Liebster Award

Blogging is a form of self-expression that allows you to understand yourself better and discover the talents, qualities and feelings that you never knew you had. It is when you muse about your own thoughts to the world, making yourself vulnerable to criticism yet finding quiet satisfaction in baring your own soul. The fact that there is no particular audience you are targetting with your blogs (most times blogs are just like journal entries that you write for yourself so you keep a record of your ideas and feelings at that moment), they are always deeply personal and therefore more intriguing as compared to commercial magazine articles. With blogging, I find that I have been able to make my thoughts clearer and it has made me less afraid to express my opinions. I still have a long way to go and when I see other people with their reflections written in blog posts, I feel a camaraderie with them. This is a community of people who are honest and free of judgment. They encourage you to write, to express, breathe…

It is only fitting that a platform such as The Liebster Award exists for bloggers to discover and inspire each other. The idea is that a blogger nominates 11 other bloggers and asks them 11 questions about them on their blog. The nominated bloggers answer these 11 questions in their posts and further nominate 11 new bloggers and ask them 11 questions of their own. My fellow blogger, Lukne-Luna was kind enough to nominate me as one of the bloggers recently. This one is a proper movie geek and gives very detailed analysis of films in her reviews. Her blog has the cutest name: Geeky Cheeky Always Sneaky (her blog link is https://geekycheekyalwayssneaky.wordpress.com). I envy her vast knowledge about films and filmmaking and hope that maybe one day, I too will develop that kind of grasp on the technical side of the subject. Definitely check her out 🙂

Here are my answers to her 11 questions

1. Where are you from?

I was born and raised in New Delhi, India. I moved to Bath, England for a year or so to pursue my masters degree after which I moved back home. Then I moved to Waterford, Ireland to pursue my PhD (in Marketing) but I couldn’t adjust in that city for long (only about 8 months). So I moved to Dublin, Ireland and have been living here for the past two years. I recently got married and my husband is from London, England so that’s second home to me now 🙂

2. First cinema experience?

The first time I ever watched a film in theater is when i was around 4-5 years old. This was the first Jurassic Park. I remember being very excited (and nervous) to go to a theater for the first time and asking my mum how we will find our seats in the dark. I was nervous if the dinosaurs were going to come out of the screen and eat me. The whole experience was surreal and like a dream.

3. Favorite genre?

Perhaps the most intriguing genre for me are Sci-fi/ mystery thrillers. They seem to leave an impression on my mind and I am left thinking about those films for many days after. Another genre that I love is drama, especially period drama. Comedy used to be one of my favourite genres but I feel we live in a rather disappointing era of comedy films.

4. Favorite franchise?

I am not generally interested in fantasy films and it is only because my husband is a fantasy geek that I have started watching fantasy franchises. I think that franchise that has consistently intrigued me with their clever filmmaking is Before Sunrise. Another favourite franchise is Kung Fu Panda.

5. Remakes/reboots – for or against?

Always for. I like getting different perspectives on the same subject matter by different people. But if the reboot does not add anything new to the films, it seems pointless to me.

6. Favorite movie soundtrack?

Carol and Inception

7. Guilty pleasure movie?

Now that’s a question! It’s a Bollywood movie that I have grown up loving and watching many times. The name is Hum Aapke Hai Kaun. It’s a lovely family movie about indian celebrations.

8. A film that you have seen more than 3 times?

So many! But Notting Hill is one of my favourites.

9. Favorite director?

Christopher Nolan

10. Favorite foreign language (non-English) film?

Son of Saul and Amelie

11.Favorite movie from the year you were born?

None so far. Because I am still catching up with old movies. English is not my first language and my interest in films has only developed recently so I have a lot to catch up on.

Nominations

1. Legally Sewed https://legallysewed.wordpress.com/
2. Gole Market Wallah https://golemarketwallah.wordpress.com/
3. Monday Morning Movie Quarterback https://mondaymorningmoviequarterback.wordpress.com/
4. Lost in my Dreams https://lostinmydreamland.wordpress.com/
5. Insta PhD https://instaphd.wordpress.com/
6. Acid burns Horror Show https://acidburnshorrorshow.wordpress.com/
7. Enjoy Wanderlust https://enjoywanderlust.wordpress.com/
8. Boring Says You https://boringsaysyou.wordpress.com/
9. (Not so) completely. miserable https://peacehacks.com/
10. Heart Speaking https://pal10.wordpress.com/
11. Daily Inspiration http://dailyinspiration.me/

My 11 questions to you are:

1. Why did you start blogging?
2. What do you absolutely love to do and cannot get enough of?
3. What is the biggest change that you have made or want to make in your own life?
4. Which movie(s) has/have had the biggest impact on you?
5. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?
6. Which of the economic, social or environment issues do you feel most passionate about?
7. If you had the chance to be friends with any celebrity (political, social, business, movie star,anyone), who would it be and why?
8. What’s your favourite quote?
9. If you had a time machine, would you go back in time or forward in time?
10. What is the next milestone that you want to achieve in your life?
11. What is your favourite childhood memory?

I look forward to your answers in your posts 🙂

FAN Tribute by a Fan

One of my closest friends reviewed the new Bollywood movie ‘Fan’. I admit I didn’t have very high hopes for this movie but his review makes me want to watch it. Will probably review it myself later. 🙂

golemarketwallah

After having spent an year in anticipation and looping ‘mai tera hai re jabra, hai re jabra fan ho gaya’ for a month, finally the day came when FAN finally released. And you cannot miss first day screening of an SRK movie. After a string of hopeless movies (chennai express, happy new year and dilwale – #fuckyourohitshetty ) finally SRK is back with all his intensity.

This is more of a fan tribute than a movie review. A fan who is relieved that his idol is finally back after going ashtray in Rohit Shetty’s company. I can’t stop abusing this guy for making shit movies over a period of time and still managing to survive (flourish!). Compare this to Maneesh Sharma, who in the last 6 years has come up with really good cinema, good offbeat work – dum lagake haisha, shudh desi romance, band baaja baraat, etc. The way…

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A little makeover tutorial on my birthday

So I’m 27 today and my husband and I went for a little day out yesterday. Although technically we both woke up at like 1 in the afternoon and were only ready by 3 so more like an evening out. We went to meet a couple of friends of mine who had come down to the city for a concert. So we had some drinks with them and then went on for an early dinner to this wonderful little restaurant. The food there was absolutely beautiful- the best Indian food I have had so far in Ireland. And the service there was really good as well. It was lovely.

So I have been thinking of putting up a makeup tutorial for quite some time now especially because there’s hardly any good tutorials for brown skin. I have learnt most of my makeup skills from these tutorials and with lots of practice and I think people with darker skin might find it useful. Now I do admit its hard to really learn from just pictures and I am planning to make a video tutorial but this could probably be a test I suppose? Let me know if you like it and would like a video tutorial. Please excuse the quality of my camera- my phone’s camera. I hope I’m able to save up enough soon to buy a brand new camera soon 🙂

So I have a slightly darker than beige skin tone and my cheek has a lot of acne marks from my teen years. Also my skin in quite dry so I like to use a lot of moisturiser on my skin before I start my makeup. I don’t use very fancy products, just some of the stuff that I happened to buy from recommendations or the stuff that I got from my Glossybox subscription. I will tell you which products I’m using anyway. I start with washing my face with a face wash and then using my Dove moisturiser over it. This is a picture when I have put the moisturiser on and no makeup.

The pictures make my face look quite weird actually…or that’s just my face. Lol. I feel quite exposed putting this for public view on my blog but I guess its a part of accepting your flaws..maybe? Okay moving on, I know many people might want to put a primer on before putting the foundation but honestly I don’t have a primer. I would like to buy one when I think I can afford to spend on it but right now Im happy with just using my moisturiser as a base for my foundation. I use Nars Sheer Glow foundation in the colour Sycarose which is medium dark. Its very important that your foundation colour matches your face and I know people say don’t match it with the back of your hand or match it with the colour of your neck, I would suggest that when you go to buy your foundation, ask for help, ask for a little demonstration and they will help you pick out what’s best for you. I take about two pumps of my foundation and mix it up with my Peter Thomas Ruth moisturiser but really any liquid moisturiser is fine. I do this because of my dry skin so my foundation is not too cakey and it helps in giving me lighter coverage. You can use just the foundation according to the look you want for your face but I think mixing this foundation with moisturiser works for me. Perhaps I won’t mix it if I use another brand with a little more moisturising foundation. Here’s a picture of the moisturiser and the foundation.

Yeah so just mix them up together and I use my hand to put the foundation on my face. You can use a brush or sponge, whatever makes you comfortable but I like using my hand because I think it gives me more control. So spread the foundation on all of your face including the under the chin area and your neck to make sure the neck doesn’t look a different colour than your face. I usually first put foundation on my face and then put the leftover on my neck because you don’t really need that much foundation on your neck its just to give it a similar colour. I also put a little bit extra on my chin and corners of my mouth because they are the darker areas of my face and I want all of the face to look of an even complexion. This is my face after putting on the foundation.

I know it doesn’t look right yet but the concealer always makes this better. i use the Clinique All about eyes concealer in the shade Medium beige. I mean I don’t know if this is the best concealer out there but it does the work for me. Its like a little tube but I would much rather prefer a concealer like the Airbrush concealer by Clinique. I feel like it would be more moisturising because this one leaves my face a bit dry. I might change my brand of concealer when this one runs out and maybe try Nars or Lakme. Anyway, I put concealer under my eyes and corners on my mouth. And when I apply it I pat it on my skin rather than rub it or swipe it on the skin. This is the best way to put the concealer on because concealers tend to get cakey if you swipe them on. I put them in little triangles under my skin and I put a little but extra on my acne marks so they blend in and don’t stand out. Also put some on your forehead in between your brows in a small triangle and on your eye lids. Here’s a picture of me after putting on the concealer. it makes quite a difference!

So after my concealer I put on some translucent powder on my face just so that the concealer gets set and doesn’t crease. For this I use Bare Minerals Original Mineral Veil and put a tiny amount on the places where I put the concealer. I don’t like to put too much powder because my skin is dry and I am going to use other powder products too. Next, I move on to my eyes although you  an first finish the face and then move on to the eyes. You could also just do the eyes first and then the face. A lot of people and makeup artists actually prefer to do the eyes first. Anyway, so I already moisturised my eyes and put a little bit concealer on them which would act as a sort of primer for my eyes. I use my W7 In the Nude eye palette and I chose thecolour Venice which is a light glittery pink for my eyelids. I spread it all over my eye lids first. Then I took my bronzer from Model Cosmetics and put it on the corner of my eyes and swooped it across the line of the eye socket. This gives my eyes a bit of definition. Then I took the colour Tokyo from the palette and put it on the corner of my eyes again to just give a bit of smokey look. I took the beige wihitish colour on the pallete and put some on the inner corner of my eyes so that there are no dark areas and then also put some of this colour just under my eyebros where they end. Then I blended all of these in areas where they were overlapping so that there are no harsh lines and everything looks to be naturally changing colour.

I then took my The Body Shop Liquid Eyeliner and put it on my top lash-line finishing with a cat flick at the end. This is quite hard to explain how to do with just photos. Perhaps the video would be better. Finally I curled my lashes with my HnM eye lash curler and put on Lash Princess mascara by Essence on upper and lower lashes.

Then I move back to my face and put a bit of bronzer on both sides for contouring my face. Now I don’t have a contour palette to do this but my bronzer works just as well. plus I don’t need a lot of contouring because my face is quite slim anyway. Contouring just means that you define the lines on your face and accentuate your cheek bones and nose a little bit. For contouring, I took my ModelCo bronzer and put a slight line on my cheekbones. After that I blended it with my brush so there’s no harsh lines and it blends in with the foundation a little bit. You can add a bit of contour powder to the side of your forehead as well so that your forehead doesn’t look wide but I don’t think I need that because my forehead is already quite small. After that I put some bronzer on the sides of my nose so that my nose appears smaller and less wide. To apply the bronzer, use a medium fluffy brush or a slanted brush if you have one because its easier to make a line using it and then blend it out.

Once the contouring is done I added a bit of pink blush on my cheeks. The blush I use is really old and I don’t know if you would know the brand. Its a pink colour blush from a blusher set palette by Body Collection. it quite cheap but I love the colours on the palette and it works well for my skin.

To apply the blusher, use a bif fluffy brush because I feel that works the best. Smile a little and apply the blusher on the apple of your cheeks moving back towards your ears. Once you are done apply the rest of the product left on your brush (make sure its only a tiny amount) on your chin and forehead just to give a little sun-kissed appearance but don’t overdo it (skip this step if you want).

Finally, I used some highlighting powder to highlight some features on my face. My highlighting powder is by HnM and I have to say its not the best highlighter out there. I would probably look around for other brands and I’m currently on the lookout for a nice dewy finish one. I apply my highlighter using a medium fluffy brush and put some in the middle of my forehead moving on to the middle of my brows and down to the tip of my nose. Then I apply some on my cheeks near the end of my eyes. I also apply some on the sides of my chin. Here’s the picture after I applied all the powder products.

After that I move on to the lips. First I applied some lip balm to make my lips soft and supple. i use Jack Wills Cheery Lip blam but you could really use any, even vaseline works well! After that I used my Lush lipstick in glittery pink called ‘Bubbly’. this lipstick is really moisturising and has nice tinted colour that lasts throughout the day. I then used my Essence XXXL shine lip gloss in Hibiscus that I recently got in my Glossybox. Its a nice, sparkly, not-too-sticky lip gloss that was just right for my lips colour. Here’s the photo after the lips done.

As a final touch, I used my Monuspa Rosewood reviving mist (another treasure I cherish from Glossybox) to put on my face just to add a little but of freshness, dew and moisture on my face and to set my makeup. I am putting a final picture of the makeup in better light just so you can see how it looks.

And the final little touch- my glasses!! I love them but I do concede they kind of hide my makeup.

Which look do you think is better- with or without the glasses? I hope you enjoyed this little tutorial and you could get some use out of it. I will post a link whenever I manage to do a video tutorial. In the meantime, do let me know your thoughts. Thanks!!