Harvesting for winter

My local Rossmann was having a 20% off on some body creams so I thought that seeing as winter is slowly but surely approaching, thought I should collect a few for the cold harsh winter ahead!

Where: Rossmann, DM and Douglas (all creams were 2.79€ each for 400ml)

Essence end of season sale

(L-R: 01 velvet rose, 02 smooth berry, 03 soft nude) 

Even though I plan to check out the Essence end of season sale early every year, I'm surprised at how fast they clear out at the shops. I was lucky enough to grab these three Stay Matt lip creams, but only just. By the time I checked out 3-4 DM's all the long lasting lipglosses were gone! I picked up these three:

01 Velvet Rose

Although it looks like a salmon pink in the bottle it turned out to be a cool toned pink, so this is a bit too barbie pink for me and one that I cannot wear alone. It does however look fresh and dewy with a warm toned, peachy lipgloss ontop.

02 Smooth Berry

This is rather brighter than I expected and I feel like it would be great for a winter lip when my skin is a bit paler, still a nice colour though.

03 Soft Nude

This nude suprisingly went well with my complexion but as it is a matt finish I usually either wear a lipbalm beforehand or over the top so that there is some shine to it.

In my experience, the things that gets cleared out are either strong favourites...or the clearly, really bad stuff, like a lime green eyeshadow. This year Essence cleared out half of their collection including the lipglosses and matt lip creams (which have been huge favourites) as well as the Get The Big Lashes volume and curl mascara which was great for my stubby lashes and holds the curl unbelievably. Replacing them are 10 shades of long lasting lipsticks which promises to be a creamy lipstick with more colour payoff than the normal lipsticks - the packaging is also a great improvement than the basic lipsticks, encased in round all black tubes with the band of the lipstick colour in the middle.

All ex-articles costs .95cents and usually lasts the whole month, or earlier until sold out.

Where: DM and Karstadt

Souvenirs from Italy: Kiko cosmetics

During the hot Italian summer days, shopping is not really a thing I like to do. To be trying on clothes while sweating bullets in your own is just not ideal but I did want to bring something back from Italy. Enter: Kiko...rather, I entered Kiko and oh boy was that an experience. Italian sales people are quite the opposite of German sales people. As opposed to the customers being grateful to be in the presence of the sales people and therefore avoiding helping customers, the Italians offer product suggestions without being pushy or making you feel guilty for not buying them - they are also quite opinionated. If you pick something out in which they think will not suit you or not the right size, they will tell you, and the reason behind it. This makes it harder to leave a shop without buying something! Kiko stores in Italy are crazy full - full of customers, full of products and full of energetic, friendly sales people as well as loud music.

I went while they had a 50% off summer sale, and while I could have bought more, the heat and going with the hubs prevented me from getting anymore than I needed - which I suppose is a good thing?

Description:

Moisturising sublime light effect day cream, instantly radiant face, spf10 Sophisticated brightening particles that blend with facial skin, evening the complexion to bring out its natural splendour.

The Skin Glow comes in a squeezable pump bottle which makes it easy to use and less messy upon application. It's a great moisturiser for under makeup because of the lightweight consistency and acts as a somewhat illuminising primer. I'm not sure that it evens out the complexion because it's so thin that it gets absorbed into the skin fairly quickly in which it vanishes and leaves some glittery particles behind which is where the "instantly radiant" effect comes in.

The glittery particles are rather fine so it will not leave the skin like a disco ball but as I have combination skin I tend to use this as a highlighter for my cheeks and bridge of my nose during the summer (well, while I was in Italy anyway) and all over my face as a primer during the colder days when my complexion is rather dull and combination/dry.

(L-R: 06 golden brown, 04 golden chocolate) 

I also got two of their Long Lasting Stick Eyeshadows which are a bit too glittery for my liking but the lighter colour provides such a pale golden colour that the glitter seems to be not too noticeable once applied. After watching one of Mila Victoria's smokey eye tutorial video I was automatically drawn to the darker chocolate tone. This colour really do lasts long, longer than the lighter colours and doesn't smudge once applied.

(Moisturising Effect lipstick in "92 Light ")

Lastly I picked up a nude lipstick, I think it was part of their spring collection leftovers as it was only 1.90€ but as my obsession with finding the perfect nude lipstick lately is not slowing down any time soon, I automatically picked this up before even swatching it.

Long Lasting Stick eyeshadows: 4.90€