EOTD: Trish Blue...

This EOTD is dedicated to a very special friend, a beautiful lady who I know is very dear to the hearts of a number of my followers. She's having a birthday very soon and combining it with an overseas holiday, but it means she'll be away from us all, and this is my way of keeping a little bit of her around while she's gone. Selfish I know, but hey, I don't care, she's such a wonderfully warm human being, and I need a little something to keep me going till she's back!

The quad I used is by Revlon and it's called Serene, so I was actually going to call this look Serene Blue, but Serene and Trish are synonymous, and I know she likes blue too :-) Seriously folks, this lady is a gem, and has such a calming influence on those around her, and personally I'd be lost without her loving care and concern, and innate sensibility ♥

Interestingly we've never met, but it makes no difference with certain folks - there's a closeness that makes face-to-face contact irrelevant, and I feel like we've known each other for yonks. Anyways, I'd better stop now before this all gets so ridiculously cheesy, everyone will stop reading lol...

So my darling Trish this is for you, with loads of happy wishes for your special day - keep well and safe my love, have a wonderful trip, and come back to us very soon...

Take care of you,

kats xxx

P.S. I used Mirenesse Inside Out Kohl liner in Isis on my waterline :-)

EOTD: Lavender and Aquamarine...

Here's a cheery splash of color to get over the midweek hump. Some hues just seem to resonate together, and lavender and aquamarine are one such pally pair.

My base was MNY Tattoo in Painted Purple. I haven't used this in a while because I find it quite sheer, but for this particular pastelly purple it was perfect (gosh so many 'p's lol).

Over that on the inner half went a sparkly lavender from the BYS Diamond Shadow Miami Beats palette. There are quite a number of pretty softer shades in this pack, I really should pull it out more often than I do. This range is so cheap and readily available at K-Mart and Gloss - the pigmentation potency isn't always prevalent across all pans (oops more 'p's), but on the whole I find them great value.

On the outer half is one of my true loves, and a regular on my blog - essence Metal Glam in Jewel Up The Ocean. I swear it's so buttery you could spread it on toast! Well maybe not lol...

Love how the join between the two colors came out turquoise :-) I blended both shades over the MNY liner along the lower lashline (left and right accordingly), and the final touch was a faint smear of NYX Eye/Brow Pencil in Seafoam Green on the waterline...

Have you ever had a lavender/aqua moment?

Take care of you,

kats xxx

SPOTLIGHT: Beauty Face...

Just for a giggle, I thought I'd share with you a setting on my new phone camera that I can assure you I will NEVER use for my blog pics - it's called "Beauty Face". From what I can gather, the purpose of it is to remove all the flaws from your face - wrinkles, blemishes, saggy skin, freckles, shadows, enlarged pores, you name it, the camera erases them when you take the actual photo.

I think it's ridiculous - makes my skin look all waxy, like that of a shop dummy...

And apart from being all fuzzy, this silly setting seems to have shrunk my lips and blurred the outline that I so carefully create each morning...

For comparison, here's two similar looks taken with my other camera, the one I use for all my EOTD & LOTD photos...

Yeah well I admit I could certainly do without the crinkly bits around my eyes, but seriously gals, this is me, and in my opinion, my lips look better than when given the "beauty" treatment above - whaddya reckon?

There may be a place for this in the beauty world, I'm just not sure where!

Take care of you,
kats xxx

Liebster Award...

Well aren't I a lucky little blogger! The beautiful Basmah from Lacee and Lattes has nominated for a Liebster Award :-) This award is bestowed upon bloggers who have a limited number of followers to help increase awareness of their site, and provide an opportunity to get to know the nominated blogger a little better ♥

Basmah's blog is all about beauty - she writes first class reviews, and always includes magnificently clear photos, plus brilliant swatches. Just recently she put together an amazing post about how to choose the right foundation - I highly recommend you check it out...

Well my dear Basmah, I'm so honoured that you included me in your list of nominees - thank you SO much hon!

Just for the record, here are the Liebster Award "rules":

1. You must link back to the person who nominated you
2. You must answer the 11 questions given to you by the nominee before you
3. You must pick 11 nominees with under 200 (or 2000 if you want to go with that) followers to answer your questions
4. You cannot nominate the person who nominated you
5. You must let the people you nominate know they have been nominated

And here are the (unbelievably difficult!) questions Basmah has asked of me....

1. What is your favourite thing about yourself?

I'm a naturally positive and cheerful sort of gal...

2. If you were going on holiday for 3 months, and could only take one makeup item with you, what would it be?
Oh boy, I can't even bear to think about it - one makeup item?  Ok I'll go with a cream blush, and then I could use it as a lippy too...

3. If you had 3 wishes, what would you wish for?

No disease, hunger or cruelty in the world...

4. Who is your celebrity crush?

Well it used to be Brad Pitt, but he's been looking a bit scruffy of late...

5. What is your guilty pleasure?

Well now this question sounds like it's suggesting I have ONE guilty pleasure, but I have so many...sigh... I'll go with Cadbury Dairy Milk...

6. What was the first makeup product you ever owned?

Gee this is a toughie, mainly because I have to cast my mind back over 40 years lol!  I reckon it was either a Yardley Pot o'Gloss for my lips, or a Coty Smudge Pot (cream eye shadow)...

7. What is your favourite food?

Prawns & passionfruit pavlova (not on the same plate)...

8. If you could have any superpower, what would it be?

Is not needing sleep a superpower? Well that would be it - I have way too much to get through in a regular 16 hour waking day...

9. If you had a million dollars, how would you spend it?

Pay off any debts and travel the world...

10. What are your pet peeves?

People who break seals on makeup stock instead of using the testers, train travelers who put their feet on seats as if they're in their lounge rooms, opening a packet of biscuits and finding half of them broken, drivers who take up more than one space in a full car park, staff who wander off leaving their mobiles to ring incessantly on their desks (invariably with an annoying ringtone), stepping in a hole and ruining ONE shoe heel, people who don't wash their hands after using the bathroom, opening a DVD rental case and finding nothing inside, falling in love with an item of clothing and they don't have my size, clothing manufacturers who make their seams a micro-millimetre wide...gee I could go on FOREVER...

11. If you could only choose one, would you choose lipstick or mascara?

Oooh definitely lipstick - I can survive without mascara if I use eyeliner or eye shadow, but my lips are freckled and damaged by a lifetime of cold sores, and they look ghastly when bare...

Crikey, my brain hurts after answering that lot ha ha...

So now it's my turn to nominate some of my favourite bloggers that I'd personally like to spread the word about, but before I do, ladies please don't feel obliged to participate - it takes quite a bit of doing to put a page like this together, and no doubt your time is precious. But regardless of whether you continue on, without a doubt you all deserve this little bit of recognition ♥

Here are my nominees:
Kawaii Beauty Corner
Breathe Beauty
Eyes for Makeup
Australian Beauty Review
Moonlightsak's Treasures
The Makeup Bubble
Mels Make-Up Emporium
Ina Beauty World
Hissycat Krissy
Rose's Stuff
Wrapt in Beauty

And here are my questions for the above gorgeous gals:
1. If you could step into anyone else's shoes, whose would they be?
2. What items do you have in your makeup bag at the moment?
3. Are you a leader or a follower?
4. Before you started blogging, what did you do in  your spare time?
5. What's your most recent beauty product discovery?
6. If you were responsible for choosing the Pantone Colour of the Year, what colour would it be?
7. What's your dream job?
8. What creature/bird/insect represents you best?
9. Out of all the movies you've ever seen, which is your favourite and why?
10. Do you follow fashion trends, or do you stick with your own style?
11. What's one thing in your life that you wouldn't change for all the tea in China?

Take care of you,
kats xxx

EOTD: Pink & Purple...

Well this is definitely pink and purple, but on closer inspection, the pink part might just well be my best shot so far at Radiant Orchid!  It's almost a match, just needs a tinge more blue, but I'm getting there lol...

This was an interesting experiment. Decided to use a Nabi Lipliner (!) pencil  in the shade Dark Fuchsia as my base. Fabulous hue, deliriously pigmented, and I love these crayons as they leave a hearty stain on the lips, BUT, this little fella also left a decidedly pink stain on my eyelids - gaaahhhh! I always use Neutrogena Eye Make Remover because it's so gentle, doesn't sting, and it's the only one that takes absolutely everything off, well...almost... The remnants of this crayon refused to budge, and I went to bed looking like a poor little bunny with myxomatosis. After the morning cleanse and shower, my lids were back to normal, but be warned :-)

On the inner corner went Jordana 06 Pink Color Effects Bright Eyeshadow (I call it Barbie Pink lol), the middle is Highness from the SleekV2 Matte palette, and the outer corner scored Ink from the same palette. Underneath I blended Villan (I'm sure they meant to spell it Villain) also from SleekV2. This is such a brilliant offering from Sleek - the pigments aren't the slightest bit powdery, there's barely any fallout, includes a beaut assortment of shades, they don't crease, and the pigment is intense...

To finish off, I lined the waterline with my precious NYX Wonder Pencil ♥ I'm so much more comfortable with this natural shade than white, although I won't ever stop using my essence kajal - some colours just show off far better with a white waterline, but I wanted to keep this area a little more low key because of the vividness of the pink..

In hindsight, I probably should have done a green and gold or red, white and blue look to kick off the Australia Day long weekend, but hey, it's only Friday - I'll see what I can come up with that's a bit more patriotic :-)

Take care of you,

kats xxx

EOTD: Red & Gold...

You may have gathered by now that I don't give up easily :-) This "persistent" characteristic of my nature prevails in most areas of my life, but perhaps even more so in the makeup section (which is a biggie by the way lol). Basically, if someone tells me "you shouldn't wear xyz", it's like waving a red flag in front of a bull, and makes me even more determined to wear "xyz", and that's how I feel about red eyeshadow. Why do I bother? I love it! No better excuse (or motivation) than that really...

So I've played around with burgundys and plums, deep pinks and berries, but bright fire engine red was the one that presented the biggest challenge, and required the most daring, if you know what I mean (I breached the red lip barrier back in September). So I set about figuring out how to make it work. I knew I couldn't get away with red all by itself (not that I'd want to anyway), so I looked to the rainbow for some inspiration, and there was the answer - pair it with yellow (or gold)!

Of course this look may not appeal to another living soul, and it doesn't necessarily do my tealy eyes any favours in the colour-enhancing department, but I definitely think there's a place for it in my repertoire, and I'll continue to play with it for as long as I can, age-wise...

WARNING - do not attempt this after a late night,

or if your eyes are even remotely bloodshot...

For a base I used one of the spoils from my Blogstar prize, the fabulous Maybelline Color Tattoo in Bold Gold. Deliriously happy to have received this shade because I have quite a number already, but not this particular colour. And oh my, it's a stunner - so creamy and rich, and provides a deliciously dense coverage. I have a gold Mirenesse Face Colour Gel in my kit, but it doesn't hold a candle to this tattoo (it's very sheer)...

On the inner half I applied a glistening gold from the bhcosmetics Take Me To Brazil palette - most of the shadows in this box are mattes, but the bottom row is all buttery shimmers (I used the 3rd one from the left). On the outer half, I mixed together two of the reds from the same palette - one kind of orangey, and the other a bit more cherry. Much to my delight when I blended the mid-point, the two colours merged into a soft and very flattering orange :-)

On the lower lashline, I applied my usual MNY Master Precise Liquid Liner, and then went over it with a damp brush dipped in Urban Decay Honey, and pushed a wee bit of UD zero into the crease. Finally I lined the waterline with my new fave crayon, the NYX Wonder Pencil...

So what do you think gals - would you be prepared to give red eye shadow a chance?

Take care of you,

kats xxx

EOTD: Multicolour!

I was wearing the old faithful black and white yesterday, a favourite for Mondays as I'm half in mourning for the end of the weekend, and half excited about the week ahead :-) So I dug out my bhcosmetics 120 palette, and seconds later, found myself wondering how on earth I could have forgotten how much I LOVE multi-coloured eye looks? I couldn't for the life of me remember the last time I did one, so promptly set about to rectify that glaring oversight...

I've had this double layer palette for over 12 months and there are pans I haven't even swatched yet - can't believe I've been so neglectful, so you'll be seeing this big black box featured a lot more often in the months ahead. Sigh...so many colors and only two eyes...

I started with a white base, then added a vivid shimmery aquamarine, moved on with a bold pink, and called it a wrap with a bright blue on the outer corner. Something I love about putting contrasting colors side by side is that a when I blend the join, I often end up with yet another color entirely - in this particular instance you can see that the mix of aqua and pink created a delicate lilac. Now that was a bonus I wasn't expecting - just goes to show that colour truly is alive hey?

As I often do, I applied the hue I wanted to emphasise (aquamarine) underneath the lower lashes to soften the black liner... 

Oh boy, this has gotten me all excited again, so it'll probably be triple hues for me for the rest of the week ha ha!

Take care of you, 

kats xxx

REVIEW: NYX Wonder Pencil

Hip hip hooray! At last a crayon that I can use on my waterline that is well and truly the colour of my skin:-) Crikey, I'm so in love with this brilliant little NYX product, and it's a bargain at $8.95.

This pencil is one of the first things I bought when NYX arrived at Target in Australia, and I reckon it has cornered the market in versatility with three functions:

1) It's a concealer. Comes in light, medium & deep, so there's bound to be one that will blend with your complexion. The consistency is thick so it provides excellent coverage, but being super creamy and soft it's easily blendable, and it doesn't drag on your skin. And the fact that it's a sharpen-able pencil means it's perfect for small troublesome areas because you can apply it so precisely. I'm using the light shade to disguise my under eye bags, which are huge and decidedly nasty. I apply it along the line where the bag casts a shadow, and I'm amazed at how it makes them far less noticeable. This is a technique I learnt from guru Wayne Goss, but I've never been able to get it to work successfully, until now. No pic at this stage because I'm not that brave yet, and besides I don't want to frighten anyone lol...

Bare arm swatch in natural light alongside essence white kajal (for comparison)

2) It's a reverse lip liner. This is not something I've experimented with as yet, but I understand the principal of how it works, and will play around with it for my next LOTD, so stay tuned...

3) It's a waterline brightener. Hallelujah! I've been searching for a liner that is close to my skin colour for many many years. I've tried white (essence kajal), pale pink (Benefit EyeBright) and a yellowy toned one (Inglot #44), but this is the most natural looking shade I've ever come across. At my age, white can be too much of a contrast and consequently look quite stark, but this is perfect!

Here's a couple of pics so you can compare the difference between my bare (and blotchy pink) waterline, and the difference this pencil makes...

This crayon doesn't irritate my eyes ONE BIT, in fact it's quite soothing, glides on evenly and easily, and...wait for it...lasts ALL DAY.  No wonder they call it a Wonder Pencil!

In my opinion, the Wonder Pencil is the 8th Wonder of the World, and I wonder how I ever managed without it. My beautyheaven review of it is here.

Have you tried the NYX Wonder Pencil yet? 

Take care of you,

kats xxx

EOTD: Blue on Blue...

Ahhh, just when I think I'm stuck like glue to aquamarine, I fall in love with blue all over again! Of course not just any blue will do, it has to be a fabulously pigmented one (or two), and it's time to pair up my two favourite ones :-)

The lighter shade is essence colour & shine blue moon, a baked shadow I've had for several years, and haven't stopped loving for one minute in that time. It has tiny little sparkles and a wee bit of silver mixed through it - over the top of essence white kajal, it blends so well, and never fails to impress me.

On the outer half & underneath is L'Oreal Infallible All Night Blue, probably the most majestic in my kit - a deep bold sparkly blue intermingled with black. I can't rave about it enough - sigh...if only ALL eye shadows were made like this...

For more info on this range, I highly recommend you check out Gemma Sapphire's latest post on these brilliant shadows - she's included some tantalising swatches too, bless her ♥...

And on the waterline, my latest discovery - NYX Wonder Pencil! The most natural looking flesh-coloured (well on me anyway) crayon that disguises all my discolourations, and I swear, lasts all day. Gee I pray NYX brings out some colours using this same creamy formula - I'd buy every single one of them! I'll be featuring it on my blog very soon...

Do you love blue as much as I do?

Take care of you,

kats xxx

Blogstar Prize!

Woo hoo! Well after waiting for what seemed like FOREVER, my Australian Blogstar Awards 2013 prize arrived on Friday. It's been MIA since 23rd December due to courier trouble, but 5 months after winning the beautyheaven Aspiring Bloggers category, my loot is finally here, and what a stunning bunch of goodies it is - there are 59 products in this photo!

No, the plant wasn't part of the prize lol...

As you can imagine I'm going to be very busy over the next few months sorting through this dazzling array, and you can expect heaps of reviews to appear as I incorporate the majority of them into my daily regime. Some I'm already very familiar with (and love), while others are totally new to my shelves - either way, I'm over the moon! 

Of course I'm thrilled to the max with every single item, but I'd been hoping and praying there would be a hairdryer in the box - my current VS dryer is one of the prizes from the 2010 Glosscars, and while it is still going strong, I've dropped it so many times, it's currently held together with blue tack, so this newbie will be getting a workout ASAP (and joy of joys, it's also RED!) :-)

I'll be going into the details of the prize pack in future posts, but I just had to mention the Revlon Colorstay Whipped Creme Makeup, which came in the shade 320 Warm Golden. This is the exact shade I wear, and I know that beautyheaven knows this, so I know it's no co-incidence that this particular colour was in my prize box - how about that? Those ladies at beautyheaven are unbelievably thoughtful, so I'm sending an extra big thank you to the team for taking the trouble to match me ♥.

And of course, I wouldn't be experiencing this fabulous prize if it wasn't for the bevvy of beauties who voted for me last July - a gazillion thankyous again gals, I'm still so overwhelmed by your support, which is so precious to me :-)

What's the best beauty prize you've ever won? Will you be entering the beautyheaven Blogstar comp this year?

Take care of you,

kats xxx

EOTD: Radiant Orchid 2...

Wasn't happy with my first attempt at "creating" the Pantone Colour of the Year for 2014 (Radiant Orchid) from the shadows in my kit, but this one is far closer to what I was trying to achieve. Still not vibrant enough to do justice to this fabulous shade, but I'll keep at it until I'm satisfied :-)

For comparison, here is my original attempt - not pink enough!

This colour is really more pink than purple, so I started with a dark red base - MNY Colour Tattoo in Pomegranate Punk. This worked far better than using a violet or purple as both have too much blue in them. Over this I blended UD Fishnet, essence hyped up & Sugarpill Dollipop. I smoked the outside and underneath with Sleek Villain from the V2 Matte palette. 

On the waterline is Mirenesse Superlong Wear Gel Mineral Face Colour in Purple Tart. In hindsight, white probably would have worked better here, although I was aiming for something smouldery...

Of course the more red that a shadow has in it, the more dangerous it gets for my old eyes - have to make sure I have an early night if I'm planning to wear this shade the next day :-)

Attempt #3 will be sometime in the next fortnight - a darling friend suggested a particular L'Oreal shadow (which I've managed to get hold of), and I'm determined to get this right!

Have you found an eye shadow that is a true match for Radiant Orchid? If so PLEASE let me know it's name and who makes it ♥

Take care of you,
kats xxx