I’d heard so much praise about Lush’s Lemony Flutter Cuticle Butter, and was desperate to acquire a box of my own. I went to their Norwegian online store (click here for the international site), but decided I wasn’t quite desperate enough to pay 99,- NOK in shipping for such a little thing. Fortunately darling Cindy lives in Oslo, and sent me a box a few weeks ago.

First of all: I have very dry hands. Dishwashing without gloves is impossible, and after a full day of doing laundry my hands feel like sand paper. I’ve always envied girls with pretty hands, and especially the ones with perfect cuticles (Laquerized is my ultimate cuticle role model).

– Warning! Starved cuticles below! —

In case you didn’t know, the cuticles are the transition from the nail to the skin of the fingers. As you can see, mine are rather dry and flaky – this is how they always look when I come out of the shower. Regular hand lotion simply doesn’t cut it, but the Lemony Flutter is fantastic!

This is after a very thin layer (the butter is rather sticky, and I had things to do), so the effect isn’t insanely impressive, but you can still see some major improvement. Normally I’ll put on a larger amount of the stuff before I go to bed, and I wake up to the happiest fingertips I’ve ever had.

As for the butter itself, it looks like this. *points to picture above* You can see I have only used product from the lid, not the actual box yet, as you need just a tiny bit on each finger. The smell is a bit strong, like lemon mixed with some sort of cleaning product. I think it’s perfectly tolerable, one of my friends joyfully shouted “IT SMELLS LIKE CANDY!” when I opened the lid, and some people simply cannot stand it. It’s still the best goo I’ve ever put on my cuticles, and they’re looking better each day.

Have any of you tried this stuff? Opinions?

I’m in a city called Jessheim to watch my sister in a play (she’s got the lead, and she’s marvellous. Marvellous, I say!). Mum and I have been killing time with a little shopping, and today at Bianco I found the most magical shoes I’ve ever seen.

Can you believe the sheer perfection of these shoes? In daylight they’re a pale grey colour, and in lamplight they get this purple tinge. Add the sparkling diamonds and the shoes actually being comfortable, too, and you’ll surely understand why I’m so in love. The only thing better today was seeing my sister on stage (yes, Cookie, I’ll keep saying that until it’s imprinted in your head for the rest of your life).

I also found a lot of Essie polishes on sale – they’re normally 149,- NOK and these were only 50,-, huzzah! I’ve realized that although I’ve got lots of blues and greys, my nail collection is rather sad in the red-department. That’s why I got (from the nude one and towards the right): Angel Food (can you believe that name?), National Velvet, Hot Commodity, Jag-U-Are and a pretty little thing from Star Gazer, nr. 245. The colours actually don’t look like this, but my camera struggled in the lamplight and I was tired. Better pictures some other time!

The eyelashes are from the same place as the polishes (as shop called Visage), and the headband is from Gina Tricot. It reminded me so much of Alice in Wonderland that I had to have it, even though I’m a little over the whole headband thing. Ah, well, it was on sale

My sister is the best. Let’s leave it at that.

This is going to sound very vain – but it is so nice to feel beautiful again. I ran out of the samples I bought a while ago, and I’ve been without Tikei’s concealers since easter. Trust me when I say that it’ll never happen again (I don’t want to risk my well-being in that way).

I also bought some brushes, and I don’t regret it for a second. They’re softer than half-melted butter, really! I’m going to use this big one for the finishing veil.

I also got two concealer brushes, as I don’t want to mix the one I use to cover impurities with the one I use underneath my eyes. The brushes are a bit bigger than what I’m used to (1,5 centimeters wide), but they cover very well and are easier to handle than I’d expected.

The big kit I ordered included two eyeshadows, so I got a black one (because Cookie said every girl ought to have one and I had a small revelation when I realized how true it is) and this incredibly gorgeous green with golden shimmer. It makes my eyes look so brown you wouldn’t believe it.

I ordered a sample for the eye shadow Illusion. I’m waiting for a special occasion to try it out, as it’s very green. The shadows are very pigmented, so a sample can last for quite some time if you don’t use it every day, which is good. I also got two free samples, one for an eye shadow and one for a bronzer (which I don’t use as pale is the new tan for me, but I might give it a go just to see how I’ll look).

Have you tried Tikei’s makeup yet?

Dotted blouse: Bik Bok, lace top: H&M, shorts: Cubus, “stocking-tights” and bag: Lindex, boots: can’t remember.

Today I found these fantastic stocking-tights at Lindex, and I ended up buying several pairs. All right, I’ll admit it, I straight-out hunted them down after having discovered them through Ladybird’s Nest. You know me, anything that hints of burlesque makes my heart pound. They can look a little vulgar, though, so I’ll have to be careful with how I combine them – my very short denim shorts didn’t look so good, for instance. I still think they’re fabulous, and I can’t wait to try them out with pretty much everything I own. That’ll have to wait, though, as I’m in Harstad for Easter holidays.

Somehow I always end up spending too much money at Lindex in my home town. In addition to the tights I found a belt, a necklace and some pretty lingerie – all on sale, but I’ll still have to survive on oatmeal and carrots for the rest of the month if I keep this up.

The blouse is new, too. It’s from Bik Bok and was a really unexpected find, as they don’t normally do these kind of vintage-like things. The boots are old, though (as you can probably tell).

Thanks to Cookie for the photos – you’re such a weird little peach!

Have you guys heard of Konad stamping nail art? I hadn’t, when my interest in nail polish started sometime last year, but as I looked at manicures on the web I realized that some of them couldn’t possibly have been freehanded (which means they were painted with a brush, by hand). I did some research and discovered Konad, an ingenious system that allows you to put incredibly complicated patterns and images on your nails rather easily. This video shows how it works:

Basically, you have some metal plates with engraved patterns. You use a special polish (it’s much thicker than normal polish) and paint over the image you want, then scrape away the excess polish. You press the “stamper” on to the image on the plate – this will transfer the image to the stamper itself – and then stamp it on to your nail.

I ordered three image plates, two special polishes (one white and one black), the stamper and the scraper from OC Nail Art right after Christmas, but haven’t gotten around to playing with it until now. I’m glad I did though – it looks so lovely! The big lace pattern is from plate m57, and the small lace pattern on the ring finger is from m39 (I also own m73). For now I just wanted to share my joy with you, but if you’d like it I can do a separate post on Konad tips and tricks. I’m not a Konadicure master (yet), but I’ve still discovered some things that make the procedure a lot easier.

And a happy PS for you Norwegian gals: I just discovered that Nelly.com sells Konad-things, so if you think it looks interesting you can get it at a pretty reasonable price without having to think about international shipping, taxes and long delivery times.

Have you ever had a Konadicure?

Yes, Cookie, I finished a DIY. Well, sort of a DIY. I’ve knitted my second scarf, and the first one to turn out nicely. The best thing about it is that it’s so soft and warm. Perhaps I could knit a house of the same yarn? Oh, and I’ve coloured my hair. It’s almost black now (but golden in the sun), and I love the change.

I cannot do any fancy knitting at all, just the basic thing, but the lady at the yarn shop told me that if I used one rather thin (5mm) needle and one quite thick (12mm), it would create a sort of pattern all by itself. The lines that look thin and opaque come from the thin needle, and the wide and see-through lines were made by the thick needle. It turned out so nice I just might have to make another one.

This picture is closest to the real colour of the scarf, a gorgeous, dusty red-orangey shade.

PS: Thanks to Boyfriend for being the photographer. I paparazzied him while he wasn’t looking, moahaha.

Isn’t it simply divine? I found it in Plastique’s Etsy Shop, and now I never want to take it off. It’s made of a hard, transparent plastic and is just the right size:

Big enough to show clearly from a slight distance, but not so big it’ll be a hassle to wear. The chain is just the right length, too (I’ll show you sometime in an outfit post). It is very fragile, though – I managed to break mine in the middle of the “v” while pressing it to my body (I was stupid and thought I’d see if I could make it say “helvetica” on my skin – I blame a temporary moment of insanity). Boyfriend managed to glue it together perfectly, though, to my great relief, and now I have a (slightly embarrassing) story to go with it. The break was definitely my fault, though, and not because of bad construction. It’s just a fragile little thing, that’s all, and I’ll take proper care of it from now on.

I suppose it should be called a statement necklace, defining the wearer as a font nerd for those in the know – and confusing the people who don’t know that helvetica is simply an iconic font. The confusions here are endless, especially when considering that the Norwegian word for hell is helvete. Oh, well, I’ll brave their ignorance any day for such a beauty. At least my wonderful readers will know the true meaning behind it.

From the paper for the No Siesta, Fiesta!-festival. Translation of the circled part: The costumes of a samba parade are especially important, naturally. This year they’ve had help to dress the participants of the parade. – We’ve been fortunate enough to have Maria Hansen Troøyen (me!) to help us with this. She’s very good with clothes and fashion, and has an eye for the original, so I think this will be really good, says L-Jay.

I’m at my mother’s for the week, spending time with the little sisters and watching three movies a day. I wanted to do an outfit post for you, but it was simply too cold, so you get pictures of some things I like instead.