Birthday Makeup 2015 and Bomb Cosmetics Mini-Review

So it was my birthday yesterday. I had a very relaxing and laidback day, topped off with a meal at my favourite local Thai restaurant with my lovely partner.

My sister-in-law was nice enough to get me a nice bath set from Bomb Cosmetics; the Angel On My Shoulder set, which seems to have been a Christmas holiday set. I’ve not had anything from them before, but they seem to produce similar items to Lush.

The "Angel On My Shoulder" set from Bomb Cosmetics

Check out Bomb Cosmetics here:- http://bombcosmetics.co.uk/

Controversially, I have actually never even stepped into a Lush; I find the smell of the stores so offensive and overpowering that I can’t even get over the threshold, let alone in to buy anything to try, so I have no real point of comparison. I don’t often sit and soak in the bath anyway these days, so it’s something I’ve never felt the urge to try (I know Lush sells more than bath stuff, but still... can't bear the shops!).

Since I had my birthday to myself however, I decided I would have a play with my gifts from Bomb Cosmetics and treated myself to what was, in all probability, my first bath in about 3 years. I decided I most liked the smell of the Oh My Little Star Buttercup, which is the one with the whole star anise on the top.

This item, as advertised, takes a long time to dissolve fully in the bath. It doesn’t seem to contain any colour, but you can see a faint shimmer in the water, and of course, it smells great. I was quite surprised to find this, on its own, leaves a quite a bit of residue on your skin, in the same way that you would expect a lotion or body butter to do. I found it very moisturising, and I’m looking forward to trying some of the other bath items in the set.

The "Oh My Little Star Buttercup", mostly dissolved; you can see the shimmer in the water from the essential oils and creamy goodies in the buttercup

I followed my long soak in the bath with the China White Lotion, which I also received in the set. I had quite mixed feelings about this item, in that it’s definitely heavy for a lotion, which I prefer, and very moisturising, but I seriously did not like the smell. It smells, to me anyways, as though there’s some kind of banana base to it, and I despise all things banana. Either way, the scent was very off-putting; fortunately, it doesn’t seem to linger too long on the skin, and I did like the product itself. I’ll probably continue to use the lotion and put up with the smell.

The "China White Lotion" from Bomb Cosmetics; I loved how the product felt, but was less keen on the scent

Overall, for something I didn’t know I wanted until I was sat in the bath with my Etude House Collagen Patches on with Iron Maiden playing in the background, I’ve enjoyed my first foray into Bomb Cosmetics. From their website, their items seem reasonably priced and look adorable, so I may order from them myself in the future.

Finally on my birthday-related post, I went for a bright rainbow eyeshadow look to go out for dinner, as I was wearing a black and white plaid skirt, my suspender leggings, a loose fitting black and silver top and my Hell Bunny Ouija Board cardigan.  This colour combination is one I wear quite frequently (warm colours in the crease and cool colours on the lid, meeting at either end with yellow and purple), but this time, I recreated it with my Sugarpill eyeshadows, although I still used the trusty 88 palette for all my transitioning shades. I was really happy with how it came out.

Recreating an old favourite look with Sugarpill eyeshadows 

Something bright and vibrant to go out for dinner

All in all, I had a lovely day and was spoiled rotten by friends and family. There’s more birthday celebrations to come over the weekend, so I have that to look forward to as well.

Skincare Shenanigans- KoKo Mini-Review

I’ve got this week off work in glorious celebration of my birthday. Traditionally, I always take my birthday week off work, and enjoy a serious session of relaxation and pampering. In preparation for this, I’ve been ordering from KoKo, which is a company I discovered a few months ago, which I have really become addicted to.

Check out KoKo here:- http://www.koreankosmetics.co.uk/store/index.php?route=common/home

Basically, after several months of serious frothing off over countless Memebox openings on the Youtube, I was developing a serious interest in the exciting world of Korean skincare products. I endeavoured to find a UK company that sold the kind of things I wanted to purchase, and KoKo was where I ended up. Since my first order, I haven’t actually managed to let a month go by without ordering something, and it’s now become my payday ritual to come straight in from work and start ordering my goodies for the upcoming month.

I was very excited to try Korean sheet masks. I’ve used sheet masks before from Montagne Jeunesse (I really love their “mud pack” style masks), but I was never that impressed with them; I found the material of the mask coarse and the serums often too uncomfortable to have sat on the face for long (especially with a heavy-ass coarse cloth holding that+ crap on) and the whole thing left me quite cold. However, since the entire internet seemed to be waxing lyrical, I had slowly built up an interest again.

My goodies for my week off work from KoKo

The masks I ordered were from Missha; since my original order, I’ve had these in Green Tea, Honey, Pearl and Pomegranate. The masks themselves are light and comfortable to wear, and I feel they’re a pretty decent sort of fit. The cloth has none of “school toilet paper towel” texture of the Montagne Jeunesse ones, and they are properly saturated with the serum. Wearing one is a pleasure, and I found all the ones I’ve tried to be soothing and brightening for my skin. When I get up in the morning after I’ve used one the night before, my skin looks and feels softer and I find blemishes are often reduced. My favourite are the Pomegranate ones, which I feel just do the most for my skin type.

I’ve also enjoyed a number of products from Etude House, particularly the Charcoal Chin Strips (which are probably the finest pore strips you can buy, and whilst more expensive than the cheap ones I usually use, these seem to remove impurities and sooth the area, without feeling like you just ripped half your face off) and the Collagen Eye Patches (not something I use often, but these are so relaxing and refreshing for tired eyes; you can see and feel an instant improvement).

My purchases also led me to the Etude House 7-in-1 Wonder Pore Brush, which I tried as an alternative to selling a kidney and buying a Clarisonic. I’ve been using this manual pore brush for several months with a foaming face cleanser, and I feel it’s done a lot to reduce blemishes.

Yes, the brush is damp; face needed washing...

All in all, I love KoKo. They sell interesting products, dispatch promptly, and quite unusually for a UK company, send samples with your order so you get something else to try. They do, at present, have a comparatively small range of products, but I feel they have a lot of potential and desire to expand. I still look forward to my monthly order, and would recommend you check them out.

My Week at Work- in “Non-Work-Appropriate Makeup”

I follow all manner of “makeup gurus” on Youtube and the like, and therefore, I have no shortage of suggestions for “makeup for work” types of looks, all of which tend to feature 500 shades of nude eyeshadows, often from ridiculously overpriced brands. I can’t say as I find a single one of them to be interesting in any way. It’s not that I think everyone everywhere should wear bright and colourful makeup every day (I certainly don’t; in fact I often don’t wear anything at all), but I grow tired of the stereotype that all work makeup should be extremely boring.

I am extremely fortunate that I work for a firm that has embraced my weirdness as part of its own personality. My work colleagues seem to both enjoy and take a genuine interest in my slightly odd out-of-work activities, and the sight of me with my bouffant and brightly coloured makeup has just been accepted as part of the firm’s identity.

All in all, I’ve had a crappy couple of weeks at work, and this week, I’ve been flexing my irritation with some traditionally “inappropriate makeup”

Look 1, which I wore for more than one day out of the week, was probably the most “work-appropriate”, with its neutral brown tones. For this, I started with an all-over wash of a neutral transition shade, and then built up the colour over the brow bone and into the crease until I went in with a bit of black. I haven’t worn this look to work before, but I liked how it turned out; it was mostly inspired by the fact that I wanted to wear my Apocalipslick in Coven Cream from Lunatick Cosmetic Labs, which is a badass “greige”.

Look 1; please forgive the crappy "taken at work" photo. You can't really see in this picture quite how dark the crease came out- definitely a black cut-crease!

Look 2 was bright as hell, since I dipped into my Sugarpill eyeshadows. This look was based purely on the fact that I wanted to use my Burning Heart palette. Usually when I wear something like this, I’ll blow out the crease colour as I wear glasses and I want to make sure the colour can be seen over my frames. For work however, I muted the look by trying to confine the blend to sit mostly within the frames of my glasses, which is a nifty little trick to make bright colours more subtle; scarily, its application begins with the same all-over wash as Look 1. You may feel like you’ve seen the look before, and that’s because this look is very much “inspired by” (by which I mean utterly ripped off from) Victoria at Biohazardous Beauty, when she did her Burning Heart Collaboration, which I will link below.

Look 2- everyone loves red eyeshadow for work.

Check out the original tutorial from Biohazardous Beauty here:- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrXHyS4IWUQ

Look 3 may be slightly surprising, in that this is a look I wear quite frequently at work. I feel like its kind of an edgy look, as I usually create an elongated shape (almost a wing) with the blues in the crease, and then I use a makeup wipe to create a severe edge (which I do really only because I often get watery eyes, and this stops things from running!). For a time, I did this entire look using my much-loved 88 palette, but since I’ve had my Sugarpill eyeshadows, (why yes; maybe I will just marry them) I’ve been using Velocity out of the Heartbreaker palette as my darkest blue. Compared to cheaper blues, this is so pigmented, and most importantly, the pigment stays put, which many dupes I’ve tried before simply cannot do.

Look 3; one of my favourites for work

Most despicably in Look 3, I team this with the Lunatick Cosmetic Labs Apocalipslick in London Bridge. Now, I’ve always maintained that purple is my signature lip colour, but London Bridge is the most amazing muted blue tone that I could almost rethink that statement. I get a lot of compliments when I wear this shade at work; I think that although a blue lip is unusual, this shade is dark enough and contrasts so well against the pale skin/black hair combo I have going on that it carries a certain “goth” charm to it. If you feel like you want a dark lip, but are bored of burgundies, purples and blacks, it’s definitely worth checking out.

Apocalipslick in "London Bridge" from Lunatick Cosmetic Labs

Check out Lunatick Cosmetic Labs here:- http://www.lunaticklabs.com/

I feel pretty lucky that I work in a place where I can wear the makeup I want to work and nary an eyebrow is raised about it. When you’re having a shitty week, there’s nothing quite like facing it with a face full of obnoxious colour. 

Mariachi El Bronx- Revolution Girl

So on 11^th February 2015, I was fortunate enough to be able to go see Mariachi El Bronx at The Bodega Club in Nottingham. I first saw Mariachi El Bronx in December 2014 when they were supporting Gogol Bordello, and although I went in with absolutely no prior knowledge of the band, I came away thinking they were pretty awesome; catchy Latino-inspired music, well performed by people who clearly love what they do. I was excited to see them again and was definitely not disappointed.

Check out more Mariachi El Bronx stuff here:- http://www.mariachielbronx.com/

Also, if you're local, check out The Bodega here:- http://www.bodeganottingham.com/

I always like to feel as though my makeup is a bit special to go to a gig. As soon as we ordered the tickets, I already had an idea in mind to use a pink loose eyeshadow from Geek Chic Cosmetics called “Revolutionary Girl”, as that name is obviously very close to “Revolution Girls”, being one of my favourite Mariachi El Bronx tunes!

Check out Geek Chic Cosmetics here:- http://www.geekchiccosmetics.com/

I decided to team the pink shadow with blue, and for that colour combination, I feel it’s always good to throw some purple in the mix; the pigments I chose for this were “The Lure” and “Naked Wedding” respectively, also from Geek Chic Cosmetics.

"Revolutionary Girl" from the "La Fillette Revolutionnaire" collection by Geek Chic Cosmetics

"The Lure" from the "This Is My Design" collection by Geek Chic Cosmetics 

"Naked Wedding" from the "Single Player" collection (originally from the "Boldly Go" collection) by Geek Chic Cosmetics

I’ve had my Geek Chic eyeshadows for a while, and had a play around with them before Christmas, but since receiving them, I’ve had my two Sugarpill Addicted to Pretty palettes, which have kind of overshadowed (if you’ll pardon the pun) some of the other new toys I’ve had. I have been very much enjoying the Power-Up Primer from Geek Chic, which I bought at release, and have been wearing almost on the daily; if you’d like an idea of why I like it, the pictures of my makeup were taken at 6pm before we left for the show. My makeup was applied at 7.30am and I did a full day of work in the intervening time. You can see how much glitter I retained, with no creasing or wearing problems at all.

Overall, my “Revolution Girl” look came out really well and it’s really inspired me to make more use of my Geek Chic Cosmetics eyeshadows as they were easy to use and looked great. I had a great time on the night and am looking forward to more gigs in 2015. This is actually my fourth gig in four months (Slash/Myles Kennedy & The Conspirators, Gogol Bordello, Slipknot/Korn and then this), but I’m ready for more. 

Valentine's Day

My other half and I don’t really make too much of a big deal out of Valentine’s Day; I like to get a card, and it’s a pretty sweet excuse to have a fancy-ass meal, but my partner is under strict instructions to never bother with a gift, and certainly never bother with flowers that, the following day, will be a fraction of the price! We have been out to restaurants for Valentine’s Day in the past, and it’s always so busy, presuming you can get somewhere without a lacklustre set menu for the occasion. It’s since become our tradition to make one another nice meals at home in celebration.

This year I did fillet steak, as I had some in the freezer from Christmas, which I topped with stilton and jalapenos. It tastes pretty damn good, and is also easy to prepare. On the makeup front though, I was feeling a little uninspired; all I really knew was that I’m still in the thrall of my Sugarpill palettes right now, so that was what I wanted to use!

I asked my partner what he thought I should do and helpfully got “it’s Valentine’s Day, so shouldn’t you be wearing pink?” Of course, at the moment, the only one of the Sugarpill Addicted to Pretty palettes I don’t have is the Sweetheart palette, containing their signature pink, Dollipop, (I swear, I’ll be having it when Cocktail Cosmetics get it back in stock!) so I found myself making something up on the fly.

What I ended up with was a pretty dramatic , colourful look using red and purples from Sugarpill (Love+, Poison Plum and 2am) and pinks from my Sigma Crème de Couture palette, which is another all-time favourite palette of mine (Cherry Blossom and Redberry Rose). I think my favourite thing about the look was that I used a muted reddish sort of colour from my extremely battered old 88 palette and used this as a base for Poison Plum and 2am in the crease; I think it really brought out the fire in those two colours, and tied it in nicely to the pinks.

For something I had no strong concept for, I was really pleased with the outcome especially by the time I had my pink Hell Bunny zombie unicorn dress on. I also tried out a face primer for the first time; perhaps when I have a strong opinion, I’ll come back to you on that.

An Introduction

So here we are; I’m new to this blogging thing, and I have no clue as to whether there will be any interest. I do definitely feel like I have things I’d like to write about, specifically makeup, which unfortunately, very few people in my life take quite the same amount of interest in!

Firstly, a little about myself; I live in the UK and am in my late 20s. I have, in general, quite broad tastes and interests in most things; my interests include makeup & nail art, music, jewellery-making & polymer clay and copious amounts of video gaming.

Beauty-wise, I’ve never had any professional training with makeup. I do spend a lot of time bumming around on the internet watching videos and the like, but I’ve never taken any classes etc. My biggest beauty bugbear is that I have psoriasis, which I’m prone to getting on my face. Keeping my skin scale-free is a 24/7 job for me and it’s taken me about 5 years to find a routine and set of products that work well and fit my budget. Annoyingly though, my chin is super-oily and prone to glorious volcano spots; you’d think the curse of face-scales would be enough….

I’ve been playing with makeup for as long as I can remember; my sister is 13 years older than me so I grew up around a fashion-conscious teenager who enjoyed dressing me up. My mum, although I think she’d been loathed to admit it, has a bit of a glamourpuss streak in her, and being made up for special occasions or to go out for dinner was the norm.

So yes, this blog is going to be something to play around with while I play with my makeup and something to satisfy my desire to talk about some of my random hobbies. Welcome to the weird.