Christmas wish list: New release packs for great beauty gifts.

I received an email yesterday featuring some new release gift packs especially for christmas, so I thought I'd share some of my favourites with you guys to maybe help make your christmas shopping easier for all those lovely ladies in your lives.

These little gems are all gorgeous, completely affordable, and would make any beauty-oriented diva super happy this christmas!

endota-about town pack Price: $40

The endota-about town pack includes lavender & Alpine pepper hand cream (20mL), cinnamon & honey lip balm (15mL), nail paint in Williamstown (12mL) and a nail file and orange stick.

endota skincare starter pack Price: $50

The endota skincare starter pack includes fig n sugar cleanser (20mL), aloe & jojoba face scrub (20mL), rosehip & myrrh face mask (20mL), bush honey & macadamia skin drink (20mL), cinnamon & honey lip balm (15mL) and a headband.

Manicare French Manicure Collection Price: $19.95

Packed in a stylish red leather zip pouch, the French Manicure Collection comes with the manicure essentials. The collection includes French White, French Pink and French Finish polishes, a Miracle Shiner buffer and shiner, 10 Tip Tapes and a Cuticle Pusher

MOR East of Eden Price: $49.95

MOR East of Eden includes Emporium Triple-Milled Soap (200g), Hand Cream (100mL) and Little Luxuries Perfume Oil (9mL) in Lychee Flower. The products come presented in a stylish cosmetics bag. (available from mid October)

MOR Sealed with a Kiss Price: $12.95

MOR Sealed with a Kiss encases a Cassis Noir Lip Macaron in a collectable MOR bauble. (available from mid October)

Puretopia Rejuvenate Treatment Set Price: $34.95

This set includes Pure Nutrition Essential Face Serum (20mL), Pert & Plump Lip Cream (10mL) and am Eye Rescue Massaging Roller (15mL).

 Endota packs available at www.endota.com.au, Endota spas, and David Jones.
MOR packs available at Myer, David Jones, gift boutiques, select retailers and pharmacies or at the MOR E-Boutique http://www.morcosmetics.com
Puretopia available Nationally across Australia in Terry White, Priceline, Discount Drug Stores, Pharmore Pharmacies, Malouf Pharmacies, Big W and selected pharmacies
Manicare packs available at Priceline, Myer, Target, K-Mart, Big W and leading pharmacies.

How to: Evolution of a face

I've been asked a lot how I do my makeup on an everyday basis, so I thought my first how-to should be about that. I've even taken bunches of pictures of the process to share with you all.

My techniques are the techniques of someone who has been working on her own face for 15 years. I'm not a makeup artist. I've learned a few tips and tricks over the years, but this is very much an amateur job that anyone could do.

First of all, a few things about keeping your skin nice, because the very best way to make your makeup look awesome is to start with the very best canvas possible.

Drink lots of water.
Use clean brushes and sponges. DO NOT use that festering sponge covered in grimy old makeup. Spring the couple of bucks for a bag of 50 sponges at Target and use a new one every time.
Make sure you take off your makeup as soon as it's practical. That means once you get home and you know that you don't have to interact with the world again today, take it off! Properly! With clean water! Use warm water to open the pores and flush all the crap out, then moisturize and leave your face alone.
Base tips: I use MAC matchmaster foundation. It's awesome, gives me my perfect amount of coverage without feeling heavy on my skin, and still allows some of "me" to shine through. But having great foundation isn't going to give you a flawless base. It's all about what you use on top of the foundation to conceal anything you want concealed, and to seal everything. So... bottom left picture is my face with just the matchmaster on. Middle bottom is with foundation, concealer and pressed powder on. i use a BYS stick concealer with a small sponge, and Rimmel Stay Matte pressed finishing powder.
In the bottom right picture, I've applied some colour to my brows with a MAC pencil (teddy), outlined my lips with Benefit Cupid's Bow, and applied blush to my cheeks (L'oreal mineral blush).
In the middle right picture, I've applied black liner pencil (BYS "black") to my lower waterline and lipgloss to my lips (Benefit "life on the A list").
The eyeshadow, liner and mascara is where all the action happens on my face. I have large, unusually shaped eyes, which I've been complimented on many, many times. Enough times to know that's the feature I should be playing up. Generally for an everyday look, I'll use my Urban Decay Naked 2 palette, washing under the brow all the way along and down into the inner corner with "booty call", giving a quick pass from the inner corner towards the outer for about 1/3 of the eyelid in "verve", then using "tease" over the rest of the lid. Last of all, I'll use "busted" or "pistol" on my outer third, and up into the crease.
Liquid liner by face of Australia in black is applied into a winged cat's eye, then lashings of Maybelline XXL pro volume mascara.You can see in the pictures how much difference it makes to the overall look of my face, even though the pictures are shot in terrible light.

So that's it. My everyday face. Let me know what you think, and what you'd like to see more of!

Katy
xoxo

Mixing it up: 3 trends at once!

Here's something we're usually told not to do. Mixing trends can be an all-out fashion and beauty disaster, but sometimes, in the right context, with the right intentions, it can be a winner.

The trends I've mixed here are Sunset eyes, neon colours and bold lips.

What do you think? Can we occasionally make mixing trends work?

Review: OPI Texas collection

 I definitely have a soft spot for all things Texan, so when I saw that OPI have a collection dedicated to the Lone Star State, I just had to get my hands on it....or is that... it on my hands? Either way, I spotted green and turquoise, and several pinks and I just had to have a try of this collection.

I already have the green (Don't mess with OPI), which I used recently in a costume party look with some black and silver nail art to make it look kind of tartan-ish. It's a look I'm planning to recreate with some different colours soon, so stay tuned for that.

Today, I got my hands on the "lil shooters" mini range, which included Austin-tatious Turquoise, I vant to be a Lone Star, and Do you think I'm Tex-y, along with a gorgeous little sample bottle of rapidry top coat.

As you can see here, I've used the turquoise and the sky blue to create a cute little multi french look, using my silver nail art brush to soften the edge a little bit. Super simple and really quick to do, it's a really fun way to step away from the everyday....for any day!

I'm still growing my nails, so the ends are rounded, a look that I don't really favour. I'd much prefer a more square tip, but one cannot be picky and choosy whilst one is growing out her damaged nails. My nails really benefit from having the extra protection of a coat of nail polish, so I love to jazz it up every once in a while and make my nails really fun. It seems to do the job cheering me up, no matter how crappy the day.

There are some really great colours in this collection and I'm looking forward to picking up some more soon!

 I joined a beauty blog hop, which helps bloggers get their content seen by lots more people... Really want to thank the organizer, and the best way to do that is to send you guys to the blog! http://mimikaayu.blogspot.ca check it out!

How-to: Nail art (video)

I've just uploaded my first tutorial to youtube! Usually, I'd cue the post up for a regular blog day, then show you all, but i just couldn't wait!

Let me know what you think of it, and whether you'd like to see more of these kinds of tutorials set to music just showing you what I do.

Here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65yk6ezYHns&feature=youtu.be

I need your input!

Having recently struck out on my own, I'm in the fortunate position of being able to redesign my work from the ground up.

I'm quite adept at nail polishing and art, my makeup skills are reasonable, and my knowledge of skin and hair care is great....but I need something more.

I need, dear readers, to get a look inside your minds. I really want to know what sort of things you'd like to see here. Would you like to hear about my experiences with different products? See tutorials for makeup looks or nail art? Would you like to hear all my makeup disaster stories?

So... leave me your comments below and let me know what you'd like to see here in the coming weeks, months, and hopefully years. I will do my best to accommodate your requests.

Stay tuned for the first of my beauty video series (I'm hoping to post one video per week on the youtube channel once I have all the graphic work and layout organized. These things take time.) which will air on a different day to the normal blog days, which will be Monday and Thursday.

Later this week, I have a review of OPI's Texas collection for you, so make sure you come back to see that one on Thursday!

Help me make this the best blog I can possibly provide for you, my dear readers.

Katy
xoxo

Hello, dear readers! (and my first review: Fudge hairspray)

Hello, beauty blog readers!

First, a little about myself. Some of you may recognize my writing style and photography technique from another blog. I tossed up whether to launch this blog after a messy breakup left me blog-less, and decided that the way to keep myself busy, and to cement my own place in this wide beauty blogging world, was to take the bull by the horns, create a blog that is all my own, and use it to put out the kind of content I want to put out.

Hopefully, you'll all love it and come back for more! My aim is to blog on Mondays and Thursdays every week, with special weekend editions occasionally.

I'm very busy at the moment preparing all of the elements of this blog, the email, the youtube channel, and getting business cards, etc all happening, so for this first post I'll give you a quick review of this great little product I've been using for a couple of weeks now, with great success.

I have really stupidly fine hair. Any amount of product seems to weigh it down and make it look greasy or limp. So when I use hairspray, I've always had to be careful how much I used, unless I wanted the helmet-head look for Navy Cadets way back in the day.

Cue Fudge Urban Iced Raspberry and Vanilla hair spray. It smells amazing, for starters. Generally hairspray has a weird chemical smell that reminds me of my nanna, but this one is awesome. The hold is great, too. On the weekend, I wore my hair pinned up in a bridesmaid-y kind of up-do and it held tight all night without looking glued-on. I've also used it through loose curls, just to help them hold their shape and it does wonders for that, too.

I bought mine at Woolworths, so you really don't have to go too far out of your way to get your hands on it. It's most definitely worth a try. I'll be replacing mine when it runs out!