Too Cool For School: Halloween Edition

Hello November!

Would you like to see some pictures of me in my Halloween costumes?

Yip I basically dressed up as a sex offender for the family Halloween dinner on Saturday night. It wasn't the most flattering of costumes since it's all white but I did my best. Unfortunately I couldn't locate braces or the strange jock strap thing that Alex and the gang so famously wear in A Clockwork Orange. And as you can see, my eyeliner application skills are not the best. I bought actual false eyelashes but I ended up with completely matted lashes and an extremely watery left eye.

For Halloween night proper, I went for something a little more gory. 

Just a general wounded zombie kind of thing. Unfortunately this makeup doesn't react well with large quantities of alcohol and it kind of fell off throughout the night ultimately leaving my pillow cases looking like a crime scene. Not attractive. 

Also for the record I do have all five digits on my left hand despite what the photo might suggest.

I did a trial run earlier on in the day and that actually looked pretty good. I did it with some wax, face paints and a ton of fake blood. 

Also I do not recommend putting wax and fake blood in one's hair. Just trust me on this one.

Hope you all had a good Halloween!! 

Cheers for reading,

Jane

Right Now I'm loving... (the internet in general really)

1. Hayden Williams: Fashion Illustrator

This chap is one of my Instagram discoveries and I am so delighted to have found him. His illustrations are very cool. 

Guess who??

He also has pretty cool pictures of Jennifer Lopez and the Olsens twins. 

All his stuff is up on Tumblr and it's well worth looking through because he does some pretty cool things with Disney Princesses and villains too.

2. New Girl Season 2

I love you Schmidt.

3. Pixiwoo

I did a little post a while ago about beauty blogs that I love but I have also been getting really into makeup tutorials too. Particularly those of sisters Nic and Sam Chapman of Pixiwoo.

Here are a small collection of my favourites...

This one is for Eva Green and she actually ends up properly looking like her!

They are coincidentally all from the Bond Girl series they did. 

I only started watching the videos after buying the Real Techniques brushes (go buy them now, they're available in Boots for the Galwegians!) and I have already learned so much! Also, now that Halloween is fast approaching they are going some Halloween inspired makeup. Well worth a watch. 

Cheers for reading,

Jane

Images via HERE and HERE, Videos via Youtube

Cosmetic Consumer

Here is a little update on some makeup that recently made its way into my life.
So last month for the first time I tried gel eyeliner. Afraid it would be a disaster and because I am a sucker for cheap beauty products I picked up the Essence Gel Eyeliner in Midnight in Paris (I'll admit the name is one of the reasons I bought it) in Penneys (Primark) in Sligo. I have nothing to compare it to but I will definitely be ditching my pen eyeliners as it is very very good.

taken with Instagram

taken with Instagram... Oh ya, that's my face. 

It stayed in place all day which of course meant that it was quite difficult to remove but I suppose with every liner you either get easy to remove but smudges a lot or doesn't smudge but is harder to remove. I know which one I prefer so I'm willing to work with that. It is much easier to apply than liquid eyeliner - which I was never pretty good with anyway - so it wins extra browny points for that. To apply it, I use Bobbi Brown's eye definer brush as unlike the Maybelline Eyestudio Lasting Drama gel liner that first made me curious about trying gel eyeliner, it doesn't come with a brush. The gel is really smooth but you need two coats to make it really black, which may be why it's quite hard to remove. I would definitely recommend it and for €3.49 sure where could you go wrong?! Verdict: Will definitely be repurchasing.

So next up, if you are from Sligo and familiar with buying beauty products in Sligo town, you'll know that Cara Pharmacy in Quayside Shopping Centre stocks - what I can only assume to be - last season or discontinued products because they sell stuff for just ridonkulously cheap prices. I picked up a €5 "pack" which contained a Stila Sun Gel, a Stila glitter eye liner and two eyeshadows, which for €5 is pretty ridiculous.

Stil Sun Gel, Stila Glitter eyeliner in Silver Lilac, Collection 2000 colour intense trio in (11) Mocha Choc, WetnWild USA mono eyeshadow in Plum Silva

some swatches

Included in the package was Stila Sun Gel, which was kind of the main reason I bought it as I have really started to prefer using a gel bronzer on my neck and décolletage instead of a powder bronzer because powder rubs off on everything but once gel has dried in, it doesn't. It's not quite as good as the Honey Bronze Gel from The Body Gel that I wrote about HERE back in January but it's still quite good. Verdict: I'll probably just stick to The Body Shop's Honey Bronze.

Also picked up in my little makeup round-up last week were two Rimmer products including the Wake Me Up foundation in 103 True Ivory - which I strongly recommend because it really is an exceptional foundation - and some Stay Matte pressed powder in 001 Translucent as I have never tried pressed powder before; and some MAC Pro Longwear concealor in NW20 and an Impeccable brow pencil in Taupe.

I won't do a review thing on the Wake Me Up foundation because the internet is rife with them but I will tell you that it's worth a try. Not sure how I feel about the pressed powder yet but I'll continue to use it because it does minimise the shine. Verdict: Wake Me Up foundation, I'll probably buy it again; Stay Matte powder, undecided; Pro Longwear concealor, I want to be buried with this stuff; also preferring the brow pencil to the usual Rimmel eyebrow pencil in Hazel which I've used for years.

Here are also some pieces of clothing that I recently bought to try to make my wardrobe a little more summery as the vast majority of my clothes are black.

 - New Look top - River Island sweater - Penneys (Primark) two-toned skirt 

Cheers for reading,

Jane

Damn, Girl Special Edition: Beauty Youtubers

As my very first Damn Girl feature, I am doing a special edition. My current obsession is YouTube beauty bloggers. I have been a fan of general blogging for a while but only recently have I discovered the multitude of fantastic bloggers - or vloggers - on YouTube. If you found yourself in The Click List recently then you will have seen a couple of the channels to which I am subscribed. Because of this, I decided to compile a little list of my favourite beauty and fashion ladies and why I like them so much.

5. Beauty Crush
Sammi was the first beauty blogger that I subscribed to and it was through her that I subsequently found all of the other numerous beauty and fashion Youtubers that I am currently following. She has a keen eye for dupes of more expensive products which in my opinion is fantastic.

image via www.gramfeed.com/labeautycrush

A Bit Of Tumblr Inspiration

So I have been, for quite some time, a fan of Tumblr. I've been tumbling (yeah I just said that) for about two years now and I have to say that for a scrapbooker like myself Tumblr is an absolute haven. I always see people posting various style inspiration pictures on their blogs and even though I don't normally do that, there are just so many fantastic pictures floating about at the moment that I couldn't resist. So I just chose a few little pictures that I am finding particularly inspirational at the moment.

This girl is probably the coolest individual on the planet...

21

Haven't been paying any attention to the old blog in ages but I have been understandably busy. College work has been crazy and on top of that I have just recently (Paddy's Day) turned 21!! Finally -as my best friend was telling everyone on Saturday night - the baby of the group has turned 21 (!) and what an eventful weekend was had. Thursday was spent in Galway and Saturday night in Sligo. Some gorgeous gifts were received included two flights for this coming Autumn/Winter - one from Dublin to Mumbai in October and another from Hanoi to LA two weeks later. Super excited about that!!
So here are just a few quick snaps from the long weekend!

When you give a 21 year old girl stickers... This happens!

Plus, as if the birthday weekend wasn't enough, by Diet Coke box of Benefit goodies arrived early this morning. Cannot wait to use all of these little beauties!

Aw so lovely! As if all this stuff isn't great enough already, Game of Thrones season 2 and Made In Chelsea season 3 are coming soon, and their impending presence in my life is something that I am super excited about. 

One thing I am not super excited about however is my impending doom exams!

Cheers for reading,

Jane

make up and diet coke

So this past Saturday, I popped into the Get Glam event in Debenhams hosted by Benefit and Diet Coke. I recently won some Benefit make up through the Diet Coke promotion that they are running at the moment so I was only too happy to see some of these products in action because I am still waiting for mine to arrive. While there I had a lovely chat with Ciara from WildChildStories who was presenting the event for DietCokeTV. 

Once I was finished having a gawk at every single Benefit product available, and as you can see from the pictures above there are quite a number a number of them, I ventured over the MAC counter in Brown Thomas to see some lipsticks because none of the Benefit ones took my fancy. While there I picked up this lovely one (that I so "expertly" photographed below) in Hot Gossip. 

Cheers for reading,

Jane

Ten Things That Are So Hot Right Now

1. Wordfeud

It's official. I am addicted. My parents play scrabble a lot but I never play with them because I always end up putting words like "dog" or "cat" down after they've put down words like "magnanimous" or "idiosyncrasy". With the Wordfued iPhone app though, I actually have a chance of winning. Particularly because I am only playing against my best friend and her boyfriend so victories come on a semi-regular basis. And the best part? It's free! Which, if you're anything like me, is the dealbreaker when it comes to the purchase of apps.

2. Innocent Orange Juice

Taken with instagram

I hate pulp or bits in any kind of drink. Absolutely hate it. I do however love a good glass of orange juice, as long as it is pulp-free. My particular favourite at the moment is Innocent smooth orange juice. It comes it a great handbag friendly bottle and it has become quite the faithful study buddy too.

3. Body Shop Honey Bronze Gel

I posted about this stuff before HERE shortly after I first bought it, and it is proving to be a great addition to my makeup bag.

4. Ryan Gosling
It is getting ridiculous at this stage and frankly I think it has just gone too far. Ryan Gosling, you are simply too fantastic and it is unfair that you should just be allowed to parade your fantastic self about with no regard for the feelings of us poor girls around the world. It's even too much for Bradley Cooper to bear!! So stop being so goddamn sexy already. Either that, or come to Galway.

image via google.images.com

5.  Emoji for iPhone
If you like using smilies, then you will love Emoji. Every emotion emojized!

6. NUIG Memes FB page
If you are not familiar with memes, then you should not be here, you should be on 9gag. Go have a browse and then come back here.

So now that you're familiar with the memes and all that, go have a look at the NUI Galway Meme page. If you go to NUIG then you will undoubtedly recognize, and have a chuckle at, some of the fantastic wee jokes they have going on.

image via fb.me/NUIGMemesbyConorStitt

7. Original Source Vanilla milk and Raspberry shower cream
As I mentioned before in a Studenty.me article that you can read HERE, this stuff smells like you're showering under a rainbow with a unicorn made of marshmallows.

8. Studded slippers
I have been madly in love with studded slippers since first seeing Christian Louboutin's pair (check out these ones too. And yes I'm aware that they are for men). Now Topshop are offering some looovely studded slippers too. Asos also have some studded loafers and slippers. Click HERE for a somewhat cheaper version of the Louboutins link above.

image via tumblr.com

9. Lindsay Lohan on SNL
Now I am a massive fan of Saturday Night Live and I was intrigued to see how Lindsay Lohan would fare on last night's episode. This was Lohan's fourth time on SNL and so at this stage, she is well versed in the ways of the show: if you have something you're ashamed off, they will make fun of it. And for Lindsay, it was a night of jail related gags and delinquent girl gangs. Even her opening monologue wasn't free from Kirsten Wiig and Kenan Thompson patting her down and examining her pupils. For the skits however, her lines were few and far between and when she was speaking, it was more like reading because she was very clearly reading from a teleprompter or cue cards. She wasn't so much hosting but more like a guest star or something just there for a sketch or two. Jon Hamm, who was jokingly introduced as the back-up host in case something went wrong, was on screen almost as much as her (okay that may be a slight exaggeration but only slight). To be honest it wasn't really that good an episode of SNL and it was kind of disappointing. Then again though she was following Maya Rudolph and Sleigh Bells which was probably my favourite episode ever!

10. Shazam
As I began this post with an iPhone App, I figured I might as well close it with one too. Shazam is simply fantastic. Hear a song playing in a shop, a bar or pretty much anywhere at all? Desperately want to know what it is? Shazam it! (This app is also free. Whippee for cheapos like me!)

Cheers for reading,

Jane

Backcombing Brush

So the other day I was casually walking around Penneys (Primark), minding my own business, when this little brush caught my eye. I am not really that bothered about styling my hair - I dye it a lot and occasionally curl but most of the time my hair is either just tied up or left straight down, I also wear an unhealthy amount of hairbands - but I am not immune to the odd bit of backcombing. At €1.50, I wasn't going to leave this little gem behind.

So there it is (above) still in its packaging. As you can see my hair is a little flat so this is an ideal product for me. Y'know the way you can have combination skin? Well I have combination hair. Because of the blonde dye, the ends are quite dry and a little frizzy (I know this probably isn't a good thing but I actually rub moisturizer into my hands and then pat it through the ends of my hair which helps an awful lot), yet my roots get greasy quite quickly. This isn't helped by the fact that I have quite fine hair, it's healthy hair despite all the dye - no snappy ends or anything - but fine all the same. 

So here is the wee brush in all its glory. The end of it looks vaguely like something you'd polish your shoes with but as a backcombing brush it's quite fantastic. At the opposite end of the brush there is a little pointy thing for lifting hair up which will also I'm sure prove quite handy for parting (not that I experiment much with my parting).

I wasn't going for an all out backcombed look but as you can see from the picture below and the picture  at the top, it does create quite a bit of extra volume particularly in the little quiff thing that I have going on. Finish it off with a bit of hairspray and you're ready to go. I use Toni and Guy's stuff because it holds really well as you can see in my Halloween costume post.

So there you go. Pop into Penneys for your very own backcombing brush because it really is very good. I did not go all out for a mad backcombing look but if I do attempt a bouffant in the coming weeks then I may post a quick picture of it so you'll be able to see how well this wee brush works. 

Also, dear reader, if you do happen to be a follower/regular reader of my blog, you'll probably have noticed that I'm not really a posed picture kind of gal. I don't take pictures of myself for the purpose of this blog - I once did a makeup post but I took it down because I couldn't bear the Photobooth-style pictures of myself but I'm quite happy with how there photos turned out so I'll leave them up, and maybe I'll even do a few more.

Plus, for anyone who is interested I'm wearing MAC's Vintage Vamp on my nails. I just bought it last week and I so love the colour!

On an unrelated topic, Diet Coke and Benefit have recently joined forces with their Get Glam makeup kit competition and guess who just won a set!?! Just got the email this evening and I am so thrilled! It is the perfect start to my 21st birthday month! Cannot wait for it to arrive. Hopefully it will be here in time for my birthday. I kind of doubt it though because it said in the email that it would arrive within six weeks. Still super excited for it though. Yay!! 

Cheers for reading,

Jane

Everything You'll Need In My Handbag

I made a decision some months ago, that I was sick of not having makeup in my bag all the time. In deciding to put together a makeup that would stay in my bag all of the time, I discovered something quite phenomenal. Evolutionary, if you will.

I am demon for changing handbags. I don't carry a rucksack or a backpack so I change my bag according to how many books I will have to bring into college on that chosen day. Sad, I know but anytime  I go into town to actually buy a rucksack I get sidetracked by something prettier, girlier and with a great deal less practicality. Now back to my discovery...

It's a mini bag. A bag inside a bag. A bag with everything you need that can be pulled out at a moment's notice and thrown into another bag without rummaging for tissues, tampons or other things in your handbag begin with a T (to carry on the aliteration of course). It really is the best idea that I have ever come up with, having made my life immeasurably easier. So here are the contents of my bag and how they have so greatly improved my life.

Elizabeth Arden's 8-hour Cream

This stuff is one of those products that once you buy it you'll wonder how you ever managed without it. A bit of flaky skin? Apply it. Chapped lips? Dab it. Dry hands? Rub it. A small graze? Smear it. A hole in your shoe? Stroke it. I was just kidding about the last one but the stuff really is very good. You can pick it up in Brown Thomas and pretty much any good pharmacy. The 8 Hour range includes a number of moisturizers, lip balms and treatments. The orange balmy Eight Hour Cream Skin Protectant really is the best one available, as it is a saviour for elbow, hands, lips and even for keeping your eyebrows in place!

Benefit’s Tan About Town

You know how annoying it is when you’re out and about and you wish you had thought to throw some makeup into your bag? Well fear not. Benefit has the remedy for your forgetfulness and the name of this remedy? Tan About Town. This phenomenal little trio of Benefit classics is a godsend. I picked mine up in Brown Thomas before Christmas for a measly little sum of money and it is quite spectacular. Included in the cute little box that it comes in is Some Kind of Gorgeous Foundation (investing in a good little travel-sized concealor brush will make this a handy little 1.8g sample into an on-the-go lifesaver), Badgal Lash black mascara (the great thing about this is that no expense was spared on the brush) and finally Hoola Bronzer (another travel size powder brush is also necessary for this little beauty). These products are small enough to fit into a handbag but big enough to be useful. Not really meant for every day use but perfect for having in your handbag for minor emergencies.

Stuff That Smells Nice

Remember those little free sample perfume sprayers that you always thought were completely useless? Well I have Stella McCartney's Lily and Dior Addict in my bag and they have proven to be dead handy. I don't actually wear Lily or Addict but Chanel don't issue sample vials so I have to make do. Also those tiny handbag size Nivea deodorants are invaluable.

Other Essentials Include...

A bunch of hair ties and bobby pins, a couple of tampons (it's handy to keep them on-call for friends too), a pack of Kleenex, a mini packet of 10 wet wipes, compact mirror, one of those high-vis armbands that I have never actually used but like keeping in my bag just in case, an iPhone cable, chewing gum and finally plasters because if you know me, you'll know how necessary they are. 

And finally the magic bag that holds it all...

Studded clutch from River Island. It used to have a little wristlet thing on it too but that unfortunately came off the night I stupidly decided to use it as a going out bag. This bag doesn't seem to be available in black anymore but is is in cream, which I personally think wouldn't be a great choice as since the bag would be for day to day use it will probably get a little grubby. All in all this little baby has become my ultimate go-to for on-the-go emergencies. You're welcome ladies!

Cheers for reading,

Jane

Things that i currently like but do not yet own

(clockwise from top left)

- Asos curve chiffon wrap dress -

- Topshop knitted striped cardigan -

- Casio mini gold wristwatch -

- Amazon Everest canvas backpack -

- Benefit the porefessional -

- Asos leader suede moccasins -

- MAC nail laquer -

- River Island Mens green hoody -

I however just bought birthday presents for my mum and sister and alas I am poor. I will now exhibit said poorness through a Bridesmaids gif.

image from ThingsGoGlimmering.tumblr.com

Cheers for reading,

Jane