The number one accessory of the month: Lipstick

I have always wanted to be a lipstick woman. I'm not sure where this stems from, maybe from the fact that the only make up my mum always wears is lipstick and as a kid I admired her collection in all the shades of red. She used many designer lipsticks and already the package was magical to me. Or maybe it stems from the fact that when I see a woman nailing a bold lipstick, I immediately think of power and confidence. I think the right lipstick does the same to your face as good high heels do to your body: they lift the whole appearance immediately and as heels make your posture better, lipstick lights up the face. Both are also traditionally associated with femininity and when I wear these two, I have to admit that I do feel really feminine. Wearing a lipstick is a bit tricky though and where it can give you confidence, it can also take away some: if you're not used to wearing lipstick you often tend to think about it a lot; whether it's smudged or in your teeth or if there's any left. I don't really get it that when you're wearing lipstick, order a cocktail in a bar and they don't give you a straw with it. "Hello, I'm wearing lipstick, of course I need a straw in my drink not to smudge it!" The problems of a lipstick woman.

Then there's the shade issue. If you end up choosing a completely wrong shade, you might get an unwanted effect of looking like a cross between a clown and a zombie. It sucks all the colour from your face, making you look like you're having the worst stomach flu of the decade. Nobody wants that and yet probably anyone who has ever tried to be a lipstick woman has had at least one these moments. You all know what I'm talking about. You want to get compliments from your nice lips, not to get asked if you ate something inappropriate for lunch! How to find the right shade then? I just simply try on different shades and see which ones look good on me. Asking an opinion also helps, but make sure that who ever it is you are asking from is honest! It also helps if you know whether your skin tone has coolness or warmth in it as this determines what type of shades you can wear. Once you've found the right shade don't be afraid to rock it! You can gain confidence from wearing a lipstick but you also need confidence to wear it. The truth is that everyone wearing lipstick thinks about the smudging every now and then but the trick is not to show you care about it. It's the attitude that counts.

I found this Elizabeth Arden lipstick ad from 1948 really funny, what's with the awkward cactus on her back?!
Picture taken from myvintagevogue.com 

Lipstick is a fashion item that never goes out of fashion, it's like the LBD of make up. 

Tiina K

Days like these

There was a party at the house on Saturday. The sight in the morning wasn't pretty, neither in the kitchen nor in the mirror. But not to worry, our friend rushed to wake up our sleepy heads in the morning with waffles and bad jokes. I have a complicated relationship with Sundays, I usually both love them and hate them. On the other hand it's often the ultimate Lazy Day of the week when I get to just hang out with my friends and at the same time the stressful Why-did-I-leave-this-to-the-last-minute-once-again Day as the new week is approaching. 

I'll be quite busy with uni work this semester as we have couple really interesting bigger projects to do, one is an online magazine and other is a client work for Edinburgh's Harvey Nichols. Our online magazine is called SATE and you can find us on Facebook here. Stay tuned, because we're gonna be getting some exciting interviews for it! I'm quite excited of this semester since everything we are doing is really interactive and actually feels like proper work more than just school work. It's gonna be hectic towards the end but to be honest, I've always loved some hecticness in my life! And speaking of hectic, seems that my summer is gonna be quite busy too, as I got some good news last week: I'll be doing an internship with FINSK for the summer! I'm super excited as I have been a fan of their shoes for years already! And even better, their shoes are manufactured as ethically as possible, which reflects my own values too. I'll be mainly doing marketing and PR, exactly what I wanted to do. This also means that I'll be moving to London for the summer and I need to find another job aside to be able to survive the summer there. Living in London has been one of my dreams for a while now, so you can imagine how happy and excited I am about all of this. I'll also be going to London for London Fashion Weekend in few weeks, which is gonna be a long anticipated change of scenery. Have I mentioned the word 'exciting' now enough for one chapter? Hey, just making sure you really understand how EXCITED I am at the moment!

Photo of Finsk Autumn/Winter 2010/11 collection

Tiina K

My heart just skipped a beat

I swear it did when I saw these babies on eBay.. When I won them I felt like the happiest girl on earth. Oh the power of pretty shoes! How happy they can make a girl (maybe a boy too, why not!). These are Miu Miu shoes and I fell in love with the detailing of them, especially the intriguing sculpted heel. I believe there are two type of girls: handbag and shoe girls, and I'm definitely a shoe girl. I could spend all my money into shoes and walk in heels every day, if my feet would just agree with me. If Marilyn Monroe wore Chanel no 5 into bed, could I wear these? Or at least cuddle them a bit? 

The shoes are from Miu Miu Fall/Winter 2008 collection and the shoes in this particular collection were phenomenal. The ad campaign for the collection was shot by talented photographer duo Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott, who have done photo shoots for example for fashion magazines such as Vogue and Love and ad campaigns for Gucci and Versace as well. I've been a fan of their work for some time now and if you're not familiar with them, you should definitely check out some of their work! One of the latest ads by them which caught my eye was the one shot for Yves Saint Laurent's fragrance Manifesto. The ad campaign is presented by the always beautiful red head Jessica Chastain, which in my eyes just adds into the appeal of the photos. I have to admit I almost felt like buying the perfume just because of this one photo.. Sometimes I'm a proper victim of ads!

Tiina K

What if leaving is a loving thing?

Looking at brochures about universities in Australia as a teenager I dreamt of moving abroad one day. Still I stayed for many years after that and worked, studied and lived fairly satisfied in my hometown. Then my life finally got to the point when I realised I can't wait anymore for some miracle to happen that takes me away. I had to do the work myself if I wanted to get somewhere!

When I actually decided to move abroad and leave, I thought the hardest part would've been getting everything organised for leaving and saying goodbyes to all my friends and family at the time. The last week was a mixture of excitement, sadness and doubt. I think I was missing everybody already beforehand, before I had even left them. But in the end the moment when I left my family to the airport wasn't that difficult as I had feared. I don't think I even cried much, if all and I admit that I cry quite a lot! I guess I was so excited to jump in the unknown that I kind of forgot. But the thing that I hadn't thought about, and no one usually talks about is that leaving your beloved ones is emotionally hard everytime you do it. I get to face this after every lovely holiday I spend back home. It doesn't get easier the more you do it, if anything, it gets harder everytime. It's something you can't prepare your heart for. But hey they say ”what doesn't kill you makes you stronger” right?

Sometimes I curse myself for choosing to split my life and heart into these two places so far apart and wonder why I want to keep doing it. Still I can't imagine moving back either. My life is here now and if I would have never left home I might have become bitter and bored eventually. I would have regretted if I wouldn't have left and I don't want to regret anything in my life. Now I know who are the people in my life I couldn't live without, who I need and want to be there. I feel like I appreciate every single person in my life even more now. There's no time to waste anymore. It would be so much easier not to miss and pre-miss anyone, but how could I not when they are all such remarkable and awesome people?

For me choosing to leave home was a loving thing to do.

(When I'm listening to Sahara Hotnights album What if Leaving is a Loving Thing, I always remember my youth, where I come from and where I want to go. It keeps my feet on the ground.)

Tiina K