Incoming spring with hats

Since the weather is changing over here from cold in the morning to warm in the noon to cold again in the evening, it's hard to find proper clothes to survive the day. So, I've chosen two outfits I would wear in this time of the year.

Note: Click on the picture for a larger view.

So, the first one is in autumn tone, but this weather is the same as in the autumn so I put it here.

I started with pretty simple yet statement light grey shirt out of thin and light material. Next I incorporated this awesome camouflage jeans that go great with this casual vibe.

To keep us warm, there's dark green parka. Fur on it looks great as a detail on, let's be honest, somehow boring jacket.

I love the combination of green and black and that's why all the accessories are black. I chose opened black leather ankle boots with gold buckles. Bag is in the same tone; simple big black bag. Perfect for any occasion. The same motive is on the hat that rounds this perfect stylish look.

Since this is supposed to be a stylish, but casual, look, I only added dark red lipstick as it can be both very elegant and very rebellious, which is exactly what I was trying to do here. To highlight the rebellious part, here's also a black nail polish.

Second outfit is also meant to be a fall one. (Leaves, duh!)

I started this with this mustard yellow sweater which is neutral, plain but still noticeable. For the lower part of the body, I chose dark denim shorts and pantyhose, thin but in dark color. Don't fool yourself that it's warm enough for only wearing shorts.

This time I didn't go with a regular jacket just because I have thick and warm sweater here, so I chose this dark olive green cardigan. It has 3/4 sleeves which will add to the length of your hands and will highlight the sweater once more. It's also much lighter than a jacket so you'll be able to more more freely.

As for the shoes, I chose this yellow boots with a small thick heels. Comfortable for long walks but not flat (heels fan here).

All accessories are dark red as I think this colors go great together. Big dark red bag and a hat complete this look. Make-up goes with the accessories so it wouldn't be to colorful, so that's also dark red.

You can see all the pieces and their prices on Polyvore (even if you aren't a member).

• Outfit 1 on Polyvore
• Outfit 2 on Polyvore

Do you like these? Would you wear them as they are or would you change anything? Comments below :*

Would you rather? quiz

Here's something different from me. I saw this at Shelby Marie's blog. I had so much fun reading it, so I decided to do the same thing. So here I go...

1. Would you rather lose all of your mascaras, eye-liners, lipsticks, and lip glosses or lose all of your palettes and eye-shadows? ~ I would rather lose my eye-shadows as I don't use them at all; maybe once or twice a year. And I use lip products on daily basis; eye-liner every now and then.
2. Would you rather chop off all your hair or never be able to cut it again? ~ Definitely to never be able to cut it again. I would like to try short haircut, but long hair is my style.
3. Would you rather have a coral cheek or a pink cheek? ~ Coral. I think it would go better with my skin tone.
4. If you had $1000 to spend, would you rather buy clothes or make-up? ~ Although make-up is my big love, clothes are a bit higher on my list. So, definitely clothes.
5. Would you rather apply lipstick as eye-liner, or eye-liner as lipstick? ~ I would use eye-liner as my lipstick because that sounds more normal and eye-liners can be easily used on the lips.
6. Would you rather only shop at MAC or Sephora? ~ I know nothing about Sephora and I do own MAC products so I would choose MAC. I love the brand!
7. Would you rather only use one eye shadow color or one lip color for the rest of your life? ~ As I said, I don't use eye-shadows as much so I could live with just one color. For the lips, however, I like wearing all different kinds of colors and that's pretty important for my look.
8. Would you rather wear winter clothes in summer or summer clothes in winter? ~ Summer clothes in winter. I can't explain, but I think this would be more me.
9. Would you rather have dark nails or bright nails all year round? ~ Tough one. But if I really have to choose, darker colors would win.
10. Would you rather give up your favorite lip product or your favorite eye product? ~ I rarely put anything on my eyes, so I would give up eye products.
11. Would you rather only be able to wear your hair in a ponytail or a messy bun? ~ I don't like either that much, but I would choose a bun since my head hurts less than when I'm wearing a ponytail.
12. Would your rather never be able to paint your nails again or never use lip gloss? ~ I don't need to use anything as long as I have my nails done. Take my lip glosses.
13. Would you rather shave your eyebrows and have none at all or sharpie them in everyday? ~ I have no idea. Haha. I would look so weird without eyebrows, but sharpie them everyday... I would probably shave them off.
14. Would you rather live without make-up or nail polish? ~ As stated in question number 12, I'm a huge nail fan so make-up would have to go if I had to choose.

You're very welcome to check out Shelby's answers and give your own below in the comments! 

Himalaya's face wash

Some time ago, I received a face wash by Himalaya. It is Purifying neem face wash for normal to oily skin. They say it's "specially formulated to give you clear, problem free skin, a soap-free, daily use face wash gel that cleanses your skin by removing excess oil and impurities without over-drying".

I was using it for about two months (I didn't use it every day) and now it's time for a review.

So, good thing is that this really cleans your face. It's basically a normal soap but you can use it on your face (usually other soaps are to rough for facial skin). I first exfoliated my skin and then I applied this and rinsed it off. My skin was soft afterwards; also very refreshed. I did like how it makes only a bit of soap foam - enough for you to see it and feel it, but not to much to be a problem for your eyes or mouth. But! That's only if you get the water-soap ratio right. I did not like that. I never figured out how much my face has to be covered in water and how much of this soap should I put on. Another thing that was kinda weird is the fact that it's gel. It's hard to apply gel on your face and spread it around quickly.

I did use it really close to my mouth and on my eyelids, but I would not recommend doing this as your organism might react differently and it may be too irritating for your eyes.

And something about the ingredients... I read that neem is a plant that's pretty important in cosmetic world as it is antibacterial. Not that it's important, but it comes from India and countries around it. Other ingredient there is turmeric which helps with acne and pimples.

Verdict? It's a good product. I'm not wowed by it but if you realize that Himalaya makes all natural product, this could be a great thing. We all want natural products on our skin, so you just might like this.

I got a small, 15 ml, tube only as a tester. As it came as a gift from my local drugstore, I don't know the price (sorry).

There are other face wash products by Himalaya so check them out.

Total repair extreme hair mask

Since I like dying my hair, especially hair tips (ombre, balayage and stuff like that), they became drier than the rest of the hair. Luckily, I didn't have any split ends, but still my hair needed some help.

I tried to choose my magic helper by reading all the ingredients but, as I know almost nothing about it, I chose it by the things they stated this helper should do.

"Total repair extreme mask for damaged and dry hair. Extreme results: Full recovery. Brings back resistance. Infinite softness all to the tips." This is how they presented L'Oreal Paris Elseve Total Repair Extreme hair mask (sorry for the French pages, they are French after all).

Do I agree? Like every other product, this one too has it's good and bad sides. I do have to admit, it has a lot more good sides. So, I'll start with them. It's really easy to use it - spread it evenly on all wet and just washed hair (especially on hair tips), leave it on for 2 or 3 minutes and rinse it off. That's it. Results? Your hair is instantly softer. So much softer you can feel the difference immediately. Another great thing is it's not oily so it won't grease your hair in few hours. But what's really amazing is the smell. It smells so great that I could use it as a perfume or a room freshener. Well, not exactly but it really smells great which is a big deal if you're using it on your hair. I got compliments on my hair scent for 3 days after washing it with this mask.

There are only 2 things I didn't like about this mask. If you use it on your hair roots as you are supposed to (spread it evenly on all the hair), you will see that your hair gets greasy faster than usual. As long as you use it from the end of your hair line to the hair tips, you're good. Those parts won't look or feel greasy at all. Another thing is that it's not a permanent solution. It really helps your hair but only from washing to washing. If you stop using it, you won't see the difference; like your hair got nothing from it. Both of these 2 bad sides I could easily overcome as it's a great product after all.

As you can see, mine is almost empty.

And I bought this 300 ml for about $7. I've been using it since October 2015 every time I washed my hair and that's how many uses can you have!

Verdict? I would definitely recommend this hair mask. As long as you use it regularly and on your tips, your hair is supposed to look renewed and soft and shiny.

What's your hair like? Do you use any special product? Have you tried this mask? Comments below lovelies. Thanks!

My dandruff problem - intro

I've been having dandruff problems since I was around 7 to 10 years old. So, if you ask me, since I've been aware of my existence. Although I do love my hair, this has been bugging me forever. Sometimes it was really hard when I realized people thought it was contagious. Newsflash! It's not. And it was so annoying when people without it thought that they would give the best advice how to get rid of it. Newsflash again! You have no idea what I'm dealing with here.

Anyways, I was using Head 'n' shoulders anti-dandruff shampoos for about 10 years. It was supposed to be one of the best anti-dandruff shampoos out there so it kinda became a habit of mine to use it. The good thing about it was that my head didn't itch and dandruff wasn't all over the place. The bad thing about it was the fact that after 10 years, I still have the same amount of dandruff on my head. It only made my scalp addicted to it, so when I washed my hair with some regular shampoo, my head started itching in about 5 hours. (But I guess that would have happened with any shampoo, so I'm not actually blaming H'n'S.) However! My brother also had dandruff and he's now dandruff free. He also used the same shampoos as I did. So, the only logical solution is that getting rid of dandruff would require me having a really short hair which I do not want to have!

I'm not saying Head 'n' shoulders shampoos are bad, I'm saying they did nothing for me. So I recently decided to try all of the anti-dandruff shampoos I can find to see if any of them works. I will be buying 2 full-sized bottles of each shampoo I find and I'll use them completely to see if it works. Since I wash my hair every 5 days, this amount of shampoo should last long enough to see if there are any changes.

Since this is going to be an on-going topic, I will label it "my dandruff problem" and the labels can be found on the left side of this blog.

If you have some advice or some product recommendations, I would be very grateful since I'm kinda getting desperate here. I know you don't comment much here, but this is really important to me, so I would really appreciate the help! Thanks!

Perfect nude - my favorite

So, I've talked about my essentials for nails here and I mentioned the nude collection. I was wearing this one nail polish for the past week and I loved it so much I had to write about it.

This is #10 Nude sweet nude nail polish from The nudes collection by Essence. I actually wouldn't call it a classic nude color as it is more bronze, but I'm so happy they incorporated a bit unusual color to this, basically monotone, collection. Although I do own more nail polishes from their nude collection, this one is my favorite. Think of it as a stand-out nude color. Isn't that great? If you, for any reason, can't wear bright/dark/glittery or any other nail polishes than the nudes, this is your color.

The coverage of it is perfect; it's really dense nail polish but so easy to apply. This is only one layer of it and have in mind this manicure is about 8 days old in these pictures. So, that's how great it is. I would, however, suggest putting a top coat on it as it's one of those nail polishes that leave stripes and marks as you pull the brush on your nail. (You can see some different stripes on my nails.) This isn't a big problem; you either have to have practice in applying these kind of nail polishes or, as I said, normal top coat. (I also wrote about my base and top coats here and here.)

That's basically it.
Do you like it? Will you consider purchasing it? Do you wear nude colors on your nails? If so, which ones do you use?

New stuff on this blog

Hi you all!

I love that you read this and keep coming back. I want you to know I'm planning ahead and I already have some posts in my mind to share with you guys and girls.

The fact that I have more readers made me want to improve my blog a bit. This is why I'm planning on some series of posts so I would really write about everything and so I wouldn't be restricted by the length of my posts (I already started my "Essentials" series. All tags and labels are on the left).

Also, I was thinking about doing some Q&A's here. This would be the personal note of this blog which I try to keep kinda professional; all about products and my reviews on them, some tips and so on. I was thinking maybe you would want to know something about me so there's a good way to do it. Write your comments and questions below every post or on my twitter page (link on the right).

Also, I added a new page on this blog. There's "About me" page on the left side (Barbie up, language settings below and then pages). You'll find out basics about me there.

If you have any ideas or suggestions for following posts or my blog in general, comment below.

Thanks!

♥

Essentials: Nails

There are few items you need to have if you want to have great nails and manicure. This depends on what kind of person you are - 'nail art lover' or 'decent manicure is enough' - but here are some pieces I find essential.

Sealing top coat by Essence, Matte top coat by beauty uk, Protecting base coat by Essence

What you absolutely need to have are base and top coat. Well, top coat is optional but it does provide extra shine and it protects your manicure. I think base coat is a must-have because it protects your nails and prevents them going yellow due to usage of dark colors. I also added a matte top coat here since it can really change your manicure and make it stand out.

Color Expert Nail Lacquer #02 by Golden Rose, Color & Go #144 Black is back by Essence

Black and white nail polish. These two (non) colors are the base for everything else. They are so neutral but painted on the nails they are the most statement colors out there. You can do lots of manicures with just these two nail polishes. They are also great for drawing and all nail art you can think of.

7 days long #855 by Deborah Milano, Max effect mini nail polish #59 Silver Me by Max Factor, Color & Go #189 New York City call by Essence,  The Nudes #08 Crunchy Cake by Essence, The Nudes #10 Nude sweet nude by Essence, The Nudes #05 Pure soul by Essence, The Nudes #03 I'm lost in you by Essence

The nude collection! I think nude tones are perfect for days when you don't feel like putting much effort in your manicure or when you just can't decide which color to choose. These are really neutral and can be perfect for any occasion.

Color & Go #113 Do you speak love? by Essence, Color & Go #114 Fame fatal by Essence, Color & Go #115 Redvolution by Essence, Lasting colour #11 by Miss sporty, unbranded

Red power! Now red is a bit more bold color but will look great on both long and short nails. It is also a perfect color for all nail shapes. The darker you choose, the more elegant it will look. My opinion. Choose this color for any elegant combination. (I think it will look great even with pink dress.)

The gel nail polish #43 Girl's best friend by Essence, Lasting colour #35 by Miss sporty, Paris nail lacquer #69 by Golden Rose, Nail art twins glitter topper 2 #02 Julia by Essence

Crushed crystals #04 Oyster & Champagne by Catrice, Nail art special effect! topper #22 Black dress and white tie by Essence, Effect nail polish #31 Rebel by Essence, Care + strong nail lacquer #165 by Golden Rose, Get more #115 by Smart girls, Nail art twins glitter topper 2 #03 Clyde by Essence, #195 by S-he, #280 by S-he

Effect top coats. I'm more a fan of silver than any other color when it comes to top coats so I have these four. This is totally a matter of your preferences. There are so many effect top coats so you can really find your favorite one. 

Nail files, brushes and dotting tool

An absolute must-have for nails is nail file. I don't think you can have good nails without taking care of their length and shape.

For any nail art, essentials would be brushes (ordered from eBay here) and dotting tool (order one on eBay here).

That's all folks. I hope you liked this. Rate and comment below!

Nivea's SOS hand balm

During cold winter days my hands (actually only my index fingers) tend to dry out at only one place and then they become chapped. I've been having this same problem for the last few years. As usual, I forgot about it and I realized it only after the damage was done. I needed something that will work good and quick. I've been a total fan of Nivea (you could read about their two creams here and here) so I decided to look for something of their's.

So, I found this SOS hand balm - Repair & Care. I chose this one, among all other, because it says "instant relief - dry and chapped hands" on it. That's exactly what I needed. I could write down all ingredients but the only thing I understand here is water and some alcohol; it also says Dexpanthenol like it's something important. (I won't say it isn't, I just don't have a clue what that is. Something for some skin disorders, I heard.) It is more like a gel than a regular cream, but I guess that's why it's so good. That's also why you need it a bit more than usual cream. It absorbs really quickly, stays on for quite a long time, but without feeling oily or anything that you should worry about. I have to say it's the best quick repair cream I've ever used. My chapped skin was gone in about two. I used it once or twice a day. Now I use it once a day just to keep my hand really hydrated and soft. I also use it for my everyday scars. I recently cut myself. I used this hand balm and my wound is almost gone. I also use it for hard elbow skin. It's really helps instantly. I would highly recommend this one! 

I got this small one (and it fits in my purse perfectly), but I do hope there's a larger packaging - there's a body lotion. This one was about $4.

What do you think? Have you tried this one or you have some other solution for cold days? Comment below.

Favorite looks of 2015

Since 2015 ended, there's time to recap red carpet looks. I saw this list on IMDb (all looks here) and I picked out my favorites.

(Click on the photo for a larger view.) 

We'll start with the red carpet queen. This is Angelina Jolie at 20th annual Critics Choice Movie Awards. She chose simple but impressive silver dress. She showed a bit of cleavage but everything else is covered so she stayed classy and elegant. Natural hair is a good finishing touch.

Next we have Charlize Theron on the premiere of Mad Max: Fury Road. She worn beautiful long dress in pretty yellow color. In all this black, I would say she made a perfect choice. With the gown, she chose an elegant hair style.

Here's Danielle Brooks at The 67th Primetime Emmy Awards. Now, why I love this look is the fact that she chose such bright and playful dress. I think It looks great and obviously goes well with her personality. I'm only a bit disappointed with hair style, but hey, she still looks great.

To continue play time, here's Teyonah Parris at the same event (The 67th Primetime Emmy Awards). I love dots so, of course, this made it on my list. It's also a really fun and light dress with the sense of glamour (I think belt and ruffles on the top make this dress perfect for a young woman to wear on such event). I also like the minimum jewelry and wavy hair.

Now we have a couple. Sofía Vergara and Joe Manganiello at, yet again, The 67th Primetime Emmy Awards. Now it's easy for guys to look handsome and elegant, as Joe looks, but for his better half, this task is a bit more difficult. Fortunately, Sofia knows what to do. She chose a great fitted dress which highlighted what's best about Sofia. It's almost all closed and decent, but still very attractive.

Here are some other outfits I liked:

Upper row: Lupita Nyong'o at The Oscars, Emma Stone at 30th Annual Film Independent Spirit Awards, Anna Kendrick at The Oscars, Reese Witherspoon at The Oscars

Lower row: Dakota Johnson at The Oscars, Yvette Yates at 30th Annual Film Independent Spirit Awards, Felicity Jones at The Oscars, George and Amal Clooney at 2nd Golden Globe Awards, Nicole Kidman at The Oscars

Do you have your favorite? Has it made it to my list? If not, write it in the comments below and so I can check it out.