Winner of the 400 Readers Giveaway!

I'm sorry it took me so long to announce the winner! To make up for it, I have a little surprise for you :)

I counted all the comments (and took away one that was my own explaining that the giveaway is open internationally and a few others that were additional information to the original comment) and used Random.org to see who will win...

And the lucky winner is...

Violette B.

I was very happy that so many people participated and also many new readers found their way to my blog! To show my happiness (and make up for my slowness) I decided to give out three pieces of jewellery made by me, so there will be three extra winners :)

Extra winners' stuff!

Those lucky persons are...

thorne garnet

(who will receive the turquoise glitter earrings)

LisaK

(who will receive the black metallic earrings)

and

ANA

(who will receive the black glittery resin necklace)

Thanks to everyone for participating, it was so nice to see many people interested and all the lovely questions you came up with! For the winners, congratulations, and please send me an email at karoliina.kalma@gmail.com with your address so I can send the goodies to you!

Commercial Break!

Just a quick tip for people looking for fun stuff to do in Helsinki! This is Gothic Fest in happening on Saturday in Lepakkomies. It's the first time, but there are four great bands playing and I can promise to play some nice tunes as a DJ ;P My other half sings in Murnau's Playhouse, so you can take a peek at who I complain about dirty socks on the floor.

The tickets are 10 euros and doors open at eight! I'll be there the whole evening and since there are so many bands, I don't think I have much time to play records. That means I'm totally free for chatting with new people, come and say hi :)

Here's a link to the Facebook event for more details.

Pictures from a Party

Here's a few pictures of me playing with a straw from last Saturday's office warming party. Drinking beer with giant straw = totally awesome ;P

Thanks to Jukka for the pictures!

Rainbow Look

I got my Concrete Minerals order on Thursday, so I just had to try on the shadows on Saturday. A friend's company was having their new office's house warming party with a futuristic theme. I opted for my crazy orange shoes and did a colourful eyeshadow look too, just to balance my all-black outfit.

I got 8 Pro-Matte shadows and one regular. I've ordered from the company before, when they were previously only on Etsy and had sample sizes available. I liked the quality then and now! Bright matter shadows are hard to come by, especially ones that are very pigmented and easy to blend. The colours also seemed to work together very well. So here's my over-the-top rainbow look, done just because I loved all the colours ;P

I used:

Missha Perfect Cover BB-cream in 13

Detrivore Pallor Mortis loose powder

Lost in Makeup Land But I Like It blush

Urban Decay Primer Potion

Black mascara

MAC Fluidline in Blacktrack, black gel eyeliner

Sugarpill Bulletproof (black matte eyeshadow, on brows)

Sugarpill Tako (white matte eyeshadow, on brow bone)

Eyshadows from the inner corner out:

Sugarpill Buttercupcake (medium yellow)

Concrete Minerals Ember (bright medium orange)

Concrete Minerals Hi-Fi (dark fuchsia)

Concrete Minerals Queen (dark cool purple)

Concrete Minerals Domino (medium cool blue)

Concrete Minerals Gossip (dirty mint green)

Buttercupcake, Ember, Hi-Fi, Queen, Domino, Gossip and back to Buttercupcake.

Look of the Day

Today I wore a toned down look because I did a video interview in the afternoon. The day turned out to be super busy, but I'm finally home after running around the city on different errands and looking stiff in front of a video camera ;P

Magenta lips with neutral eyes!

I used:

Fyrinnae Moon Child (a light shimmery champagne, on the lid)

Geek Chic Cosmetics The Pointy End (a medium cold taupe, in the crease and on lower lids)

Lumene lipstain in Promise

Maybelline Super Stay 10H Tint Gloss in Forever Fuchsia

I put the stain on first, then the tint gloss on top to make it last longer.

Soft Pink and Orange Look

Inspired by my orange shoes, I wanted to experiment with some less used colours. I used soft pink, light peachy orange and a vibrant darker pink for this look.

I used:

Evil Shades Sweet Alice (very light baby pink, on the whole lid)
Fyrinnae Rapunzel Had Extensions (peachy light orange with a golden shift, on top of Sweet Alice on the outer part of the lid and in the inner part of the lower lid)
Aromaleigh Flutterby (dark pink, in the outer crease and on outer lower lid)
Petrol mascara

I paired a Lumene lip stain with the light eyeshadow, this is Promise.

And an extra picture of my undercut, which I dyed turquoise! It looks very
blue in this picture, but it was taken in the cool morning light.

Outfit of the Day and Wacky Shoes!

I had been toying with the idea of dying my undercut turquoise for a while now, and after I saw a really nice handbag at the window of the shop I usually buy my dye from, my mind was set. Got the dye, got the handbag ;P And, as luck would have it, it is a perfect match for the shoes I bought from a flea market last weekend!

They also had an offer of three items for the price of two, so I also bought two new pairs of jeans. A pair of shoes used as samples were also on discount, but here my fortune failed, and they were just a bit too small. Not that huge of a huge loss, seeing as I might already have enough shoes to last a few lifetimes.

Someone in Tampere with shoe size 37, go ahead and pick up those gorgeous spiky heels from Pro Spot! Even though it's a hip hop style clothing store, they sell Iron Fist and Abbey Dawn, and have the nicest sales persons to boot! I've been going there for hair colour for ages, and they always stop to show what kind of wonderful discount samples they have available at the moment. I'm super lucky to fit most of the samples, so I think I go there more often than the goth stores ;D

Dress - Second hand (maybe H&M)

Jeans - Abbey Dawn

Shoes - Lita copies from a fleamarket, the price tag said they were originally from New York!

Handbag - Abbey Dawn

I wouldn't consider orange to really be my colour, but the shoes were awesome and I thought they would look cool with the black clothes I usually wear. And, naturally, a girl has to have a matching purse to go with the footwear!

A close-up on the shoes. They are Lita copies made from orange fake leather.
They used to have matching orange laces, but for some weird reason the lace
on one shoe had faded and was partly yellow. So I just got new ones and
black laces were a lot easier to find than orange ones! 

Another pic of the shoes!

And the purse. It also has a shoulder strap for easier carrying. I'm crediting
my graphic designer's education for the ability of buying a handbag in the
exact same shade of orange as the shoes, by memory only.
Good to know those four years were not a complete waste of time ;P

Möttönen the kitty naturally wanted to help. She's on a diet but looks
HUGE in this picture!

Platinum Look

Here's a look for the Never Too Much Shimmer Facebook group's weekly challenge! The theme was platinum, and being a busy person, I just chose to do a look with Fyrinnae's eyeshadow called Platinum ;P

I used:
Fyrinnae Platinum (a neutral metallic shade, on the lid, swatch here)
Fyrinnae Shenanigans (coppery metallic shade, darker than platinum, in the crease and on lower lid, swatch here)
Sugarpill Tako (matte white, on brow bone and inner corners)
Petrol mascara

I paired the metallic eye look with red lips, this is Maybelline Super Stay
10H Tint Gloss in Forever Berry

Mint and Chocolate Look

I had seen this look by Madam Noire earlier, and the name stuck to my head. I really liked the colours too, dark browns look nice with my eyecolour and light aqua is just gorgeous. So, here's my look from today, loosely based on Madam Noire's!

I used:

Sugarpill Mochi (light aqua/turquoise, on the lid)

Concrete Minerals Doe-eyed (dark cool brown, in the crease, blended up and on lower lid)

Sugarpill Tako (matte white, in the inner corners and on brow bone)

A Small Make-Up Collection Show-off

I had totally forgotten to write a post about my make-up collection! It was requested some time ago and I thought it would be a nice thing to write about.

I consider make-up a hobby, I don't even pretend to need this much. Some people collect miniatures or movies, I collect eyeshadows. That's my thing ;P Just today I altered my vanity set-up, I used to have just a small shelf but it was way too tiny and there wasn't enough room for the two Helmer drawer units I use to store my make-up and jewellery. Now I have more room and it's great!

The top drawer is for stuff I use often.

My favourite eyeshadow colours are purples and browns, so they have the biggest boxes and are in the top drawer because I use them often. Next to them are all my primers, my mascara and Sugarpill Bulletproof (a matte black pressed shadow) I use to draw my eyebrows.

A closeup of the purples! They are all just in a pile.

And the browns. I've also put cream eyeshadows in with the regular ones
so they can be easily found.

Primers, mascara, eyelash curlers, eyeliner... basically all the odds and ends
I use often :)

The second drawer.

The second drawer has the rest of the eyeshadows (except for the pressed ones). There's a box for pinks, greens, turquoises and aquas, red-orange-yellow box and a blue-white-black box, mainly because I couldn't come up with enough space to have all colours separate. This works well enough!

The pinks. They work well with purple and brown, so I have a lot of these.

Blues, whites and blacks have to share a box at the moment.

Surprisingly few turquoises and aquas considering it's one of my favourite colours.

Reds, oranges and yellows. These are not among my favourites,
but they work very well for quick looks, almost any two or three go
nicely together.

Greens. I'm a bit green-challenged, so there aren't many ;)

Third drawer.

Then there's a pile of blushes, eyeliners, lipliners and lipstains. These have today been reorganized so they are a bit easier to find, but the ugly yellow divider stays ;P

Blushes and lipstains

Other lip stuff

The drawer below is home to all lipsticks and lipglosses. I'm not big on lipsticks, I'm too lazy to touch up my make-up often, so I prefer stains. The problem is that stains don't come in "unnatural" colours, and they are not opaque so you can't change lip colour drastically with them. So that's where my pile of weird coloured lipsticks comes handy!

Indie lipsticks.

Smellies, palettes and skin stuff.

The second lowest drawer has everything I need to make my skin look nice: a L'Oreal primer, Missha BB-cream and loose powder. There's also some elf mineral foundation and the leftovers of a Lumene makeup powder which are for the days when I'm too busy to put on a foundation and a powder. The Lumene loose powder is only used for protecting the undereye area when applying dark eyeshadow, I put a thick layer of the powder under my eyes and just swipe it off with a fluffy brush when I'm done with the eyeshadow. It takes all the fall off with it.

My only palettes are two Sugarpill palettes and a very old L'Oreal palette. There are also only a few pressed shadows, three are by MAC and the rest basically from Sugarpill, with a few odd cheap-o shadows floating around.

Blush samples

The last drawer is for my other half's stuff, he gets only one and the rest are mine ;P Here's an extra pic of the way I store blush samples! It was too slow to try and put a little bit on a palette, so I got this stack of clear plastic jars and put the samples in them. The labelling is done with a Dymo machine.

Geek Chic Cosmetics' Scapers

Chantel from Geek Chic Cosmetics was super nice and sent me a few samples of their newest collection, Scapers!

Yotz!, Anarchist Priest and Bonded to the Stars

I got three colours: Anarchist Priest, Yotz! and Bonded to the Stars. The collection's theme is Farscape, a sci-fi TV-series which I just happened to watch when I was a teenager. My other half also has the whole series on DVD's, tempting me to watch it once again! But on to the eyeshadows ;)

Bonded to the Stars

Bonded to the Stars is a light acid green. It has silver, turquoise and green microglitter to give the shade some depth. It has some shimmer in the base colour, too.

Anarchist Priest

Anarchist Priest look very purple in the site's photo, but goes on my skin blue. It has blue and purple glitter, but the matte, vibrant blue base takes most of the attention.

Yotz!

Yots! is such a pretty colour! It's a vibrant shimmery raspberry pink with lots of blue glitter.

All of these sample colours are very bold and very pigmented. They went on nice and creamy, and while the glitter in them was more apparent in the pot than on skin, it never disappeared. I'd expect that when you blend the colours on the lid, some glitter may fall off, but adding a little bit more of the colour will help restore the glittery look just fine!

If the colours were to your liking, you can order samples and full sizes here! And while there, remember to check my favourite, The Pointy End from the Win or Die collection :) You can see my swatch of it here.