Shopping on the KR, darling.

Hello lovelies :)

I know that I tend to dress up in a mixture of hippy and overly studded outfits on my blog but that's just having fun with fashion and playing around with different trends that catch my eye. I'm actually quite a presentable, preppy, west London girl at heart (honest!) and I am absolutely in love with these Anya Hindmarch canvas bags and cosmetics cases.

I have always adored Anya's bags and shoes and can never resist popping into her chic little stores to coo over the new merchandise and have a stroke of the luxury leather. These canvas bags are one of those perfect items that allow you to bag yourself (no pun intended) a designer item at an affordable price

Practical, stylish and quirky, they stand heads-and-shoulders over those crispy, weird-smelling freebie beach bags you get with magazines! I'm very tempted to treat myself to one of these as a post-exams present (as if I needed any excuse).









(net-a-porter)

Which one do you like the best? I'm thinking the coral "Shopping" one or the white & green "Market" one... and maybe the "Lips and Eyes" cosmetics case just for completeness sake?

Love,
Geisha xoxo

PS. Follow me on twitter for constant updates! @geisharocks

MAC is Crack: IN THE GROOVE

Temptalia's breakdown of the collection

Needless to say, I want everything.

PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHTS: What's the best paid holiday job?

TWO THINGS TO SAY

1. Topshop have done it again.

I wrote about the clog re-pricing phenomenon first HERE, where these Prima Sling Clogs went from £75 to £80 in a matter of months.

Now, DJ P Green and his hype-harnessing team are back in the game with the Sienna clogs - I bought them for £68. They are now back in stock for... £70. I know it's only £2 but its the principle of the matter!

But people will still buy them anyway, right?

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2. Love these Phillip Lim leggings.

(Click to enlarge)

Photos from Cheapskate Chic

Could be because they kinda remind me of my Siwy jeans.

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Love,

Geisha

xoxo

MAKE UP: Summer night drama

Late night messing around with my make up bag :)

This is supposed to be a dramatic, smoky, night time look but the smiley pictures aren't really giving out the right vibe! I added an OTT one at the end to bring the mood back to DRAMA.

Products used

1. I applied my current moisturiser of choice, Estee Lauder's Daywear Plus Multi Protection Anti-Oxidant Creme SPF 15. I got this free in my gift bag but I'm really liking it. The texture is in between a gel and a cream and it smells lovely and refreshing and clean.
   
   
2. Next, I used Maybelline Dream Satin Foundation in Nude, stippled and blended with my E.L.F. flat top Powder Brush.
   
   
3. For my blush, I used Coralista by Benefit. It's a gorgeous glowy soft coral-pink colour and helps to liven up the face a bit (intense eyes can wash you out if you don't put a flush in your cheeks!).
   
   
4. For the eyes, I firstly used my Topshop Gold crayon in Sun Dance all over my eyelid and smudged it out/around slightly with a flat Ecotools eyeshadow brush & let it set.
   
   
5. I then used MAC Fluidline in Dipdown to line my top lid heavily (using a Red Earth eyeliner brush), ending it in a big defined flick at the corners. I also smudged the gel liner along my bottom lash line. I decided to use a brown, rather than a black gel liner because I think that with my colouring (especially with black eyes and hair), heavy black eyes can sometimes look a bit harsh.
   
   
6. I used a charcoal grey eyeshadow to define my crease (or what I have of one anyway!) by pressing it gently onto my crease line and blending it with a fluffy tapered eyeshadow brush.
   
   
7. Lastly, I used my new MAC Chromographic Pencil in NW15/NC20 to line my lower waterline and blended on the inner corners of my eyes to open them up and brighten them.
   
   
8. I then applied lashings of No 7 360 Mascara - this look can really take some long long lashes! In fact, go ahead and apply those falsies - they'll only add to the sultry, smoky, fluttery eyed effect.
   
   
9. To finish the look, I used a Vinyl Bronze Rimmel lip gloss in 199 "Sunset" - a lovely subtle lip gloss with a hint of bronze and coral and a bit of sparkle. It's also really moisturising (although it smells a bit synthetic!) - when I wiped it off my lips were baby soft! I was pleasantly surprised.

On my nails: Barry M in Coral

In fact, after I swiped over my eyes with some make up remover, the gold crayon faded, the mascara smudged onto my lower lash line and the Fluidline smudged too. I then dabbed some shimmery YSL cream shadow over my eyelid and blended it with my finger and created a second smoky eye look which looked a bit more undone.

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Hope you guys like :) I'm still in the midst of exams so no interesting outfit posts to speak of.

Is everyone enjoying the GLORIOUS weather for me? :(

Love,

Geisha xoxo

PS. I am twittering NON-STOP at the moment

- Follow me @geisharocks!

EL Bronze Goddess Exotic Blush & Topshop Haul!

Gorgeous day in Oxford :) Perfect time to go shopping! I apologise in advance for the crappy pictures :( I don't have my digital camera with me so these were all taken with my phone.

Onto the good stuff: My favourite purchase of the day - Estee Lauder's Exotic Blush/Bronzer from the Bronze Goddess collection. I know I'm kind of late to jump on the bandwagon with this collection which has been out for ages but oh well!

A very bad swatch, I hope you can vaguely see it! The product isn't actually that pigmented anyway.

I wrote a review of it on makeupalley.com :)

Just bought this today after the EL salesgirl put it on me. I had originally only gone in to buy the Pure Crystal lipstick in Crystal Baby (GORGEOUS GORGEOUS.. Go try it and you'll be surprised! I usually loathe pink lipsticks but this is sheer pinky-coral goodness in a tube) but with 2 purchases you got the free gift bag and I'm a sucker for any sort of "free" promotion.

Starting with the bad stuff: The compact is made out of plastic and on the bright side, this makes it very light and easy to carry, but for £26.50 I expected a more sturdy compact - this feels way flimsier than most drugstore products and the hinge already seems a little dodgy. Unimpressed. There is a huge mirror in the lid though which is lovely - gotta have a big mirror! So bad points - price and packaging.

The product doesn't come with a brush so instead of shelling the £32.50 on the new powder brushes the SA was trying to promote, I bought an ecotools powder brush, which is soft and gorgeous and I highly recommend it.

Luckily, the best thing about this product is the product itself! It has a zebra print swirl/pattern of a soft brown (the bronzer) and a muted pink (the blush). Apparently its supposed to be inspired by the coral reef but it just looks like a zebra print to me.

Upon swatching, it actually looks much more pinky than bronze - kind of like how Benefit's Coralista would look swatched but with a more pastel/chalky pink, rather than a coral tone. The bronze doesn't show up much on my finger.

When applied to the face (I am around NC25 but MAC stuff generally doesn't match my skin... I am a spot on match for Chanel Vitalumiere in 20 Claire or Lancome's Photogenic in 03), the product imparts a gorgeous glow, not quite bronzey, ever so slightly pink, not shimmery nor muddy - just like my skin is glowing! I was not convinced at first under the harsh Boots store light but once I went outside I had to run back and get it - under sunlight this makes you look so healthy! I have to use yellow-toned foundations to balance out the pink in my face and therefore have a tendency to look a bit beige and blah. This baby worked its magic and made me look a bit rosier (but not red or flushed or hot and bothered).

I would steer clear or use a very light hand when dusting this onto your forehead because it could pick up more rosy, but I think the product is sheer (for my skin tone anyway and I'm quite light) and pretty much foolproof. It would definitely be more of a highlighter for darker skins as its really not very pigmented, but fair/medium skinned guys and gals - go and give this a try. The SA applied it more heavily on my cheeks and dusted it all over my face and I was amazed at what a difference it made. The shimmer doesn't really show unless you dust it a bit more heavily. This product would be gorgeous as a blusher, light bronzer (if you want to fake a tan then this isn't the right product - its more glowy than pigmented) or all-over face powder (which I was sceptical about but it works!).

And I think its limited edition, if you needed another excuse to buy it :)

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More shopping goodies

The Estee Lauder gift bag which comes with a purchase of any two items. I bought the Exotic blush/bronzer and Pure Crystal lipstick in Crystal Baby. For my free gift bag, I chose the skin care range for younger/combination skin as opposed to more mature/dry skin.

The contents of the bag (turquoise thing at the back), from left to right:

- Lipstick palette with 4 lip colours

- Lipstick in Rose Tea

- Box and Crystal baby lipstick (my other purchase, not included in the gift bag)

- (Little turquoise bottle) Idealist - Pore Minimizing Skin Refresher

- Perfectly Clean Fresh Balancing Lotion

- Double Wear Zero-Smudge lengthening mascara & Lash Primer Plus

- Perfectly Clean Splash Away Foaming Cleanser

- Daywear Plus Multi Protection Anti-Oxidant Creme SPF 15

Swatches of Rose Tea and Crystal Baby

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Non makeup goodies include these Topshop flats - wore them immediately and got blisters :( They still need breaking in. But they look so cute and folksy, when the weather warms up I want to wear these with bare legs and minimal makeup.

Also purchased this pair of Lila jeans - again influenced by Tanya of pixi2woo who always looks so gorgeous in hers in her vlogs!

Love the zip detailing at the ankle.

Whats that you say? I just bought a pair of jeans? Shhhhh.

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FOTD:

• Maybelline Dream Satin foundation (bought this instead of Chanel Vitalumiere because I couldn't bring myself to give the extremely incompetent salesgirl any commission). I'm really impressed with this foundation - good shade (Nude), lovely to blend, sets really smoothly... so far so good!
• EL Bronze Goddess Exotic bronzer/blush on the cheeks - can you see how it just gives a little bit of a glow?
• A little bit of the EL mascara, a thin line of eyeliner, brow pencil and thats it!

I've missed blogging! But exams aren't over for me yet :( I still have one more before I have to start writing my dissertation! The fun never ends...

Hope you enjoyed this post :) I always get so excited about my new purchases and don't really have anyone to show them to (besides my boyfriend who is less than enthusiastic) so this is my little outlet for my shopping excitement!

Has anyone else hauled the EL Bronze Goddess collection? What did you think?

Love,

Geisha xoxo

TOPSHOP MAKE UP - SUN DANCE EYES

A friggin' gorgeous & simple eye tutorial.

Guys and girls, if you don't have the sundance stick already, run - don't walk - to your nearest Topshop and get it. NO REGRETS.

Love,

Geisha xoxo

Vivienne Westwood x Melissa

I think the idea is cute - Melissa's eco friendly policies with Vivienne Westwood's Anglomania style. I've seen these before in person and they didn't really appeal but now that I look at them again, the jellyness and that bauble is mesmerising.

Jelly shoe goodness or Plasticky badness?

Does anyone actually own these?

Love,

Geisha xoxo

Dear Topshop, You've got some balls, Love Geisha.

TOPSHOP PRIMA CLOG

It's back in stock! Yay, wahoo, yipee, hooray! - say the general population of clog lovers.

So, Buy them here for £80

Or you could..

Click

HERE

or

HERE

or

HERE

To remind yourself that they were actually £75 when they were first came out. A few months ago.

And now they're £80.

That's £5 more because, well, just because.

Can you say "cashing-in-on-the-hype"?

Yours passive-aggressively :)

Geisha xoxo

PS. Who am I kidding, they're already selling out 2nd time around anyway. For every person (me) who is put off by the fact that DJ Phillip has managed to completely re-price an item within a few months purely because his eyes are full of dollar/pound signs, there are 5 other people willing to go buy it, eh?

Emma Watson at the 2010 Costume Institute Gala

To be honest, Emma Watson has never really impressed me as an actress. I love the Harry Potter books but I feel that the harry-ron-hermione acting in the film franchise is sub-standard. I love Snape though.

BUT... I have to admit she looked stunning at the Costume Institute Gala (albeit a bit weirdly bronzed-californian rather than the interesting-and-pale english rose that we're used to.)

I'm not digging the shoes but the dress (custom made Burberry by her escort Christopher Bailey), in my opinion, is just the right combination of sexy and youthful. I think I like it because it reminds me of a one-shouldered Kate Moss for Topshop dress that I bought from her first collection (the only good one.. sigh). But I love the ruffle detail and I actually like the slit and the length. It just works for me, somehow. I want that dress! (If you're listening, Chris).

What do you all think?

Her make up was also lovely and glowing and her hair looked really pretty.

Penny for your thoughts: How do I get subtle waves/curls like this in my shoulder length hair?? Curling irons just make my hair go into little pig-tail curls (and I mean literal pig tails. Like the curly fleshy things at the end of pigs) that look less wavy-goddess and more street-corner-chic.

I just bought a Babyliss pro conical wand on the advice of the gorgeous Tanya of pixi2woo, but I bought it in the biggest barrel size (19-32mm) because I can't stand tight little curls. I tried curling my hair today and well, the barrel is kind of big for my shoulder length hair. Fail.

Does anyone else have this conical curling wand or just a conical wand in any other brand? Any tips for making it work? I guess maybe I should have just gone with the smaller barrel, huh.

Love,

Geisha

xoxo

REVIEW: TOPSHOP MAKE UP

I decided to pop into Westfield on my way to university today:

TOPSHOP'S NEW MAKE UP COLLECTION:

Click to enlarge - APOLOGIES IN ADVANCE for the crappy pictures taken with my phone!

Blushes and nail varnishes

Lipsticks

Highlighter

Loved her make up in this picture!

And being the good blogger I am, I TRIED to take some swatches for you. Unfortunately, I didn't have my digital camera and my phone camera is pretty damn amazing for things more than 1 metre away from the lens.

However, for anything closer, this happens:

BLUR!!! Argh!! See how clear my converse are in the background? Dangnabit!!

But waste not, want not, I decided that I'd still post them anyway - at least you can make out the colours even if its all a blurry mess! You can click on the pictures if you want to enlarge them (and see my blurry hand in all its glory). I hope this is somewhat useful :(

So onto the swatches: the 2 pictures above are of the same thing, I just thought that I'd put them both up to try and compensate for the crappy picture quality. SORRY!!!

• Starting from that little foundation blob on the top: That is the Skin tint in light. I am around an NC25-30 and it was just about right. I guess the lightest is "fair" so "light" is 2nd lightest (4 shades).
• Next row down - the pinky smudges. The smudge on the left is blusher in Flush and on the right is the colour Neon Rose.
• Next row down: The brown glittery smear is a Crayon in the colour Satchel and the bright blue glittery thing is another Crayon (basically a chunky eyeshadow pencil) in Cosmic.
• The first horizontal line (the light brown smudgy one) is... I'm not actually sure, sorry! Maybe its the Satchel crayon again. The other 3 below it are Eyeliners - from top to bottom - Thistle, Saddle and Petrol (a gorgeous turquoise green.. may have to go back and get this).
• The two swipes at the bottom are Lipsticks - the light peachy colour is Desert and the muted rose colour is Mink.

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I then swatched the two S/S 10 Trend crayons in Sun Shower (gold) and Moon Shine (silver).

THESE ARE SO GORGEOUS!!! Really long lasting (I couldn't smudge it/wipe it off once it settled), AMAZING COLOUR PAY OFF, lovely and glittery. Use them as eyeshadows on their own, or as eyeshadow bases (they work great) and you could even use them as highlighters if you dare!

Oh and the pinkish shimmery stuff on the right of my hand near my knuckle (picture below) is the Skin glow - the lighter of the two colours. I didn't swatch the other one because when I swatched this one, it looked like... well, it didn't look good. How on earth are you supposed to put this stuff on your face? It did not blend well with my skin at all, it looked like I'd rubbed some Rubenesque paint pot on my face (except more of an obvious pinky-purple-holograph colour). Yeuch. Not good.

I ended up with the S/S 10 Trend crayon in Sun Shower (the gold) and a blush in Neon Rose (a bright coral-pink). If you're thinking of buying the Coral Crepe paint pot from MAC's Pret-a-Papier collection then consider buying this as a dupe - its lovely and blendable (even though its a cream to powder sort of formula) and looks just like it!

(Ignore the smudgy mess that is my eyeliner mixing with the Sun shower crayon)

Nothing better than a nice little mini-haul to lift the spirits!

Topshop Nail polish in Grey and the Sun Shower crayon

Topshop nail polish in The Big Smoke and Neon Rose cream blush

Sorry again for the crappy picture quality but I hope this was at least a little bit helpful for those who haven't seen the collection in person!

A quick rundown of the rest of what I tried from the collection

(trust me, I spent way too much time in here testing and swatching):

• Nail polishes - Nicely pigmented, a bit runny and therefore a bit streaky (but better that then sticky right?) and 2 coats is more than enough for a solid colour.
• Mascara - Nice even standard brush barrel (no bulges and funny rubbery sticky out things, etc), quite a thin formula that took a while to dry, the brown colour I tried didn't look brown on my black eyelashes :P
• Glittery crayons (swatched/mentioned above) - full of glittery, smell a bit weird, very easy to smudge (whether that's a good or bad thing i don't know)
• Kohl eye pencils (swatched/mentioned above) - soft and super-pigmented, the lilac, white and black colours are not metallic, the brown, blue and teal ones are. Long-lasting once dried (didn't budge off my hand).
• Glitter jars - Um... completely loose glitter, does not swatch, falls all over the place... you need some adhesive with this baby.
• Twist up crayons in Moon shine and Sun Shower (swatched/mentioned above) - LOVE LOVE LOVE. Pigmented, shiny, long lasting. LOVE. Possibly my favourite product.
• Eye Shadows - Fine, standard stuff. Pigmentation/colour/fall out all standard.
• Lipsticks - I tried Desert on my lips and it was such a gorgeous nude but SO DRYING!! HEARTBROKEN :( I really would have bought it. I also tried on Mink, the darkish rose colour and it was a My-Lips-But-Better colour, dried to a matte finish, not as drying as Desert.
• Lip Gloss (squeezy tubes) - Some of these were SO STICKY (Statement) and some were really runny (Nude). Huh? Nice pigmentation though but they made my lips tingle weirdly (probably allergic, sigh).
• Polish (the glossy lip stuff in flip top pots) - Adorable packaging with a mirror in the lid, they remind me of MAC's tinted lipbalms but with better pigmentation. They were a bit melted/not very solid, but smelt nice and applied/lasted well. Really liked these.
• Polish pots: Lip balm - The scents (rose and watermelon) were... just there. Not very strong. Just a standard lip balm I guess.
• Bronzers - I preferred the colour "radiance 1" to "radiance 2" - number 2 was a bit more orangey. Both are VERY GLITTERY. if you like glitterbomb bronzers, these are for you!
• Blushes - Already mentioned these above - a cream to powder formula, nicely pigmented, not as bright on the skin as they are in the pan (thank goodness). The compact has a mirror in the lid.
• Highlighter - Really really GOLD, like a sheerish sparkly gold eye shadow. I tried it on my cheek and it looked... well, pretty gold. Would be nice as an eyeshadow? A bit OTT as a highlighter, but I guess with a light hand and the right skin tone it could work.

Hope that's useful :)

Love,

Geisha

xoxo

Edit: Just found good pictures of the collection from a preview (can't remember where they're from, sorry!! If they're yours, tell me and I'll put up the source)

HERE,

HERE,

AND HERE