Blonde, red, dark purple, strawberry blonde and brown - those have been the colours of my hair so far - and now I can add BLUE to the list thanks to these coloured hairsprays from Colour Xtreme that I've been looking forward to try out.

I do have quite the fascination with wigs and the possibility to change your hair colour/style after how you're feeling from day to day [yes, yes, even though my hair has now been blonde for the past 12 years] so the Blue, the White and the Silver were my picks when doing some online shopping a while back  and the Blue definitely is my favourite so far since you really get the colour you're expecting.. and if you prefer it lighter then just add some of the White spray on top. The White is also great for spraying onto areas which may need some light if your base colour would happen to get a little patchy  or if, let's say, you're going for a blue or pink dip-dye and want the colours to be baby blue and baby pink. The Silver one was a joke and I am genuinely chocked that this is even allowed to be on the market. No colour whatsoever and the glitter was microscopic.

So is there a big difference - judging on quality and how it looks when applied to the hair - from those kinds of coloured hairsprays you can get from places like masquerade costumes stores?  No.. I wouldn't really say it is. It gives the same kind of texture to your hair - you know that kind of straw-y feel? Yeah, that's it. And these, too, can stain your clothes even if only temporarily so I'd say the best way to wear them is with your hair up. Am I disappointed they were not more improved?  Yes.. but not to the point where I wouldn't buy them again; I most definitely will - both for personal use and for my make-up artist kit. Being a 90's kid  I'm still a bit weak for some of the 90's trends and to just swirl your hair up in two buns spraying them pink and orange are one of those things that just makes everything a little more fun. I love it.

♦ HOW?
You simply spray it onto your hair with a 20-30 cm distance  and please use it BEFORE putting on your makeup (that is  if you're using it all over as I did). AND yes, the blue one IS apparently showing up on dark hair as well! Wohoo!
♦ WHERE?
For Swedes, Eleven.se has got the lowest price and is where I bought mine. Abroad you can find them at Boots, Urban Outfitters, ASOS and other websites along with their own colourxtreme.co.uk  if you're in the UK.

This past weekend  MAC invited a fairly small group of beauty bloggers, makeup artists and other media people to spend a full night together celebrating their new MAC counter at NK.  Starting off with a workshop, Live Apelland [who I did an interview with almost 2 years back when visiting MAC backstage at Stockholm Fashion Week] was working her skills on her model for the day, Nina (previously known from Top Model Sweden), introducing the new MAC Technique using items from the upcoming collection Temperature Rising  with some of their own makeup artists available to help us out if needed. The MAC Technique is basically a way of applying the makeup and you can book your own session with one of their artists at the NK MAC counter to find out more and get some inspiration.

They sure did go all in, inviting those of us who are not actually living in Stockholm to spend the night at the absolutely beautiful hotel Nobis where they also treated us with a 3-meal dinner and the WONDERFUL news that Sweden FINALLY got the MAC PRO-card system (!) and will from now on also carry some of the PRO items at the NK counter. 

A huge thank you to Berit and MAC Cosmetics for this wonderful evening and all the exiting news - and of course the very generous goodiebag! I've found some real gold gems which I can not thank them enough for including since I don't think I would have purchased some of them myself just by looking at them. Tricky little thing knowing which products you will come to love once you've tried them out properly. I'll show you my absolute favourite soon!


(1st photo belongs to meandme.se)

After posting the photos of my Pop Art lips I got a comment from a girl requesting a full Pop Art face and while showing the result I thought I'd share some simple guidelines or things to keep in mind when trying to create a Pop Art face. I'm no pro whatsoever when it comes to comic book looking makeup but there are still some basic guidelines I feel that I could mention.

When creating your base, use a high coverage foundation to blank out the face and try to make the face as "flat" as possible. Lighten up the parts that have a bit of natural shadow and maybe flatten areas that pop out a lot if you feel the need. From there you can use an inspirational picture (maybe from a cartoon book or by just typing "pop art girl" into google) so you can get some ideas on where to place the lines on your face. Some may prefer to do this look with only a few lines here and there while others prefer to also put dots all over the face for the typical cartoon magazine paper effect if you know what I mean - it all depends on how simple you want it and basically what you prefer.

I always thought that when I finally did try this look, I would be going for the dotted version [I've been wanting to try it out for years, since I first saw it on an old MAC halloween face chart] but I finally went with just the lines - and the lips of course!  This was just my first try and I wasn't meant to post it but thought "Oh what the hell" ... Sometimes it's fun to post the things you've made just so you can look back on it after some time and notice the things you would have done different today... so for me personally it's a good way of growing as an artist and that's why this will be one of the looks I'll be recreating for Halloween 2013 - and it might be a how-to video!

For lashes I would recommend big ones that looks full and thick instead of simple ones since you don't really see a lot of thin, natural lashes in pop art magazines (or at least I haven't) but more like a thick flick. And that being said - don't forget a thick eyeliner!