After months of resistance convincing myself that I didn’t need it, I caved and bought the Anastasia Beverly Hills Modern Renaissance palette with the sale at Ulta. I have used it for a bit now and though I am blown away by the quality of it, I decided to go through my Makeup Geek eyeshadow collection (read more here) because I had a feeling I already owned similar shades. So here is my review of the palette and some Makeup Geek Modern Renaissance dupes.
I’m not one to wear a lot of red lipstick, EXCEPT in December. Holiday season is THE season for red lips in my opinion. In this video I show you my Top 5 Red Lipsticks for the holidays with live swatches and mini reviews for each one.
The holidays are upon us (yes, I like to use this phrase a lot) and red lips are a must for this season. One of the trends that has taken the internet by storm is glitter lips, introduced by Pat McGrath on the Versace runway some months ago. She even released her glitter lip kits, but you don’t have to spend $60 to achieve the look. In this tutorial I show you three ways to create red glitter lips using makeup products that are affordable and already part of your collection.
Black Friday is from tradition the day after the American holiday Thanksgiving and the kickstart of Christmas shopping. Therefore most American shops offer on Black Friday (25.11, day after Thanksgiving) and Cyber Monday (28.11, Monday after Thanksgiving) great deals and discounts. In this globalized world, these days have been adopted by European brands as well to push consumers to start holiday shopping.
For the second year now, I will try to bring you discounts and codes valid for this occasion in the most used beauty-related webshops. For my European readers, I will signal the American website for which you might be charged customs costs. I would personally not suggest you make big purchases (above ~24$) unless you’re prepared to pay around 40% of your purchase extra.
Welcome back to another episode of The Color Analysis Wars! Tan tan tan (dramatic sound effects). In this series I have collaborated with my friend Fran from Being Cute is Not a Crime to compare how lipsticks look like on the two of us. To know more, read the first episode with the introduction here. Just to remind you, Fran has been analyzed as Deep Winter and I am a Deep Autumn, thanks to Giusy from Rossetto e Merletto. .Moving on to this post, we’re taking a look at nude lipsticks that suits us deep seasons. The main characteristics of these lipsticks is that they do not contain any white or grey, two colors that “kill” deep autumns and winters.
I believe your hands are a huge part of the first impression you make on someone. Therefore I find taking good care of them and of my nails and important part of my daily beauty chores. In this post I want to share with you the nail care routine that has worked great for me in the past months.
Those brows though! They have been a huge trend for the past few years and Anastasia Beverly Hills has been the indiscussed queen of eyebrows, taking up a huge part of the market and being one of the first to launch innovative products. Among these, the Anastasia Beverly Hills Dipbrow Pomade was incredibly hyped and I was one of those convinced to buy it by all the YouTube and blog reviews. After absolutely loving and using the DipBrow for two years, I finally found something that looked the same and cost way less: the NYX Tame&Frame Tinted Brow Pomade. Today I want to compare these two brow pomades, show you swatches and application, to determine if NYX has actually made a dupe for the Anastasia Dipbrow pomade.
While I was re-organizing my makeup a few weeks ago I came across a box full of loose pigments that have been abandoned there for months if not years and the reason is simple laziness on my part. Because pigments are messy, they take more time and effort to apply than regular eyeshadows and I just cannot bring myself to use them. So when I had a sudden instinct to buy more eyeshadows the other day, I remembered of my pigments instead and decided to make myself new eyeshadows by pressing the pigments in pans and adding them to my Z-Palettes. The process is quite simple and with a bit of online research and key props anyone can press their pigments to eyeshadow pans in no time. Let me guide you through it.
Getting to know the italian beauty blogger community better thanks to Fran of Being Cute is not a Crime brought new wishes from brands that are only available in Italy (or have ridiculous shipping costs to NL). Luckily for me, I travel to Italy to visit my family at least once a year, and that time has now come thanks to the Christmas holidays! I wrote this whole blog post just before Black Friday and the launch of new collections right after that, so a few of these bits are already on their way to me or already arrived..oops!
Starting from one of my favorite makeup brands, my Nabla Cosmetics wishlist is always open and includes new launches and a few older products. Let’s start from the elefant in the room, the new Artika collection. I want it all, i want it all, I want it all, and I want it now! I placed an order for a few bits of it and can’t wait to play! The newly released cream shadows have received raving reviews from multiple sources, and of the six available colors, the yellow-base nude Underpainting and the cranberry red Supreme have caught my eye. From their eyeshadow refills I would like to grow my collection (we’re at 21 now) with Liliac Wonder and Extravirgin. Finally I’d like to try their Diva Crime lipsticks in the shades Balkis (a hazelnut color) and Domina (the most gorgeous dark red ever!).
Other makeup desires are from different brands. I have been into duochrome shadows of late (you can see my first attempt here), and the Neve Cosmetics Duochrome Palette called me incessantly. The shadows in the palette are gorgeous (courtesy of Fede Makeup & Beauty on Youtube) and the palette is decently priced for 10 huge pans. Neve Cosmetics is also knows for their incredible mineral makeup and the new ArtCircus collection features a gorgeous golden shimmer called Ticket that I’d really love to try. Great news is that in occasion of the release of their new brushes, Neve is having a 15% off sale valid until 22/12/15 and I have picked up these little bits with affordable shipping to The Netherlands as well. The next makeup wish is 100% enabled by the glorious reviews of many italian bloggers (here, here, here, and here). I am talking about the PuroBio Cipria Indissolubile, a mattifying powder that seems to resist even the hottest Italian summers.
Finally for makeup, I am definitely going to step into the Wycon Cosmetics shop in my hometown to check out their Longlasting Liquid Lipsticks which I have heard such great things about (here and here). The swatches by Sabina of 10 ways to wear makeup are absolutely stunning and make me want them all. I have already placed a small order for Mandorla, Mattone and Sangria since they were extremely popular when released and they ended up being sold out in just a few days. I can’t wait to pick them up at my parent’s house!
So here are my makeup wishes for my visit to Italy over the holidays. I will see whether I’ll actually pick up all of these goodies, but a few for sure!
Do you see anything you like?
xo
A
PS. Part 2 on my skincare wishlist is coming next week! Keep an eye for some natural skincare product recommendations!
More sales, more shopping enabling. This time of the year we’re all feeling spendy, with Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals, the holidays closing in and presents stress building up. I am here to help you guys save some money while you’re spending it..does it make sense?
We are all attracted to what we cannot have. American brands of makeup have a certain allure to them and the raving reviews of beauty bloggers on the web always make our wishlists longer and longer. The only way to get these products here in the old continent is to rely to local webshops that stock brands like Milani, L.A. Girl, Morphe brushes. I have my own two favorites and these are The Makeup Spot and Boozyshop.
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The advantage to using local webshops is that there will be no custom tax surprise at the door, with charges up to 40% of your order added. And those surprises make your heart skip, I tell you from experience. Furthermore, shipping is cheaper and faster and ultimately you have access to a lot of products that cannot be shipped overseas to individuals for custom restrictions.
A photo posted by Alice’s Madness (@alicemadness87) on
My latest purchases include these Morphe Brushes single eyeshadows, The Balm Mary Lou Manizer, L.A. Girl Matte Lip stain and Wet n Wild Megalast lipsticks from Boozyshop and Barry M nail polishes and my now holy grail Zoeva Opulence eyeliner from The Makeup Spot. I have been incredibly impressed by the fast dispatching and the incredibly kind Customer Service. I had a bad experience with my postman delivering the package in a different street and the girls at The Makeup Spot interfaced with the post office very fast and it was a fuss-free affair for me.
I have a discount code for you guys to shop at The Makeup Spot with 15% discount of your whole order with the code sint2015.
Have you tried these shops of have found your own beauty webshop? xo A
*this post contains affiliate links. This means that if you purchase from these links I will receive a small commission that will not cost you anything but help support the blog. In any case all opinions are my own and the products in this post have been purchased by me.
