Basics: What my skin is like.

Picture: My face wearing coconut oil, black pigment and oil mix over the eyes and brows. Glitter  on my brow bone and cheek bones (I will never stop the sparkle madness!). In low light to show my skin texture.

I want to let you know what my skin is like before I dive any further into my stash, skincare and recommendations based on my experience. This will be my reference point until anything changes.

I'm 30 now and my skin can mainly be considered normal.
I have an oily T-zone during the summer (above 30 degrees Celsius with more than 70% humidity.) but the rest of the year I do have dry skin. Oily eyelids, dry on and around my nose and mouth.

My skin is very soft and feels thin.
I have hyper pigmentation, sun spots, medium sized pores, redness around my nose, on my cheeks as well as my jawline, just started getting fine lines under my eyes and my laugh lines are very prominent. I get cystic acne when the seasons change. I get hormonal acne around my jawline.

I use oils daily.
I use eye cream and serums.
I use sunscreen everyday on my face and lips.
I wash my face morning and night (an additional time midday during the summer).
I exfoliate gently every evening with a Konjac sponge.
I do a weekly face mask.
I have very dry lips, no matter how much water I drink, I always need lip balm.
I switch my skincare routine depending on the weather and my cycle.

Look: Shadow Glam.

Yesterday I had the urge to play with Concrete Minerals loose shadow in Risqué.
It's a shadow I bought earlier this year as I realized I didn't have any red at all in my stash, which is nuts!
I love red eye shadow, there's something very (for lack of a better word) cool about it.
It can however also look horrible... Key, as in all make-up application, is to build it slowly. And bleeeeend...

I really wanted to share this set as I didn't feel like Instagram made it any justice.
And can we just take a moment to appreciate the gorgeous lavender highlight? (Product deets at the end)
It looks blue on it's own but as it was applied over red on the eyes and purple on the cheek bones it tuned out a bit more magical than I expected it to. A happy accident.

And yes, I'm still experimenting with my table lamp. ^^

Product details:
Dirty Hippie Cosmetics:
-Mineral concealer in Sunkissed applied lightly to cover a bit of redness on my cheeks, on and around my nose.
-Mineral shadow in Carbon, my absolute favorite matte black shadow probably ever. Used here for the brows, under eyes, as eyeliner and a tony bit around my lips to help the golden shimmer to pop against my pale complexion.
- Mineral shadow in Boysenberry: This was the first time using it on it's own not over another base than just skin. It's a gorgeous pale gray purple. Used to hollow out my cheek bones and ever so slightly as a blush.
SugarPill:
- Eyeshadow in Goldilux. Used to outline my lips, over my lids and with a super light hand down the bridge of my nose and along the outer part of my brows.
Concrete Minerals:
- Shadow in Risqué (red). All the red seen. Constantly blended and layered.
Shiro Cosmetics:
- Finishing Powder: Fatality. A colorless rice and clay mix finishing powder.
Espionage Cosmetics:
- Shadow The Engineer. Which is the gorgeous lavender highlight... It's so much more beautiful irl. I did apply it with a damp brush then packed on a bit more because I <3 it.
- Kiss of Death lip serum in Gilded Force as my lip base. 

Nails: A year of Gossip...

As some might know I moved to Zambia just over a year ago.
It was a sudden thing.

So in the middle of this HUGE life change I had to make some decisions.
One of these (don't laugh at me) was choosing a few nail polishes to bring with me.
What a lot of you might not know is the immense importance of this.

Growing up I was raised to be proper, always look my best, be polished and always have manners.
I rebelled a lot growing up but I still did make some efforts in some areas, nails was definitely that area.
My mom always had perfect nails, which to this day blows my mind.
She was a machine mechanic/operator, mother to two kids, kept the house spotless and herself immaculate. She has always been my motivation. I NEVER quit because she never did.

Anyhow, nails.

So yeah, I brought very few nail polishes with me to Zambia. I actually only brought 6.
One navy, one purple, two top coats and two in the shade Gossip Column by Color Club.
I don't really know why I brought two of Gossip Column, I had actually not worn it much prior to this move and still somehow... Guess it's just my stubborn nature of making things work in my favor even if they don't look like they will.

But I am now completely in love with this shade.
Saddens me that I'm on my last half bottle... But we had a good run.
(And it's currently on sale so if you like it (and live in the US), now's the time to strike! I will have to pass as international shipping is insane from Colorclub!) Direct link <---

So yeah.
Here's a few pictures of me wearing this very unusual shade which I find looks pretty awesome against my pale olive complexion. And the glitters. I rarely ever wear nail polish without sparkling glitters on them.

Gossip Column in low light topped with EC glitter in Oxidize.

Gossip Column in flash photography plus day light topped with EC glitter in KAPOW!

Inspiration: Salvador Dalí.

For as long as I can remember I've wanted to dedicate my life to creative expression.
I still don't really know what that is but I do get release through my make-up playtime and drawing.
Art in all its forms have always been a big part of my life.

I first encountered Salvador Dalí around pre-school time.
My grandfather was a big reader of news papers, there was always a hefty stack of them close to him and during visits I would of course flip through the pages just as he would by the kitchen table.

One day (I remember this so clearly) I saw a big spread of his work.
I had no idea what it was about but there was his art.
Melting items, creatures in vast empty spaces. Colorful and so very detailed!
The details were probably what drew me in... I loved collecting all sort of small items as a kid and this probably spoke to me.

I've been a fan of this amazing eccentric artist since, (leaving the politics out) who helped me see that things don't have to be "traditional", a very important lesson. To this day I find myself having to stop and take a breather when I feel like I'm doing something I don't feel is right for me just because it's expected of me, the root of my anxiety. In a world where loving yourself or being any other way than the masses is frowned upon it can be a huge challenge. Not having anyone to speak to about things you are passionate about, wear what you want to wear, say what you actually want to say and just do as we want to do. But we can and have to, our happiness depends on it.

I'll leave you with this picture, which I think is a great representation of how I will always see him. 

Look: Neon-Tropical.

Yesterday I created my final Tropical face for a competition hosted by @DevinahCosmetics on Instagram. It didn't look very impressive in normal light but being stubborn and crafty I decided to stick with it. Behold! It's amazing what the right light can do for pictures.
Don't be fooled, I don't have any fancy equipment besides my pretty decent camera which I love to bits and am still experimenting with. This series of selfies was taken with me sitting on the floor against a plain wall, which unfortunately is beige rather than white (really need to get it painted), a regular table lamp with just a white bulb placed on the armrest of an armchair. Which is usually how it goes, I might use flash sometimes but I find that low light brings a special feel which I love.

I do still want to get a proper beauty dish and a LED box... But for now I'm just excited to experiment with what I can find around the house.

And as usual, no edits, straight out of the camera because I love seeing how I'm getting a few lines on my face. :) Full product details at the end of post.

Product details:
- Jordana Cosmetics Foundation in Natural.
- Sleek Makeup Snapshots Palette for blush, under eyes, purple on brows and highlight.
- Dirty Hippie Cosmetics Coconut highlight powder used as setting powder, Bronzed Rose Powder to warm my complexion and Mineral eye shadow in Carbon for eyeliner and brows.
- Espionage Cosmetics shadow Wub-Wub (yellow) on lids up to brow. Glitter in Invincibility over half the lid. Kiss of Death lip serum on the lips.
- BarryM lip liner in Fuchsia on brows and lips.
- Tarte Lights camera lashes mascara.

Take care and have an awesome day!

In my stash: Espionage Cosmetics FPS-Collection.

Welcome to my first entry of "In my stash", where I will be posting a bit of information about items in my make-up collection. I personally love going through other peoples make-up stashes so thought I would share mine in this series!

Today it's all about Espionage Cosmetics FPS-Collection, so let's begin!

This collection is completely vegan and gluten free.

One of the shadows is lip safe and that's Headshot, which looks AMAZING over pinkish/chocolate/purple lips or even mixed with a bit of your favorite lipstick/lipgloss for a cool metallic effect!
(I will make a post about make-up/ingredients safety later this month because it's often forgotten or simply ignored. I ignore it on occasion for temporary lip art... I'm a baddie.)

Shadow breakdown: Left/Top part of my hand is just plain dry skin while there is primer on the right/bottom part of my hand just to show the difference, which isn't too big. I can't wear these without primer still as I have oily lids.

Respawn: A white based purple/blue (Lavender even?) iridescent shadow. It's not shimmery, it's just a glow and looks gorgeous over dark eye shadows, on the inner corners of a smokey eye, brow bone or even as a highlighter which I have been experimenting with a lot and I quite like it mixed with a tiny bit of whatever skincare I'm using for the day over my cheek bones and cupids bow just to add a bit of subtle magic. This is the only shadow I strongly recommend to use a primer with as it is difficult to get to stay on the skin in my experience.

Betrayal: A gorgeous green with golden shimmer. This makes it's way to my lids quite frequently.
It does look a bit matte when applied over primer but it will still keep the golden shimmer and really shows up in daylight or in flash photography, as seen in the second picture.

Double Kill: Beautiful shimmery metallic green. Can't go wrong with this one for a vibrant yet smokey eye. I'm a big fan of using it as an eyeliner and on my brows.

Headshot: What you see is what you get. An intense shimmery metallic copper which looks amazing on anyone. I love using this over half my lid with a matte black eyeliner.

A few pictures of me wearing shadows from the collection:

Picture 1: Wearing the whole collection, mixed Respawn with a bit of gloss for a beaming highlight along the cheek bones and brow bone. Also wearing that mix over the lips.

Picture 2: Wearing Betrayal around my eyes with a black base shadow over half the lid and using glitter as eyeliner.

Picture 3: Using Double Kill along the lashes and blended out over the lids and also used over the brows.

Plenty of pictures and complete descriptions with product details can be found on my Instagram @cynthiaiskillikill as well as a discount code in some of the posts if anyone feels like a little treat! ^^


Take care and see you around on social media!
Oh, and have an awesome week!
Sincerely
Cynthia

I did it! Woho!
Took me a while to settle with a platform...

So, welcome to my first ever post here on my new snazzy blog! *Sparkles*
My aim is to post at least once per week.
This blog will mainly be beauty dominated but will occasionally have random bits as I do have other things I'm passionate about outside of beauty, which on it's own is a HUGE subject.

But yeah, that's it for now.
Just wanted to check out the layout and stuff.

See you soon!

Instagram:
@cynthiaiskillikill
Facebook:
Cynthia/Killikill