Rubbing alcohol

If you do not own one of those little bottles of rubbing alcohol, you should go and get one either at Di, Kruidvat or any pharmacy (anything from 2 -10 EUR a bottle) immediately. The uses are endless for any cosmetics junkie: cleaning of your tools, disinfecting brushes, earings, piercings, razors (to prevent red spots after shaving), tweezers, filers, needles, removing oily/greasy parts on the flat iron or any other surface (such as your nails, prior to the nail varnish application). Also, applied in small amounts (on a cotton Q-tip), rubbing alcohol can help heal/dry acne. Last, but not least, rubbing alcohol is used to press eyeshadow pigments into an eyeshadow pan (or any time your favourite powder, blush, eyeshadow broke and you want it fix it).

Makeup organizing tip 2

Storing your brushes, pencils and lipstics in a organized way is seemingly an easy task, you just put them in a pencil holder, right? Only, every time I went to a papèterie, I went out empty-handed...But I had my break-through on Saturday in Euro-shop (2,50 EUR). I bought a holder that is meant to store the cutlery after washing and it is simply perfect :-). I also bought decoration beads in CASA, to stop the brushes from moving around in the container.

Makeup for blue eyes

Probably you have noticed by now that certain eyeshadow colours make your natural eye colour pop, while other don't. NYC Cosmetics palette offers four eyeshadows in their Bryant Park Palette for blue eyes, all cold colours: light lilac, silver gray, violet and dark grey. The palette also contains a skin-colour primer (actually a really good one)and a highlighter and behold, it cost 5! This should serve as an inspiration to all that L'Oreal and Maybelline...

NYC Cosmetics also offers a palette for green (beige and brown) and brown eyes (violet and mocca), check here for your colour inspiration.

N°7 Shine free primer review

Given that the nearest place for you to buy N°7 cosmetics is the UK, you will not be brokenhearted to read this review. It seems to me that this product concentrates too much on shine prevention than the actual skin priming for the foundation (it cost 10 $, 40 ml, it costs 11 £ in the UK).

First of all, the consistency is thick, white in colour and it dries super fast on your skin, leaving white streaks all over the face unless you apply it really thinly and in small amount. You definitely need to moisturize your skin in advance.

When I applied the primer, I started to feel an unpleasant tingling sensation, which I put down to the fact that it is going to be blocking the excess oil. Moreover, my skin looked pale, patchy and felt dry and grainy. Undeterred, I still finished my makeup and went to work.

The itching did not stop and naturally, the oil in the skin started to fight its way through the cakey layer I put on in the morning. Horrified, I removed all the foundation.

I've done a research, and usually they recommend moisturizing the skin, applying thin layers only to the T-zone and blend well. However, this did no work for me so I would not repurchase this product.

Britney Spears - Hold it against me tutorial

Nothing comes in between me and my Britney :-) Hit me baby one more time and MTV - aaaa, sweet old times :-) Having just watched her latest on YouTube - Hold it against me - I'm in awe! Obviously, product placement has reached a new level in this video, just wait for the full second of MAKEUP FOREVER eyeshadow frame freeze, but I still love it!

Here's a tutorial that I found on her look by Fleur De Force:

Speaking of MAKEUP FOREVER, their store is located at Rue du Midi 62, 1000 Bruxelles (actually, I found it by accident, when I was trying to get to Manneken Pis), but you can also order online via their website, how fabulous! Now, would it hold it against me if I went there :-)

Pore-fection

Living in a city of Brussels also means the occasional smog alert so you need to clean your skin every night really thoroughly. If you have big open pores, they will clog twice as fast as anywhere else, leaving you with nasty blackheads (I just love the Dutch word for it, Een mee-eter). Here's my favourite T-zone product to the rescue (it costs under 6 EUR in Delhaize):



It contains two different sets of purifying strips (4 x nose strip, 2 x 2 chin and forehead strips), one is for the forhead and chin, the other for the nose. The strips are applied on clean, thoroughly wet face, then you wait for 10-15 minutes until the strip is entirely dry and you are ready to GENTLY peel it off. What happens next is fascinating, or at least to me it is, some people think it is disgusting :-}. Ideally, the contents of your pores will have stuck to the strip - let's just leave it there, the skin will be purified!

It is a good idea to wash your face again and apply a light moisturizing cream to calm the skin down, because the chances are that it will be red and irritated. The active ingredient is citric acid, so I would not recommend this product to anyone with a really sensitive or dry complexion. It works wonders on my oily skin, though.

Makeup organizing tip

Time is always a factor, especially in the morning when you hurry to catch your bus or train. So finding something quickly in the heap of makeup is very important to achieve a polished look and being on time to work. Let's have a look at how to tackle this:

You need:
1) plenty of makeup
2) some space

Next is the trip to either Brico, Cora, Hubo or such. They sell these amazing office organizers, but they are perfectly suited for your makeup (cca 10 EUR). I store my foundations, concealers, blush in the bottom drawer, next are eyeshadows, then eye pencils and the top belongs to gel eyeliners.