July Favorites

Woo! A favorites post done on time! The world must be ending or something. I actually haven't spent a lot of time with makeup on my face this month, so it's a small month for favorites, but here we go nonetheless!

First up is this Jo Malone fragrance. I'd been dying to try some of their products and picked this up at Galeries Lafayette in Paris, along with the Peony and Blush Suede Body Creme. The way that you're supposed to use Jo Malone products is to layer the cologne over the body cream/lotion, but I like it just as is. Such a bright and fresh smelling scent. You will fall in love with the nice fruity citrus scent and the slight mix of honey in this I've worn it every day for two weeks now.

Honestly, if you've seen me at all this month, I've probably had this on my lips. It's from L'Oreal Paris' Limited Edition Collection Privée in shade 610, Eva's Nude. I. Love. This. Color. Honestly, I might have to go back to the drugstore and pick up a few more tubes because this has become my new color. It's slightly darker than my natural lip color and it feels so creamy and luscious on the lips.

I might be the last person on earth to come to this realization but a shadow primer makes all the difference. And of course, Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion is a quick favorite for me. My eyeshadow used to crease so badly and with this, you can't even tell at the end of the day that I applied my eyeshadow ten hours ago. So worth the money!

This eyeshadow quad from H&M really surprised me. I bought a bunch of makeup from them because we either don't have it here or I literally don't know where to find H&M makeup in my local H&M. This cost me under six Euros and has been a fast favorite for me. I use the light nude shimmer shade (as you can see it basically matches my skin tone once swatched) as a base over my whole eye from root of the lashes up to the eyebrow, and then I layer the gold shimmer on my whole lid. I use the darkest shimmer in the crease and outwards. The matte brown (which looks orange for some reason in the photo) has become my new perfect brow color.

I wasn't sure about this product when I first got it last month, but now that I've been using it for longer I have definitely noticed a difference in my blemishes. It takes a few days for them to heal, but they definitely don't grow once they've popped out and this helps reduce my redness. I use the Indie Lee Blemish Stick twice a day, and I just apply to the spots where I need it. It's also great for back and chest acne.

Sometimes I just don't like to wear lipstick in the summer. Sue me. In that case, I always go to the Benefit Coralista gloss. It's not sticky at all, which is my number one requirement in lip glosses, and it makes your lips feel super smooth. It also has good staying power and doesn't dry out my lips.

My last product is also from H&M, their compact powder in Ivory Mist. Now, this isn't going to work for under your eyes, but if you're looking for a light coverage powder that keeps your foundation locked in place, this is my new go-to and I even prefer it over the Rimmel Stay Matte powder, I think, which has been my favorite literally since I discovered it.

Get Ready for Fall: The Pencil Skirt

The central element of this outfit is the pencil skirt. A classic element to every wardrobe, this would be the perfect outfit to wear to university or to work. The pencil skirt is a real basic for any university girl or working professional, and the particular one in this outfit is really fun because it provides a punch of color and is a great variant on the traditional black or grey pencil skirt that everyone has in their closet.

Why this outfit works:
The emphasis in this outfit is on the pencil skirt and on playing with dimension to give everyone their most flattering shape. The tailored waist and hips on the pencil skirt (I picked this one because it can fit girls with a variety of sizes - up to 2X) are balanced out by the looser fitting top from H&M. What you're doing with this outfit is accentuating the waist and making it the smallest part of your figure by adding more volume up top. What this does is give you the illusion that your waist is very slim and it will give you that perfect pear shape. The jacket keeps the look work and school appropriate while breaking up the dual-tone color palette of skirt and top. The embellishments bring in small elements of the top so that it 'matches' with the outfit while adding some unexpected flare. The great thing about the jacket is that it's versatile enough that it can easily be carried over into another outfit.

The accessories were chosen with care and balance. Personally, I would wear the rings on one hand and the bracelet on the other to give a subtle poise to the outfit and avoid having one side of your body look off-kilter with a bunch of jewelry. I didn't add earrings but I'd probably just do some simple pearls or small gold hoops, which don't take anything away from the outfit or other accessories. The real key here is the pendant color wheel necklace. This should be a staple in every girl's wardrobe because the beauty of the color wheel is that it can match any outfit but it also ties in everything together in a very simple, unobtrusive accessory. It adds a bit of a splash and allows you to be more creative with accessories like shoes and bags. I think that the key to any outfit is balance and if you're going to do a pop on the bottom of color then you need to replicate that on your top half, even with something as subtle as a necklace.

The nailpolish is just a light neutral. Most workplaces don't allow anything too dramatic in terms of nail and hair creativity, unfortunately, and so I tried to keep this a nice, light color, but you can feel free to use any color that you think would go. A dark purple or a deep blue would also be great to add some flare and probably still fit into dress code rules!

Personally, I don't wear heels all that often and I prefer to wear flats for ease in the workplace, but really any black pump would work. I would even pair this outfit with my Nike high-top sneakers to dress it down a little bit. The peach purse is a nice offset from the red and ties back into the color of the bracelet and the gold chain harmonizes all of the other accessories.


Items:
Color Wheel Pendant, Yellow Owl Workshop, $44.00
Raw Diamond Ring, Poketo, $18.00
Cute Bow Enamel Ring, The Red Bow, $18.95
Werrani Bracelet, Aldo, $12.00

Beaded Embellished Jacket, Topshop, $141.50 (UK 2-14)
Red Pencil Skirt, Pin Up Girl Clothing, $48.00 (XS-2X)
Black Crepe Top, H&M, $39.95 (2-14)

Quilted Cross-Body Bag, ASOS, $43.03
Ormelle Shoes, Aldo, $65.00
Nail Polish in Marshmallow, Essie, $8.50

Total cost: $438.93

The jacket is really what makes this outfit expensive. The good thing is that, like I said above, you can easily use it with other outfits, same as the jewelry. I think that the key to building a jewelry collection is making smart decisions and purchasing pieces that have a lot of versatility and can be easily incorporated into several outfits.

Paris Blog #4: Shopping & Centre Georges Pompidou

Alas, Friday was not a very good day for pictures. It was hot (again), and I needed new shorts! I was down to pants exclusively and it's going to just be way too warm for that until Tuesday. So I started the day at a place that is very near and dear to my heart: H&M. I saw one across from Galeries Lafayette yesterday but I wasn't able to go in because I spent all my time at Lafayette! 

Luckily, they were having a sale so I picked up a great new set of shorts and 2 tops, plus some random other goodies. I'm most excited because I found a top with buttons that doesn't do the boob thing. If you are like me and have something noteworthy in the bosom area, then you know that button-up shirts can be a nightmare. Everything fits, you've got all the buttons done and then you see it - the thing. That distinct pull that looks like you're about to pop outta that thing at any second. It's a constant problem for me, especially at H&M. So when I found one that fit, I was like FUCK YEAH. I was also really excited to see the plus sized area that they had in their store. We don't have that in any of the stores in Montreal. With the weight that I've put on over the last year waiting for surgery, my trunk has certainly got a lot of junk in it, and so I sometimes have to shop in the oversize. In the EU that's definitely the case. 

So after spending like 200 dollars there (I guess "other stuff" was probably a little too ambiguous oops - I'll show you everything in my Paris roundup post... or potentially video???) I crossed the street back to Galeries Lafayette. I had seen that cashmere sweaters were on sale yesterday from the house brand and a girl needs her cashmere... but it's hella expensive in Montreal. You might as well buy angora because the price is nearly the same. I also needed to stop by Joe Malone. Okay, so I technically didn't need to but they don't have Joe Malone stuff in Montreal - not that I'm aware of if I'm wrong please correct me - and I picked up a new body cream and fragrance and yum yum. The combo of the two is going to make me smell delish!

After all that shopping (people were side-eyeing me on the Metro with my bags hardcore omg), I went over to the Centre Georges Pompidou to meet my good friend Lucile. She goes to school with me in Montreal, but she's back in France for part of the summer with her family and friends and so it was great to see her!!! It was weird not seeing her for nearly a month! We went to go see the Magiciens de la Terre retrospective, which was not a fabulous exhibit, to be honest. 

To make a long story short about this exhibition, since I realize that most readers are not Art History majors like me and probably don't care, it placed major contemporary artists of the late 80s with unknown indigenous artists from around the world who 'had not been poisoned by the European art well' basically. It paired the artists up on formal basis, ignoring the more significant connections/points being made by both 'sets' of artists. It got a lot of criticism and the exhibition we saw today was basically displaying the ephemera from the original exhibit, but it missed out on the chance to be self-reflexive and critical of what it did. The best part was a video loop that laid out the exhibition plan and showed photos of all of the artworks. There's not too much about the exhibition online because it happened in the late 80s/early 90s, so it was great to see everyone who was there and what they put together.

After that, we took a look at one of the permanent galleries. I only knew Joseph Beuys and Basquiat in the entire exhibit! After thinking about how I was so uninformed about my contemporary art, I realized that it's because my survey courses and a lot of other courses in my program stopped looking to Europe as a source of artistic inspiration and things seemed to move to Asia/the United States. So it was great to discover a lot of new artists - well new to me, anyways!

I am not sure if it was just the exhibitions on display currently (there was also a small exhibit about Piccabia and Man Ray in one of the galleries) or the museum in general, but I would probably not visit again if I came back to Paris, which is the first time that I've genuinely not been wowed by what I'm seeing in this lovely city! I think that tomorrow will be a lot better! I'm going to the Musée du Quai Branly and I'm super excited to see the Indiens des Plaines and the tattoo show (I have a non-museumpass ticket that I paid for so I have to go tomorrow or I lose my money hahaha).