AContour Kit: Swatches and Review

I'm sure you have all heard of the Anastasia Beverly Hills contour kits. They're all the rage at the moment, either powder or cream. So today I am bringing to you a cheaper alternative. ABH Contour Kit runs at $40US, this is roughly $50NZ. Since not everyone has a spare $50 lying around, if you can get your hands on it, pick up the Australis AContour Kit. This can be purchased from Farmers for $21.50. That's less than half of what the ABH Kit is worth! I have tried both the ABH kit and obviously the Australis one. I prefer the Australis one. Not only is it so much more cheaper, but I also found it to be a whole lot more pigmented. Both brands don't test on animals either, which is a massive plus in my book!

The only downside about the Australis contour kit is that it only comes in the one "shade". I'm super pale, (MAC NW15) and it still suits me fine. I'm not sure how it would work if you have darker skin.

Heres the ABH Contour Kit versus the Australis AContour Kit:

ABH Contour Kit

Australis AContour Kit

As you can see, they are pretty much the same. The quality is basically the same too, so it just depends on whether you want to spend $50 or $20. You really can't go wrong with either. 

I'll leave some swatches of the Australis kit below so you can see a real life swatch of the colours. 

Swatches of the highlight shades

Swatches of the contour shades

I hope this helps you out, and that the swatches help. I really love the Australis Contour Kit, and if you've tried it, let me know how you got on with it!

Shannen xx

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W7 In The Buff Pallette Swatches

I bought this palette in a makeup sale a little while ago, I have a video with the haul that these are mentioned it which I'll link below, at $15. A nice cheap palette from a brand I have heard good things about. The first thing that attracted me to this palette was it's likeness for Urban Decay's Naked palettes. This one in particular is a dupe for Naked 2. The colour are pretty much identical. I plan on purchasing the other 2 palletes in this range which are In The Nude and In The Buff: Lightly Toasted. Especially considering how cheap they are and the quality that they are as well. Another awesome thing about w7 is that they don't test on animals! That's a huge deal for me as I'm trying really hard to purchase cruelty free brands.

So as I said, I paid $15 for this palette. I could've got 2 for $25, which I now wish I did. But as I hadn't tried this brand before, I didn't want to spend heaps only to not like it. You get 12 shadows in this palette that range in shades as well as finishes. There are some mattes, some shimmers, and some metallics. It's a nice range to choose from when doing my makeup. As you can tell in the swatches, the quality is incredible. The pigmentation is to die for. They blend really well. Just overall these are great eye shadows. I highly recommend them if you can get your hands on them!

First up we have Buff, Camel and Sand. Buff is a matte yellow white shade that's excellent for brow bone highlighting. Camel is a metallic bronze shade. Sand is a warm white shade that's also a good highlight.

Here we have Dust, Chocolate and Topaz. Dust is a more brown version of Camel. Chocolate is a warm taupe matte shade. This one is my favourite in this palette. The last one, Topaz is a very brown bronze shade, also a metallic/shimmery type of shade.

The next three are all semi matte, satin shades. Theres Earth, which is a browner version of Chocolate. Storm is a dark grey with a olive undertone. Lastly there's Silk, which is a beautiful Champagne colour.

The last three swatches are Wave, Thunder and Onyx. Wave is the darkest brown in the palette, but still quite similar to Earth and Topaz. Thunder and Onyx are the darkest colours in the whole palette, but both are beautiful. Thunder is the love child of Onyx and Storm, but with brown undertones, Whereas Onyx is just a straight up matte black shade. 

I hope you enjoyed this post! Let me know if you've tried any of these palettes, and what you think of them!

Shannen xx

YouTube: https://youtube.com/channel/UCjNKymrFCLKvcEZ4rqupZQw

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Battle of the Cruelty Free Eyebrow Products

As a strong lover of all things makeup, I am trying to build my collection in a cruelty free way. This can be quite difficult as there is limited products to choose from in New Zealand. It's also quite difficult to know who is actually cruelty free, because some sites are not very reliable. So here I am bringing you a post that will help you bring a decent cruelty free brand.

First topic of this maybe ongoing series is eyebrow products. Now we all know that eyebrows are important, they frame the face. So we need good products that will do that, and last.

The first product is a well known brand called E.L.F. I picked mine up from K-mart for $10 and it's in the colour Ash Blonde. This will also be well known as Shaaanxo uses it a lot in her videos. E.L.F. is a famous cruelty free brand, as well as being super affordable.

The second product is Australis Eyebrow pencil. This was about $12 I think, and is also from K-mart. Mine is in Blonde. This is much warmer than the E.L.F. product, but is really nice and easy for me to use if I'm in a rush.

The last product is W7 Brow Twister in Hazel Blonde. I got this from a makeup sale and I technically paid $5 for it. It was part of a 2 for $10 deal. This is my most recent purchase and is also the darkest out of the 3. I wasn't too sure about the status of cruelty free -ness on this brand. I had to do extensive research to find it out, and thankfully it is. It's also a UK brand, which I've been told has very strict rules and regulations on animal testing making it very difficult to actually test on animals.

At the moment, my W7 brow pencil is my favourite. Its not as quick and easy as my Australis pencil, but it doesn't take as long to do my brows if I used E.L.F. and a brush. I use E.L.F. when I have heaps of time to focus on really stencilling my brows on. E.L.F is definitely the perfect match for my brows, but I'm really enjoying the darkness of W7 right now. It might have something to do with me growing my hair out so my natural hair colour appears darker in comparison to the bleach, but I'm not really sure. Australis is too warm for my hair colour in general, but just to chuck it on lightly in a rush does the job, so I'm not going to complain.

If you have any of these products, let me know how you like them. Or if you buy one of them after reading this, let time know how they work for you.

Don't forget to check out my links listed below. If you have any idea how I can get all my links and social media to match my Instagram username, let me know. I've been trying to get them all to match for ages!

Shannen xx

YouTube: https://youtube.com/channel/UCjNKymrFCLKvcEZ4rqupZQw

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Twitter: _kaleidocolours

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For business inquiries: xkaleidoscopecolours@gmail.com 

Life Update

I'm having a huge writer's block at the minute, so I thought I'd take a step back from my normal posts and give you all a quick update.

I'm even struggling to write this. I really need to sit down and plan ahead. I have returned to studying so I've been a bit busy this last week and I kind of let my blog fall behind a little. But now that I've returned to a good routine, I'll be able to organise and plan a lot better. So watch this space for bigger and better blog posts. There will be all the normal makeup posts, DIY posts, and fashion posts, but I'm thinking about including the odd student post. Posts about how to organise yourself for study,  healthy eating for students or people on a budget, and a whole bunch more DIY aimed at students or budget living. 

If you have any requests for posts you'd like to see, let me know! I am definitely keen to hear any feedback or comments. I would love to hear from my readers! 

I'm going to talk a little bit about where I see my blog going as well. Right now, my blog is a hobby. It's something I enjoy doing in my downtime. It will always be a hobby of mine. I never want to stop posting and sharing my ideas with you guys. At it's very core, it is always going to be a fashion and beauty blog, but I do want to take it on a branch of architectural and interior design blogging too as this is my life goal and what I aspire to be when I grow up. 

Throughout my course, blog posts will be once or twice a week, depending on workloads from my lecturers. In my course breaks and holidays, I will try to increase this to approximately 3 or 4 times a week. 

Now with my YouTube, which I hope you've all checked out and subscribed too (I'll leave the link below (:), I will stick to my one video a week in my course time. This may increase to twice a week, depending on how much footage I've got building up. A lot of that is going to be pre filmed, aside from the odd video, just because I do want to focus on my studies. Although, when I say pre filmed, it will have been filmed the week or two prior to being uploaded. 

Any requests for videos you'd like to see, please let me know! Ideas for videos are harder for me to think of because the whole 'talking to a camera' thing is still kinda new to me. 

Now to connect these two hobbies together, my main blog posts and that week's video may be connected to each other. For example I might do a blog post about a brand, and then that week's video might be a makeup look using that brand. That kind of stuff. Ya know how it is.

Aside from all of my hobbies and studying, I've been working on getting healthier. I've started yoga and pilates, and do about and hour to an hour and a half of exercise a day. So there might even be blog posts and videos on my getting healthy. If you're interested of course. 

So that's all thats new to my life at the moment. Study and getting healthy being the main changes.

I'm looking forward to this year and what it will bring. I'm also looking forward to being super organised. I've been watching a ton of videos about decorating planners and diaries. If you wanna see how I've decorated and organised mine, let me know in the comments below, or even on my Facebook page.

I hope that you guys now understand the recent sporadic posting. I will get it under control.

Thanks for your support guys. 

Shannen xx

YouTube: https://youtube.com/channel/UCjNKymrFCLKvcEZ4rqupZQw

Instagram: _shannenlorraine

Twitter: _kaleidocolours

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LookBook #2: Kimonos

Welcome to my second lookbook! Today we have an insight into how I personally style my kimonos. My entire collection (all 4 of them) comes from JayJays. I will also write down where I got the rest of my outfit from as well.

I hope this helps/encourages you to embrace the kimono!

Look #1: Winter

Top: JayJays

Jeans: JayJays

Boots: Kmart

 Look #2: Spring

Dress: JayJays

Sandals: Lippy

 Look #3: Autumn

Dress: JayJays

Boots: Kmart

 Look #4: Summer

Top: JayJays

Shorts: JayJays

Sandals: Lippy

Yes, I know I own a lot of JayJays. I can't help it. They have awesome stuff.

Let me know how you liked this cookbook. Personally, this is way better than my first one, which you can see here: http://kaleidocolours.blogspot.co.nz/2014/06/daisies-are-new-black.html

But that's what happens when you get more confident and comfortable, isn't it?

Shannen xx

All photos taken on a Canon 600D

18-55mm lens used

Photos taken by Blake <3 

Ankle Boots: Flattering ways to wear them

 With ankle boots, there is basically two standard, universally flattering ways to wear them. 

The first way is to wear them with anything that sits above the knee. This is because the ankle boot tends to cut you off at the skinniest part of your ankle. To counter act this, you need to show the other skinniest part of your leg which is your knee. This lengthens the leg, and doesn't cut you off, making you look short. 

The second way is more for winter time, or for people who prefer to wear jeans. The same idea applies, so as the boot cuts you off at your skinniest, you need to show a bit of flesh above the boot to give the illusion of a lengthened leg. To do this, all you need to do is roll your jeans up, leaving no more than an inch between the top of your boot and the bottom of the roll.  This achieves the same goal as counter balancing. It lengthens the leg and we avoid looking like we have short legs. 

With boots, never pull your jeans over the top unless they are flared or a boot cut. If you wear skinny jeans with boots, roll them, or bunch them up so they are sitting just on top of the boot. We are giving the illusion of a lengthened leg.

I've included photos of five different types of boots to give an idea of how they can be worn. I have included a pair of heeled boots, two different style of ankle boots with a cut out, a short riding boot style and a pair of combat/military boots.

Heeled Boots

Tassle Boots with Cut-out

JC Coltrane style Boots

Short Riding Style Boots

Doc Martens

Of course with any style, your personal style works best. This is just simply a guideline. A lot of these boots can still look great all bunched up and grunge-y looking. or really neat and tidy rolls. It really doesn't matter as long as you are happy with how it looks. 

I hope you enjoyed this post!

Let me know what you think in the comments below!

Shannen xx

Photos taken on a Canon 600D

18-55mm lens used

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How I Clean My Makeup Brushes

Before I get started, there is about a 75% chance that I'm also going to film a video of how I clean my makeup brushes. I'm not entirely sure how well I explain in this post, so it might be easier explained if I film it too. Let me know what you think in the comments below!

So, first up, you are going to need olive oil, washing up liquid, a plate and all your brushes that you are cleaning. The olive oil is to keep your brushes soft, the washing up liquid is to disinfect and clean, and the plate is to mix it all together.

Grab your first brush and swirl it around for about 30 seconds on the plate, mixing the oil and washing up liquid together. You should see the product coming off the brush. Eventually the liquid on the plate will turn an ugly brown colour. As I was also cleaning a lip brush and eyeliner brush in this lot, mine went reddish. Red from the lipstick, and slightly darker because of the black from the eyeliner. 

Repeat this till all the brushes are saturated in oil and washing up liquid. Once you have done this, plate the plate in the sink, lined up so when the tap is turned on, the water hits the middle of the plate.  With warm water running, you're basically going to copy the same process above, except with water. Swirl the brushes around the plate until the water runs clear. This can take a while with some brushes, like my bronzer brushes I was swirling for a few minutes. 

Again, repeat this until all the brushes are done. I always squeeze any excess water out of the brushes and then lay them on the sides, so the bristles are hanging in the sink. Mainly because they drain into the sink, but also this keeps the handles safe from getting too wet and being destroyed.

I also have a beauty blender to clean when i do all my other brushes, so I'm going to quickly explain how I do this.

Firstly, I soak my beauty blender. Once fully soaked in warm water, I rub a bar of soap all over it, massaging the soap in and lathering it up. I then rinse it out and repeat. I do this about 3 or four times, making sure I lather up heaps and rub it in and around and rinse thoroughly. 

I leave them out drying overnight, so always do this the night before you want to use them.

I hope this helps, and I explained it clearly. Don't be afraid to leave any questions or comments!

Shannen xx

Photos taken on a Canon 600D

18-55mm lens used

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