FOTD: First Day of Spring Featuring Urban Decay Naked2, MAC Added Goodness, Dior Riviera & NOTD Riviera + Hunger Games

Hey everyone!

I had a fun day in Antwerp yesterday with follow bloggers dining, walking around, and attending the Caudalie blogger event. I will give you all the information as soon as possible, but for the moment please excuse this tired girl to just show you her FOTD and NOTD!

Eyes: Naked2
Chopper on two thirds of my lids, and Snakebite to contour. I also dragged Snakebite into my imaginary crease, though the effect is a bit more dramatic than what I would normally do possibly because I was using the brush that came with the palette.
I lined both my upper and lower lash lines with MAC Added Goodness, smudged out with Busted.

Cheeks and rest of the face:
Cargo Rome, Estee Lauder Bronze Goddess

Lips:
Dior Addict Extreme 639 Riviera (just so you know, I wore one layer of this in the pictures so the color is sheer)

Here are some more photos so you can get a better look:

I wore Dior Vernis Riviera 537 on my nails, so I took a photo in which you can see my matching lips and nails:

I have some Dior Vernis and Dior Addict Extremes for review. I will try my best to get the posts ready ASAP, so keep your eyes peeled!

Something else that matches my nails is my current read, Mockingjay, the last book of the Hunger Games trilogy:

The movie came out in Belgium yesterday, and from what I heard it’s a must-see that doesn’t stray far from the book (I think I would enjoy that). I am super busy this week though, so I probably won’t get to see it till Sunday!

What do you think? Are you digging Riviera (I’ll show you how it looks when it is layered a little in the swatch/review post. It could get very bright!)? Have you read The Hunger Games? Are you getting excited about the movie like I am?

Sunny, your beauty culture translator xx

FOTD: Happy Saint Patrick’s Day featuring Urban Decay 24/7 in Stash, Mildew, NARS Paramaribo, MAC Humid, & Wet n’ Wild Comfort Zone

Hey everybody, happy Saint Patrick’s! I know by the time this goes up it’ll be past midnight here, but for the majority of you it’s still Saint Patrick’s, so let’s pretend it’s all OK :p

To create my Saint Patrick’s Day look, I used Urban Decay 24/7 Glide-on Pencil in Stash as base, blended out with my finger. I then put the lighter shade of NARS Paramaribo on the inner half, and then MAC Humid on the outer half. My inner corners are highlighted with the browbone shade on the left column of Wet n’ Wild Comfort Zone. I lined my upper lash line with Maybelline Eye Studio Lasting Drama Gel liner, and my lower lash line with Urban Decay 24/7 Glide-on Pencil in Mildew. I smudged both out with the crease shade on the right column of Comfort Zone.

I used Cargo Rome on my cheeks, Estee Lauder Bronze Goddess to contour. On my lips I had MAC Butterfly Dream layered on top of MAC Sweetie.

Here are some more pictures so you can see everything from different angles. Do excuse the huge pimple I didn’t manage to cover up on my chin. It has actually been majorly improved compared with how it was a couple of days ago!

For someone who would wear green eyeshadows on any given day, Saint Patrick’s Day is like a happy free-for-all! In retrospect I could have blended everything higher for more drama, but it was actually the first time that I layered eyeshadows on top of a liner, so I still have to practice some more!

Did you guys wear green for Saint Patrick’s Day? Do you have a favorite green eyeshadow? Or is green a color you haven’t found the courage to wear?

I hope you’re having a nice weekend! I’ll be working on the Katy Perry false eyelashes post tomorrow, so you can keep your eyes peeled for that 🙂

Sunny, your beauty culture translator xx

Swatch & Review: Cargo BeachBlush in Cable Beach (Makes Me Dream about a Vacation in Côte d’Azur)!

Hello everybody! Is Tuesday a little easier? It’s still freezing in Belgium, but I got to see a good friend for some last-minute sales-shopping and dinner today, so all is well here!

Today I’m showing you the last of the three products I got in my Beautybay order (the other two are reviewed here and here), namely Cargo BeachBlush in Cable Beach. Cargo calls it “the perfect marriage of blush and bronzer.” Now, I simply can’t pass on something that sounds so attractive can I?

Cable Beach comes in a standard Cargo tin. I have reviewed Cargo blush packaging when I reviewed Rome, so I am not going to repeat myself here. Cable Beach looks a lot pinker on the Cargo website, but as you will be able to see in my swatch pictures, it is more of a peach/coral rather than a straight pink on me. All BeachBlushes contain four stripes of colors that are supposed to work together harmoniously to give your cheeks a healthy flush and sun-kissed glow.

In the swatch pictures, you can see the four shades swatched separately, all of them together, and all of them together sheered out.

The darkest stripe is a warm berry/plum. I know it looks very dark in the tin, but it has very weak pigmentation. I had to swipe my finger on this stripe numerous time and build it up like crazy for it to show up a little in swatch pictures. Luckily this is the only problematic stripe of the four, otherwise this whole blush would be a dud!

The second stripe is a lovely pinky peach with golden shimmer. The pigmentation is much more decent compared with the first one.

The third one is the best pigmented of all. It is a golden, rosy coral.

The fourth one is a slightly muted peachy tan color. It also has golden shimmer. The color pay-off isn’t as good as the previous two but it is decent.

All swiped together, this blush gives a bronzy peachy coral glow. It is true that it is the a marriage of blush and bronzer, because it gives the flush a blush can give as well as the glow/healthy sheen a bronzer can. As with my experience with Rome, Cargo blushes are not insanely pigmented from the first swipe. However, you can easily build them up. I actually think this is one of their fortes, especially if you don’t have an awful lot of experience with blushes. This shade is shimmery, but the shimmer is very fine and not over the top. Even with my skin at its palest moment (about now), this shade adds a healthy glow without the obvious “bronzed” look (check my FOTD here, or click on the Cable Beach tag for more to come). I can only assume how much better it will look when I am more tanned. It makes me dream about a vacation in Côte d’Azur!

Cargo BeachBlushes cost 28 dollars/19.80 euros on Beautybay. With the generous amount of 9 grams, it is a pretty good deal!

Bottom line: I like the idea of the “perfect marriage of blush and bronzer,” and Cable Beach lives up to this claim. Except for one stripe that is weak in pigmentation, the blush works well as a whole. I think it will look very good on girls with medium skin tone, particularly those who are warm-toned!

Tell me, have you tried Cargo BeachBlushes? Would you be tempted to? What makes you dream about summer?

Sunny xx

FOTD: A Darker Shade of Green with Wet n’ Wild Comfort Zone & My Two Cents on Monolid Eyeliner

Hey everybody, happy Friday! Aren’t you glad you made it this far? What are your plans for the weekend?

Last night I was invited to the welcome event of the city I live in, and I thought I’d play a bit more with my Wet n’ Wild Comfort Zone palette (swatched here). It turned out to be a bit more intense than what I would usually wear, but since the event was at night I thought I could get away with it. Anyways, without further ado:

List of products and breakdown:
Bourjois Healthy Mix Foundation in 53 Light Beige
Tarte Smooth Operator finishing powder
Bobbi Brown Sable on eyebrows

I applied the crease shade of the right column in the outer half of my eyes, dragging the color in. I used the eyelid color for the inner half of my lids, blending the color in with the crease shade. I highlighted the inner corners with the browbone shade, and my brow bones with Bobbi Brown Bone.

I lined my upper and lower lash line (rather thickly) with Maybelline Eye Studio Lasting Gel Eyeliner in Blackest Black. I smudged the upper lash line with Creep and lower lash line with Darkhorse from the Naked Palette.

Maybelline Magnum Volum’ Express Black (waterproof)
Cargo Beachblush in Cable Beach on my cheeks (swatch and review coming soon).
Estee Lauder Bronze Goddess bronzer
Top of my cheekbones and the bridge of my nose were highlighted with Bobbi Brown Shimmer Brick in Bronze (swatch and review coming soon)

Bobbi Brown Nougat on lips

Here are the closeup pictures of my eye:

The look turned out to be more intense because proportionally there was more crease shade than what I would normally use. The olive green eyelid shade was really intensified by the darker crease shade! I do have to warn you while the crease shade is very unique, for bigger areas it is not the easiest to work with. It is a bit patchy, and I had to take my time making it smooth. Also, excuse the fallout from Creep. I tried to smudge my upper lash line out with the tiny little eyeliner brush that came with my Maybelline gel liner, and I don’t think it is designed for powder products.

Here are some more pictures so you get a better look of my face. Do excuse the big post-acne pigmentation spot on my cheek though. I learnt a lesson of not picking at my face before going to bed at 1AM, regardless of how good the idea seems at the time!

Because I have monolids myself, I’ve been thinking what kind of advice I would give to other monolidded girls who are just getting into makeup. Besides using a gel liner, I think beginners will benefit from smudging their eyeliner out with an eyeshadow. That way it will still look good even if you can’t get a crisp line! I would say that those with monolids can get away with more black/dark colors in our eye makeup. If you don’t want to look too dramatic or dark (especially during daytime for example), just remember to limit dark colors to the part of your lids that is not visible when your eyes are open. If you feel like going all out, you can of course do so!

That’s it for today! If you also have monolids, what are your tips for eye makeup?

If you like the look, don’t forget to follow me with Bloglovin’ or Twitter! I’m just getting into Twitter and it’s lots of fun, so come join me!

Sunny xx

Psst for those who live in Belgium, I found Comfort Zone on this website if you’re interested in purchasing one! Other than that it’s pretty tricky to get anything Wet n’ Wild here!

Swatch & Review: Cargo Blush in Rome

Have you ever been to Rome? I haven’t. After living in Europe for more than 3 years, I am a bit ashamed to say I haven’t visited Italy! In my imagination however, Rome is where Princess Ann meets Joe Bradley (put your hands in the air if you find Gregory Peck irresistible), Russel Crowe takes revenge on the evil emperor in the grand Colosseum, and Julia Roberts dosing her plate of spaghetti with a generous amount of Parmesan… Oooo Rome!

OK, I’m here to tell you about my Cargo blush named Rome instead of traveling. Cargo blush in Rome is one of the three things I got in my Beautybay order. I have heard good things about Cargo blushes, and since I wanted to try a coral blush, Rome found its way into my shopping cart. I have to admit up front that I am not the biggest fan of their packaging. The box it comes in looks a bit cheap for some reason (I guess I just prefer the classy and minimalist black-and-white boxes from MAC and Bobbi Brown), and out of the two blushes I ordered I do have a little problem opening one of the tins. Also, since the tins look all the same, unless you flip them over you wouldn’t know which one it is. I personally prefer the plastic see-through parts that a lot of blushes have, or Tarte’s compacts with different colors.

Now that we’ve got the only pitfall out of the way however, I can start telling you good things about Rome!

Rome is described as a “soft tangerine” by the Cargo website, but it is nowhere as tame as the website would like you to believe (the color I see on my screen is extremely muted compared with the real thing)! In pan Rome is a pretty bright coral. You can see a golden sheen and shimmer, but that only really comes out when you swatch it. Swatched on my NC30 warm-toned Asian skin, it is almost a peachy coral. It is undoubtedly warm-toned, and the golden shimmer adds even more warmness. When I swatched it on the back of my hand, I was a bit disappointed to be honest. I had expect it to be a bit more pigmented, but I had to build it up a little so that it would look the way it does in my swatch pictures.

As you can see, there is quite a bit of shimmer, but it is very fine. I have the impression that it looks more peachy in swatches than actually on my face. Texture-wise it is definitely the finest I have tried, very beautiful and not at all powdery. Compared with Tarte blushes which could be powdery in swatches (but not so when worn), Cargo is by far more finely-milled.

This is how it looks on me. In person it is a lot more visible, and a lot more coral than peach. I used my MAC 168, and it didn’t kick too much powder loose. It is not crazy pigmented, but it is very buildable, and I quickly reached the desired intensity. The shimmer is definitely not non-existent. Compared with Tarte Peaceful for example, whose shimmer is hardly noticeable on cheeks, Rome is definitely a shimmery one. However, the shimmer translates into a lovely glow-from-within without emphasizing my pores. I think this is a shade that will work even better when I am more tanned (though I’m in love with it already), and it will work very well with bronzers too. The greatest part? I wore it for 12 hours, and by the end of the day it was hanging onto my cheeks tenaciously! It didn’t even fade a single bit, which is something Tarte 12-Hour Amazonian Clay Blushes claim to do but fall short a little (I still love them. They are more pigmented than my Cargo ones, but by the end of the day they do tend to fade a little).

Cargo blushes cost 26 dollars (I think they very recently raised the price by one dollar), but it contains a whooping 8.9 grams. Compared with blushes in the same price range (NARS blushes cost 27 dollars and contain 4.54 grams, Tarte blushes cost 25 dollars and contain 5.67 grams), I consider this a steal! For my European/worldwide readers, the great news is that you can get Cargo products at a reasonable price from Beautybay.com. This is one of the rare sites that can do currency conversion right, instead of making consumers pay 25 euros for something that costs 25 dollars, so make sure you take a look!

Bottom line: I highly recommend Cargo blushes. If your skin tone is light-to-medium or darker, and you are warm-toned, definitely put this one on your wish list for spring and summer! It reminds me of sunny weather and makes me long for Rome!

How about you? Are you a coral fan? Have you tried Cargo? Are you also already dreaming about warmer weather?

Sunny xx