Review: L'Occitane Verveine Sorbet

Another day, another perfume review! After my decisive reaction to Thierry Mugler's Womanity, I'm pleased to say this review is definitely more positive.

L'Occitane is releasing a new limited edition Eau de Toilette called Verveine Sorbet for the summer, which will be available around mid July 2012. This is a new and fresh spin on their existing Lemon Verveine scent. In combination, they are also releasing a shower gel, a body lotion, a refreshing mist, and a lipgloss.

I'm not sure what the exact differences is from the original, but to me it smells like a more complex and even fresher spin on it. This scent is extremely fresh, citrusy, and light. The notes are grapefruit, lime, mint, and lemon verveine.

This scent is so up my alley! I absolutely love it. The accompanying body lotion has a slightly cooling effect, which is so great for the summer. I love citrusy scents, and this one has enough complexity to be interesting and unique, without being too opulent and a mish-mash of everything thrown together. I love the simplicity of it - extremely fresh and light!

The only downside I see is that the scent is not very long lasting. After a few hours, the scent is gone. Using it in combination with the body lotion helps, but I wish it had more longevity because I love how it smells. If you did want it to last all day, expect to reapply it at least a few times.

Have you tried any L'Occitane scents? Will you be trying this out? Share in the comments!

Review: Thierry Mugler Womanity Eau de Parfum

I love perfumes, there's just something so sensuous and alluring about altering your fragrance according to your mood. Yet I find perfume reviews incredibly hard because it's such a personal thing - you either love the scent or you don't, and no amount of blathering on my end will really change your mind on that. So I'll keep it short and sweet.

First up: Thierry Mugler Womanity Eau de Parfum

Thierry Mugler and I have a dysfunctional relationship. While some just love his scents (Angel, Alien), they mostly make me run for the hills. In fact, Angel invokes a reaction similar to this in me:

Previous experience aside, I was willing to give this new scent a shot with an open mind. Maybe Thierry had changed, and we could be friends after all!!!

...Oh how wrong I was. 

Before I tell you everything I didn't like about this perfume, let's start off with the positive. The packaging is nice. This is the purse size edition which comes with a 7.5ml diffuser, and a 35ml refill, which can be refilled using the small funnel provided. (In this case I'd like to mention I much prefer the Chanel Chance refill packaging, no messing around with a funnel where you might spill some perfume, just exchange the cap and you're good to go.) I wish more perfumers would release purse size editions with refills, because it's handy for touching up on the go.

I love how the box has a sliding compartment with the refill bottle. The actual bottle design is a bit odd, considering the full size bottles are absolutely beautiful! In comparison, the travel size does look a bit lackadaisical.

Now on to the not so good - the actual scent. The notes (according to the Mugler website) are Mara des Bois strawberry for fruitiness, white fig for sweetness, and caviar for a savory marine scent. I think this is such an odd combination, and I know I've never liked perfumes with a strong fig note. The savory aroma of the caviar is certainly an acquired taste, which to me just doesn't mesh well with the strawberry. I'm no perfumer, but this just smells awful to me. It's a combination of everything I don't like in perfumes - extremely sweet, heady, and a musky opulence that just doesn't appeal to me whatsoever. I'm really trying to think of something positive to say about the actual scent, but I can't.

I sprayed it onto my neck in the hopes that I would grow to like it, or that it would settle into something tolerable on me. No dice. It smelled so bad that I had to awkwardly wash my neck with soap over the sink to be rid of the scent.

Overall, this perfume is not for me. With any perfume, it's all down to preference. Thierry Mugler perfumes have never meshed well with me, it's not just that his perfumes are mediocre to me, it's that I literally cannot stand how they smell. If you're a fan of his previous fragrances - and I know many people are as they are always on the bestsellers - it might be worth checking out as this might be right up your alley.

Have you tried this perfume, or any of Mugler's other scents? What do you think - love or hate it? Share in the comments!

This was sent to me for review.

Haifa Wehbe Arab Makeup

I recently saw a picture of Haifa Wehbe, which I knew I just had to re-create. I love the strong Arab makeup style with the bold eyeliner, and I loved the color combination of teal with gold and black. I had to guess what was used on the lid so I just went with my own intuition as I had only a single picture of Haifa to go by.

Here's what I came up with!

Here is the original picture of Haifa that I used as my source of inspiration:

For those who don't know her, Haifa Wehbe inititally rose to fame as the runner-up to the Miss Lebanon pageant, and later for her singing career. She is known for her provocative beauty and sex appeal, quite daring for the Arab world, and controversy has arisen due to her many plastic surgeries. She is also a model and actress. I personally love the makeup looks she has worn in beauty campaigns and song performances.

Watch my tutorial on how to get this look!

Face

L'Oreal Lumi foundation mixed with Neutrogena Healthy Skin foundation, Ben Nye concealer wheel, Barry M Natural Dazzle bronzer, Ben Nye contour powder Nr. 1, Makeup Factory Bronze Luminizer 

Eyes

Too Faced Shadow Insurance, NYX Jumbo Pencil in Milk, L'Oreal Infallible eyeshadows in Hourglass Beige and Sahara Treasure, Sleek Makeup Ultra Matte V2 palette, Laura Geller black kohl pencil, MAC Blacktrack Fluidline, Elite lashes Nr. 6

Lips

Catrice Lost In the Rose Wood lipliner, Sleek Makeup Pout Polish in Bare Minimum

Nails

Illamasqua Jo'Mina

Watch the video directly on Youtube here.

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Where would you wear this look? Let me know in the comments!

Press: Ladies Drive interview

I was recently interviewed for Ladies Drive, a business magazine geared towards career women. The article is titled "Live Your Dream" and is a portrait of three women from very different backgrounds and walks of life who have made their dream their reality.

I love this article for a few reasons. For one, it's not specifically about Youtubers and how much we earn, which seems to be the repeating trend with these types of articles (not that I'm not grateful for the press, I am, but it just gets a bit dull.) More so it's about how women can empower themselves to make the most out of their lives, and have their careers go in a completely different direction than anticipated.

I enjoyed reading about the two other protagonists, one is a Tibetan women who was born in Switzerland and worked for 20 years as a financial advisor in a bank, then turned to Tibetan folk singing. The other is about a woman who discovered meditation upon visiting an Ashram in India, and decided to enter a career as a meditation coach. Lastly the article also talks about myself, who started off as a Political Science graduate and suddenly rediscovered myself as a beauty blogger.

Here is the article in full in German, click on full size images to read the text.

Some excerpts I've translated to English:

What experiences have shaped you the most as a person?

 After I graduated from high school and before going to university in Canada I traveled around the world for two years, earned my own money. This really changed me. I became more accustomed to taking risks. Lots of things happen when you travel on your own. This unknown factor to experience something totally new definitely shaped who I am today. Beauty isn't everything to me. I guess it's also quite a contrast to what I do on my channel.

Are you happy and proud of your "pioneer" work on Youtube? 

I'm super happy about everything! I put a lot of work into my videos, I pour my heart and soul into them. My videos can be pretty elaborate to make. Sometimes a 5-minute video is actually a result of 10 or more hours of work. I'm proud of that. If you do something with love and passion, it's a very rewarding experience. It's nearly a full time job by now, I work part-time. Especially answering comments and such on Facebook and Twitter takes lots of time. But that's a part of the whole Youtube experience and I love getting feedback from my viewers. My subscribers know I'm available to them. Of course I don't get paid for that but I enjoy it. It's hard to get back to everybody though because by now I have so many fans who ask questions.

How can we imagine your work environment?

I do everything myself, I'm completely a one-woman show. I record the videos myself, I do all the editing, cutting, photography, and respond to comments myself. The advantage is you have complete creative control and I don't have to share my earnings with a production team. Some Youtubers are doing it that way now but for me it's out of the question right now. I think these kind of videos don't look natural anymore, they just come across as commercials. I don't want that for my channel. I like how personable my videos are and that I can be creative. 

What is your vision of beauty?

Well, there's a really traditional picture of how women should do their makeup - very neutral and toned down, and it should be done to appear attractive to men. What a load of crock! I think each person should present themselves as they wish, and not care so much about what others might think. I don't like these traditional stereotypes at all. As a Blogger I try to present a variety of looks so that everyone might find something they like, regardless of their taste.

Do you think people stereotype you?

I think some people probably think, "Oh she's just another one of those shallow makeup girls, she just cares about what she looks like, what an airhead." I think it's dumb to stereotype people like that. This isn't the only important thing in my life. There's a lot of really young girls nowadays on Youtube who also make makeup tutorials for school makeup and things like that. But just looking pretty isn't going to get you very far in life! Makeup is fun and it's a creative outlet for me, but it's not the most important thing in life to just be beautiful.

How important is it for you to be able to "live your dream"?

Very important! I love what I do, but I haven't set everything in stone for my future. I just try things out and see if it works. In the beginning, I didn't earn a single penny doing this. When the Youtube Partner program started I had no idea where it would take me. But my goal isn't to be super rich, I'm not like that. I know in what direction I want to go but you never know where life will take you. Especially since the Internet is very volatile - what's hip and cool now might be out already next week.

Thank you to Sandra Triebl for the interview!

To see more Press about me, click here.

Review: L'Oreal Lumi Magique Foundation

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I've recently been trying out this new foundation by L'Oreal called Lumi Magique, which I was quite intrigued with since I love their Lumi primer. This is a medium coverage foundation that has a luminous, glowing finish, similar to Neutrogena Healthy Skin and Nars Sheer Glow. This type of finish is really my favorite at the moment, because to me it looks the most like natural skin. I'm overall not a fan of the completely matte, powdery finish of some foundations.

Here's what I like and don't like about the Lumi Magique.

Pros

• Available at drugstores, therefore less expensive than department store brands. However, as far as drugstore prices go, L'Oreal is on the higher end of the spectrum, at least here in Europe. Still, this foundation is quite affordable.

• Good, buildable medium coverage. It has better coverage than the Neutrogena Healthy Skin foundation, but doesn't look quite as flawless as the Nars Sheer Glow. Leaves a fresh, dewy glow to your skin without adding any shimmer or sparkle. It can be mattified with a powder if you want to tone down the luminous finish.

• Pump dispenser is easy and mess-free; I also like the rose-gold packaging.

• Wears wells on me for an acceptable length of time.

Cons

• Very limited color range (at least here in Switzerland) and even this one named Rose Porcelain (which makes me think it will be slightly pink based) goes on very yellow, almost leaning toward orange. This can be corrected with a white foundation if you have fair skin, but it's a hassle. The limited color range means it might be very hard for some to find a good match.

Overall I like this foundation and think it's a great purchase from the drugstore if you can find a match. At this point I'm not sure if I would repurchase simply because my skin is so fair that even the lightest one looks quite yellow on me. I will try to blend it with a white foundation to even it out, but if you're lucky enough to fall within L'Oreal's rather narrow colour range and you like a dewy finish, I definitely recommend checking it out. If you have oily skin or live in a tropical climate, I would probably stay away.

Watch my video tutorial to see how I apply it.

Watch the video directly on Youtube here.

The brushes I used for the foundation at are all from Sigma and are available here.
F80 Flat Top Synthetic Kabuki
P82 Precision Round Brush
F84 Angled Top Kabuki

On TV: Tele Züri

I was recently interviewed for Tele Züri for the program Lifestyle. It's a program about celebrities, noteworthy people in Switzerland, beauty, trends, home decor, etc. The program is then syndicated on TV stations across the country.

The piece was a feature about my Youtube channel's success and the work that I do here. This is the first TV interview where it was a portrait solely about me - I'm really honoured and humbled! Thanks to Roland Kessler for the interview, and to all of you for your ongoing support.

If you'd like to see the interview, I've added in English subtitles so you can understand it.

Or watch it on Youtube here.

For all my previous Press mentions and interviews, click here.