Daddy's Girl Half-Moon

I fixed my nails after having a french manicure with plastic tips, and put on just clear UV-gel nails. I wanted something easy to wear but with a twist, so I decided to try a half-moon manicure with my favourite purple, Daddy's Girl by Sinful Colors. It's a plum purple with pink-purple glitter.

There's no gold glitter in the polish, that's just the lights reflecting on the nails. Would look pretty though!

It was my first half-moon ever, so it's a bit messy and not symmetric, since I didn't even know you could buy special stickers to make the circles. I'm still happy, it's not too bad, and with the stickers or just a thin brush, I'll do better next time :) Now I just used the brush in the polish bottle, and it's huge. I also ran out of Daddy's Girl, but luckily found a replacement on eBay that's now on it's way to me.

Today's Outfit

This it what I wore today! Last night I was out celebrating a friend's birthday, so I was super tired in the morning but still managed to find something nice to wear. The picture is taken right after I came home from work, it was a bit windy outside as you can see from my hair ;) For make-up, I wore my lazy-day eyeshadow, Scaredy Cat Draconia. It's just a very easy and cheerful colour.

Jacket - Juunappa

Scarf - Second hand

Long shirt - Lip Service (I'm not sure if this is supposed to be a dress, but it's so short!)

Leggings - Seppälä

Bag - Second hand

Shoes - Jeffrey Campbell

Iron Sky Premiere

I managed to get a hold of tickets to the Iron Sky movie's red carpet premiere for me and my other half. So, last night we dressed up nicely, watched moon nazis, ate some delicious food and drank tasty beverages, and saw a Laibach show. Also queued in the cold rain and dodged drunken businessmen trying to start a moshpit (at a Laibach concert?!), but it was still an excellent night.

We originally had bought tickets for Tuesday's event in Tampere, but I was super happy to get tickets to the Monday's show, because Laibach was playing there. Also, it's nice to see a good movie with friends, and the whole office was invited. I've been to all the Laibach concerts in Tampere so far and love the band. First we saw the movie, then moved on to the concert venue and there's was a superb buffet. I don't even know what all the food was, aside from being delicious ;)

The movie was really great, I didn't really know what to expect, but in the end I liked it a lot. Here's the official trailer if anyone's interested.

Laibach was also great, they started the show with slower, old songs and worked their way up to Dance With Laibach and other hits. A great experience, aside from a few idiots in the audience. I don't think I've ever before been at a concert where someone throws stuff on the stage (beer can and a glass bottle, so not even pretty undies), and during a slow Laibach song it really seems out of place. And the two drunken gentlemen later on, who decided to try and start a moshpit next to the tiniest lady they could find in the audience. I guess when there are people who haven't paid to get in, they have no respect for the performers. And there was free booze, that might play a part ;) Still, those were minor disturbances, and the gig was excellent!

I didn't remember to take a picture of my makeup, I did an interesting fake crease look, but I think I'll re-do it later and then take pictures. It worked well and was easy to wear :)

Here's me and my boyfriend all dressed up! The dress code was black tie, but I didn't want to take a full length evening gown out into the wet slush, so I opted for a shorter dress (Wikipedia claimed it was okay). There were still people in jeans and t-shirts, since the dress code was printed in tiny font on the tickets, so I don't think everyone noticed.

My outfit:

Hat - Seppälä

Earrings - By me

Necklace - Glitter

Bolero - Vero Moda

Dress - Spin Doctor

Shoes - New Rock 

I did have lighter, pretty black heels to be worn inside, but I have no picture of them. They were a gift from my sister. It was an awesome feeling to put the New Rock's back on after spending the whole night in high heels, felt like heaven to have comfier shoes on ;P

My other half looks so smart in his suit, and he's wearing a steam-punk style tie clip I gave him. And he wore his New Rocks through the night, I thought they gave his outfit a nice twist :)

Club Underworld Look

Yesterday was Club Underworld, the event I'm co-organizing. We had a superb band and an excellent guest DJ, everything went really well! There were not so many people attending, but that was because there were a few other events at the same time, so no biggie :)

Wreckdance was playing, they were great! They haven't published an album yet, but it's coming.

I continued with my smoky eye looks, and did one with black, pink and purple. The pink kind of got lost and turned purpley, but it's there, I promise ;)

I used:

Face
MAC Studio Sculpt foundation
Evil Shades Matte Silk powder
Evil Shades Pink Noise blush

Eyes
Urban Decay Primer Potion
Sugarpill Bulletproof (on lid and blended above crease)
Darling Girl Cosmetics Obviously a Wig (at the edge of Bulletproof)
Fyrinnae Nevermore (on top of Bulletproof and blended between it and Obviously a Wig)
Sugarpill Tako (on browbone and inner corners)
MAC Fluidline Blacktrack

Lips
Morgana Cryptoria gel lipstick Athena
Morgana Cryptoria lipstick Licorice

 

I did gradient lips to make them look fuller, there's black at the corners and pink in the middle.

And this is what I wore! The shoes were a bit big for me, but I didn't remember it when I put them on and was too lazy to take them off to add a thicker sock. The lacing goes all the way up and isn't the speed lacing type, so it takes ages to wiggle the laces through every tiny hole.

Hat - Seppälä

Necklace - Glitter

Dress - Lip Service

Corset - Second hand, Burleska

Shoes - Second hand, Pennangalan

Bracelets - Glitter

Here you can see the make-up better, and also my earrings. They are one of my favourites.

I carefully curled the ends of my hair, but it was raining outside so it straightened out. At least it shows in the pictures!

I tried something different with my hair, I'm not sure if it worked out so well, but there's one victory roll, a tiny hat and the loose hair is curled and there are a few black clip-in extensions tossed in as well.

I had a really fun night, the best part was when there were only a few people left and we danced to all the good songs, and the part when I remembered there was still leftover feta salad in the fridge at home ;P I also drew a heart for my boyfriend in the sleet that had fallen during the night, very romantic to stomp a symbol into the wet slush on the parking lot, so he could see it from our bedroom window. I also got my shoes wet, a sacrifice for love!

Dark Purple Smoky Look

I did another smoky eye, deciding I'll put the colour really high this time, because when it stops too low above the crease, my heavy lidded eyes can look tired. I think I did pretty well!

I used:
Concrete Minerals Jezebel (on whole lid, crease and above crease)
Sugarpill Bulletproof (on the lid on top of Jezebel)
Sugarpill Tako (on browbone and inner corners)
Gosh lipstain 003 Berry

My bangs are a bit on the wild side, but see how well the high placement of the colour opens up my eyes?

Black Smoky Eye Look

I wanted to try my hand at a black smoky eye look, since that's always been really challenging for me. Now I was armed with the new blending brush and I think I did really good! I should have maybe brought the black even higher up above the crease, but practise makes perfect and I like this look a lot, so I'll be doing it again some time soon :)

I used:
Urban Decay Primer Potion
Make-Up Store Vanilla
Sugarpill Bulletproof
Sugarpill Tako
Gosh lipstain 003 Berry

 

I look a bit amazed, but this was the best picture, trust me ;P

Review of the Mariela Sarkima Blending Brush

I promised a review of the new brush I'm excited about, so here it is! The Finnish brand, Cailap, producer of beauty care products, came out with a new set of brushes at the end of 2011. The make-up artist Mariela Sarkima designed the brushes and also released a book on how to do basic make-up (haven't read it and I don't know what else she has done). The brush range includes six brushes, three of them face brushes and three for the eyes.

I had been looking at the brushes for some time, since they have pretty turquoise handles and look nice. However, the package didn't say if the bristles are synthetic or real hair, and I hadn't seen any reviews, and the shop didn't have any brushes I could tests the bristles with, so it took me a while to buy one. I had been looking for blending brushes, since I only owned one and it was by EcoTools and came in a set. I didn't need the other brushes, so it would be just silly to buy more sets to get only the blending brush. When I came across this blog post (it's in Finnish, but there's a lot of good pictures), I decided to give the blending brush a go. The blogger said the bristles were synthetic and very soft, and was generally pleased with the brush.

Here's what the brush looks like. It's 14,5 cm long, with synthetic bristles and a bright turquoise handle and a silver ferrule. The painted text says Cailap by Mariela Sarkima.

This is how it compares to the EcoTools blending brush. It's a bit smaller, but has more of a rounded shape. I'd say the bristles feel as soft in both, very nice and not at all scratchy. The ferrule is longer, as is the handle on the Cailap brush.

Cailap on the left, EcoTools on the right.

The EcoTools brush came in a travel set, so it's really short at only 11,5 cm. I personally feel the longer brush gives you a better grip, and when blending it's important because you really have to work the shadow on the lid.

Here you can see the size difference!

I usually use Gosh eyeshadow brushes to put shadow on the lid, so here's what the blending brush looks next to one of those. The Gosh brushes are flat and made from animal bristle and have held up nicely (I have five, since I don't have the time to wash my brushes every day), but their flat shape prevents blending neatly and the range doesn't have any brush that looks good for blending. The full, roundish Cailap and EcoTools brushes are way better for blending, naturally.

Gosh flat eyeshadow brush, Cailap blending brush, EcoTools blending brush

Every brush is of different length

I already got a little excited and have three of the Cailap brushes, I don't want to use the same brush twice without washing it, because I use bright colours and don't want to get them muddy. You can only get them at Sokos department stores in Finland, but I happen to be so lucky as to have one next block ;) The quality of the brushes seems to vary when you look at the packages, some had bristles pointing every which way or were squashed against the top of the package, but I just spent time picking the nicest ones and they have all performed really well. The brush costs 8,90 euros, and you can also buy it in the Smoky Eyes set, which has an angled eyeshadow brush and a regular eyeshadow brush to go with it.

I'm hoping the brushes will last long in my tender care, so far I've washed them a few times and no bristles have come loose or become scratchy, so they look very promising. I emailed Cailap about the fact that they didn't tell if the bristles are real or not on the package, and they replied that they will "try and add" it to the next batch. We'll see, but I'm sure I'm not the only person who's interested about it when making decisions on what brushes to buy.