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

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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

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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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Matte Lip Creams; Swatches and Comparisons

At the moment, in the makeup world, there has been an insurgence of lip creams, glosses and stains. These are really good if you want a bright opaque colour, but don't like to reapply every hour or so. They are a great way to finish off any outfit, by either making it a stand out point, or matching it to an aspect of your outfit.

I have 3 Australis Velour Lips and 2 Lime Crime Velvetines that I am going to swatch and compare for you today. In my personal opinion, Velour Lips are a cheaper alternative to Velvetines, as they retail for about $15 whereas Velvetines are about $30.

Both brands are great if you are trying to abstain from purchasing cruel products, as they are both against animal testing. I'm not sure if either brand is completely vegan, but at least they are one step closer to being vegan.

I'm going to swatch Lime Crime first, as I only have 2. I also find that Velvetines are a much thinner formula than Australis. With every swatch, I'm going to include a photo with flash, and without so that you can get a better idea of what the colours look like.

The first colour is Utopia. It is a bright purple colour with pink, or warm, undertones. This formula is quite thin and I find two coats is perfect.

With Flash

Without Flash

The next colour is Wicked. Wicked is a dark, vampy red. This is thicker in formula than Utopia and only requires one good coat.

With Flash

Without Flash

The first Australis colour is called Rio'D. It's a very bright, even neon, orange. I find that the formula for these are very thick, and can be quite drying.

No Flash

With Flash

Second is called Ma-Li-Boo. This colour is a very bright pink. Its quite a true pink in my opinion, as I can't see it swaying towards warmer or cooler tones.

With Flash

Without Flash

Lastly, we have Ny-Cee. This is a real 50s pin-up kind of red. A lighter version to Lime Crime's Wicked. It's definitely blue based rather than orange.

With Flash

Without Flash

I hope this post helped you out with the different matte lip products you can get. This is just comparing two different brands, but there are countless more out there on the market. If you liked this post, let me know and I can see what other lip swatches and comparisons I can do.

Shannen xx
Photos taken on a Canon 600D
18-55mm lens used
PicMonkey.com used to edit photos

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First Impression: SugarBaby Natural Self Tan Cream

On my recent trip to Wellington I purchased some SugarBaby. I've always been as pale as a vampire and I wanted to try some tanning stuff. I got mine from a shop in Queensgate. I forget what it's called, Cosmetic Plus or something. They were having a closing down sale so I got this at 40% off. I payed $18 for it I think. 

I spent about 10 minutes trying to decide which one I wanted because they have a massive line of fake tan. Because I am a beginner at all things golden and glowing, I picked the cream because all you had to do was apply it like a moisturiser. It only takes 3 hours to develop so I would know quite quickly if it went too dark for my liking or what not. This specific product only last 3 days before you need to reapply which is another reason I grabbed it, in case I didn't like it. 

Before I go into how I feel about the products, I'm going to chick in some before and after photos. 

The very first thing I have to say about SugarBaby is that they do not test on animals. This is a super thumbs up for me. The second thing is that this stuff smells like hot cross buns. And it's awesome. 

I love this stuff. It's the perfect darkness for my naturally pale ass skin. It's not too orange, not too yellow. It's perfect. It actually looks like I've been sitting on a beach on holiday somewhere when in reality I stood in front of my mirror and spread lotion all over my body. I am currently on the second day(?). I applied it yesterday morning. So one shower later, it's still nice and tan, albeit a little bit lighter. 

I highly recommend this stuff if you want to get into self tanning, but you're unsure about how dark you wanna be or how to do it. This is super easy to apply, and super hard to stuff up. 

Definitely has a 10/10 from me. I'll keep you guys updated on how long it lasts on my body. 

Shannen xx

Photos edited on fotor.com

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