Crystal Tiara

For yesterday's Club Underworld I wanted a simple look, but then came across a tiara I just bought from Lumissa's Purple Octopus. Change of plans, it was now the focal point of the look! My fringe is now long enough to be held to the sides with hair clips, so I pulled it aside to hide the tiara'a band. I think the result is excellent! I paired the hair do with one on my favourite Lip Service dresses and a pair of stompy New Rock boots. The lipstick is Black Dahlia by OCC, which I recently found when cleaning out my lipstick drawer. The things you find when shopping your stash!

These days I use Mac Nightmoth lip liner for my brows, as the Aromaleigh pink loose shadow seemed too bright after I dyed my hair ombre style. Nightmoth is a very good match for my hair, the tone is spot on, and it's just a little bit lighter than my roots. I would have thought a lip liner would perform badly on brows, but it's actually a very good product for this purpose. On the lips, the main thing is to keep the lipstick from bleeding, so the pencil does not bleed on brows either.

I'm thinking of getting acrylic nails done again, as the winter has been harsh on my natural nails. The break super easily, are thin and soft and peeling, all at the time! I use nail oil and it used to help, but now it seems no amount of oil does anything. I've gotten so used to having nicely done nails that I feel a bit naked without them.

Fyrinnae Snow Leopard as a light smoky eye, OCC Black Dahlia on the lips.

Club Underworld was a great success, thanks to everyone who came and I hope you had a great time! It seems we may need a bigger venue in the future, but I'm a bit attached to the one we currently use. Luckily there's plenty of time to plan for the next event!

Least Favourite Time of the Year

As the title of post says, this is my least favourite time of the year. Work is busy, as everyone will head out for Christmas holidays in a month. It's dark most of the time, today there was around five hours of light and all of that during office hours, so when I go to work, it's dark, when I come home from work, it's dark. The first snow just fell, so it's also cold and icy outside. I walk to work and constantly have to be careful on the icy streets.

Luckily Christmas holidays are close, and this year I have a long holiday. It's less than a month until days start getting longer. And maybe Santa will bring me some nice gifts!

Yesterday I invested in a new hat at H&M. It has a wide brim to protect my hair from sleet and snow, and it covers my roots so I can get away with slightly dirty hair if need be. I combined the hat with a simple look, just a touch of brown liner and OCC Sebastian on the lips.

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!

OCC Lip Tar in Sebastian

More lip tars! Sebastian is quite an unusual shade for me, a neutral beige. In addition to the lip tar, I bought the matching lip liner, because I had nothing even similar in my collection. The pencil is actually a little bit darker than the lip tar, but it gives a really nice effect of making my lips look fuller and still blends in to the lip tar so that it's not so obvious that the outlines are darker.

Sebastian looks awesome with dark, smoky eyes, but when I tried it with a more neutral eye look, I was amazed that it still seemed to work! On my pale skin Sebastian is dark enough to define my lips nicely, while it's still light and allows for very loud eye make-up.

Sebastian lasts a surprisingly long time on my lips, several hours. And due to the shade being quite light, the wear doesn't show much. It's as to apply as a brush-on product can be. The trick is to use just a tiny bit, so the product sets nicely and doesn't move around. It took me a few tries to get the amount right!

 Sebastian is a very unique shade and nice to apply, plus it lasts well. Just what I need in a lipstick!

Black Metal Dahlia Lip Tar by OCC

Lip Tars by obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics are liquid lipsticks packed in squeeze tubes. This one is called Black Metal Dahlia, the metallic version of Black Dahlia, and it's absolutely gorgeous! I'm wearing the lipstick with the Black Dahlia lip liner. Black Metal Dahlia is just what the name promises: a dark red, like the regular Black Dahlia, but with a metallic sheen. This shade is a real eye catcher, bright and shiny! :)

Pagan Lip Tar by OCC

I already showed you Technopagan, and this is its satin sister, Pagan. Worn here with Black Dahlia lip liner. All products are by Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics. Pagan is a deep, dark purple, a stunning shade and really a statement! I wore Pagan with just mascara, but I'm pretty sure it would be gorgeous with a dark smoky eye too. As an added bonus, Pagan makes my skin look very pale, which I like. I have to do a party look with this baby, it's fabulous!!

Face the Day!

Just a super quick update! Today I did a photoshoot with Kari Vuorio, can't wait to see the results! We went for a dark fashion style, and shot many different outfits. Very simple and graphical looks, and I did my make-up to match.

The first two were taken when I left for the photoshoot. I did my lips at the location so they would be perfect.

And this one was after the shoot! I'm wearing Black Dahlia Lip Tar by Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics. It's the perfect cool dark red, bordering on purple, just my type of shade!

Technopagan Lip Tar by OCC

Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics is a company that specializes in a product called Lip Tar. Lip Tars are basically liquid lipsticks that have very strong pigment and come in all sorts of wonderful colours. On my trip to New York City I visited the OCC Shop and bought a pile of Lip Tars. I had been looking at heir online shop but could never decide what to get, and the shipping is quite expensive, so when I had the opportunity to go and try the products I just had to!

This is one of my favourites of the bunch I got. It's called Technopagan and it's the metallic version of Pagan, a dark purple. I love purple lipsticks, and metallic purples I simply cannot resist. Do you see why? ;D

Here Technopagan is worn over Black Dahlia lip liner, also by OCC. Using a liner is necessary with the Lip Tars, they tend to feather on my lips otherwise. The texture of the Lip Tar is slightly sticky and gloss-like, but the pigmentation is far from gloss. 

I can't wait to try the other colours!