Fall 2018 Fashion Trend: The Slouchy Boot

It's rare that I feel like I can get on board with most of the fashion trends in a season, but this fall, I've actually been pretty excited to try almost ALL of them! One of those trends being the slouchy boot: this 70's throwback isn't my usual style, but I was keen to try it out. Especially when I found this burnt orange (aka 'pumpkin spice') coloured pair of slouchy boots from JustFab. I've loved their shoes for years, so no surprise I feel in love with these. Although they have quite a high heel...or maybe I'm just out of practice. But I love these boots so much, I'm going to suck it up.

I thought I'd pair these slouchy boots with another 70's trend - the floppy hat! That's another trend that's stuck around for a number of years now. Both trends have that boho-flair: a definite departure from my usual preppy-leaning outfits, but I think it's a nice breath of fresh air! And I think we could all use that in our closets every once in a while, don't we? A breath of fresh style?

In general, this burnt orange colour has been a new addition to my wardrobe this season. It's not always the easiest to style, compared to more basic colours, but I find it pairs quite well with camel (and I have a lot of camel-coloured items in my closet - like my purse!). I think as long as you have a couple of camel items in your closet, you'll have no problem styling your new burnt orange pieces!

Hat - Express (thrifted) | Shirt - Luna Moon (via Winners) | Purse - Miztique (via Winners) | Jeans - Winners | Boots - JustFab

Happy Styling! xo

~ Britta

Breaking a Beauty Myth: Red/Pink Eyeshadow

Fashion and beauty have always seemed to have a lot of rules...but rules are made to be broken aren't they? You've probably heard someone tell you that you shouldn't wear pink or red eyeshadows because they'll make your eyes look puffy and swollen. I did - and I just never really questioned it. But is it actually true? When the new Rimmel Crimson Edition Palette landed at my door, I realized it would be the perfect time to put this 'rule' to the test and find out if it's a myth...or not.

I actually had a sneak peek at this Crimson Edition Palette at the London Drugs Beauty Preview Event in Whistler recently (more on that to come in a post soon!), and was impressed by the swatches, so I knew this would be a fun palette to play around with.

First of all - I love how Rimmel styled their new launches: in an 80's style boombox! How cute?? Perfectly fitting, with these 80's style colours! The pink Crimson palette? Definitely a nod to that retro flair. To be quite honest, I've never been a fan of 80's style (that hair...yikes!!), but I was so intrigued by the pink shadows, gorgeous blushes, and satiny liquid lipsticks, that I was ready to jump right in!

While I was really excited to try to put that pink eyeshadow myth to the test, I was also a bit apprehensive. I'm really not very skilled when it comes to eyeshadows. I just don't wear them all the time, and the idea of trying to create a look from scratch with colours I don't usually wear was definitely intimidating. But you know what I learned? You gotta just blend, blend, blend! It really does fix everything.

As I started to test out the shadows, I was quite honestly immediately impressed. I've used other drugstore palettes before, and they usually aren't very pigmented, and are pretty crumbly and leave quite a bit of fall-out. Instead, these shadows were incredibly pigmented, and had very little crumble and fall-out. I was actually blown away by the pigmentation. It barely took any shadow to deliver quite a nice bit of colour to my lids. Score!

Here's which shadows I ended up using, and how:

1. I put the lightest shade on the far left along my brow bone. I was amazed how pigmented it was, and just how shimmery it was! I find these 'highlight' shades in palettes never end up looking very good on my skintone. But this one rocked!! Such a pretty pinky highlight.
2. I took the 6th shade from the left, a berry/wine shade, and applied to my crease around to the outer corners of my eyes. You don't need much powder - it's so pigmented! Not to worry, it blends out easily. I also took this colour along my bottom lash line.
3. I applied the 3rd shade from the right, a deeper red-y/brown shade to the outer v. Then I also blended it into my lower lashline.
4. My favourite part...I used that beautiful glittery pink 5th shade from the right and applied that to the centre of my lids, and blended out.
5. I went back to that gorgeous highlight shade on the far left, and used my finger to apply to the inner corners of my eyes.

Rimmel also has 4 new blushes: the MAXI Blushes! 3 are matte - in a deep berry, light orange, and mauvey pink. The fourth is the only shimmery blush in the collection, and is such a pretty shade! For this look, I thought the mauvey pink (Colour 003) would be a good fit - and also the best choice for my skin tone. For the full 80's effect of course I could have blended it up to my temple (aka 'draping'), but I opted to blend it into my cheekbones only. 

Lastly, you know I love a good lippie! Now, I'm still a matte girl at heart, but I gotta say, these Rimmel Stay Satin Liquid Lipsticks had a beautiful finish: just a bit of shine, but not as much as a gloss. They dry down into a really comfortable lightly satin lip colour. I was immediately drawn to the shade 'Have a Cow' for this look. I love a good red wine lip colour. My only issue is that they did bleed a bit, when wearing without a lip liner (I'm used to not needing a lip liner with my matte lipsticks). So I'll need to use my NYX Wonder Stick with them in future to keep them from bleeding (especially the darker shades).

I'm so happy with how the whole look turned out! I don't see any puffy, swollen eyes here, do you?? I think we can officially put that myth to bed. I'm ready to take on a new beauty risk now. What shall it be next?

You can find all the products I used to create this pink/berry look at your local London Drugs - my go-to for drugstore makeup!

Happy Styling! xo

~ Britta

Disclosure: The products featured in this post were provided complimentary of Rimmel Canada, for review. As always, opinions are entirely my own.

Halloween Costume 2018: Netflix's GLOW (Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling)

Halloween has really become one of my favourite holidays. To be honest, actually, it's the preparation for Halloween that's actually my favourite. I absolutely love creating my own Halloween costumes from thrift store finds...and a little bit of DIY!

You can find some of my previous thrifted/DIY Halloween costumes here: Maleficent, Harley Quinn, Psycho Stabbing, American Horror Story Hotel: Countess, iZombie's Liv Moore, and Cruella de Vil.

This year, I decided to go with a super fun costume I discovered while watching Nextflix's show GLOW (Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling) - if you haven't seen the show yet, it's worth checking out! It's full of fun 80's-style wrestling costumes, which made it a great choice for Halloween. Especially this costume, which is based on Alison Bree's character Ruth Wilder and her wrestling persona, Zoya the Destroyer (here's another pic of the original outfit). She's the evil persona in the wrestling ring, so I figured it would be a good fit for Halloween!

So I headed out on the hunt for everything I'd need from Value Village...and it took me a few stores, but I found everything I needed! The best part about thrifting your costume? 1) You'll get a way better deal on thrifted costume pieces than you will by buying your costume at those Halloween pop-up shops 2) Your costume will be way better quality than the stuff you'll find in those pop-up shops 3) You'll probably be able to re-wear many of the parts of your costume (like the hat, belts and boots you I thrifted in this case).

Anyway, I can't even tell you how excited I was when the first thing I saw on the jewelry counter at Value Village was the perfect faux fur hat that you'll see below! And the boots were a great find too - they have the tie-up look just like a pair of wrestling boots would, but these were a little more stylish, with the wedge heel (also comfy to walk in - win!).

Here's the breakdown of my Value Village costume:

Hat: $17.99

Bodysuit: $8.99

Belt 1: $6.49

Belt 2: $14.99

Boots: $16.99
TOTAL: $65.45

$65 for everything definitely wasn't bad, considering like I said, I'll be able to re-wear many of these items beyond Halloween!

This costume just required a couple simple DIYs: first, I cut up the bodysuit to make it one shoulder. I just used my sewing machine to do a very basic stitch along the raw edges of the newly one-shouldered bodysuit. I took the leftover sleeve I had cut off and created the separate sleeve, and then used the leftover fabric to create the choker. For the belt detailing, I ended up finding a 'wrestling champion' belt at the dollar store, and cut up two of the gold plastic plates, which I then super glued to the thrifted belts. And voila!

I actually had a fun time doing the makeup for this look too - I used a coppery-gold eyeshadow all the way up to my brows, darkened my brows quite a bit with an eyeliner, and then used my Rimmel Stay Matte Liquid Lip Colour in Pitch Black, with a little bit of gold eyeshadow dabbed in the centre of my lips. Oh, and some light grey eyeshadow as a contour as well.

What are you planning to be for Halloween this year? If you're stilling looking, check out Value Village! I thrifted my whole costume there, but they also have lots of brand new Halloween costumes and accessories too, so you can mix and match to create your perfect costume!

Happy Halloween Costume Styling! xo

~ Britta

Disclaimer: Value Village graciously provided a gift card to cover the cost of my thrifted Halloween costume. As always, opinions are still my own - Value Village is my go-to place for Halloween costumes, no matter what!

Making the Slow Transition to Fall Fashion

As a summer baby, I will always love summer. Especially in Vancouver. With the exception of the haze we've had recently due to wildfires, it's been a pretty good summer. I could happily drink Aperol Spritz on a patio pretty much every day, and I've always had a soft spot for cute summer dresses. But the closer the days creep towards September, I do start to feel the call of the fall season, and to be honest, I'm not fighting it. The thought of crisp fall days spent in cozy cashmere sweaters sipping a glass of red wine do seem pretty appealing.

And so I've willing started the slow transition into fall fashion. Now, I say slow, because here in Vancouver it'll likely still be quite warm right through September. But I've started to add a bit more fall colour to my wardrobe at least, at this point.

I picked out this tie-detail dress from SheIn, and at $13.00, it was definitely an affordable find. I must say when it arrived though, I wasn't totally sold on it. The sleeves seemed a bit awkward, and the fit a bit frumpy, but oddly enough when it came the time to actually shoot this look, I actually totally fell in love with this dress! The colours really do compliment each other so nicely: the white, black, orange and green. Sometimes, it just takes me a while to see a clothing item's potential. And the black heels to match definitely gives the impression that bright summer colours are in my rearview mirror.

It is still summer though, so I pulled out my brand new prescription sunglasses from Clearly, which I bought recently. The brand/style I picked is the Kam Dhillon Schiffer-55. These are my first-ever pair of prescription sunglasses, and while I feel a bit old for needing them, I must say I am so excited to have them finally. I can actually see things far away again! Without having to squint with my regular glasses on - especially when driving! These frames are actually a pair of glasses frames, but Clearly can easily add sunglass lenses to a bunch of their regular frames. I love the slightly cat-eye shape.

Finally, I finished off the look with my favourite boat hat from Forever 21. The straw material has a definite summer look, but the black ribbon ties it all together with the fall colour scheme.

Hmm, I can almost taste the Pumpkin Spice Lattes now...

Dress - c/o SheIn | Hat - Forever 21 (similar) | Sunglasses - CAN: Clearly/USA: Coastal | Heels - Target

Happy Styling! xo

~ Britta

Happy National Thrift Shop Day!

As an avid thrifter, National Thrift Shop Day is basically my favourite holiday. Ok, that may be taking it a bit too far - Christmas and Halloween are still in the lead - but I still love Thrift Shop Day.

Naturally, I thought I would celebrate with a trip to my favourite Value Village - the one on Hastings, for those in Vancouver. You can head over to my Instagram Stories right now to follow along during my thrifting trip there. You'll see some of the awesome finds I came across, as well as some thrifting tips along the way.

It's actually been a while since I've been thrifting. In the meantime, I've been compiling quite a big bag of donations: clothes and even some mugs and glasses that we just don't have space for. The best part of taking those into Value Village finally? A discount on my shopping trip! Woohoo!

I did pretty well during this trip. I usually try not to go in with high expectations, because I feel like that sort of sets you up for failure. You never know what you're going to find in a thrift store, which is great, but it also means you can end up walking away with nothing. That's why I like to go thrifting as often as I can though - it ups your chances! At the end of my trip, I ended up with:

1. A Wilfred Chevalier jacket (I paid: $19.99, but it's worth: $225)
2. A Mustard Seed dress (I paid: $13.49)
3. A Forever 21 trench (I paid: $17.99)
4. A Zara ruffle top (I paid: $8.49)
5. A pair of shearling lined boots (I paid:$13.99)

I'm sure you can tell by the breakdown above that my most valuable find was the Wilfred Chevalier jacket. It's funny because I've literally only shopped at Artizia once in my life, but living in Vancouver, it's basically impossible not to be familiar with their clothes. I've seen these Chevalier jackets re-sold on Facebook selling groups enough times to know I'd found something pretty coveted. And when I went to run my hands along the fabric, I could see why. It definitely has a heavy, silky texture to it that you just can't help but love. And it hands beautifully when on. The one I found it juuuuust a tad small (it's a size 2, and I think a 4 would be a bit roomier on me), but I think it'll be fine, as it has some stretch to it.

But my favourite find of the day goes to the stunning red pleated Mustard Seed dress I ended up finding by a stroke of luck. I just happened to see the voluminous skirt peeking out from a rack, and even though the rack was labelled as size 9/10 dresses (and I'm usually a 6), I gravitated towards it to pull it off the rack. Right away, I could tell it was definitely not a size 9 or 10. And when I saw the Mustard Seed label, with a size 'Medium' on the tag, I had a real good feel it was going to fit like a glove. That's the trouble with clothes that are labelled as 'Medium' - every brand sizes their clothing differently, and that makes it extra hard when staff are trying to find out what rack to put an item on. So that's why I always recommend checking other racks outside of your usual size, just so you don't miss out on an item that could be your size.

As I mentioned above, I try not to go into a thrift store with any expectations, but I did tell myself to try and come home with some fall items, instead of more summer stuff. Which is why I'm pretty proud I ended up snagging that Forever 21 trench and the shearling boots! Definitely not summer items. I know the trench isn't some some fancy brand, but I like how the trench drapes, and I could use a trench in grey. And the boots caught my eye because the heel was fairly low and thick, so they'll be easy to walk in, even in the snow this winter. Look at me, thinking two seasons ahead!!

There were also lots of great brands I came across that didn't make the cut for me, but it was exciting to find them nonetheless. Like a pair of Rock and Republic ankle boots, a LaFayette 148 skirt which looked to be valued at about $300, a cute Calvin Klein dress, and I was also happy to see that Simons clothes are starting to trickle into the store (after the first West Coast store opened in North Vancouver a couple years ago).

All in all, a successful thrifting trip! And the best part of all? My shopping left no mark on the environment! I created no demand for new clothes to be made, and yet I have a bunch of 'new' clothes that I'm exciting to add to my wardrobe. Did I mention everything I took home only totalled $80?? Not bad at all!

I'd love to hear your best thrifted finds, and your best thrifting tips! Feel free to share in the comments below :)



Happy Thrifting! xo

~ Britta



Thanks to Value Village for providing a gift card to support my Thrift Shop Day shopping spree!