Sunday Roundup: #21

Happy Sunday everyone! I guess since tomorrow is the 1st of December, the Christmas countdown has officially begun now - at least that's my reasoning for putting a festive little picture at the top of this post ...

THIS WEEK ON THE BLOG

Tuesday: I finally got a little haircut and dyed my hair, so naturally I was very excited and wanted to share that with you in Tuesday's post! 

Thursday: I am the proud owner of my first Charlotte Tilbury product now - the Matte Revolution lipstick in Amazing Grace! If you want to take a closer look, here's a review! 

Saturday: Since the seasons are already changing again, I had to do another playlist post - this time it's all about Winter and Christmas! 

Unfortunately this weekend was a bit of a fail because it seems like I'm getting a cold (I never get sick ...) so I didn't do much besides lounging around on the couch, drinking tea and stuffing myself with delicious home-cooked food from my mum. In other words, it was very uneventful and I have nothing to tell you! 

(I did realise however that I totally forgot to put together my November favourites post, so I am going to think about that after I publish this post and hopefully get it up very soon!)

I still hope you all had a nice weekend that maybe was a little more eventful than mine! 

Winter / Christmas Playlist

I have to confess right here at the beginning of this post that I'm a little bit of a grinch. A lot of bloggers (and non-bloggers alike, obviously) are already getting into a really festive spirit and are happily counting down until Christmas ... unfortunately, that's just not me. Five years of working retail in one of the busiest shops in one of the busiest shopping streets in Vienna has taken its toll, and the Christmas spirit is buried very, very deep down in one of the corners of my mind.

Since this is the first time in five years that I won't be working in retail around Christmas time, I will try to de-grinchy-fy (yes, I typed it, now it's a word.) and get into the festive spirit (I'm sure my friend Pezi will be delighted when she reads this), so I thought the best way to start was to share my Winter/Christmas playlist with you all!

As always with my playlist posts, these songs are not your typical Jingle Bells and Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree kind of songs, some of them might even seem a bit misplaced for some of you - but hey, music is all about subjectivity! These are just the songs I associate with Winter and/or Christmas ...

(Yes, after at least three of these playlist posts I figured out that spotify makes it really easy for you to share playlists with other people! Better late than never, right? :D)

I wish you guys a calm December, filled with lots of delicious food and the company of your family and friends - don't let the crazy holiday shoppers get you down! 

Review: Charlotte Tilbury "Amazing Grace" Matte Revolution Lipstick

If you're a regular reader, you might remember my London Beauty Wishlist from last week - lucky for me, my friend Dani was able to get all of the things I desired (even though obviously, I was prepared and had backup options ...), which now makes me the happy owner of my very first Charlotte Tilbury product: the Matte Revolution lipstick in Amazing Grace. 

I've mentioned this before, but the reason why I opted for this particular shade was that after studying numerous swatch posts of the whole Matte Revolution line, I wanted to go for something that was different to everything else in my collection - and as we all now, I normally prefer bright  or dark lip colours; a shade like Amazing Grace was definitely missing from my collection! Also, when I'm spending that much money on a single lipstick, I want to be sure it's a shade I will get a lot of wear out of. I was wearing it yesterday when I met a couple of friends, and they all agreed that it's a pretty wearable shade that would suit a lot of different complexions - so I would say this shade is definitely one of these "suits a lot people and situations" kinda colour!

The texture really is amazing - it glides effortlessly onto the lips and as you can see on the picture above, there is no issue with flaking or emphasising dry patches or any of these pesky problems us lipstick lovers have to deal with sometimes. Since it such an easy shade to wear, I also find there is no real need for lining your lips - since it's basically matte, this lipstick doesn't have a tendency to bleed, it just stays in place as it's supposed to. 

I was also impressed with the longevity. I applied it yesterday morning when I was doing the rest of my makeup, and I was very happy to see that it didn't budge after haven two bowls of soup for lunch! For a lipstick that is pretty light shade-wise (especially in comparison to my other lipsticks), the staying power really is impressive.

Obviously, I have to add that the beautiful packaging adds some bonus points - a vintage-looking, rose gold bullet with an embossed "CT" on top? Yesss. So pretty.

I can't speak for the whole line of course (I wish), but Amazing Grace is definitely a great addition to my lipstick collection and I can only recommendn checking this shade out! Although what I can say is that I've seen Dani wearing Lost Cherry yesterday, which looked stunning as well - and she's also told me she is very happy with her choice, so that might also be a shade to keep in mind next time you have the change to swatch some Charlotte Tilbury lipsticks!

New Hair

To end a boring day that was all about thesis writing, let's talk about hair!

So after weeks of dragging it out because I actually hate spending time and money on going to the hairdresser's, I finally got a haircut. I got some of my dead/split ends chopped off and had some layers added (especially in the front), and that's about it. It's not a huge change, I know, but I'm still a lot happier with my hair than I was before.

I was also itching to change up my hair colour a little bit, and since my hair is already pretty dark (I've been dyeing it a dark brown shade for a while now), there wasn't much room to play with colours. What I could do however was adding a reddish tint to my hair - something that I haven't done in years because once dyed, it's pretty hard for me to get rid of the red when I don't enjoy it anymore, which I think is due to the fact that my hair naturally has a lot of red pigment. When I was a kid, my hair was actually reddish blonde - nowadays, my natural hair colour is way more boring, I like to refer to it as grey. 

Anyways, I pretty much sponanteously decided to get rid of my roots and change up the tone of my hair colour slightly and dyed it a dark reddish brown; as you can see, my roots turned out a bit brighter than the rest since they were much lighter to start with, but I actually like the look it gives. I used the Schwarzkopf Perfect Mousse Permanent Foam Color in 388 Dark Red - it doesn't make a mess and it's easy to apply to your hair by yourself, I've been using it for years now! (Keep in mind that if you have thick hair that's below shoulderlength, you should probably use two boxes of this to make sure you have enough dye to colour all your hair!)

I'm quite happy with that little change-up; I was a bit worried that a reddish tone in my hair would clash horribly with all my pink and violet lipsticks, but since it's pretty subtle, I think it's totally fine to carry on wearing them - I'm wearing a lot of pink in the pictures (the lipstick is Flat Out Fabulous by MAC), judge for yourself! :D

Sunday Roundup: #20

Today's post is a little late, but I wanted to get it up nonetheless; I just didn't expect that a coffee/tea date with friends in the afternoon would turn into a hour-long affair including a venture to the next christmas market! Still, it was a really nice Sunday - much better than sitting at home all day and letting the day pass without anything happening!

THIS WEEK ON THE BLOG: 

Tuesday: My friend Dani spent the last few days in London, and naturally I had a little wishlist of things I'd like which you can't get in Austria ...

Friday: There's a blush I've been reaching for a lot the past few weeks that's perfect for the season - if you want to see which one that it is, click right here! 

Saturday: Yesterday I had a urge to wear a deep purple lip, so that's exactly what I did by wearing a purple lipliner over Estée Lauder's Insolent Plum! 

This week was rather uneventful, other than the fact that I finally managed to get a haircut - it's not a big change, but I had a little trim to get rid of split ends and had a few layers added in the front; I quite like having longish hair, but I always want it to have a little movement/structure, otherwise my thick hair looks kind of lackluster. I also dyed them myself yesterday - again, not a huge change, but I might post about it anyways next week! 

Right now I'm trying to de-freeze my toes from standing at the christmas market wearing the absolutely wrong shoes (since I didn't expect to go), so I'm cuddled up in bed with a cup of tea!

As always, I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! :)

The Face: # 11 - Deep Purple Lips

This whole past week I felt like wearing a dark lip but never did for some reason - somehow it would never really have fit the occasion. You don't really go to dinner with a big group of people rocking a violet lip; and you don't really show up at the home of the kid you're giving private lessons in English to wearing purple lipstick either because it might look a bit weird. 

So today I'm compensating for all those "missed days" and lined and coloured in my lips with the KIKO Automatic Precision Lipliner in 512 Black Violet and topped it off with the Estée Lauder Insolent Plum lipstick - looks quite dramatic in real life, I feel like it's a bit darker/deeper than the pictures show!

For the rest of my face, I kind of stayed within a purple/berry colour scheme; my blush is by CATRICE but unfortunately LE from last year, and my eyeliner is one of the Liquid Metal Gel Eye Pencils in 060 Lilac is Back in Nearly Black, also by CATRICE. 

Other products used:

CATRICE Nude Illusion Makeup - MAC Fluidline Brow Gelcreme in Deep Dark Brunette - Rimmel Scandaleyes Eyeliner in Nude - KIKO Generous Earth Eyeshadeow Palette (LE) - Sleek Contour Kit in Light - CATRICE Glamour Doll Curl & Volume Mascara  

Should you be wondering why I'm wearing a hat indoors, it's because my roots are showing up on pictures a lot and it looks horrible. I'm probably going to dye my hair today! I have the blandest, most boring natural hair colour, in my opinion it's just ... grey. I'm going to try out a different hair colour than my usual dark brown, so we'll see how that turns out! 

A/W Season: CATRICE Illuminating Blush "I Am Nuts About You"

I'm finally back with a new post! This time, I want to revisit a blush I have talked about briefly before as it was one of the products I got when I won the CATRICE giveaway a few months back ... the Illuminating Blush in the shade "I Am Nuts About You".

 

Next to the Liquid Metal Gel Eye Pencils (which I'm also wearing on the bottom picture), the blush was probably the item that appealed to me the most. Now that the season has transitioned into Autumn and it's beginning to get pretty cold, I notice  that more often than not, I'm gravitating towards this blush more than to any other in my collection.

 

I would describe the shade "I Am Nuts About You" as a shimmery, muted rosy-peach; it's not in your face like a summery coral shade would be and looks really nice paired with bronzer/ a contour - in the picture, I'm wearing it paired with the contour shade from the Sleek Contour Kit in Light.

 

The blush itself is very smooth and pigmented, so I found the best way of applying it is with a stippling brush (pictured above is the Ebelin stippling brush, which can be purchased in the German/Austrian drugstore "DM" for about 3€ - great quality!) so you can make sure you're not going totally overboard.

 

For around 4€, I think you can't really go wrong with this one! It's a beautiful blush to get for the colder season, and I'm sure I'll be getting a lot more use out of it in the upcoming weeks/months!

London Beauty Wishlist

My friend Dani is going to London on Thursday, and since I already have to take the blame for her own interest (such a euphemism, but I didn't want to call it "addiction" just yet...) in luxury brands, she'll visit Selfridges & Co. anyways - perfect opportunity for me to put together a little shopping list of things we can't get in Austria. This took me ages to put together, mainly because if I could, I would buy everything by NARS and Charlotte Tilbury, but unfortunately I'm still a poor student who has to be somewhat reasonable about investing money into makup - but oh well, let's call it an early Christmas present to myself? 

Charlotte Tilbury "Amazing Grace" Lipstick - It's taken me ages to decide which shade I want to get, because all of the Matte Revolution lipsticks look gorgeous and the formula is getting rave reviews everywhere! I deliberately didn't go for shades like Glastonberry or Love Liberty because these are the ones I naturally gravitate towards and already have in my collection anyways. Amazing Grace is leaning more towards the rosey nude department, something which my collection is lacking anyways! Alternatively, I'd also be really interested in Lost Cherry should my first pick be not available ... 

Soap & Glory Hand Food - We actually can get Soap & Glory in Austria (for Austrian/German readers: check douglas!), but it seems to be more expensive here and we also don't get these adorable travel sizes unfortunately. Hand Food just smells divine, and I just love the Soap & Glory packaging, so I'd love to stock up on my favourite hand cream. 

Soap & Glory Hand Maid - Hand Maid is one of the products we can't get at all in Austria, which is very sad because it's just the perfect antibacterial hand gel! It smells divine and not at all like these typical hand gels (I can't really describe the smell?), and everyone who takes public transport on a daily basis will know how practical these little bottles of hand gel are! My current bottle is practically empty, so I'm very much looking forward to get a new one!

NARS "Douceur" Blush - Bad news first: I've heard NARS are discontinuing this shade. This comes as a surprise to me because over the last years, I've heard/read so many people raving about this shade! It's a beautiful, neutral rosey-brown matte blush, so I hope that it's still available. In case it's not, I also have my eyes on Sin and Dolce Vita - totally different shades, but also gorgeous! 

Since NARS and Charlotte Tilbury are horribly expensive, I'm not even thinking about "ordering" more stuff; at the end of the day, I'd also like to have some food in my fridge by the end of the month! Sigh, to be rich ... 

Sunday Roundup: #19

Even though it's way too warm for mid-November, it's very nice and colourful outside these days. Spent this weekend in my hometown again, which was all very chill but unfortunately very unproductive ... hopefully I can turn that around during the coming weekdays!

THIS WEEK ON THE BLOG:

Monday: Since my hair is due for a cut, I've been a bit bored with it just hanging there - so here's a little tutorial on how to make a braided headband to add a little something to your locks! 

Wednesday: My second recipe post featuring bacon and eggs toast cups - easy and delicious idea for breakfast or brunch! :) 

Thursday: Empties post #3 is very LUSH heavy ... with a few other things thrown into the mix! 

Saturday: A budget nail polish for Autumn that I picked up recently - essence "be berry now!" 

Same as last week, I'm very much behind on reading everything that's been going on on my bloglovin' feed these past few days - but I'm quite happy about that, because it means that I didn't spent a lot of time bored in front of my computer screen (not that reading blogs is boring, but you get my drift ...) and spent a lot of time with friends and family instead! 

Still, I'm hoping I can catch up on all these things in the evening - I'll just take a nap in the train back to Vienna later I guess. I still need to finish season 4 (yeah, I kinda powered through the series up until this point) of Doctor Who as well, and I'm guessing I won't be happy about the ending, so ... I need the energy only a nap can provide! ;)

Hope you all had a lovely weekend and enjoy the rest of your Sunday! :) 

Budget Buy: essence 175 "be berry now!" Nail Polish

Please excuse my cuticles, I know they look horrible ...

I've already mentioned essence nail polishes here and there before because they have a really great colour range and these colour & go polishes are only € 1,55 each, which is amazing. I have several of these, and yesterday I added the shade 175 "be berry now!" to my collection. 

As the name suggests, it's a beautiful berry colour perfect for Autumn without being a too dark purple or burgundy - it kind of reminds me of cranberries in a way. 

I think essence nail polishes are an amazing bargain, because even though they're so cheap, they aren't streaky at all and are pretty much opaque with two coats, which I think is pretty standard for any kind of nail polish. They also seem to last pretty long on my nails without chipping (even without top/base coat) which is great for lazy people like me! 

Next to the KIKO nail polish range, the essence one is one of my favourites - it's available in most drugstores in Austria and no matter which colour you have in mind, chances are pretty high that they have what you're looking for! :)

Empty Products #3

My drawers are overflowing with, well, trash, so naturally I thought it was time to do another empty products post! As you can see it's mostly skincare - but I guess it's good that makeup products seem to last us longer than the odd moisturiser? 

Anyways, let's get started ...

KIKO BRUSH CLEANSER

Let's get the non-skincare product out of the way first: I've written a post about the KIKO brush cleanser which you can read here, but basically it's a fabulous and budget-friendly product for spot-cleaning your makeup brushes! I've already repurchased it and don't see myself straying from it anytime soon!

DR. SCHELLER ORGANIC JASMINE 24H MOISTURE CARE

I know, the name of this is quite a mouthful. Anyways, I've featured this product in various posts before, but this has been my go-to moisturiser for almost half a year now, I think. If I'm not mistaken, this is my second tub and I still really love it! It seems to really agree with my skin so I'm not really keen on trying something new, to be honest - never change a running system, right? 

BALEA AQUA SERUM

Again, I've talked about this before - it's a very cheap drugstore serum that I've been using since my allergies have wrecked and dried out my skin in May and June and I've stuck to it ever since. It sinks really fast into the skin, so I'm applying it both in the mornings and evenings and I feel like combined with the moisturiser above it keeps my skin well balanced - and for about 3€, this is just such a bargain!

THE BODY SHOP VINEYARD PEACH BODY BUTTER

There's hardly a person interested in beauty and skincare who hasn't tried the Body Shop body butters, so I'm going to keep this short and sweet: they're great for moisturising really dry skin and they smell just amazing - in the case of this one ... peachy! :D

LUSH TEA TREE WATER

I've used up several bottles of the Tea Tree Water before, and I will stock up again after my little back-up bottle runs out as well. I love tea tree products in general, and this toner is just perfect because even though it's infused with tea trea, it doesn't carry that incredibly heavy tea tree oil scent that might put some people off (personally I don't mind it at all) - it just smells really fresh and I must say I love how you can just spray it directly at your face in the morning to help you wake up ... 

LUSH BREATH OF FRESH AIR

Since I've been faithful to the Tea Tree Water for so long now, I wanted to try one of the other LUSH toners as well. Even though Breath of Fresh Air is nice as well, I feel like it's not working as well for my skin as the Tea Tree Water does. It's nice, but I still prefer the Tea Tree Water and probably won't be purchasing this again anytime soon.

LUSH BRAZENED HONEY FRESH FACE MASK

I had a few LUSH fresh face masks in the freezer (if you freeze them you can make sure you can actually use them up because they go bad after a few weeks if kept in the fridge) and I've been trying to use all of them up - to be honest, Brazened Honey is not my absolute favourite, but I do like it nonetheless. If I had to choose a fresh face mask however, I would choose ...

LUSH CATASTROHPE COSMETIC FRESH FACE MASK

... Catastrophe Cosmetic! This just smells heavenly, it makes your face smell like a giant blueberry - which is pretty cool. Other than that, it's a really good mask for when your skin is feeling rough and you just need something to calm the situation. Next to the Cupcake mask, this is definitely my favourite out of the LUSH fresh face masks!

Phew, we're done. I know, it was a very LUSH-heavy empties post, but that only means that I'll get a new fresh face mask when I bring back all these empty pots - that return system is quite neat; who doesn't like getting "free" stuff? And now if you'll excuse me, I have to get rid of my trash ...

Recipe: Bacon and Egg Toast Cups

So I'm back with another recipe, and this time it's a breakfast/brunch idea I totally stole from Everyday Food, not gonna lie. It's so easy and a cool twist on regular bacon and eggs though, so I thought I'd share! (Obviously, if you're a vegetarian who does eats eggs, make them without bacon and they'll still gonna be delicious, I promise.)


Ingredients (for one cup):

1 slice of toast
1 egg
1-2 strips of bacon
salt, pepper and chives
+ a buttered muffin tin to bake them in


Other than having a very short and straightforward ingredient list, these bacon and egg toast cups are ridiculously easy to assemble as well:


1. Butter your muffin tins for whatever number of cups you want to make.
2. Make sure to press down/flatten your toast slices beforehand so they become a little more pliable and fit easier into the rounded shape of the tins.
3. Line your muffin tins with your slices of toast - don't worry if the edges of the the bread are sticking out, it's just going to get really crunchy and delicious while baking.
4. Add one or two strips of bacon; again, if the ends stick out of the cup, it's only going to be really crunchy and yummy at the end.
5. Crack an egg into the center and hope that it doesn't overflow too much ;) (It really depends on how large your eggs are, but don't worry, it's not horribly messy even if it does overflow a bit.)
6. Bake for about 20 minutes at 200 °C until the egg whites are set.
7. Sprinkle with a little salt and pepper, and some chives if you're feeling fancy, scoop them out of their tin and enjoy! :)


I love making these cups because they look so fancy and require so little effort and ingredients! The only downside really is the 20 minutes of baking time - if you're really hungry while making these, having to wait for 20 minutes really can be torture, I speak from experience! :D

Braided Headband

I'm currently seated in my university's PC lab and I'm in need of a break from reading texts for my thesis, so naturally I thought hey, why not write a post in the meantime? So here I am!

 

As you can see today's topic is hair. Right now, I'm kind of unhappy with my hair because I'm due for a haircut - but since I don't know what exactly I want (other than "a change", haha) I have to somehow make it work until I've come to a decision.

 

A few days ago, I tried out a hairstyle that I could never do before because my hair has basically always been to short, and that is the braided headband. I think it looked really nice, and it was a different way to wear my hair down without having it just hanging there. Apologies for the weirdly angled pictures - I didn't realise how hard it was to take a picture of one's own head!

 

 

HOW TO:

 

1. Part your hair whichever way you prefer - this works on a side part as well as on a middle part; if you have a fringe, that's also easily incorporated, so it's a really versatile hairstyle.

2. On both sides, take a strand behind your ear and braid it; secure the braid with a hair tie while you're busy braiding the other side.

3. When you're done, start draping one of the braids over your head and pin it to the other side - ideally somewhere in the region where the other braid starts. Use at least two or three bobby pins, otherwise it probably won't last very long; it should feel really secure.

4. Take your second braid and also drape it over the head so it lies next to your first braid to form this kind of double-braid headbeand you see on the pictures above. Secure it the same way you did with the first and try to hide the bobby pins under your first braid if you can.

5. I then made sure to fluff up the rest of my hair so it covers the areas where I pinned the braids down so it looked all neat and tidy - and that's it. Optional: Finish with a bit of hairspray to hold everything in place and keep flyaways at bay.

 

 

If you're a fast braider like I am, you can probably achieve this style in five minutes as long as you make sure you pin your braids into place securely - and I think it's just a nice twist to just having long(ish) hair just hanging there! :)



Sunday Roundup: #18

Bacon and egg toast cups I shall post a recipe to very soon! :)

Hello there lovely readers- there's 25 of you now (or so bloglovin' says), and that makes me very happy. There's been some slight layout changes on the blog in the past few days (hello new header!), nothing too major however. Other than that, here's a roundup of this week's posts:

THIS WEEK ON THE BLOG:

Monday: Inject some lovely music into a dreary Autumn day and get inspired by my Monday music post featuring Simon& Garfunkel ...

Tuesday: I published my 100th post on Tuesday, so I celebrated this little milestone in a post! 

Wednesday: Anyone who is a fan of dark, vampy lips and is looking for lipliners to accompany your burgundy and purple lipsticks, click away to this post! 

Thursday: Last Sunday I spent a wonderful day with my family and I snapped a lot of pretty pictures that just show how beautiful Autumn can be ... 

Friday: My take on looking polished without a lot of makeup products and effort- for day when I feel like just doing the bare minimum ... 

Almost a perfect week, I've only been slacking yesterday ... To my defense, I have to say that I just started watching Doctor Who very recently (I know I'm so very late to the party), and the end of season 2 left me devastated and unable to post! Needless to say I feel like devouring the rest of the whole series as soon as possible to be up to date, but that would interfere with me finishing my thesis, so ... better not?

Now I'm trying to map out a few posts for the upcoming week and plan my thesis-writing activities as well; I can't get stuff done any other way than planning these kinds of things so I feel really guilty if I end up not doing them. But before I do that, I'm going to cook dinner- so basically, I'm already procrastinating! :D

I hope you all had a lovely weekend and I wish you a great start into the next week! 

Looking Polished: Minimal Makeup

As can be seen in my various Face of the Day posts, I do like to wear quite a lot of makeup. The process of sitting down, carefully choosing out what to wear on my eyes, cheeks and lips is something I really enjoy for two reasons: firstly, it's really relaxing to me, and secondly, I enjoy the creative aspect of it as well. 

I've made a promise to myself that November will be mostly dedicated to writing and finishing my MA thesis, so ideally I will be spending lots of time at my university's PC lab (way better work atmosphere than at home, computers with big screens and printers that actually work). Getting all dressed up with lots of makeup on my face seems a bit unnecessary when I have nobody to impress besides the computer screen.

So here's my take on a toned down makeup that still looks somewhat polished but only takes about ten minutes to apply:

BASE: Garnier BB Cream Light / KIKO Natural Concealer 02 / essence Translucent Powder 

CHEEKS:  KIKO Loud Night Bronzer (LE) 

EYES: KIKO Loud Night Bronzer (LE) / Catrice Glamour Doll Curl & Volume Mascara 

BROWS: Catrice Eyebrow Filler 

The bronzer I used was unfortunately limited edition, but I think Maybelline for example do a bronzer/blush combination in one compact where you can either swirl the colours together or use them seperately. On my cheeks, I swirled the bronzing shade together with the peachy and the highlightery (? sorry guys, this is probably not a word) streak running through the compact; then, I also used the bronze shade alone as an eyeshadow to give a bit of definition to my eyes. I skipped lipstick altogether and concentrated on giving them a little break- they deserve it after all the vampyness that's usually going on ;) 

Any quick and easy products you can recommend for a minimal makeup day? :)

Autumn Day in the Countryside

Last Sunday, my family and I escaped the November fog of our hometown and drove to another village twenty minutes away where it was all blue skies and sunshine. I took lots and lots of pictures while we were walking through the woods and climbed on rocks, and these are some of my favourites. It was a lovely day and I thought the pictures really are too beautiful not to share ... 

Vampy Lipliners: KIKO Autmatic Precision Lipliners in 512 and 515

Last Saturday I already posted about the KIKO cream blush stick I got, and now it's time to talk about the other two items I picked up the same day: vampy lipliners! 

If you have seen my (MAC) lipstick collection posts (1 | 2 | 3), you know that I have accumulated quite a lot darkish, vampy lip colours ranging from plums to burgundys- I love a statement lip, and in 8 times out of 10, I prefer wearing a dark lipstick to eyeliner. 

I got another KIKO lipliner not to long ago that was part of the Daring Game LE, the Ace of Diamond lipliner in 27 Refined Burgundy and was blown away by the quality, so I wanted to give the lipliners of the regular line a try as well. 

First of all, I love the design of them- similar to the Ace of Diamond one, they come with the twisty bit at the end so you don't need to use a sharpener when the tip gets to short/dull. Nevertheless, they still have a tiny little sharpener built into the end of the pencil as well- I must admit I haven't tried it out yet because I find with these twisty lipliners, there's really no need to sharpen much, but it's a cool additional featre to have. Lastly, at the very end of the liners, there is a little rubbery smudging tool attached (see picture 2) which comes in handy for blending out the colour if you're filling in your whole lip. 

Apart from the design, the lipliner itself does a good job lining the lips and I'm happy with the result it gives. If you want to fill in your whole lips however, it needs to be adressed that you either have to moisturise your lips very, very well before you do because these lipliners are very dry and do tug on the lips- I know this is a very common feature of lipliners however, but I have worked with creamier ones before, the Ace of Diamond lipliner being a great example actually. The smudging tool does help with filling in your lips, but I still find it looked rather patchy- they're definitely not the kinds of lipliners that you can wear on their own, even though I think they work just fine for lining the lips or filling them in plus wearing a lipstick over it (as I've done in the last picture). 

There is 16 shades to choose from in total- they range from very light neutrals and soft pinks to more bright fuchsias and reds to the more vampy shades that I purchased; so basically, you should be able to find a liner that fits your needs as long as you stay in the traditional range of lip colours and aren't looking for a green lipliner (hey, if you can pull that off, more power to you, I think that's awesome!). 

Verdict:

6/10 - They're absolutely doing their job for just lining the lips and to on smoothly enough, plus the packaging really appeals to me. They lose a few points however because of the extreme dryness when you want to fill in your whole lips; still, I will definitely be using them and for 5,90€, I'll say they're reasonably priced. 

Any lipliners (other than MAC) that you could recommend? :)

100 Posts: A Recap

I started writing this blog in the beginning of July, and a few months later, there's already 100 posts on here! So as this is the actual 100th post on this site, I thought it was time for a little TanjaWhatsername recap and celebrating the fact that I picked up a hobby that I thoroughly enjoy and have stuck too for the past few months! Before I start, I want to say a massive thank you to everyone who has ever taken the time to read, comment and 'like' my posts on bloglovin' or even has decided to click the 'follow' button. I appreciate it so much and it absolutely makes my day when I get notifications of new subscribers! :) 

What is behind: 

This blog is very much full of beauty-related content. I love my makeup, experimenting with it and trying out new products; so naturally, there's a lot of reviews on here which also are my most-viewed posts on here. Which I think is cool, because it means people might have bought a product I recommended and are as happy with it as I am! My top-viewed post to this day is my review of MAC Fashion Revival, a gorgeous matte LE lipstick that's perfect for the season! 

Secondly, another passion of mine is music, and when the mood strikes (mostly in the evenings when I actually take the time to chill and listen to music) I like to post about my favourite tunes on here as well. I like to post playlists for the upcoming seasons, favourite albums or other music-related content, such as one of my earlier posts discussing legendary artists covering other legends- definitely one of my personal favourite posts that I have written. 

My Sunday posts are here for collecting links to the posts of last week, but somehow I feel like something is missing, and I might just have an idea how to make these posts more appealing to myself ... 

What is to come: 

Regarding the Sunday posts I just mentioned, I think it might be a good idea to also include links to the posts that I have loved reading in the week before- so maybe for the next Sunday roundup installment, I'll try to include something alone of these lines as well! 

Beauty and music related posts will still be featured heavily on here, since they are the foundation of this blog. Other than that, I'd love to include a recipe here and there- I've already done a super simple brownie recipe before- because let's face it, I love food, cooking and baking as well. I'd also like to fit in blogging-related content (I've already done a "What I Love About Blogging" post not long ago), as well as opinion pieces about issues I strongly care about, should the opportunity present itself. I don't want to limit myself to strictly one topic or another- even though I really enjoy all things makeup, my mind is made up of other things as well. :)

Lastly, I want to look into getting my own domain, because even though I obviously treat this blog as a hobby, it's a hobby I invest a lot of time into- so I want it to be the best it can be. Plus, I'd love to have a shorter, more professional-looking link (without the "blogspot.co.at"), so I'll try to look into that very soon! 

That's it from me so far. Thanks again to everyone taking the time to reading my blog and commenting on my posts, you make my day! Here's to another 100 posts! :)