with this look.

I also brought the black eyeshadow in almost till the brow, as you can see in these photos. By doing this, I gave my eyes even more of a "cat eye" shape.

On the lower lid I used regular black gel eyeliner to give me the darkness I was going for.

On the inner corner I used a very fine brush and gel eyeliner to create a small triangle that further elongated the eye and the cat eye shape. This technique is also used in Arab style makeup.

To achieve that sharp line with the gel eyeliner, I used a piece o duct tape to give me a clean sharp line.

A cat eye wouldn't be complete without false lashes. I used the biggest false lashes that I own that emphasize the cat eye shape the most. You would want to choose falsies that are longer on the outer corner than on the inner corner, again, to elongate the eye.

With a coral blush I brought some life to my complexion as well as with a cold toned bronzer.
The cold toned bronzer can also be used to shape the face.

For the lips I used a red lipstick in the same shade as the eyeshadow and I darkened it a little with a black lipstick. In the center of the lips I used that same eyeshadow to give the lips more of dimension.

When it comes to eyebrows, I just followed my natural brow shape, just as I do every single day.

I hope you have enjoyed this look, I had so much fun creating it!
For my next post I will be doing a lipstick wishlist with all the lip products I have been craving.

Love,

Anna