How to make your brows wow! - An Essence Review

Hello my lovelies!

This post comes later than expected, but editing took a little bit long :P 

Today I wanna review one of the make-up boxes I bought from Essence last week and I also can show you how I fill in my eyebrows at the same time, yay! :) 

Warning! Picture Spam ahead! ;) 

First take a look at the box itself, the packaging is so cute, I love it ! 

I have to admit, the packaging of these boxes from Essence were the main reason why I wanted to have them at first! I mean, just look at it, even the mirror is not just plain and simple :) 

The box itself comes with 3 different shades of brown and a highlighter. It also contains a little tweezer, a double-ended applicator and a little guide on how to do your eyebrows.

The tweezer is always good to have, although I have to say this one feels pretty stiff and cuts the hairs rather than pluck them (small minus point if you really need them).

The applicator is ok, although I prefer an angled brush with a longer handle, so I took one of mine instead of the one it comes with - but that's just my personal preference ;) 

The 3 shades you get are exactly what you need! I can't talk for blondes obviously, but even the lightest color "love blondes" looks pretty good to me. 

I personally combine the darkest color and the medium one, just to get a more natural look :) 

Let's start with the brows! In the picture above you can see my natural brow without any products on it - just for you to see what I'm working with.

Just to make it clear - the following steps are just the way I fill in my eye brows, it may not be the perfect or the only way, but that's how I do it :P 

Step 1:

Take an angled brush (the one from the box or your own) and start filling in your lower part of the brow with a darker shade (I took "love brunettes"). Try to follow the natural curve of your brow, but of course you could also make it more straight or little bit more arched, just like you want it. 

Fill in the end of the brow with the darker shade as well.

Step 2:

Taking the lighter shade (in my case "lov' em all"), start filling in the rest of your brow with really soft and short strokes. Sometimes I alternate between the ligther and the darker shade, just to make it look more natural. 

Step 3:

You could just let the brow the way it is in step 2, or - like I love to do it - also create a line on the upper part of your brow (with the darker shade again) to make it look more crisp and defined. 

Step 4:

Again, this step is optional! Take your favorite concealer and apply it underneath your eyebrow - this way you once again define your brow more and also are able to correct some mistakes you possibly did. 

Step 5:

Just blend the concealer out with your finger or a small brush.

Step6:

If you used a concealer it may be enough as a highlight for you, or you can just add a little bit of your favorite highlighter to your browbone (here I used "lift me up!" from the box).

And that's it! You are finished :) 

And here is a full face picture, just because it looks different than just one brow :P 

All in all I have to say I really like this make-up box! The colors are nice and easy to use, the box itself is a pretty addition to any collection and the price is very good as well.

It costs 5,95€ here in Germany and contains a total of 6g of product. 

What do you think? Do you already own this box, or do you now plan on getting it? 

I would also love to know if some of you fill in their eyebrows totally different..or maybe not at all? 

Let me know in the comments! :) 

See ya soon with some pretty swatches ;) 

Thanks for reading! <3 

Nail Art of the Day: Stripy Gradient

Hello my lovelies!

Finally I am home :) I met with a dear friend of mine and after talking a lot and eating sushi and stuff we just decided to wash our cars at 9 pm - we are crazy like that :D

The following nail art (if you are following me on Facebook you already saw a pic of it) is what I wanted to post yesterday, but I was too tired to do my nails so here it is one day later ;) 

The polishes I used from right to left: 

China Glaze - Ruby Pumps, Essence - Black is Back, Catrice - On Top of the Alps, Essence TC Better Than Gel Nails

First I started with a simple black to white gradient and let it dry.

If you are not familiar with this technique yet, just check out the tutorial from Sammy @The Nailasaurus - it is still the best one out there! :)

After it was dry enough to tape it, I just did exactly that. I used those tiny nail art tapes to tape off 3-4 stripes and applied a coat of Ruby Pumps all over the nail. 

I don't like to let it sit too much, so I immediately removed the tape and moved on to the next nail. 

After all nails were done I just finished it off with the Essence TC and voilà!

If you ever saw China Glaze's Ruby Pumps in real life you know what a beautiful sparkly red it is, too bad it doesn't show all its beauty on camera ;) 

I hope you like it! 

Thanks for reading and see ya soon! <3 

Kiko & Essence Haul + Blog Name Change

Hello my lovelies! 

I was on the road the whole day, just got home a few hours ago , but I promised myself I would do this post mostly because I wanna explain the name change of my blog! 

Since the first day I started this blog, I was never quite happy with the name. I am horrible with finding creative names so I took the first thing that sounded good to me at the time. Well, it has been 3 years and I really wanna get my blog going again, maybe even start a Youtube-channel, who knows? But I feel that I need a name that I can use for both my blog and Youtube and is short and easy to remember!

Since I am so bad with names I asked the lovely ladies of Polishaholics Anonymous on Facebook (told you about them once, lovely group!) and immediately got some responses :D

My own suggestion was Theodora's Beauty Corner, which got some positive response. The other suggestions were: Raducal Beauty (my last name is Radu - so instead of radical its raducal :P) and Theadorable Beauty Blog (Kind of a mix of my first name Theodora with adorable). 

I liked those suggestions, BUT I am still open for new ones! I will add them to the survey I started on the left side bar and you, my dear followers, have time to vote for your favorite one! ;)  

I know a name change is not the best thing, but better to do it now than later, right? 

Ok, enough of that, here are some beautiful things I got the past couple of days :3

I didn't wanna buy anything from Kiko, I just wanted to browse the nail polish section of their website and then I saw the big offer they had on Black Friday - 30% on your whole purchase! 

I just couldn't resist :D 

I got 5 eye shadows and a palette to put 4 of them in, 2 nail polishes, a face primer, a lip primer and a brow highlighter. 

I would love to do swatches/reviews on them and I probably will do so in the near future, but is there anything you would really like to see asap ? Tell me ;) 

All of the stuff above was a real spontaneous buy! I was in the city with my bf and he wanted to look at some games, so I spent my time looking at some makeup and stuff. 

I really just wanted to look! :D 

But in the end, when he came back I had all of this stuff in my hands and I just had to buy these pretties :3 

The whole collection of thermo polishes by Essence, 3 of the new palettes from Essence, 2 quattro eye-shadows from Essence's LE "Come to Town" + the green glitter polish from that same LE. 

The 2 false lashes I got from a 1€ Shop and they just looked so gorgeous.... and let's be honest, you can't do anything wrong with that price :D

Same thing as above, anything you really wanna see a review/swatch of asap ? 

Did you buy anything beautiful these days? Tell me in the comments, would love to know! 

See ya!

Also ...tomorrow is Nail Art Monday! Yay :D

Today's Swatch: Barry M - Denim + New Poll (Please Vote!)

Hello there!

Hope you are all well today :) Tomorrow I am going back home from my little vacation (I am visiting my boyfriend) and I can't wait to do more nail art and reviews and concentrate even more on my blogging life ;) 

But for now, let's take a look at this swatch I found hidden on my computer ^^  

(Without top coat)

This is 2 coats of Berry M - Denim, and you already can tell that the name is very suiting for this one! The slight silver shimmer and the not so glossy finish really do remind you of denim :) 

 (With top coat)

The application was really easy, because the polish has kind of the perfect consistency. Also one coat is more than enough with this one (its really opaque) but I like to have a perfect result and just did 2 ;) 

What do you think of Barry M polishes? 

I got most of mine as a gift and I'm in love with the colors and application of this brand! 

Are there any must-haves I must know of? ;)

Leave me a comment, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this!

See ya soon <3 

P.S.: Oh I almost forgot !! I started a new survey on my blog ( left side bar) where you can vote for my new blog name ! I really wanna change it up and I am still open for new suggestions ;) Will talk more about it tomorrow in my post :) 

Nail Art Monday - Big Red Glitter

Hello my lovelies! :) 

Short post today, because it's kinda of a sad day for me and I don't feel like talking too much right now ^^

Today's nail art looks kinda simple but let me tell you it took forever! :)) 

After applying 2 coats of Essence - Fabuless, a simple black with light shimmer, I added this big red glitter from kkcenterhk ... one by one... 

Although it was a lot of work, the glitter looked so gorgeous in the end it was really worth it :) 

I just placed them with a dotting tool onto the wet nail polish. If I thought the polish is not sticky enough anymore I added a dot of clear polish and placed the glitter on top of it.

After I finished all my nails I applied 2 thick layers of top coat to really smooth it out, although I have to admit that 1 or 2 glitter edges where still kinda sticking out. 

I did wear it only for a day, because it felt really thick on my nails with all those layers :D

If you like it or have questions, just leave me a comment ;) 

Have a nice evening (or day, depending where you're from :P)

See ya <3