The Body Shop 'Beauty with Heart' event

Last Monday Joyce (Beauty & Metal) and I went to the Beauty with Heart event from the Body Shop, held in Amsterdam. We had won tickets for an evening of pampering, beauty advice and of course lots of information about the products from The Body Shop and their new campagne. Beauty with a Heart is promoting a world-wide ban on the testing of makeup on animals, which of course is a good and important cause. Model Lily Cole is fronting the campagne and soon there will be a special line of 'Lily Cole products' available in the shops.

During the event, makeup artist Chase Aston gave a demonstration using the new shimmer cubes, eyeliner and blush:

The shimmer cubes consist of purple colours and can be applied as light or dark (applied wet) as desired. During the event, the catering was superb. We especially enjoyed this salmon with sesame, yummy!

Our hands were massaged with bodybutter (a totally new experience to me!) and we got to choose our own palette of shimmer cubes. I chose these colours:

We were also allowed to pick one body butter, a bottle of hand sanitiser and a new 'beautifying oil'. I chose Moringa body butter (haven't tried it before), Satsuma hand sanitiser and cacao butter beautifying oil. The latter can be used on the hair as well, which is great for dry ends or hot oil treatments! 

 They also gave us a 'make over' with the shimmer cubes that we picked ourselves. 

We had a great evening and went home with a lot of new products to try and a gift card worth 10 euros! I will post a review of  each of the individual products in the future. Some more pictures of the event:

 My friend Joyce:

 The hand massages:

 The new body butter designs:

 Me looking silly (on the left):

Me being informed on the new oils:

 Pick your own shimmer cubes!

 The view from the location:

 Getting my makeup done:

Shoplog

Last week I went to the Kruidvat (a discount drugstore) because all make-up was 'buy one, get one free'! I didn't really need anything, but I couldn't resist buying nail-polish. These green colours are from Catrice. I have no doubt the dark green polish will please me, but the lighter green/grey is an experiment. A review will follow later!

Then I bought two pairs of silver coloured hair slides, with roses on them (30% discount with my customer card). I think they're going to look great in updos. 

I also got a free shampoo worth more than 5 euros, which I saved for with customer points. The brand is Syoss and this product does not contain any parabens, silicons or paraffines. Just what I'm looking for! 

Discount shopping with deals such as these is so much fun!

Sugarpill loose eyeshadows

A while back, I bought three loose eyeshadow pots from Sugarpill: the colours Asylum (warm orange/red), Junebug (dark green) and Hysteric (purple). As you can see in the swatches, the pigmentation of these eyeshadows is amazing! The colours are very vivid and strong. My favourite is Asylum, since it doesn't look like anything else I have and I love warm red colors.
My only point of concern are the ingredients. Often powder eyeshadows are mineral based and more natural than pressed eyeshadows, but in this case I can find no information about the topic at all. I don't know enough about chemical ingredients to just inform myself by the reading the list on the package, but I suspect Sugarpill is not a very natural band. For this reason I would not wear their make-up on a daily basis, but I still think the bright colours are amazing for a special occasion!

Left to right: Asylum, Junebug, Hysteric

Rituals eyeshadow palette ´Gems of Goa´

 Last Christmas my boyfriend gave me a beautiful green eyeshadow palette from Rituals. It´s from the Gems of Goa line:

 The eyeshadow palettes do not contain harmful chemicals, which makes them even more desirable. The colors are very profound, but not really dark. If you’re looking for a darker green, you can try to apply black eyeshadow as a base. Here I only used the green:

Manic Panic Creature of the Night eyeshadow palette

A while back I purchased this nice looking purple eyeshadow palette by Manic Panic. It has everything you need to make that gorgeous dark purple smokey eye. The kit also contains some instruction cards to create specific looks. One can hardly go wrong with it. The only downside (at least to me) is that the palette is still pretty big and therefore not that easy to bring along when carrying a small bag.

I created the first, pretty moderate look on the instruction cards:

I was quite pleased with the result:

Toxic green

Last week I bought a number of nail polishes from budget make-up brand Catrice. I decided to try some colors that I normally don't wear, like neons. Usually I stick to black or dark red, which I like the best. But now I just wanted to try something different for a change. I also bought an eyeshadow palette that matches well with the nail polish:

Today I went for a toxic green look, using the green ACid/DC nail polish. Unfortunately I don't think it suits me very well. Neon colors somehow look odd on me, they don't seem to match my skintone. Perhaps I'll use a dark topcoat on it next time. I do however like the neon green on my eyes, which I matched with the darker green from the same palette. 

ACid/DC by Catrice:

Green eyeshadow by Catrice. Earrings by Alchemy Gothic:

And this is the complete outfit. Because of the nice weather I finally got the chance to wear my new t-shirt from Threadless:

T-shirt with owl and keys hanging from the tree (love it!): Threadless

Key necklace: Bought at Castlefest, the Netherlands

Bracelet: Bought in Amsterdam

Skirt with neon on black: Vive Maria

Green hair clip by Flexi-8:

Spring outfit

Yesterday the weather was so good that I instantly had a spring feeling! Normally I don't wear bright colors a lot (not my taste and it doesn't suit me well either), but yesterday I felt like making an exception. So here is a lilac/white/black outfit with bright make-up:

Lilac cardigan: Hema

White lace top: SPS 

Black top: H&M

Black skirt: H&M

Clock necklace: gift from mother-in-law

Medallion necklace: Six

Stockings: Hema

Lipstick: 'Plum Passion' by Manic Panic 

I did wear black nailpolish to compensate! :p This is 'Hunt Me If You Can' by Essence (Vampire's Love collection):

Morgana Cryptoria: 'Fallen Leaves Gloss' and 'Revenant Gloss'

I couldn't resist and tested the other two Morgana Cryptoria glosses already! 'Fallen Leaves' is a warm, copper/oranje colored gloss and can be combined with almost anything. 'Revenant' is a very dark gloss, especially when several layers are applied. Both are beautiful, but the packaging is not really convenient for me. I spill some gloss every time that I open it. Anyway, these are the wonderful shades:

Fallen Leaves Gloss (flash):

 Revenant Gloss (no flash):

Morgana Cryptoria: 'Glowing Gargoyle Gloss'

 Today was a good day. I finally managed to find work that I like, even though it's freelance and only for a couple of months. I have to seek interesting historical images for a book that will probably be published somewhere around October. My first 'real' job, hurray!
And then there was the mail... A while back had I ordered some eyeshadow and lip products at Morgana Cryptoria, an online store for exceptional make-up with a dark edge.  Today my package arrived and I'm thrilled about what's inside!  For now, I will only review the Glowing Gargoyle gloss. More will follow this week!
Glowing Gargoyle is a truly extraordinary color. I'm familiar with the green-brown-redish shade from several eyeshadows that I like, but I've never seen it as a lip product before! Because of the uncommon color, the gloss may not be wearable for just any occasion (it can even appear quite dark, when you use a lot), but it's not downright shocking either. It's definately an eyecatcher though!
The texture of the product is moisturizing and glossy...just perfect, if you're asking me. Unfortunately the package had been upside down in my mailbox, so the gloss is smeared against the top of the pacakge, but I think this will sink to the bottom within a couple of hours.  This is why it looks a bit messy in the picture:

My order from Morgana Cryptoria:

 Glowing Gargoyle gloss: