versace x h&m.

so... this dropped on uk shores today. you should know this, unless you've been living under a rock. what people DON'T seem to know is that this isn't the last we'll hear of it. that's right... versace is also doing a s/s collection for h&m which should be out in february of next year. that's the one i am more excited about, as i want a bikini with a big fat medusa on it please. i'll take four.

judging from the press images, i thought that this was a really fun and playful collection. i loved the fact that the collections was based on references from versace's archive, and definitely saw a few pieces which i'd have liked to own. i particularly liked the accessories though, and the skirts. all in all, it was looking alright. not stuff i was crying over and NEEDING, but stuff that seemed relatively decent.

i couldn't brave the central london crowds (i did not wake up with the mental strength and physical power required), and went to a shopping centre instead, where a group of gypsies were also there and gave me an absolute migraine in the fitting rooms. it'd be really cute if they were trying on wedding dresses and stuff but um, no. the unsatisfactory shopping experience aside, i pretty much got what i wanted (my favourite item being a skirt which a lady actually let me have! whoever you are, i love you)... yet, i couldn't help but somehow feel disappointed at the collection as a whole. admittedly the skirts and accessories were actually really nice in person and considering the fact that i've seen uglier items in topshop retailing for the same price, i felt like it was decent value... i also liked the packaging. should i be ashamed...? it reminded me of a hybrid between carmen miranda, dolly parton and joan collins in dynasty... all three being EXCELLENT women...

buuuuuuut... there is a but. the dresses. oh my christ, they either looked horrific in person or were sized awfully. according to versace's absurd calculations, my body is a size 14/16. not my usual 8/10. not even my 10/12 on my really fat days. i always encounter problems with dress sizes anyway, but that's because smaller clothes don't usually accommodate someone with, ahem, a bigger bust. these dresses just did not accommodate full stop. i could barely get an arm through, so in the end i gave up.

on the whole, i thought the collection was o-kay. yes, it was very "versace" but i still somehow found it uninspiring as 99% of the items struck me as having a shelf life. it was nowhere near lanvin x h&m which was amazing and whose dresses i could see myself wearing for years upon years. with the versace dresses, i imagine you'd wear them for a year, maybe two max, and then forget about them. which, for that price, just isn't really worth it. saying that, my mum did get a yellow dress which looked surprisingly good on her, but her  body and style is completely different to mine. maybe that's just it. maybe i mistook cherrypicking one or two versace items for my wardrobe as me loving the brand, when in reality, i'm nowhere near a versace-head-to-toe kind of gal. my own disappointment stemmed from the fact that this just wasn't really "me", and that i just wasn't pining over everything as i usually do. it's a foreign (and scary) feeling!

i mean, will i REALLY wear this print ten years from now? really? will i sit there and unashamedly declare that i still love it because it made me feel like the secret third member of salt n pepa? 

oh well. i am totally more lanvin~ it seems. which i suppose is nothing to complain about. now excuse me whilst i go fawn over my versace homeware instead, the only part of versace which truly matters (obviously).

if anyone wishes to share their thoughts, i'm interested to hear.

walk in the park.

dress - pearl lowe for peacocks.

face: 17 primer, mac studio fix (nw30), collection 2000 lasting perfection concealer (#2), clinique airbrush concealer (03 light), mac mineralize skinfinish (medium plus).

eyes: urban decay primer potion, illamasqua cream pigment (hollow), urban decay eyeshadow (twice baked), maybelline gel liner, clinique high definition mascara, eyelure naturalites false eyelashes, mac eyebrow pencil (stud).

cheeks: bourjois (rose ambré).

lips: mac (lustering).

happy birthday dad!

today is my dad's birthday! 

dress - vero moda.

yaaaaay. happy birthday baba. it's pretty special that he is here. he works abroad (has done so since i was 7) and so sometimes he can't be with us on his day, which is pretty miserable for everyone. we went out for a meal last night and will be spending today doing family things.

my make-up was relatively simple and i do apologise the rubbish webcam photo - it was dark outside and my room is insane when it comes to light. i had thick eyeliner on and sculpted cheeks. i tend to do that if i'm going out for a posh meal, purely because bold lipsticks and eating in restaurants are a total pain in the ass. so, the focus is all on the eyes and cheeks! perhaps it was a blessing that i couldn't take a photo with my DSLR, as i felt horrendously tired seeing as i had been up since 6am (which is ESPECIALLY painful on a saturday).

face: no 7 lift and luminate day cream, sephora base subliminatrice, illamasqua skin base foundation (10), clinique airbush concealer (03 light), collection 2000 lasting perfection concealer (#2), mac mineralize skinfinish (medium plus). [note: i used all of these sparingly!]
eyes: urban decay primer potion, urban decay eyeshadows (naked, buck, twice baked), maybelline gel liner, no 7 lash adapt mascara, eyelure naturalites false eyelashes, mac eyebrow pencil (stud), the body shop brow and lash gel.
cheeks: no 7 illuminator (peach), nars highlighter (albatross), illamasqua cream pigment (hollow), duwop blush (peach).
lips: revlon (mauve it over).

feeling blue... rimmel's colour mousse in 'mermaid'.

it's my reading week this week. i have a LOT of work to do, a panic room to sort out, and a final pay cheque to chase up. i haven't got a lot of money right now and it's stressing me out, because my travel costs me approximately £100 per month and i would have enough if work would actually pay me when they're meant to! >< i'd give anything for another week off though. i have a stack of reading and just looking at it sends me off to sleep. the cold weather is also wreaking total havoc with my skin, leaving it uncomfortably dry and dull. for all of the reasons above, i've been pretty stressed to say the least!

earrings - asos

this is my newest budget-friendly dress though, from vero moda. i saw it on asos whilst it was on sale, but couldn't justify it. i then saw it again in their sunday sale (which was vilified on facebook for having "disgusting dresses", WHATEVER SUCKAZ) for £10. £10. that is basically the same price as my sessions of happiness at wagamamas. i had to have it! it's very 60s and i usually avoid short shift dresses but this just about works on my figure.

in terms of make-up, i decided to get all matchy and go for blues. if i'm honest, i actually do hate blue make-up. i hate it on 99.999% of people and i don't know why, it's just an irrational hatred of mine. it makes my eyes look really dead and for some reason, the lighter the blue, the more i hate it. i was therefore hideously unhappy when i got an extra pot of rimmel's colour mousse ages ago with a purple one i bought against my own will. admittedly, at the time i thought i'd sell it or give it to someone.

however, i decided to give it a whirl - and it was not as traumatising as i anticipated. this shade, called "mermaid", is a really intense metallic shade. it's so vivid that if i saw it on someone else, i would basically never guess that it's from a high street brand. it's really easy to build up or tone down, by virtue of being really blendable. if you want it to look really bright, you can just put the mousse on and it won't dull at all after a few hours. so yeah, i don't LOVE this shade, but am surprisingly neutral towards it. i would've put on some false lashes too, but i was only going for drinks round a girlfriend's place.

damn eye shape always causing creases...

face: no 7 lift and luminate day cream, 17 primer, bourjois healthy mix foundation (52), collection 2000 lasting perfection concealer (#2), mac mineralize skinfinish (medium plus).

eyes: urban decay primer potion, rimmel kohl pencil, rimmel colour mousse (mermaid), urban decay eyeshadow (oil slick), benefit gilded highlighter (tangerine gold), maybelline gel liner, max factor false lash effect mascara, mac eyebrow pencil (stud), the body shop brow & lash gel.

cheeks: no 7 skin illuminator, bourjois blush (rose ambré).

lips: vaseline.

nails - model's own (slate green)

natural browns.

i'm feeling pretty influenced by autumn. this is definitely the longest i've gone without bright pink lipstick, and i'm admittedly being really boring with my make-up as of late. woody colours such as browns, taupes, greens and beiges are certainly the order of the day. if i was going out i would team it with a bright orange but i didn't want to alienate the people in my international environmental law class, ha.

it really annoys me when my make-up doesn't show up in photographs properly, so you'll just have to take my word for it that my eye make-up was very, very brown indeed.

whilst rummaging through my stash looking for such colours, i found a peculiar-looking little pot with gorgeous khaki pigment inside which i had forgotten about for the longest time. i honestly don't know what brand it is - when i turned it over, it said 'jade' on the back with other little bits and pieces in hebrew...

nails - no 7 (dollar).

... who else can claim to own israeli make-up?! that's right, i'm just that worldly. what is hilarious about this little pot is that i actually bought it whilst on holiday in iran. exactly - i'm not just worldly, but am also solving the middle east crisis through make-up. can someone just hand me my nobel prize already? seriously? look, i'm just sitting right here. unfortunately it isn't fantastic quality, and certainly isn't as beautiful as it is in the pot. who knows, perhaps i'm just using it wrong... but it is a disappointment when the shade is so pretty.

definitely need to get an eyelash perm soon, oh man.

face: 17 primer, mac studio fix fluid (nc35), collection 2000 lasting perfection concealer (#2), no 7 skin illuminator (peach), mac mineralize skinfinish (medium plus).
eyes: urban decay primer potion, no 7 eyeshadow (khaki), last shade in revlon quad (in the buff), urban decay eyeshadows (twice baked, vert), maybelline gel liner, rimmel kohl pencil, benefit gilded highlighter (tangerine gold), max factor false lash effect mascara, mac eyebrow pencil (stud), body shop lash & brow gel, my mysterious jade pigment.
cheeks: nars multiple (portofino).

another year, another halloween...

... another day i don't dress up.

i wish i would actually bother one year but it never happens! the reason i didn't reform this year was because of massively awkward timing. i was invited to a lot of amazing things but my (final!) payday unfortunately fell after the 31st. sooooo i was too broke to go out/drink/get a costume, basically. :( (i'm still feeling pretty disrepected from my workplace as they keep on emailing me - what's not to understand, i'm gone now!)

despite my lack of dressing up, i still went to a late night showing of ghostbusters (DODO-DO-DODOODO!) at the IMAX. for those who are perhaps not from london, the IMAX is the uk's biggest cinema screen, meaning that my love for bill murray was taken to whole new levels. literally. it was pretty awesome, except my shitty journey hope which involved three people being sick in my presence, being stranded in shoreditch (otherwise known as "hell") and getting up at 7am the next day to go to cambridge.

(apologies for bad lighting and all that...)

i felt that halloween was the perfect time to crack open my newest pure pigment, "berber" from illamasqua. i actually bought it right when it came out (sometime in september), but didn't have the chance to properly wear it as of yet. i LOVE the fact that illamasqua has been influenced by anita berber - she was such a character and was someone i loosely based a project around when i did textiles.

i know people might look at the pigment think "oh god, it looks red", but it is honestly wearable and won't make you look like an emo circa 2005. i PROMISE. it has copper tones with green glitter, and blends SO easily that you can easily tone it down if you want to into a shade that is actually really subtle. if you don't fancy a wash of colour and want something more intense, patting it on just makes it really bright and glittery. 

however, i must be honest and say that i absolutely detest the packaging. i love the shape and the look, but as it lacks a hinge mechanism, opening it can sometimes be pretty tough. you get this horrible apprehensive feeling of cracking it open too quickly and getting covered in pigment! both pigments and cream eyeshadows have this style of packaging, whereas eyeshadows and blushers do not. cream shadows have zero chance of getting on you so i understand what they're doing there, but for this? noooo. 

anyhow - i started off with a smokey eye using blacks and greys so that i had a shape to work with, and then began adding the pigment on last, initially blending it on but then patting it on to get some shimmer. as this was in the evening, the lighting was awful hence the slightly blurry images and awful looking skin (i hate you flash). i don't believe in photoshopping images to death, AS I'M SURE YOU WILL SOON BE ABLE TO TELL. 

taken without flash.

taken with flash (you can see the green glitter in the pigment!).

and here is the finished look, basically! nothing ovely special, just whacked on some false lashes, added some contour and highlighting to my cheeks and that is it. as my eye make-up felt pretty full on, i didn't bother putting on any lipstick - it would feel like far too much. but if i was going to a party, i'd definitely team it up with illamasqua's poison - something scary to most, and in keeping with the spirit of hallowen. ;)

once again, without flash...

 with flash.

O_O!

face: no 7 lift and luminate day cream, sephora base subliminatrice, illamasqua skin base foundation (10), collection 2000 lasting perfection concealer (#2), clinique airbrush concealer (03 light), paula dorf magic stick (#2).

eyes: urban decay primer potion, urban decay eyeshadows (virgin, creep, gunmental), illamasqua pure pigment (berber), benefit gilded highlighter (tangerine gold), rimmel kohl pencil, maybelline gel liner, eyelure girls aloud false lashes (nicola), no 7 lash adapt mascara.

cheeks: illamasqua cream eyeshadow (hollow), nars highlighter (albatross). 

lips: soap & glory motherpucker lipgloss (apricot).

basic look.

(check out those bags!)

face: sephora base subliminatrice, mac studio fix fluid (nc35), clinique airbrush concealer (03 light), no 7 illuminator (peach), mac mineralize skinfinish (medium plus).

eyes: maybelline gel liner, max factor false lash effect mascara.

cheeks: mac (ladyblush).

lips: revlon (kiss me coral).