JULY FAVORITES : Writing, Listening, Drinking, Makeup

Where did July go? Where did August come from?

... I admit, I know where July went. Everything was fine until mid-month. I was working on illustration projects, commissions, helped out at the Cafe, did some blogging, wrote my daily CampNaNoWriMo words for a story I'm working on.

And then my little brother came to Jeju. And another illustration project happened. And a deadline got moved up. And July kind of ran me over.

BUT. It may be August, but I'm still using the same stuff anyway because I'm just that boring!

On we go! Scroll down if you only care about the Korean makeup stuff and mini-reviews!

What is yWriter, you might ask.

Well, if you have heard of Scrivener, then it's a freeware version similar to that.

If you haven't heard of Scrivener, let me explain. I love writing stories. Which always end up as a chaotic collection of plotholes and dialogues about half-way through.

yWriter is a writing software with very helpful features for organization and structure! It allows the creation of chapters and scenes and counts words for each of those individually and cummulatively. It has sections for notes (which don't count to the total words!) and character summaries.  It's the perfect program to use when I'm writing a story/comic book script and need a place to just dump all the bits and pieces that I have so that I can move on.

I participated in CampNaNoWriMo and the word count functions were really useful for keeping track!

Also, I really like the minimalistic layout. And it's free. Yay!

I tried to scale back my coffee consumption the tiniest bit (iced coffee makes me loose track of numbers) and iced Ovomaltine was my alternative!
It's so delicious and surprisingly refreshing. Now I'll have to find an alternative to Ovomaltine in August as my stock is running low.....

Audiobooks keep me sane during long days and weeks of just drawing, drawing and drawing for >10 hours a day. As mentioned I had quite a lot of projects to finish in July, so my audiobook consumption rivaled my coffeine intake!
'Ancillary Justice' was by far the most interesting book of that month, though. The narrator is just so fascinating and confusing - and something I've never encountered in a book before. A 'machine' with numerous bodies and both individual and connected consciousnes telling a story? A machine that, to make the narration even more complex, can accurately read feelings/bodily functions in its human companions?

It's not an omniscient narrator, but a VERY VERY VERY well informed one. :)

The actual audiobook narrator was lovely, too, and I enjoyed every minute of the performance. (Also: SCIFI! BATTLESHIPS! AUGMENTED BODY PARTS! <3)

Jeju Color Picker Liquid Glow Shadow Illustration - featuring GLITTER

Now to the makeupy favorites.

As you've maybe noticed in my previous makeup/beauty related posts, I'm kind of an innisfree addict. This Korean brand just works so well for me! OTP. I could literally do swatches and reviews for every single product they have.

So it's no surprise that my two favorite makeup products for July were from Innisfree.

The first one is a liquid eyeshadow from their summer limited edition. The collection is called (kind of awkwardly) 'Jeju Color Picker' - they picked the colors based on locations on the island Jeju.

... where I live. I had no choice but to buy at least one product. Believe me. NO CHOICE.

I got the shade number 1 of these 'Glow Liquid Shadows', inspired by the white sand beach riiiight around the corner from my home. Yay. I don't even need to leave my house anymore.

The packaging of the Liquid Glow Shadows is so pretty,
showing the local diving women called 'Haenyeo'.

As for a mini review:

I used this a lot while on a little trip to the south of the island. No need for brushes, no need for other colors, no need for an eye primer. It's sparkly but there's no fallout and it survived long days outside without smudging. What more would I want?

To demonstrate how this eyeshadow looks without anything beneath, around or above it, here's two swatch pictures on my ol' eyes.

Bonus point: It's actually COOLING on the eyes, and I love the feeling!

One layer of smudged Innisfree Liquid Glow Shadow in shade #1

I'm kind of terrible with applying makeup, so I just dab one, two, three points of this on my lid and then spread it out with my finger. It's also possible to apply it in a more opaque layer without so much smearing involved but that would require ~*~precision~*~ I lack.  

An eye primer or base shadow would of course help to cover up those creepy veins all over my eyelid, so maybe I should reconsider my technique.

I've got slightly hooded eyes so I love glittery eyeshadows to 'open' my eyes! :D

This is actually MY VERY FIRST TIME doing close-up shots of my face and it's terribly educating on both the state of my makeup skills and wrinkles.

.... moving on!

Innisfree Colorglow Lipstick in #10 Daisy Coral - Watercolor Illustration

This is an old one! The Innisfree Colorglow Lipsticks were released back in 2013 and I've loved this lipstick shade ever since. It's bright and orange with a hint of coral and screams 'summer' very loudly - but at the same time it's wearable without much fuss and can be toned down nicely.

The packaging of the Colorglow lipsticks is really simple but sturdy.
No broken caps despite me tossing this one around in bags and letting it drop to the floor a LOT.

The lipstick bullet is easy to use~

As the name 'colorglow' suggests, it is quite shimmery and glowy! I find matte orange lipsticks hard to pull off so I love the texture of this one!

That's how the Liquid Glow Shadow looks before blending. 

Swatches of both the Innisfree Colorglow Lipstick and the Liquid Glow Shadow. 

The lipstick swatch is just one layer, so I could definitely build it up!

...and after blending furiously.

I also received a freeby with my Color Picker purchase because the sales lady was just that nice! (I didn't quite meet the minimum amount of money spent for the event, but hah!)

My July favorites plus the free hair ties~

Now I've got three more hair ties I can lose somewhere! Though these are really cute and I'll cry when it happens.

The little pendants are adorable, really.

That's it for the month of July!

As mentioned, this was my first time doing some ~real~ beauty blogging stuff, as in taking pictures of my actual face and swatches. THIS IS SO HARD TO DO. Respect to all those beauty bloggers with gorgeous blog photography and magical makeup skills!

But I love combining my drawings with pictures and mini-reviews and will continue like this in the future! August, here I come!