Fasio PU-3 swatches & Prettypanda's scarvelicious haul

What a week! I had the pleasure to celebrate my first year's anniversary as Birkinbagbeauty! I gave a giveaway and had my 200th follower as well.

I had a request from Blair to swatch my latest acquisition of eyeshadow: my lovely Purple Fasio palette PU-3 I had proudly showcased in this post. I love my readers and I think Blair is fantastic. You should check out her blog if you haven't done that yet.

I really like the name Blair as well, for the odd reason that ........Blair is my favourite character in Gossip Girl...he he. I think her twisted 'relationship' with dark boy Chuck is so brilliantly portrayed in a teen-meets-adult kind of way that it appeals to women beyond the age of ...ehm...twenty as well. I could go on why the beyond-teenager-age women like me still watch the odd serie of Gossip Girl every now and then, but hey, this is a beauty blog so I will return to the beauty part ;P

I have tried to swatch and photograph my palette perfectly with the right light, etc...but I failed a bit because of the autumny weather. I will still publish them, because I should give Blair and other readers a look of how the colours are in swatched glory. So here they are.

The colour on the left is a glittery cream. The next three colours are soft, buttery powder colours. The last colour (dark) is intended for eyelining, thus suitable to use with a liquid, and a hard texture.

The next picture is made in natural, cloudy daylight. The colours are swatched in the order of the palette itself.

This picture has been made with flash-light. The far right colour is a dark eggplant colour, thus not a black colour, and contains some glitters. I am sorry for this poor picture, but my camera only seemed to focus on the lighter colours on the left, so I could not photograph this properly.

Again, sorry for the poor quality of these pictures. I hope it still gives some impression of the colours.

My personal impression of this palette is quite positive.

I love the texture of the three colours in the middle, as the quality is buttery and they hardly crease on the eyes.

The glittery cream on the left is ok, however, glittery creams are a bit useless as I hardly use them.

The darker eggplant eyeliner is such a brilliant colour for people who think that black eyeliner is a bit too harsh and brown eyeliner too soft (and colour, well, too eighties??). The eggplant hue is fantastic for making green, blue and hazel eyes pop a bit. The glitter is not obtrusive for more mature or OL makeup purposes. I would recommend using it with a wet substance, for example with Mac mixing medium, a homemade mixing medium or distillated water.

I have to show you something clotheswise as well. I purchased this scarf from etsy lately, from the sweetest seller named Prettypanda. Ulung from Prettypanda is such a dear and is excellent in the communication with the seller. She notices when you add one of her scarfs as your favourites and does her ultimate best to make the purchase as fine as possible.

I love a nicely packed present, even when I gave it to myself ;D

So many ways to tie up your scarf...amazing! These instructions are very helpful. I normally just throw on a scarf and always envy the girls who have these perfectly tied neckscarves. Now I can be one of them...yey!

I bought the Rosy Morning Scarf...a composition of colours that remind me of a perfect sunrise (often not seen in this tiny Northern country with murky weather). The scarf is thin enough to wear for the summer (I brought it with me on holiday, and it was perfect as a sarong, headscarf or protection against overzealous sunrays). I love it for unpredictable autumn weather as well.

Ulung from Prettypanda included TWO amazing freebies...a couple of hair accessories that would not look unfamiliar on Blair from Gossipgirl...sweet little ribbon clips with cherries on the fabric!

Wow, and this pink rose!!!

Her scarf and everything from her shop will not exceed the $15 price tag.

Overall, I am really enthousiastic about Prettypanda. (why else would I blog about it?)

So my dears, I hope you will have a wonderful sunday and I hope the weekend gave you the rest or excitement (or both) you wished you had.

Pearls from Jamilla and CalicoGarden's loveliness

I have an important milestone coming up:

Tomorrow is my 1st year anniversary of the blog!

I will write about that point tomorrow, because I will have to organise a GRANDE giveaway, ofcourse...beauty-bloggers tradition!

First, dear Jamilla from makeupforprofessionalasianwomen.com had a fantastic sale of her great products. I bought the Guerlain Meteorites Mythic from her, and I had it waiting for me when I came back from the hols...

Isn't the box gorgeous? It matches my flowery blouse I put under it as the background.

Pearls Mythic...indeed.

Lovely pearls from the UK. I think I am not white enough for it right now, but in the winter I often fade away a bit, so the pearls could be brilliant to give my skin a bit of sparkle (it makes a wonderful body powder for clubbing as well, however, I do not go clubbing as much as I would like to).

I also had this Kose Fasio palette waiting for me when I came home. Purples, again...The cooler variety...

The next package was so exquisitely packed, so delicate and so beautiful! I bought a hair goodie from CalicoGarden at etsy.com.

I love her banner as well...its texts attracted me instantly.

"For all kind spirits, goddesses and bellydancers".

Ok, I do not consider myself to be a goddess nor a bellydancer, although I could work on the bellydancer part, but I hope to be a kind spirit. So I love the spirituality of the shop. And look how much love she put in the packaging, the card, the handwriting, the making of the hairclip: it's exquisite!

This card is so cute

wow, I love handwritten notes...it beats emails or mobile texting everytime

Zippers are big in fashion this fall, and I am a bit creative, but not as creative as I would like to be. So I support the economy (LOL, that is my excuse for buying cute things) and bought this supercute zipper-flower from CalicoGarden.

I adore accessories: it is such a fab way to spark up any blah or humdrum or basic outfit and lift it up to something more original.

See you tomorrow and have a splendid rest of the weekend!

Kanebo Lavshuca Dual Eyes in PU-2 (and Kate Diamond Cut PU-1)

Most cosmetic brands have been releasing their colour collection of the Autumn 2009 season around this moment. With the release of the latest colours of the Autumnal season, I was drawn to a couple of purple shades from Japanese brands. I had already purchased the latest Kanebo Kate Diamond Cut eyes in PU-1 (which I haven't swatched yet...ooops, I will show you the swatches at the end of the post).

I was still curious for the latest release of Lavshuca's Dual Eyes in a new duo of purples, even though I have my modest share of purple eyeshadows now. After being on a buy-diet for a while, I though it would be ok to purchase this duo of eyeshadows...

Ohh, I still adore the promo-picture of Paul & Joe's spring line of base products. I would almost get bangs in order to look like that stunning girl, however, bangs and me are not the best combination.

Kelly from ichibankao also included these samples of Esprique Precious lipglosses. That is so nice, because I merely ordered a the eyeshadow palette. I am wearing the reddish nude colour (right on the card) now, and it is slightly sticky and quite pigmented for a Japanese lipgloss. I already like this shade, pigmentation and texture.

Back to the real deal of this post...my precious new duo palette. Lavshuca does not have the most expensive packaging (a euphinism for a cheap looking box) but I love the girly shapes of the little palette.

Inside is a shimmery composition of two colours...a lighter colour in a whitish lavender shade and a deep cooler purple colour, which mixes amethyst with purple.

Yikes, there is my lizardy skin again (yes, I radiate self-confidence ;p). I think my skin would be the nightmare of any Japanese girl and I think, if I would ever visit Japan, I would wear skyscraper heels in order to be really tall and not let the persons with perfect complexions watch my skin. (boohoo, and I take such good care of it)

On the other hand, with my imperfect skin it is great to see how the pigmentation of the Lavshuca duo works on the more mature eyes. The first swatches were taken in direct sunlight and the next swatch in indirect light (still sunny).

The deeper colour is, in my opinion, incredibly pigmented and buttery. I love this colour so much and it would make such a wonderful crease and liner colour, or over the whole moving eyelid for kapow-smokey eyes.

The lighter colour is not a me-colour. It can look good in a blended manner, but it would look to grandma-esque on me. The pigmentation is also a lot lighter...unfortunately.

Another lovely purple palette I bought from Kanebo Kate is the new PU-1 of the Diamond Cut Eyes.

If you love cooler purples, like I do, you will only get 2 of the 5 colours that would be something of your liking.

It costed me about $20, which gives me two stunning purples and one workeable white shade (in the right upper corner). Glittery fans will love the Diamond part of it (wavy in the palette, on the left upper side), however, they will be useless IMO.

I like the pigmentation of the Kate Kanebo light purple and the darker purple, however, I think Lavshuca looks better on, pigmentation-wise. On the other hand, I prefer the colour scheme of the Kate colours.

Those were my swatches of a couple of the latest Kanebo Kate and Lavshuca purples.

How do my dear readers feel about the fall collections of the Japanese brands, or the Western brands? Have you found your HG product in these collections, or do you prefer the collection of a particular brand from another season or year?