My lipstick collection

Lesson nr 1 in make-up: the focus should be either on the eyes or on the lips. 

That lesson (and the fact that I felt too young for lipstick) has made that I have always focused on the eyes. I have never been scared of wearing strong colours a putting a lot of make-up. But over the last two years I have started to put less make-up on the eyes, sometimes just eyeliner and mascara. 

This opened the way for lipstick. 

At the beginning it felt quite strange, especially since I started with a really strong red. But you just have to get used to it. Last week I bought a orange/coral one and a real shocking pink, very YSL, which I am totally in love with! 

I am apparently not the only one to have started wearing lipstick, I see more and more girls wearing lipstick in the street or in the subway, sometimes very young girls. The other day, I was quite surprised by how many girls were wearing lipstick but then I thought that in the 30's and 40's or even in the 60's everyone was wearing lipstick and a lot of make-up. And I am really glad we're going back to being more feminine. I hope this trend will continue and will apply to clothes as well. 

Indeed I have started to wear a lot more dresses lately and I like it. But that will be the subject of another post... 

Moonrise kingdom

Oh I want to see that movie!

I still a couple of months to wait though, it will open Cannes Film Festival in May and will be out in France on the same day. Hopefully it will come out soon after that in Sweden.

Update

Haven't been writing much here... Haven't found the time, didn't know what to write and so on. But here is a short summary of my last weeks:

• Friends: Feels a bit strange not to meet my Gothenburg friends every week but at the same time, I am getting to know better some of my Stockholm friends and realizing how amazing they are. And I am meeting a lot of new people which is great since it was something I was looking forward to when moving here, give a boost to my social life
• Flat: have been moving every two weeks over the past two months in Stockholm but I have now found a flat for 6 months thanks to a friend of mine. It will be nice to have my own place and the flat is really nice. So now you can start booking your plane tickets! In Gothenburg I have packed all my stuff in boxes and put everything in the basement except but some clothes for the spring and summer. Feels a bit strange but oh well. And I will rent it to someone for these few months.
• Job: almost two months at my new job and I really like it! I have got really interesting projects. Small ones and biiiig ones. Learning a lot and it will probably be that way in the next months as well so it's cool.

What else? Mmmh don't know. Ah yes! I can show you a couple of pics... here we go. 

February 12th, I'm walking on water. On three layers of water: snow, ice and well water. Amazing, amazing day... Stockholm is such a beautiful city. 

The following week I moved into a friend's friend's flat to keep her cats while she was on holidays. This was my view from the kitchen during two weeks. Not too bad...

This is Fia, the iCat. 

This is Betty and my program on a Saturday afternoon. 

February 26th, I took a picture more or less from the same place as the first above. Except I had to be on land, as you can see, all had melted away in two weeks... 

Another week-end I went with some friends to visit a cemetery in the South of Stockholm that is listed on the Unesco Heritage list. An amazing place and a great day with old and new friends in my new Stockholm life. 

Stockholm at its best

We had around -16 or -17 a couple of weeks ago and after that we've been back to temperatures around -5 or -8 but this week-end temperatures rose to come close to 0 and a lot of people went out to enjoy the sun and the nice weather. So did I.

Went to a walk... And had a pretty amazing day. The lake Mälaren is still frozen so I actually walked on water. ;)

Before/After

Got the keys to a flat where I am going to stay for the next two weeks. It's a bit annoying to come in in an empty flat but exciting at the same time. I only had a big luggage and a beauty case and as you can see, it's enough to spread all over the place.

After an hour or so, the place looks much better. No?

GIFF

GIFF stands for the Göteborg International Film Festival and is one of my highlights during the year in Göteborg. This year I could only attend in the week-ends since I was in Stockholm during the week but I still manago to see five films each week-end. Not too bad, uh?

A mix of French, American, Chinese, Finnish, Swedish and Russo-German movies. Quite an interesting mix and that's exactly what I like about the festival: the opportunity to see films I wouldn't see otherwise (nor even hear of) since they won't be distributed here.

365

Among the people I connect with on Twitter, many love the iPhone app Instagram. I started using it recently and I must say I am sold too.

The app takes square pictures, like the format of a polaroid but without the white border. After that you can apply some filters that make the pictures look like it was taken many years ago. Like in the 70's for instance. You know how your childhood pics look like? Like that.

When uploading your pictures to your instagram feed you can also choose to upload them on Facebook and/or Twitter. So I did.

My good friend (and good photographer) Fanny asked me if i was doing a 365. That's a kind of project where you upload one picture a day dor a year. I hadn't thought of that but that's actually a good idea. Since I've just moved to Stockholm and started a new job, I tought that would be a good thing to share with my friends a bit of my new life.

If you are friend with me on Facebook, you can find these pictures in a specific instagram-album. If you want to find me directly in the instagram app my pseudo is simply lorrainedaum. Otherwise I will try to make a weekly summary here on the blog.

Here are some of the first pics. Enjoy!

Gbg-Sthm

One week ago I started my new job and I love it! I am also really looking forward to this new start in my life with the move to Stockholm. In the beginning I still have one foot in Göteborg (Gbg) and one in Stockholm (Sthm) but if you look at the picture here below you will see that when it comes to transport, the transition is not so dramatic.

Right now I am sitting in the train and there is something that we don't have in France: radio on the train. Next to your seat there a little plugin thing where you can plug in your earplugs (lot of plug, uh?) and choose between theee radio channels. Most of the time I listen to my iPod but that's quite a nice feature I think.

My new babies

Here's what I'm going to work with at my new job. Nice, uh? Me like. A lot. :)

Big news

I have two big news in my life right now. 

One, I have finally tested Sèche-vite after reading about it on many beauty and make-up blogs. It's a top coat that you put on top of your nail polish to make it last longer. In case you don't know yet about it. They all rambled about how it was the best in the world and bla bla bla... I was a bit sceptic about it but at the same time wanted to try. And oh my god! how I wasn't disappointed. The difference between this one and all the other top coats in the world is stellar. To all my "nail polish lover"-readers, throw away any top coat you have, and go get the Sèche-vite, run! It will be the best that ever happened to you. 

It may be the best thing that happened to me in 2012 but I might have to revise my judgement tomorrow. 

Indeed tomorrow I am starting my new job. In Stockholm. With amazing people. In Stockholm. I am going to work with marketing, communication, strategy, internet, all the things that I love. In Stockholm. Have I already said Stockholm? That's probably because I can't wait! Oh and I am getting an iPhone and a MacBookAir. Tomorrow will probably top last Tuesday when I tried the Sèche-vite on for the first time.

Paté

Didn't come back from France empty-handed... ;)

Champagne

I love champagne. Simple as that. I was in France three weeks over Christmas and New Year's and it was a great luxury to be able to be with the family for so long. And during these weeks I had many opportunities to drink champagne. Here's what I drank, in alphabetical order:

• Ayala
• Ayala Rosé
• Dom Pérignon
• Moët & Chandon Brut Impérial (twice)
• Moët & Chandon Brut Impérial Rosé
• Moët & Chandon Grand Vintage 2002
• Ruinart (twice)

A very good 2011 millésime I would say! 

Cheese

Often when my friends are coming for a visit from France, they ask me if I want them to bring me something. Like cheese for instance, we're French after all...

But who needs French cheese if you can have Kolibrie or Moulin Rouge brie instead?

Lots and nothing

Haven't blogged in a while... I have been busy with a lot of things even if I don't have much to blog about. Some of the things I have been doing:

• Hang out with Viviana and baby Laia
• Take the train to Stockholm (and back)
• Eat a lot of lussekatter (saffran buns) and pepparkakor (cinnamon and gingerbread cookies)
• Drink some glögg (mulled wine)
• Try to fix my shower stuff, not going too well... 
• Hang out with my best friend Sophie who was here for the week-end (was GREAT!)
• A bit of Christmas shopping and Christmas planning

That kind of stuff... 

Saveur de l'année

Look what I found at my local supermarket on Sunday? Some cherry tomatoes. What's so special about cherry tomatoes you might wonder... nothing special, it's true. But check the language on the packaging. Nothing wrong with a packaging in French, it's true. But you are in Sweden and you see those tomatoes. With a packaging in French. With a sticker saying it was voted "Saveur de l'année 2011" (2011's best flavour)... well that starts to be a little surreal, right? 

Green

November is usually the month of the year I like the least. You could go as far as saying I hate it since it brings the worst out of Gothneburg and Sweden's west coast. Grey, rain and wind... most often all at the same time. Doesn't sound too good, does it? 

Well, this year has proven me wrong! We have had an exceptionally good November with temperatures above normal (7-8 degrees today compared to -1 in Mexico City!) and a lot of sun. The good weather have given a feeling of a lot of light. A consequence of the sun and light is that the grass is still very green! Almost nuclear green sometimes. Unusual but I am not complaining. 

The photo below wasn't taken in November but in July and not in Sweden but in France. At home, on holidays. But it's still green, right? And it's nice so...enjoy!

Grès

Last March, I flew quite hastily to France for sad circumstances and I spent a few day in Paris and the champagne region. A few days before that I had read on the Internet about a fashion exhibition about Madame Grès in a sculpture museum. That could sound like a strange idea but when you see the dresses below you realize why this was a genius idea. 

So while I was in Paris, I went there with my mum and my aunt and fell in love with the dresses and Madame Grès' genius... I mean look at that! The dresses below were designed between the 50's and the 70's but could just as well have been shown at fashion week this year. They are so modern...

The orange one is from spring/summer 1977, the black one I don't know. The grey one is a spring/summer 1956 (!!!) collection and the red one on the left is a autumn/winter 1961-62 piece.

Anyone need a wedding dress? Personally there are a couple here above I could think of for my wedding (just need to find a hubby first but that's another question, hehe). 

And speaking of wedding, I just froze when I saw the red dress here below, an autumn/winter 1974-75 model. Turned to mum and told her it reminded me of her own wedding dress. Not a coincidence she told me, my mum designed her dress herself and had it sewn by a seamstress; and she said she was inspired by this very dress. How cool is that? The dress was white though. :)

Fougasse

My breakfast this morning: French fougasse.

 

I was in Stockholm yesterday and today. Slept over at Vera's, we met a bit less than a year ago and quickly became good friends.

On Tuesday she asked what I usually have for breakfast and I answered tea, eggs, bread, müesli... what's in the house basically. :)

Guess how touched and flattered I felt when I came and discovered that Vera's boyfriend Patrik (whom I hadn't had the oportunity to meet yet) had baked some bread, some French bread for me! It was so good: "miam miam" as we say (like yummy in English).

Thank you Vera and Patrik!

Chanel and I

That I love fashion is everything but a mistery for people who know me. But you might not all know when it started. Well, early. Very early. The Chanel ad below came out in 1992, I was 13 then. I didn't know much about Chanel then (my mum was still wearing Guerlain at that time, she changed for No 5 much later) and I didn't understand everything but I was just fascinated... It is so aesthetic! And the music is special, almost hypnotising.

Another Chanel ad I remember well from my childhood is the one for the male perfume Egoïste (which means selfish). Again, very aesthetic, very geometric this time as well. And a staccato rythm that makes it a bit hypnotising too, according to me. What I never realized then and which I discovered in Geraldine's post today is that they are reciting verses from Le Cid from Corneille. I might be because I first studied the book a couple of years later, hehe!

And you? Do you remember these ads or other ones from your childhood?

London

So, as I told you in my previous post, I went to London the other day. I arrived on the Saturday mid-day and departed on the Tuesday again around lunchtime. 2 ½ days and a breakfast as a bonus. I was meeting my mum and my sister and we were staying at my cousin's place. 

The whole stay was about: food, culture, shopping as well as family time and of course a lot of talking! 

Here are a few pics of some of the things we saw and did.

The British Museum

The roof of the British Museum

A typical local pub where we had a Sunday lunch or Sunday roast. I had a Cumberland pie with Chips (French fries) and very green peas.  Yummy!

Big Ben at night

A building with  beautiful architecture and a well-known name on it

Tower Bridge at  dusk 

The Tower of London at dusk