FOTD #2

I did this look for my moms birthday party the other weekend. A bronzed smokey eye with a neutral lip. Something a little more polished and amped up than my daily look. I've been having a lot of fun with the smoked palette and just love playing around with it.

I put mushroom all over my lids with a bit of sin (from the naked palette) in the inner corner. I then put barlust in the crease and outer corner and blended with freestyle. I do wish the smoked palette had more medium toned colours, it's not a palette I can use on it's own.

Products used:
Urban Decay Smoked Palette
Urban Decay Zero Liner
Shiseido Perfect Refining Foundation in I20
Maybelline Stay Matte powder
Urban Decay Potion Primer
Benefit Boi-ing concealer in 01
Maybelline Dream Lumi Touch
Maybelline Falsies Flared
Benefit Bella Bamba blush
Dior Amber Diamond
Chanel Coco Rogue Shine in Boy (not pictured)

Review: Urban Decay Naked Basics Palette

I only really bought this product because it's great for weekends. Smaller than my Naked and Naked2 palettes it fits perfectly in an overnight bag with a couple of brushes so you can still look put together the next day without carrying around a ton of product.

This palette consists of 5 matte shades and one slightly shimmery highlight shade. Honestly the first three colours barely show up on my skin. I mix Walk of Shame and Venus for my inner corner and then use naked2 for my outer eye and faint in the crease. I don't see this as being a very versatile palette. While very useful it's not fun like the other Urban Decay palettes.

Honestly unless you do a lot of short trips or overnights I wouldn't recommend this palette. Not because the product itself is bad, the shadows perform like other Urban Decay shadows (though they are a touch powdery). It's just that this palette is boring. Which I guess is kind of the point when you have a basics palette.

Music!

I love this song, something about the back and forth of the male and female singers is just amazing.

Newest Addiction

Because of the 13 hour flight I was able to convince myself (not that it was hard) that I needed to get a Nintendo 3DS. Why did I need a 3DS when I have a perfectly good DSlite sitting at home? Because I wanted to play Harvest Moon: A New Beginning of course!
I think this game is so cute and I absolutely love playing it. Though I am having a hard time choosing who to date...

Travel: how I pack

As you can see from the photo above  I'm a bit OCD about my packing. I come from a family of over packers and struggle not to let them influence me when I go away. One of the ways I do this is to lay everything out about a week before hand and ruthlessly edit throughout the week. By laying everything out I can see what I have, what can pair with what, if I have a colour scheme (which apparently I do! The Black, Blue, and Red theme was only noticed after I lay everything out).

If something only goes with one outfit than I tend to edit it out. I want my tops to go with more than one bottom. For this trip I'm actually working so I have a more 'professional' clothing than I normally do. Despite the fact that Japan will be super hot this time of year, I'm packing a lightweight cardigan to throw over dresses so that I'm not revealing too much.

Jersey dresses are a mainstay of my wardrobe and even more so when I travel. They pack up small, don't wrinkle, look great, and don't require washing while away. I also love belts because they don't take up much room but can change the look of an outfit with minimal effort.

I also label where everything goes so that I can see if I'm missing anything. It's always terrible to forget an essential item (I forgot my razor last summer when I went to Italy) so I find that by keeping like items together and laying it out I can spot gaps much easier.

I'll go in depth into what I pack for my makeup bag in another post. Hope this helps you get organized for future trips!

Insta Update

Lately on Instagram: book haul, smoked salmon and dill dip, subway stations, reading outdoors, packing and collar details.

Music!

Ok this was supposed to be a monthly favorites post. But I ran out of time with packing and battling my bank to get my currency (the day before I leave too, stress that was not needed). So instead sit back and enjoy this song by one of my favorite bands Capital Cities. I saw them live in May and it was amazing. We got to dance after the show with one of the singers and the guitarists and they were so nice and friendly.