October '12 favourites.

Whoosh...
There goes October. One month closer to Christmas. Eeeek!

Judging from last month's favourites, my love for makeup has been officially revived; I've reached the point where BB cream+blush was simply not enough! Hence, the following good lot of makeup products. There's also a couple of hair treatments thrown in the mix, to go with my new ombre hair!

*** Don't ask: it was a fine experience overall-
still, the final outcome came out so natural that it barely looks any different =( ***

Alright, let's start with the makeup!

My lipstick of choice was the Chanel Rouge Coco Shine lipstick in Boy (click for review), its rosy colour is so appropriate for autumn days! But the ultimate stand-out was the new Maybelline Fit Me concealer*. Good coverage without being cakey, blends easily under the eyes and covers dark circles thanks to its slight orange undertones. I'm filing this under "products I would repurchase"!

I've also had a good use of the Mac Lingering brow pencil and I'm loving it to bits; brilliant waxy texture that helps to hold brow hairs into place! For my eyeshadows, I mostly used these few matte shades from the Body Shop in Vanilla Cream, Pink and Granite (click for review). Shimmer on the lids during dark and cloudy days can sometimes look a bit "off"! I'd much rather give some life to my face with a bright lip instead.

Which brings me to my quick fix...

Shopping my stash...

If you're a long time reader of beauty blogs, you might remember Lollipop26 (or Laura from buy now, blog later) making a few videos entitled "Shopping my stash", aka running through your old and forgotten makeup products to see what you can find that looks wearable today!

So, these are my picks:

All items are long discontinued, though they fit with what I'd like to wear during this spring/summer season.

***Not gonna talk about companies discontinuing their products, but I'm really tempted to! Ok, just one word: ugh...***

First item: my Mac Suntint in Pink Tinge from "Surf Baby" collection. I purposedly abandoned it last November when the weather got trully wintery, so as to use it up again when the weather got hotter. I have to say, it's not the most moisturising lip balm you'll come across, but it feels nice on the lips and has an SPF 20. The packaging alone gets me into summer mood!

As for this old lipstick by Biotherm, it falls under the "scary bright bullet that melts into a glossy sheer wash of colour" theme that is all the rage at the moment. The thing with such sheer lipsticks is that, in cases they've got the colour right, they're so-so wearable compared to the terribly bright lipsticks by Mac such as Impassioned. I almost feel like, the only place you can wear Impassioned is at THE most über posh/hip bars in the city, where my lipstick can contribute to some quality people-watching... And let's face it, I seldom get invited in such places! :(((

These eyeshadows are from the discontinued mineral range by the Body Shop. I wasn't accustomed to loose eyeshadows at the time when I first got them, so naturally, these got chucked away in an "out of sight, out of mind" manner... However, after my more-than-positive experience with Elf's Celebrity mineral eyeshadow (see swatch here), I thought of giving these another go and whad'ya know, now I freakin' love them!

   Aaand here's the unnecessary swatches, since you can't buy these products anymore :P

Final thoughts of this "Shopping my stash" session?

Well, I did start feeling guilts of owning too much makeup for one person! But in a way it was also therapeutic, as I rediscovered some great products I can use during summer season, instead of creating new lemmings. I'm happy, wallet's more than happy: it's a win-win situation!

Do you go through your stash regularly or you don't bother with old makeup products?

Evi   xx

Elizabeth Arden made in... what?!?

A total random post for you today but I felt I had to spread the news!
I hope you understand my excitement by the end of this post ;)

So yesterday, my sister returned from a business trip at Germany.
As she knows me (and my old love affair with Biotherm!), she had picked for me a body milk from the "Eau de Paradis" line by Biotherm; it has a lovely tropical scent and feels light and refreshing on the skin.

Oh yes, I'm saving it for my holidays!

So far, so good.

And as my sister trusts 100% the Elizabeth Arden 8-Hour cream for any problem skin issues, she thought of trying out the face sunscreen from the
8-Hour line of products. The price was friendly, as in all airport duty-frees.

As always, I took a look at the packaging's inscribings...
and what do you know?

You got that right, this product by Elizabeth Arden is made in Greece!
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Moment of silence...

Now I don't know about you, but the first thoughts that spring to my mind are these:

* if an accomplished brand of that decent has one of its products manufactured in Greece, it probably means there's a greek cosmetics factory competent enough to put together a formula relative of the brand's quality status.

* given the above statement, one could speculate that the same factory could provide its technology and expertise to a greek brand for the same type of product. Why not, right?

In this case, the only greek brands I'm aware of that their sunscreens are produced in Greece are Korres and Apivita.

I would rule out the Korres sunscreens, as their packaging and texture are far different from the 8-hour sunscreen by Elizabeth Arden.
But could it be Apivita?

All guessworks aside, I can't help but take pride in this "made in Greece" tag, as it was completely unexpected from a company such as Elizabeth Arden!

Although I'm wondering, whose pocket would I benefit as a potential customer- my country's local industry or the interests of Unilever, who owns Elizabeth Arden?

I'd love to read your opinions on the matter-
or even better, if you've happened to come across a beauty product from a big cosmetics brand which is made in Greece, do let us know!

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