Haul: IMATS London 2012
It's a haul, and I wonder if Renate, Marie and Lene Christin will be happy now? Today was spent at Alexandra Palace and IMATS, and I had a wonderful and exciting time there. Not only did I do some damage to my bank account, but I saw a lot of fascinating creations makeup-wise. I was a little disappointed that I didn't spot any YouTube gurus apart from Koren and a girl I don't remember the name of, but maybe tomorrow. There was a lot of buzz everywhere, and it ended up being quite exhausting.
Hunting for Treasure
My first target was the Inglot booth, of course. I was so afraid of finding a totally packed booth without any room at all for me, I actually made a backup plan of going to Westfield London to get my Inglot fix there instead. Addict much? But even if it was indeed packed with people I managed to get my hands on all the 30 eyeshadows I had on my list, plus three of the new rainbow eyeshadows (making a total of 33 eyeshadows and four of the Freedom System palettes). An enormous thank you to Øyvind who turned over just about every single eyeshadow there to find the ones on my list. After finding most of them.. the nice lady at the register told me that I could just give her the list, and she'd put them directly into a bag for me. Well, at least it was fun looking through them all! I won't go into details about the colors I chose now, but I promise to post pictures of my new palettes next weekend. She didn't put them into the palettes, so I have to organize them myself. Hurrah! Organizing a palette is half the fun.
The next booth on my list was BeautySoClean, a brand I hadn't heard about until recently, to pick up some of their cosmetic sanitizer mist. I don't know about you, but I've missed having a way of cleaning my eyeshadows ever since I started collection them, and spraying them with regular alcohol can often make them rock hard. I don't wanna risk destroying my precious eyeshadows, so I thought I'd give this a chance. I also purchased a box of cosmetic sanitizer wipes (for lipsticks and the likes of it), and two travel size mists.
I've been eyeing the brush set from Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics (still loving the name!), but I never felt like I could afford them. Well, today I decided to splurge and got the complete set. Cruelty-free! The woman at the booth was really nice, and I think it was my most pleasant experience of the day. So much that I had to ask if I could take a picture with her, and with David - the founder of OCC! He said he really liked my tattoos, and we like compliments, don't we? It certainly made my day! I would have picked up some of their lip tars, but I felt like I had already spent enough money.. so I decided to leave them for now.
After visiting the boots listed above I didn't have much more on my list. I had a few brands on there I wanted to visit if it wasn't too crowded, but somehow I stumbled upon ProChart - offering face charts! I've wanted face charts for a long time, so I picked up a stack of the A4 ones and also a stack of their eye charts, so I can play with composing looks on paper. Fun! They also have me two marshmallows on a stick, covered in chocolate with pink "sprinkles", as a gift. Such a cute little treat! What can I say, I'm easy to please.
I have a lot of pictures to share with you as well, but I'm not sure if I'll have the time to edit and upload them while in London. If I don't, I'll have them up when we get back! Now it's snowing like crazy outside, so I'm quite anxious to look out the window tomorrow. We're used to this kind of weather, coming from Norway and all, but people here seem worried. My camera's recharging, I've removed my makeup - I guess it's time to crawl into bed again, so I'm ready for another day of IMATS tomorrow. Oh, and if I seem displeased.. let me assure you I'm not. I'm loving London so far, and I had an awesome time today, I'm just completely worn out!
Photos © Shamini Thevarajah '12
I’m in England!
I'm actually on my way to bed now, a hotel bed in Finchley just north of London. Imagine that! I'm here with Øyvind, eagerly awaiting the morning when IMATS officially starts for us common people. I figured I'd blog a tiny little bit about our trip so far, as I'm usually doing an awesome job of forgetting all about blogging while away - but fear not, I'll do a more thorough post when I have the time. First of all, the hotel is really nice. Our room is big enough for me and my wheelchair, the bathroom is easy to access and quite large, and most things are within reach. Even the peephole! I'm amazed. The hotel restaurant is an authentic greek restaurant, and right outside our door we found a McDonalds, a Pizza Hut, and three other restaurants serving italian, mexican and french food. Could you ask for more?
We decided to venture out for a bit, and went to Brent Cross. Shopper's heaven? I didn't splurge too much, as I purchased the two new Dior Vernis in "504 Waterlily" and "694 Forget-Me-Not" at John Lewis - before I ventured on to Boots where I picked up two Rimmel Glam'Eyes HD palettes in "001 Black Cab" and "008 True Union Jack" (mostly because of the design), two L'Oreal Infallible in "016 Coconut Shake" and "021 Sahara Treasure", and a limited edition Philosophy Hope in a Jar moisturizer (15 ml as opposed to the regular 60 ml, perfect for testing purposes). Oh, and a rewards card! I have no idea what I'll use it for, as we don't have any Boots close by.. but I do love these neat plastic cards, you know.
Now I'm going to sleep and dream about tomorrow, when I'm going to IMATS to indulge in all kinds of makeup goodness. If you don't hear from me again I probably died from happiness (and superficialness) somewhere between the boots at Alexandra Palace.. Oh well, this is me signing out from Finchley. Good night!
Make Up Store Trondheim
I've done a few posts about Make Up Store in the past, and if you take a closer look at these comments you'll understand from our discussion why I've been pretty frustrated with them. I used to love going there just to get lost in my own little Rainbow Heaven, but then they moved and a flight of stairs was suddenly preventing me (and others like me) from entering their store. It made me "boycott" the brand, as I feel like one should be able to expect accessibility in 2010, but now I have officially lifted my "boycott" and I really want to praise Make Up Store for the way they've handled my feeback. I've been communicating with them on Facebook, and our store has now requested a ramp for their entrance. Sadly such a ramp is quite expensive and it has to be approved by the main office, but at least Make Up Store Trondheim has shown understanding and initiative - and I'm thankful for that, it means a lot to me!
About three years ago Øyvind gave me a gift card from Make Up Store for a 50 minute makeup lesson and my choice of products worth 495,- NOK for Christmas. It was the perfect gift, but for several reasons I was always prevented from using it while they were still situated at Trondheim Torg, and when they moved to their new location I figured I'd missed my opportunity. Since I was unable to let it go, I asked them via Facebook if I could still trade my gift card for the products at least as I thought I would be unable to have the lesson done (because of the stairs and everything). She who replied was really nice, and told me to stop by during January to have my gift card redeemed.
The Inevitable Haul
So last Friday I decided to go to Make Up Store, bringing my own car ramp to be able to enter the store. Since I didn't know whether or not it would work, I had asked if Øyvind could pick up a few items for me, just in case. As it turned out there's was no need for a personal shopper, my ramp got me safely into the store. I wandered around for a while, eyeing all their colorful makeup, before I let myself be drawn to the pencils. You might remember that I purchased three pencils at KICKS back in November? Well, I liked them so much that wanted to see if they had more of the Soft Metallics. I found one I didn't see at KICKS named "Wooden Metal", and had a really hard time putting it down. As I was the only customer there at the time, I also had the pleasure of having the wonderful M. to myself, so I started asking her for advice on which colors would look good with my dark brown eyes. She told me that I could use both warm and cool tones, it's the second time this week I've learned that, and pulled out a selection of blues, purples and browns, among them a mesmerizing dark blue and a gorgeous purple. Since I'm supposed to be saving money for our upcoming trip to London, I couldn't go as insane as I would have wanted, so I ended up deciding on "Deep Blue Sea" and "Wooden Metal", in addition to their Blending Eyeliner Brush 217. I was kinda amazed by this brush! It looks like a regular pencil brush (most brands have one), but it had a firmness I've been missing with the pencil brushes I already own. It's synthetic as well, and will be absolutely perfect for smudging any liner, above or below the lash line.
As it turns out I'm getting my makeup lesson after all, and I'm looking forward to it come March. A great big thanks to M., for making my Friday pretty much perfect! And for doing a pretty good job in restoring my faith in humanity.
Photos © Shamini Thevarajah '12
Haul: Nordstrom, Sephora and NARS
When I was bored I used to shop to console myself. Then I started shopping when I was feeling down to make myself feel better. Now I'm not sure why I shop anymore, but I really enjoy waiting for Mr. Postman or Mr. DHL, for unraveling what's hiding inside bubble wrap and cardboard, and to behold the beauties unveiled. Yep, I'm a classic shopaholic. Although it might sound quite materialistic.. my stuff really makes me happy, and I need this kind of happiness in my life as long as my body keeps pulling all kinds of nasty tricks on me.
Now it's time to share another haul, a collective one, which Mr. DHL brought me in mid-October. If you don't care much for haul posts or the likes of it, you might as well stop your reading here. As I've done earlier I've decided to break this haul into two parts, where this post is the first one out. Please note that this is indeed a collective haul, which means that everything has been purchased over a certain period of time - in this case, about four months.
Dazzlesphere! Dazzlesphere!
I happened to go to M·A·C a week before Christmas, and look what just happened to follow me home: two of the three Dazzlesphere! Ornaments from the holiday collection, namely Smoky Blue and Smoky Plum. And here I was, swearing that I wasn't going to pick up any of them as I didn't like the swatches I'd seen on other blogs. Everywhere I see people calling them cute, speaking fondly of the "fantastic" packaging, but frankly.. I'm afraid I fail at recognizing the awesomeness in a semi-large plastic sphere? Am I missing something? Can it actually be used for something? My guess is it'll sit on a vanity or desk, collecting dust.
These sets are the same Crushed Metallic Pigments as the ones released with M·A·C Spring Colour Forecast and Surf Baby!, which is a set of four corresponding pigments in one stack. As I was standing there, speaking with one of the makeup artists, I swatched a few of the colors in the purple stack on my hand. Just for the fun of it. And I liked them quite a lot. I have to be honest about Light Violet in the purple stack being quite useless, and I kinda have the urge to throw it out because of its lousy quality. It's impossible to swatch, impossible to work with, impossible to stick to the skin, just.. impossible. I do on the other hand like the rest of the colors, and I'm wondering if I should have picked up the third sphere Smoky Berry as well, just because of the dark strawberry color called "Spicy Smoke". It's such a beautiful color! As I recently saw someone else saying: one should have been able to mix and match these stacks oneself. Unfortunately they are quite pricey in Norway, so I won't be getting the third ornament unless I'm able to get it from the US at retail price before it's gone. If you poke around the internet you'll find a lot of different opinions on which of these kits are the best of the bunch, but I'll have to say that my personal favorite must be Smoky Blue. For some odd reason it actually reminds me of a wintery fairytale, giving me a fuzzy feeling.
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| Dazzlesphere! Smoky Blue Ornament | Dazzlesphere! Smoky Plum Ornament |
Sadly I'm not half as intrigued by the collections M·A·C keep pushing out as I used to be, so most things just pass me by unnoticed. I've stopped keeping track of release dates. I already own a lot of stuff from M·A·C (from older collections), but I don't have the urge to own every single piece released anymore. I guess the magic has gone, and I honestly feel a little sad about it. I don't understand what the people behind M·A·C are thinking, but the constant price increase, the insanely expensive "special" collections, the downsizing of actual product, the diminishing quality - what is going on when not even repromotes have the same color payoff and quality as the original product anymore? - is not making me wanna buy more, it's making me stray away from the brand that used to be my very favorite, feeling nothing but cheated and ripped off. It's been a nice few years, M·A·C. I hope we can rekindle our passionate relationship some other time.
Photos: M·A·C Cosmetics
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Uncurable shopaholic and makeup addict with an unhealthy love for everything colorful. Medium dark brunette with dark brown eyes. Also known as KinoGodt or Psychedelic Wheels.
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