Thursday 31 August 2017

Favourites of the month: August

August faves 

- Freak's Circus, doll face necklace 
- HEMA, pocket wet wipes 
- M.A.C, lipstick in Whirl 
- Maisons du Monde, cat and mouse dish set 
- Yves Rocher, Volume Elixir mascara in Blue 
- Sephora, charcoal exfoliating cleanser 
 - Sephora, Cream Lip Stain in Copper Blush and Frosted Strawberry 
- Sephora, white peach extract nail varnish remover 
- Sugarpill, pressed eyeshadow in Love+ (refill pan) 
- Sugarpill, liquid lip color in pumpkin spice 
 - We Love Fine x Otto and Victoria, watercolor Otto scarf 
- Z palette, small size 

Click to see why I'm loving these things this month!
M.A.C - Whirl 

Give it a Whirl 
Bad pun is bad, but I'm sticking with it anyway. 
I actually got it on my birthday on July 24th, and whilst obviously I loved it in the store (enough to head back into Antwerp to go to the other M.A.C store because it was sold out at Inno M.A.C), and I still do, I didn't wear it in July anymore. I did wear it tons this month though. 
I adore this. It's a darker nude than those other two faves: Meow (Winky Lux) and rosé (tarte), and I love that because it makes it different and I like changing things up. Nothing wrong with owning a few different daily wear options :). 

M.A.C - Whirl

Sephora - cream lip stain 

Brownish nudes ftw 
There is really not that much difference between Copper Blush and Frozen Strawberry in the tubes. In swatches you can see that there is a shade difference, albeit not an overwhelming one. I like them both. 
I like doing a lip look combining them, or wearing them separately, or wearing them underneath Unicorn Tears. 
I've got three lipsticks from this range now (the other one being Pretty Auburn, which was in last month's faves post) and I can't speak for all the colours, but the formula of the three shades I have is consistently very good. 
Cream Lip Stain isn't the best liquid lipstick out there I'm sure, but it's comfortable enough and affordable, and that's a really good start in my book.

Sugarpill - Pumpkin Spice 

Smells like Pumpkin Spice 
I had always regretted not owning Pumpkin Spice liquid lipstick by Sugarpill Cosmetics. So when I saw they had it on Beauty Bay still (it's long since sold out on the company's website), I ended up caving. 
It was cheaper there anyway, because they ship from the UK so the shipping costs less, and there are no custom costs either. 
So yeah, now I finally own it and I'm really happy with it. It really does smell like pumpkin spice btw. 
Also, can we take a moment to appreciate the packaging?

Sugarpill - Pumpkin Spice 

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Sugarpill - Love+ 

Bonus points for love 
And total bonus points for this red eye shadow by Sugarpill, the famous Love+. 
I can totally see why this is commonly referred to as THE red eye shadow. 
I love how it can be blended out to be this really smooth, pretty dark pink or applied to be this vibrant, gorgeous, deep bright red. 
A word of warning though: wash out your brush as soon as you can after use, because I left it on a white tipped brush (it's a white and grey one) for 3 days and my brush is now very light pink and grey. Its THAT pigmented (it didn't stain my skin at all though, so there's that ^^). 

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Loa and the Z palette 

Keeping things organised 
I ended up buying a small Z palette, because I'm thinking about getting more Sugarpill shadow pans. I'm not getting enough of them to justify getting their own pro-palette I can fill up with shadows, and you know, I had that Nocibé shadow to de-pot (the packaging is just wildly unpractical) so I figured: what the heck. These small ones are really affordable on Beauty Bay, and they're big enough to hold everything they'll need to hold. So that's me happy and organised :). 

Loa and the Z palette 

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Yves Rocher blue mascara 

The volume is not a lie 
It really isn't. 
If you thought extreme dimension mascaras from M.A.C give you volume, this REALLY gives you volume
I can't say anything about curl, because I've never been one to pay attention to that (actually I don't much care about volume either, I just want to add colour and if a mascara doesn't flake or irritate and comes off easily enough, I'm satisfied). 
Anyway, this one was a free mascara that I got with an Yves Rocher loyalty coupon. Would I have bought this otherwise, heck no. These are even pricier than most full size M.A.C mascaras! Would I buy it now? Not in blue, I only got blue because I really had no need for black or brown and figured blue would be fun with 31 days of Halloween coming up. But if M.A.C stops making Beets Me and I run out white mascara, I wouldn't be opposed to shelling out for one of these, because at that point, I could absolutely empty a full tube of brown mascara. Right now, no, it'd just be a massive waste of money. 
All of that said: I really do LOVE the formula of this, it's long lasting, smudge proof, the colour is nice, it doesn't irritate at all. It's an amazing mascara, and if you can afford spending that much and are in the market for a new volumising mascara, I would absolutely recommend this one. Not a doubt about it! 

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Sephora charcoal cleanser 

Get clean again 
Originally I got a sample of this at Sephora, which I tried out because why not, right. And even though it smells a little funky (due to the lack of fragrance), it's REALLY nice. It properly exfoliates, without being harsh on the skin. I have very sensitive skin, so I have to be careful with scrubs and exfoliating products, but this is lovely. I also noticed that my skin was clearer and felt cleaner on the first try. So naturally I went and bought a full sized tube.
Click here for the ingredients.

Sephora - charcoal cleanser

nail varnish/polish remover 

I got two bottles of this stuff during the Sephora sales because it was only 80 cents a bottle. 
80 cents! 
And I love this. It is SO kind to my nails and the skin surrounding them. The bottle is a little different than what I'm used to, as it has a smaller hole for the liquid to come through, which is nice because you waste a lot less product this way. 
Added bonus: this does NOT stink to high heaven like most nail polish removers! Which actually made me put this back in the cupboard so I can use it during colder months. In the summer I just go sit on the porch to clean my nails with the stinky Yves Rocher remover (stinky as in: it smells foul, the product far from stinks, although I do like this one better)
To be honest, I probably won't repurchase my Yves Rocher remover if they keep on putting this on sale during the sales periods, because I like this better and it's cheaper when on sale.

HEMA pocket wet wipes 

These are just pocket sized wet wipes, but I really like them. They are very soft on my skin, and I can even remove makeup without them stinging or otherwise being an irritating nuisance. Will definitely buy more when I run out. 

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Otto Scarf 

Wrap yourself up in tentacles 
My friend Clara, bless her, got me the We Love Fine x Otto and Victoria Otto scarf for my birthday (thank you again Clara!). 
Everyone that knows me knows that I LOVE the work of Brian Kesinger. He's my favourite artist (together with Jan Bosschaert), and I am especially fond of his Otto and Victoria art (although I love most of the things he makes really!). 
I also love scarves and octopi, so this is really super perfect. I will get so much wear out of this! LOVE IT SO MUCH! 
The quality is also really nice. I just have to make sure that Shinto doesn't go near it so she can't make little holes and tears in it with her big nasty long claws! (She can't help it, iguana's can't retract their claws, but still). Wish me luck! 

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Freaks Circus necklace 

Wear a face around your neck 
I have been admiring Freaks Circus creations for a LONG time. Basically since the first time my friend Aurélie told me about them I think a couple of years ago. So when she brought this back from Japan for me (I'm not gonna lie, it's a piece that was given to me so I could use it in BCM's holiday edition if I wanted to, out early October) I was beyond extatic. 
I mean, come on, look at how AMAZING it is! I am definitely going to find a good place in my house to display it. I feel a trip to Maisons du Monde coming up to find a display of some kind!

Photo of the day: 15.8.2017 (day 227) 

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Cat and mouse dish 

Catch me if you can 
There's now a Maisons du Monde in Olen shopping, which isn't too far from where I live. This may be bad for my wallet, because I LOVE Maisons du Monde. 
For those not familiar with it, MdM is probably best described as the IKEA for hipsters and steampunks (and to lesser extend several other subculture lifestylers). 
Anyway, when we discovered it was there during a trip to get more stuff from the Albert Heijn supermarket (which is the same shopping area), we of course HAD to go in. 
When I found this cute little dish set, Bert got it for me, because I had been saying I wanted a cute dish set to use for blog photos for a while. 
I did draw eyes on the cat with my gold Posca, because I felt it was super sad that the mouse had an eye and the cat was eyeless :). All good now! 
As you can see from photos in this blog post (and as you'll see in future blog posts), I'm already making good use of it. 

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Added note: where possible I link to English language websites in the summary, even when I bought the product in a Belgian (or French in case of Sephora) store, or via a Dutch language website. So simply google for your country's website alternative. Most stores I buy from have one. Eventually these links may expire when a company discontinues a product, but at the time this post goes live, they *should* all be good. 

Montly faves from the past on this blog. 
Previous monthly favourites going back much further on my old blog. 

---- Find me online: 
twitter - instagram - website - old blog (it's to say, I double post, but my years and years of posting is on there as I've had it since 2003)

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