Happy 2010!!!!

SOLD...sorry about that

Everything is sold, sorry about that

Before 2009 is over, I would like to sell three of my Jill Stuart items for reasonable prices, predominantly to cover for the shipping fee.


The first item is a limited edition eyeshadow quad from the winter 2008 range. It is a range of the cutest golds, pinks and neutrals, so if you haven't been able to pick this up in 2008, this could be your chance.

***(mail me at tropischezee_@online.nl if you are interested in buying something)***

Jill Stuart eyeshadow quad in 05 Flash Veil (used 1x)- $19 INCLUDING shipping


Jill Stuart is the queen of princessy packaging. You will receive this palette in the whimsical, peachy packaging.

The colour collection is 05 in Flash Veil

The compact is adorably cute and a jewel to show:

The inside mirror is handy for applying your makeup in the office or on the road:

My second items is the Jill Stuart Eye Jelly in colour 10 Vintage Decor:

Jill Stuart Eye Jelly 10 Vintage Decor (used 1x) $ 7.50 including shipping

Princessy packaging, adorned like a jewel:

Shaped in feminine forms, a statement on your makeup dresser:

A gorgeous taupy brown colour with silver flecks:

Utterly beautiful to have:

My last item is another jewel, that has gotten rave reviews as well:

Jill Stuart Loose Powder in Natural (new) $21 INCLUDING shipping

It is a generous size that will provide you with the silkiest powder in the most adorable case:

The box is included:

You cannot get more cute and girly with this soft peachy bow on the powder puff:

Every item is clean and unused:

The foil is still unharmed:

***(mail me at tropischezee_@online.nl if you are interested in buying something)***

New Year's Eve: the perfect party

Christmas has been celebrated! I hope everything has been wonderful!

Thus, it is time to think about the next celebration towards a new decade! 2010!!! Ready for it???

Parties have always been one of my favourite pasttimes. Even though I have not been to that many parties anymore, the idea of dressing up, socializing and dancing has always been a true event. It must have something to do with my horoscope...Leo's love to party!!!

I am sure that most of my readers have some wonderful NYE-parties to attend, or spend their time with their loved ones. I am also positive that most of you have already thought up what to wear and what makeup to put on for the celebration. Still, I would like to show you some gorgeous items I found (which is probably too late to buy for New Years Eve, but hey, they make a gorgeous set for the next party)

I love originality...and still feeling confortable. This picture looks like such a cool party outfit: the fedora is a bit masculine, and she teams it up with curly locks, a poofy striped dress, some sexy fishnet tights and some gorgeous boots...It is a cheeky and feminine way of party dressing portrayed by Misty.

So I searched a bit on etsy for some cool fedora's...Glowstoes (what's in a name) has this sophisticated variety with flapper-esque lace.

Or this one has a bright orange and red feather....

from stacyleighatelier

And how to stand out in a sea of Little Black Dresses?..simply wear white!

Clairedelafaye on etsy

But be careful for those drunk people spilling their drinks on everybody.

Or adorn yourself in a delicate and eyecatching soft aqua colour. This hollystalder dress would look wonderful with a light complexion.

Team up with your aqua eyeshadow and accessorise with this gorgeously matching fascinator:

from BaroqueandRoll...

This is one of my favourites...a vintage flapper dress from the 20s:

flapper dress from stacyleighatelier at etsy

And I would probably team up the dress with a hairpiece such as this one from annashoub

Whatever your partyplans and your outfit will be, I hope it will be a wonderful New Year's Eve and a gorgeous new year.

Merry Christmas and enjoy the season!

Kose Addiction eyeshadow in Flashback

Today I have a new brand I would like to introduce. Actually, Kose is a familiar brand in Japanese cosmetics. However, their daughter line Addiction by Akaro has been launched since the summer of 2009, so it is rather new.

Although this line looks incredibly sleek and promising, I have not found that much information in English about it online. According to Rougedeluxe it is a line that focusses on City career women, who "who want luxurious couture-like makeup that is simple and effective to use, even in creating dramatic looks" (from rougedeluxe).

That is also the feel I get from their website, that has a NARS-like appearance. I am a bit ambivalent about Kose using a Caucasian woman for their promotion picture, though. I think that a brand that focuses on the Asian public (the website is only in Japanese and not in English) should have picked one of the many gorgeous Asian models.

I agree that this model is suitable for the edgy look, however, I think that a model like Gwen Lu could have been more perfect for this. I mean, I am Caucasian myself, but I do not think that a superblonde woman with typically Caucasian features should represent a Japanese brand.

Ad Campaign: AvantGOD, Fall 2009/Winter 2010. Source: asianmodelsblog.blogspot.com

All right, the website for Kose Addiction reminded me of Nars, the eyeshadow itself looks like a lovechild between Bobbi Brown and Shu Uemura. The indication of eyeshadows in categories such as ME (metallic look), M (Matte), S (Shimmer) and P, something that Shu Uemura does as well. The eyeshadow comes in a similar size as well as Shu Uemura's eyeshadows.

The case is not translucent as Shu Uemura. So this is Bobbi Brown coming in. It is a glossy square compact with the word Addiction written upon it. No reference to Kose.

I was interested in Neverland as well, that looked like a dark-teal smoky colour on the online swatches. I still picked Flashback, as it looked like a wonderful taupe that is always flattering.


Indeed, I received a wonderful taupe colour that is velvety and smooth in application:

For the real taupe lovers, *cough* Pink Sith, know a taupe is not merely a taupe, it can be laced with different dimensions that can make a seemingly safe colour a delight and adventure to wear (sorry, poetic over here).

The taupe of Kose Addiction's Flashback is a taupe with a hint of red laced throughout. It is not so visible in cool daylight:

But this picture with flash shows a tiny bit of red in it. That is fabulous news for the girls with green or blue eyes, as a hint of red has the ability to make eyes pop .

This taupe rocks!!! It has the perfect texture and the right taupiness.

As I mentioned earlier, I have not seen that many swatches on beautyblogs yet. Good news is that Lokolo has made a ton of swatches on her blog (here) of the majority of eyeshadows. Now I am looking for some good swatch pictures of their lipsticks too.

The only website I have found that sells Kose Addiction is mihokoshop.com. I have ordered once from them, and I received my package after a week with EMS, so I am happy about their service so far. Mihoko sells the eyeshadows for $31.

Wintery cheeks with Illamasqua cream blush in Seduce

Winter has fully arrived where I live, which means a beautiful scenery of snowclad trees and meadows that look both nostalgic and romantic.

What looks pretty on nature does not always look pretty on humans. Well, some girls have the loveliness of flushing at the right places in the cold, which leaves them looking glowy and radiant.

I am not one of them...I develop redness at the weirdest and most unflattering spots. Rudolph has met his mate when eyeing me up...or he might even flee away from seeing me au naturelle. I look more like a gnome who has been swimming in a muddy lake and was bitten by hungry fish...
Therefore, I need more makeup to tone down the redness and rebellious skin.

Cover and foundation are one of my better friends when confronted with icy weather. The only downfall is looking a bit unnatural and covered up, which is the reason I prefer to wear a dewy, non-shimmery and reddish blush that mimics the 'just-from-the-cold'-look somewhat.

So here comes Seduce into play: Illamasqua cream blush in Seduce, that is.

The back of the compact has descriptions of how to use the cream blush. It is wonderful for that unmadeup look, and is also suitable for skin that has no foundation on. I would not use it over powder foundation or powder, as they often are better off with powder blush.

Seduce is described as a "Warm rose pink" on illamasqua's website. Although I consider it to be a pinkish rose, I would not describe it as warm. I would say it is more of a neutral rose.

In the next pictures, it almost looks rather cool.

It is almost a raspberry colour, only a bit more pink. The blended version is neutral indeed, whereas the unblended part looks like a cool light raspberry rose. I think it would look wonderful like a liptint colour as well, which can create a wonderfully balanced face (when using one product for both cheeks and lips).

It has no glimmer, glitter or glowy particles in it. It is glowy from the creamy texture, however, which makes it a 'no-makeup' makeup kind of product.

For durablity, you can top op the cream blush with a hint of translucent powder. That makes it look like more of a glow-from-inside than a applied blush.

Overal, it is a fantastic colour for those cheeks that mimic a winter-glow. For spring and summer, I would use Illamasqua's Dixie, a corally pink, which I have written about over here (scroll down the post).

Illamasqua is available at their own website illamasqua.com, asos.com and sephora.com.

Giveaway winner: Jennifer

Hey hey congratulations!

We have a winner of the Giveaway for the Artdeco Alice diary. I received 24 comments, and one of them was double and removed by the author, so that one did not count. From the 23 post left the winner was no. 2, who is actually no. 3, and that is Jennifer from http://lifeandlensofbeauty.blogspot.com/. Jennifer, I do not have an email-adress from you yet, so could you please contact me at tropischezee_@online.nl for sending you the diary!

Kose Esprique Precious Symphonic Fit eyes F-3

What a lovely haul-day!

Today I received a personal pre-Christmas haul I ordered from Mihokoshop.com. One that contained a palette from Kose Esprique Precious from their upcoming spring 2010 collection. It has been given the harmonious name Symphonic Fit eyes, which is probably a beautiful manner of Japlish to describe the beauty of the palette.

Esprique Precious is one of my favourite brands of Japanese cosmetics. It has a clean but girly and glamourous exterior and packaging without the overprincessy vibe that Jill Stuart has (I still love love love Jill Stuart packaging, but most people in my country find it age-inappropriate and too cutesy when I flash the princessy compacts of JS). And they make such excellent products that are suitable for the mature woman as well.

The compact case is elegant and still feminine with a white case and a three rows of silver and pink dots.

I ordered the combination of greens and silvery taupes. Green is not the colour I order the most, when buying eyeshadow. It has something to do with the rule I received when growing up that 'one must never use the same colour eyeshadow as the colour of the eyes'.

I still loved the online colour of the green, and it is not exactly matching my eyes either (it would be a weird but fun colour to have exactly thát type of eyecolour)


The palette has four powder colours. They are laced with a flowery motive that threads throughout the whole compact. It is so beautiful!


I have some close ups from the powders. The first one is the light-silvery grey from the left:

The second left colour in a beautiful, water-like, fresh green:

Colour three and four: Both taupes, only the far right is deeper and more pigmented as well.


Aww, I found it hard to touch this supergorgeous palette, however, I wanted to make swatches for you readers as well.

The next swatches have been photographed with flash, which makes the sparkles pop up more. The texture is so incredibly smooth and buttery. The white stipe on the top is the cream colour that is on the bottom of the palette.

I would not guessed from the palette that the colour on the far right would be so deep and intense. Although it has been a smaller stipe of colour than the others, which often means that it is meant for use as a liner.

Mmm, I prefer the picture with flash because my skin looks prettier in that picture, but I included the picture in (bleak) day-light as well, without flash. It shows how the colours are looking in normal light.

The cream colour looks like a stark white, from the first glance. However, it is a white with delicate pink iridescence, which is slightly visible on this picture:

I normally do not use the cream shadows from the Japanese palettes, as they often are too glittery or not really convienient. I do like this one, and I might use it as a base, or to pop in the corners of my eyes to light up the area.

The colour I thought I would not like as much as the others, is actually the one I find the most unique and pretty: the green one. It is so fresh and springlike.

I have few green in that category, but from the ones I have I made a comparising picture:

All three are incredibly pretty, I believe, and have a unique quality of colour.

Overal, I adore this palette. I still have to use it on my eyes to completely see how it will hold and lasts.

If you would like to see an EOTD of the Symphonic Fit eyes F-4 palette, I would suggest to take a look at Haru's blog Rougedeluxe over here.