In The Ruins

Here's more shots of the photoshoot I did with Leena Flinck early this year. There was still snow on the ground, and getting around the abandoned factory with my fetish heels sure was a chore ;D But I'm glad I endured, these pictures are very much to my liking :)

Dress, corset, shrug - Artifice Clothing

Leggings - Lip Service

Boots - Pleaser (second hand)

Rogue Flyer Photoshoot

Tiina of Rogue needed some pictures for a new flyer she could distribute at Lumous festival, and I was eager to help! My other half was helpful too, he took some pictures of Tiina and me with our home studio setup (= Ikea roll blind and two lamps ;P). Tiina wore light shades and I wore dark ones, so she could have two flyers, one that showed off light coloured oufit that's more casual, and a full-on goth look.

Tiina is wearing a dress she made herself, and I have a shrug, gloves and garters made by her. She had found this awesome metallic purple faux leather and was nice enough to ask me if I'd like something made of it. I naturally did, it's just my kind of a colour!

Take a look at what Tiina has in her Etsy shop :) The moth jewellery we created together has almost sold out, so if you want a pair of earrings or a necklace, you have to be quick.

These pictures are just cropped by me and otherwise not retouched at all. I bet the ones used on the flyer will look a bit more bad-ass when properly finished!

And one behind the scenes shot! This is what's usually going on in our living room ;D

Cat train!

Green and Purple Swirly Nails

More stamping, I love the technique! This time with darker shades. The base polish is F.U.N Blessings, a cool duo-chrome that shifts from petrol/turquoise to purple. Just my kinda polish! On the top I stamped some swirly patterns in Konad black with a W-217 plate. I'm having some difficulties aligning the patterns straight with my nails, but they look okay still. The black doesn't show too well on top of this polish, so I might try white next time.

This way the purple shows a little!

Outfit of the Day

Today I visited a few flea markets in search of something made of black leather that I could use for crafts. No luck with the leather, but it was nice and sunny outside and it was fun to look at things, so no harm done! Now I'm trying to get the apartment cleaned and do some crafts so I would have something to sell at Lumous Dark Market next week.

This is what I wore to go out! The dress is old but perfect for warm days, belt is second hand. The sandals are new and I'm still trying to get used to them. The bag was a birthday gift, and it's just my style!

Dress - Killstar Magick Dress

Belt - Second hand

Sandals - Depeche

Bag - Banned Apparel (a gift)

Matte Lip Product Swatches

I'm a big fan of long lasting matte lipsticks, because I'm way too lazy to touch up my lips during a night out. I took the time to swatch my favourite ones. I mainly wear dark shades and am interested in indie cosmetics, so there are many more shades and companies in the matte lippie world, but these are just my personal faves so far.

Top Shop Velvet Lips in Plush, Sephora Cream Lip Stain in 07, Nyx Soft Matte Lip Cream in Copenhagen, Nyx Soft Matte Lip Cream in Transylvania, MUA Luxe Velvet Lip Lacquer in Kooky, Fyrinnae Liquid Matte Lipstick in Graffiti, Fyrinnae Liquid Matte Lipstick in Desire, Fyrinnae Liquid Matte Lipstick in Naughty & Nice.

There are differences in the formulas. The Sephora lip stain in very pigmented and not as drying as the other mattes. It also has a slight shimmer to it, not making it completely matte. The Nyx products are also of a satin type of texture. They don't dry down as the rest of the products shown here and can smudge a little bit if you are not careful.

Kooky and Plush are the thickest formulas and feel quite drying on lips, but last well. Fyrinnae mattes are the nicest to wear and apply. They dry to a fully matte finish and stay put just as well as the thicker ones, but they are much thinner in consistency and the tube needs to be shaken vigorously before applying the product. While they look splotchy on my arm, they actually go on the lips very nicely.

Most of the matte products don't allow you to apply another coat. Once you have applied one coat, the second one will melt the first one and make things look splotchy. If you need to touch up a spot, do it by padding the product on, don't brush.

Transylvania is notoriously hard to apply evenly, but I usually wear a dark lip liner underneath it. Normally you should not apply anything underneath the matte long lasting products, as even a coat of lip balm makes them not adhere well. Always apply on clean, dry lips, the only exception is Transylvania, and it loses much of the long lasting feature when applied on lip pencil.

For removal you need a make-up removal product that works for water-proof make-up. I use one by Lumene. Usually the oily ones that separate into two parts in the bottle are the best. If you don't have a good remover, try any oil, like coconut oil. It's more messy than using make-up remover, but does the job. Mattes are water resistant, but oil soluble!

The Countess

Whew, what a day! After a full day at the office I hurried home, put on some make-up and a corset, and headed out for a photoshoot with Sanni Saarenmaa. We had originally planned to do the shoot last week, but it was raining so hard we had to reschedule. Today it was raining too, but luckily it was only cloudy and windy when we were out taking pictures. It was great that we got the lovely Agony von Grim to assist, she's great at giving direction and with the strong wind messing with my hems, it was a blessing to have some one helping!

Originally the plan was to do a shoot with my black Victorian outfit, but since the brown one I have been working on was very nearly finished, yesterday I decided to just get it done. I got to bed half past one in the morning, but I'm certain it was worth it! My main problems were with the hat I was making, I had a really hard time understanding the instructions and the fabric I had chosen didn't want to behave but was always buckling every which way. In the end I just glued everything together and stuck on enough decorations to hide the ugly bits, and it worked like a charm. I'll do a more detailed post on the hat and outfit later, here's my look from the photoshoot :)

Hat done with Harlots & Angels Abigail hat pattern, corset pattern by Truly Victorian.

See how the fabric on the hat keeps making tiny wrinkles? AAARGH!

Then I had the bright idea to take pictures with the cats, apparently they didn't like it ;P

"I hate you."

"I have to go now bye."

I can't wait for the finished pictures, they outfit looked so nice and the setting was gorgeous, and Sanni is such a talented photographer that the pictures will surely turn out great!

Engagement Photoshoot Look

My other half and I decided to have an engagement photoshoot to celebrate the proposal. There aren't many pictures of us together, for some reason, so it will be nice to have some professionally taken ones to remember this time by. We did the shoot in two parts: first with formal clothing and light make-up, then in full-on goth uniform with heavier make-up. This is my look after the shoot, so the lipstick is a bit worn.

I did the look with the Naked Basics palette, by first doing a regular look with a light shade on the lid and a dark one in the crease. For the second half I just applied the darkest shade on top of the other ones to get a neutral smoky look. The lashes I'm wearing are Red Cherry #600 lashes and the lippie is Black Dahlia by Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics.

I wanted to also show off this little hair clip I made for the shoot! Tiina of Rogue borrowed a gorgeous dress for me, but I felt that I needed something for my hair to match the rest of the outfit. Last week when I was at Tallinn on the sewing club trip we went to a few big craft and sewing supply stores and I was able to pick up the materials for this baby. Aside from the hair clip and sequinned appliqué which were already in my stash (the appliqué is left over from the Snow Queen outfit), the whole thing ended up costing me only 4,5 euros. That's hard to top! The craft supply stores in Estonia were like treasure troves, so many shades of lace and endless quantities of ribbons and feathers. I have to go there again some day to stock up on black lace and other goth necessities.

This is what 4,5 euros gets you in Estonia. Five packs of lovely, pristine feathers!

Held in my hand to show the size. It's not a very big hair clip, but just enough for the outfit I wore.

I can't wait for the finished pictures so I can show you how the whole outfit looks!

Another Set of Lacy Nails

I fell in love with the lace stamping plate I used for my black lace nails, so naturally I needed more lace plates to have some variation. I chose to buy a few from Born Pretty, as they had a nice selection.

These nails are done with the same polishes as the previous lace nails: GinaTricot Puff Powder for a base and Konad black stamping polish for the patterns. The plate used is BP-02. Compared to the previous lace nails, this lace pattern is less dense, but also trickier to stamp without it breaking up a bit. I decided not to mind a few imperfections, as the lace is not symmetric anyway. Maybe next time I'll get the stamps to go on even better!

OCC Lip Tar Swatches

Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics lip tars were something that I really wanted to get while in New York. I bought two from Sephora and visited the OCC store to get the rest of the colours I yearned for. I bought six tars in total: Black Dahlia, Pagan, Black Metal Dahlia, Anita, Sebastian and Techo Pagan. Here's swatches of each and my thoughts on them.

Pagan, Techno Pagan, Black Dahlia, Black Metal Dahlia, Anita and Sebastian. Swatched on clean skin with no primer.

Pagan is a gorgeous deep purple. I've never seen a purple lipstick quite as dark and opaque. On my lips Pagan wants to feather a bit, so I use Black Dahlia or Mac Nighmoth liner with it. The liners are more red than Pagan, but blend in nicely.

Black Dahlia (no picture on lips yet, sorry!) is a deep, dark red. I feel the need to apply it thickly to achieve a darker shade, but this makes Dahlia feather easily. The shade is lovely, but I would prefer something even darker.

Techno Pagan is much more blue-based than Pagan. It's also less liquid in consistency, I have to squeeze the tube with some force to get some product out. The thicker consistency also means that it's less likely to feather and goes on thicker, so it's easy to achieve a fully opaque look. In the picture I've applied Black Dahlia liner on the edges, which shows as much more red than Techno Pagan.

Black Metal Dahlia is a little bit thicker than the non-metallic tars, much like Techno Pagan. It's still nowhere near the thickness of Techno Pagan and goes on easier. The metallic sheen is truly gorgeous and a real eye-catcher. A nice way to use this one is to dab a little bit in the middle of the lips when wearing regular Black Dahlia, just to get a hint of shimmer to make your lips look fuller. 

Anita (no picture on lips yet, sorry!) is a rusty, brownish red. Very wearable as a shade, but for some reason Anita is very runny and even feathers in the swatch on skin. It's partly separated in the tube, but I've kneaded the tube and let it rest upside down and done every trick suggested, but Anita just won't behave. I like the shade, so I'll keep trying. In it's current runny state it feathers even on top of liner.

Sebastian is pure love. I'm not usually a big fan of nude lipsticks, but Sebastian is not a pure nude, but a greyish beige shade, and slightly darker than my lips. I also got the matching lip liner, because I had nothing of this shade in my stash. The liner is actually a little bit darker than the lip tar, as you can see in my picture, but I quite like the effect it gives when blended inwards with the tar. Sebastian needs less touching up than the darker shades, mainly because it's so close to my lip shade that when it wears off a little in the center, it's not very noticeable. Sebastian is the shade I've been wearing the most out of all the lip tars. It's a very unique shade and works surprisingly well with dark eyeshadow looks, as it does not make your lips disappear like many nude lippies.

Generally I like the lip tars a lot. The pigmentation is astonishing and the shade selection is great. The only problems I've had are on how to touch if my lips when I'm on the move. I tried carrying a little lip brush, but I didn't know how to store it after use when it was dirty. I've also tried just dabbing on a little product on the center of my lips and smacking, but especially Techno Pagan with the thicker consistency won't spread evenly. I guess a retractable lip brush or two is what I need, but I don't currently own any so I haven't been able to try any.

The second problem is washing lip brushes. Tars seem to stick very well to bristles and I find it impossible to get all of the product out of the brushes, there's always some left. I washed the brushes with soap, then with water-proof make-up remover, then with alcohol and still they have some product left on them. I'll be trying olive oil next and report on how it works. Having a tiny bit left on the bristles is not a big problem when applying the darker shades, but with Sebastian I've had to reserve one brush just for it to avoid getting traces of other shades in it.

Clearly the lip tars take some trial and error work on getting the application just right and on how to clean your brushes, but they wear very well and have good staying power. I must say I'm a fan!

Space Woman

I bought this second hand Artifice Clothing outfit off the lovely Venla, who always seems to be selling just the clothes I want ;D Silver is usually not my thing, but this was a whole outfit consisting of a top, skirt, corset and gloves, so I didn't really matter that I don't have anything that goes with silver. I'm a big fan of Artifice Clothing designs, and I've been meaning to get their Kinetic zippered corset in black, but a silver one is also nice! I like how the flaps at the bottom give a nice silhouette and some space-age feel to the whole outfit. I felt the petrol wig goes well with the outfit, it makes me miss my bangs. Maybe some day I'll cut them again! Also I was too lazy to do my own hair ;P

Outfit - Artifice clothing

Wig - Second hand

Necklace - Art with Latex

Flyer Photoshoot Look

Yesterday I was at a photoshoot and got to wear my new wig! I bought it from a friend and it's simply gorgeous. In photos it tends to look very blue, but it's actually petrol. But the same happened when my own hair was petrol, so I think it's due to the camera. I need to re-curl the fringe on the wig but otherwise it's as good as new, a great A-line with longer hair in the front and shorter in the back.

The pictures from the shoot will be used for a new flyer for Rogue by Tiina Ulkuniemi, thus I'm wearing some new gear by Tiina! I'll show you the whole outfit later and focus on the make-up now.

I did a dark smoky eye with two shades. Celestial Crow by Glamour Doll Eyes is a dark teal with green glitter. Fyrinnae's Freya is a slightly shimmery purple, lighter than Celectial Crow but not much. For intensity I added some black gel liner and put on false lashes that really open up my eyes well. The brows are done with Inglot gel liner.

To match the dark eyes, I put Fyrinnae's matte liquid lipstick in Desire on my lips. It's a lovely dark purple that goes with many shades.

Glamour Doll Eyes Celestial Crow
Fyrinnae Freya
Fyrinnae liquid matte lipstick in Desire
Inglot gel liner
Red Cherry lashes #600

Can't wait to show you the finished pictures, I loved the outfit! And the horns, of course. I always love to put on some horns ;D I'll get back to sewing now, hopefully I can soon show you the finished kupfer-orange bustle skirt!