Sneaker Boots and Personal Aesthetic

I was recently reading a fashion blog entry from my lovely Aussie friend, Alicia. She commented on the idea of "defining your aesthetic" and I realized that I'm not sure that I have a clear fashion aesthetic. I tend to get bored quite easily with how I dress and mix and match everything in my wardrobe. I can't remember if I've mentioned this before, but I RARELY wear the same outfit twice. When I shop, it is for individual pieces, not as an outfit. The fun part is that I have a lot of unique items in my wardrobe which makes being fashionably creative more fun! I guess I like to get some things that are on the outskirts of my "aesthetic" and incorporate them in how I can.

This may have stemmed my recent favorite purchase, a pair of all black, knee-high, converse look-alike sneaker boots. I would've bought the actual Converses but they devastatingly only go down to a womens' size 6! Therefore, I was ecstatic to see that a Taiwan based eBay seller, Refuse to be Usual, was selling a similar boot in a size 35 (US 4-4.5). Although slightly apprehensive of the punk and goth lolita look of the page, I went ahead and ordered. I felt a bit silly because I don't even own a pair of regular chucks (because I feel like they don't match me) but I kept obsessively thinking about these boots and how I would wear them without looking any less ME. Sure enough, I got them and I LOVE LOVE LOVE them! See, people? Chucks don't have to be hipster. :P





I guess my personal aesthetic is something of a mixture of business casual, trendy, girly, cute, preppy, rocker.... A little bit of everything! That's just who I am, and I just go with it.

So let me know, what is your personal aesthetic? Do you stick to it? How would others define your style?

Kpop spreading?

I just looked at Perez Hilton and noticed Lee Hyori's "U Go Girl" and the Wondergirls' "So Hot" videos on his site. This makes me more than a little happy! I think both videos are adorable and I've been playing the two on itunes playlists constantly for the last couple of months.

Knowing the celebrity and publicity power Perez has, what do you think this means for the Korean music industry? Also, will this affect BoA's upcoming American debut? I want to hear your thoughts!

Here's both videos for those of you who haven't been exposed to the cuteness that is this corner of Kpop right now. ^^

The Wondergirls - "So Hot" with English subs



Lee Hyori - "U Go Girl" with English subs




I personally love how the stars in both videos aren't afraid to make fun of themselves and have such a confident way of using bright colors and pattern. I just ordered a bunch of new blue NYX shadows at cherryculture.com for their free shipping sale going on now, so I'd love to do Hyori's makeup look from the video soon!



Oh, and if you have any requests for kpop (or anything else) makeup looks, let me know and I'll see what I can come up with. Just send or link me a photo. Thanks guys, I hope you found the video looks inspiring like I did!

Bright Eyes

This FOTD is focused on making you look brighter and more awake, which is really great for those of us who work 40 hour weeks and don't get enough sleep at night! There are a few key elements to the "bright eyes" look:

1. White shimmer shadow.

You'll use this to highlight your brow bone as well as the inner-eye tearducts and the inner half of your lower lid. It is very key in opening up your eyes.

2. Black (or navy) mascara

Black serves as a contrast to the white shadow and will give an extra pop to your eyes, while navy mascara actually counteracts the redness in the sclera making your eyes look clearer and whiter.

3. Undereye highlighter or concealer

I really love using Everyday Minerals "sunlight" concealer under my eyes. I don't have bad dark circles, but an old makeup artist's trick is to use an undereye brighter anyhow because it makes you look more awake and youthful.

For the rest of my face, I kept the look really simple with neutral copper shadows and pink blush. You want to look healthy and natural as if it took no effort at all to look so bright and glowing from within! That's my trick for rolling into work looking like I got more than 5 or 6 hours of sleep the night before. ;)





Now, tell me your tricks and ideas for not being super pooped! What do you do to help wake up your mind and body throughout the day? Leave a comment and let me know!

Limeade Eyes

The weather still hasn't been very sunny and I feel like I have to combat it. Because of this, I came up with another bright look. I wore this bright green and yellow eye to work and was pretty happy with the result considering the green was from the 78 palette again. Our office is business casual dress so I wore a black turtleneck shirt with a yellow short-sleeved jacket over it.

Like I said, I used the green from the 78 palette and the gold was from a L'Oréal HIP eyeshadow duo with gold and purple. I actually don't recommend buying the shadow duo because the purple in it is pretty much terrible and has no pigment. But as you can see, the gold is fantastic with color payoff.

For the bottom lash line I used NYX's pencil eyeliner in Moss and topped it with the green shadow. Other than that, I used my typical arsenal of Urban Decay Primer Potion, liquid eyeliner, and Max Factor Lash Perfection mascara (waterproof on top, non-waterproof on bottom). Cheeks are Apple blush from Everyday Minerals and lips were a dab of Clinique's lipstick in Raspberry Glace with gloss over the top.




I also wore my fantastic Mudflap-girl inspired Tinkerbell necklace which I LOVE. It's huge, gold, and tacky, but I think a little tackiness is super fun and can be totally appropriate.



As always, if you try out the look let me know! Also, on a wholly unrelated note, I got Rock Band 2 and I'm loooovin' it! Ben and I like to rock out with him on guitar and me on mic. Drums and bass are fun times too, but singing is my favorite. Anyone else try this out yet?

Anyway, I'm off to watch my just-received wedding vid. Ahhhhh, so excited!!

Changing Weather and FOTD

Wow... Things in the weather have been really insane lately. Hurricanes have come terrifyingly close to a few of my friends and even here in the midwest we had a few tornadoes and torrential rain running around the area, just in time for my drive home. The drive took me 1.5 hours. When your body is all tense and gripping the steering wheel for that long, you have some tight shoulder muscles when you get home! Ahh, I felt like a blind person. Could barely see a thing on the road except the emergency lights of the person behind me and people pulled off on the shoulder of the road. Scary, scary.

I really hope everyone else has been safe. Tell me what the weather is like in your area. I know Korea and Japan have been having constant rains too. And, of course, there are the hurricanes Gustav, Ike, Hannah, etc. :P

Anyway, here's a photo from a couple weekends ago when I went to the lake. Got up at 7am and took this gorgeous shot of the mist over the water.



To combat the dreariness as of late, here is a "face of the day" to brighten the mood. It was a casual hoodie kind of day so I played with some of my pastel blue and girly pink and purples. It kinda reminds me of those candy necklaces we used to get as kids. Fun stuff.




For this look I used shadows from the 78 piece makeup palette that I bought from Nessa (and, of course, my beloved Urban Decay Primer Potion as a base). You can find the same palette at coastalscents.com and although not every color is awesome, I LOVE having so many colors to choose from and most of my favorites are super pigmented.



The blushes are just okay. I was hoping for a hot pink but I may need to go to MAC for that. The horizontal highlighter colors are actually not bad. The white matte one especially would be good for photoshoots and such, and reminds me of my NYX single shadow in white. But all in all, I recommend this palette. I did hear the 88 palettes are better so if anyone has that, let me know how they are.

Anyway, I hope everyone is having a good weekend and stays safe and dry!

New Job + Solotica Hidrocharme Ice

Been super busy lately. I started a new job this week (yay!) so I haven't had much time to myself, but I am really excited about the opportunity. The commute is a killer hour but you gotta do what you can, right? It's a graphic design position which is a bit different than what I did in school but so far it's been a lot of hands-on stuff, which I love. It's certainly been a blessing to get to be paid for being creative. :)

I also recently bought another pair of Soloticas in my favorite style, hidrocharme. I really love these. The lens itself has a white color on it which blends with my dark brown eyes to create a lovely light blue color. In real life, indoors, it looks like a light smokey blue-grey but I think the lenses really show off best with flash. Don't they seem to glow and have depth? I was impressed!

I personally think this lens is for those with tanned skin. The blue color tends to wash me out a bit (which I don't mind) but I think on someone with lighter skin it might do worse unless they have heavy eye makeup on. Contrast is a big key. More contrast will almost always look more attractive and light eyes plus faint makeup is a recipe for washed-outness.

In general though, I love how different these look compared to other lenses on the market. Light-colored and natural at the same time! Here's some photos so you can judge for yourself.

no flash:


with flash:


comparison of no lenses vs. lenses:


silliness:


Alright. I'm super spent but I hope everyone is having a nice weekend! Let me know what you think of the lenses and any music/podcast suggestions for long drives. My current obsession is This American Life. It really makes you think, and in a weird way makes me feel less lonely in a sea of new people.

Love you guys~