architecture

Sunny London…

Yes, we were lucky enough to catch one of the five sunny days London gets per year. It wasn’t an entire day, as the weather was this good the day we arrived, but I’ll settle for half a day and consider ourselves lucky. When we left Bucharest, on Friday, it was literally winter, but when we landed in London it felt like it was a May day.

What does one do when it’s sunny and warmer than usual in London? Wears a crop top! Mind you, I did have a cardigan and a knit jacket over it, but still, I was wearing a crop top in London, in March! Yup, as you’ve sensed by now, this is yet another post featuring yours truly, trying to do fashion again. Obviously I’ve posted the Hat before this one as I like those pics more and I wanted to make an oxblood statement.

Since D and I (mostly D) decided that we only need one piece of large luggage for both of us, I couldn’t take too many pairs of shoes with me, so I wore the pictured ones two days out of the four we spent there. Who would’ve thought that I needed more then 1/2 of a large bag for four days? And yes, the luggage issue was the reason I lacked in the shopping department during our stay in London. Worry not, I didn’t leave London empty handed.

Back to the fashion post… For some reason, writing about clothes, shoes and bags feels very unnatural to me, unlike the totally natural feeling I get whenever I shop for them, that’s like second nature. You’ll probably notice that I tend to drift off during these posts. And…here I go drifting again.

The outfit… Since the weather was lovely in a British way, and since you already know about the shoes and the crop top, let’s move on… We were in London after all so, on top of the crop top (ZARA from a few years ago), I had an oxblood cardigan also from ZARA – this cardigan is a basic item for me and I think I have it in at least four colours. A cardigan wouldn’t have been able too keep me warm enough in London, so I topped everything with an oversized knit jacket which has a reddish tint and matched the pattern on my crop top nicely.

I’ll briefly mention my jeans as I intend on doing a full post on the subject just to prove to D that I do need all my pairs of jeans for different occasions (same will go for my stilettos). Drifting off… Back to the jeans, they’re the Skin-zee from Diesel and I think I have had them for about two years. I love the way the high-rise goes with the crop top. In my humble opinion, there are two types of skinny jeans out there:

The ones that look amazing on, feel like you’re in a cast and you need assistance getting both in and out of them
And the ones that look great, feel comfortable and no one needs to help you in and out of them

I’ve got a spring in my step!

Still on the Quartz Rose side, this post is more towards the ‘go-out-to-dinner-with-D’ style, than the last one. Hopefully, spring is here to stay and I will get to wear outfits like this one more often. I really missed stilettos! Like really, really, really missed them! I know, I can wear stilettos despite the cold weather, and there are some women out there (my mother included) that can endure extreme temps just to look a certain way. I’m definitely not one of those women! I hate being cold (true, it has to be really cold for me to be cold), therefore throughout the entire year, I’ve only worn my stilettos once I got in the office, or at home (yes, I am the type of person that wears stilettos in the house-my Instagram has proof of that- very often actually).

The outfit featured in this post is virtually one of my favorite combos for going out: jeans+stilettos. I usually try and choose the jeans according to the shoes i’ll be wearing. For these spiked Versace shoes, I chose the distressed jeans from Replay (again Replay because I’ve developed an obsession lately with their and Diesel’s jeans), but I would never pair these jeans with any patent leather stilettos. I feel this combo works because of the spikes. This pairing is not necessarily intentional, as it’s more based on the feeling I get when I look into the mirror before going out the door. Like I said, no fashion-junkie over here!

In my humble opinion, a silk blouse, jeans and a great pair of stilettos is the winning combo for a non-formal dinner with friends. Top it with a nice neutral coat (Zara pictured here) and you’re good to go.

I actually started to like this shade of pale pink lately, as it’s kinda like a neutral shade for spring, you can combine it with almost any color. I think I’m going to start paying more attention to the other color of the year (pale blue) and see if I can incorporate it into an outfit in the near future (though I feel as that is a color more suited for summer).

Overall, the problem I always used to have with wearing pink is the fact that I often felt bimbo-ish because of my blonde tresses. Wearing this shade of pink changed that and I started to actually like the way it goes against my hair and eyes, so I’ll try to wear it more often.

Back to the outfit, I rarely ever match my bag to my shoes, as that would make my mother proud, and to be honest, her not being able to critique something about my outfit would make our daily interaction very boring, but I do try to keep things in the same color palette, hence the lilac mini bag I chose for the pale pink shoes.

Also, I’m usually not an accessory type of person, but I do love cocktail rings and almost always have one on. The bow accessory on my jacket is hand-made and you can have yours custom-made here. These bows look sweet and can make any neutral jacket work with whatever it is you are wearing underneath.

There you have it! My first spring-ish look, colors on trend and all that!

March 27, 2016

evenlymatched1 Comment

The three musketeers!

First thing’s first, as I’ve stated in my previous post (here), I’m not a fashion junkie, but BOOOY am I the biggest beauty product junkie ever?! I must have tried, throughout the years, almost every cream/serum/lotion I could get my hands on and deemed age and skin-appropriate for me on the market. Do not, under any circumstances, get me wrong, whenever I say beauty product I DO NOT mean make-up products, as I am still in the ‘baby-steps’ phase where that is concerned (foundation, bronzer and mascara is all I use). But, like I said, when it comes to skincare I’ve tried almost everything out there. That being said, it’s unnatural for me to stick to a beauty routine for more than three months (that’s as long as I’ll spend on a product until I decide if it’s working or not), but when it comes to these three serums fro CHANEL, I’ve been using them for almost three years now (two and a half to be more precise). Here’s my review after extensive and religious use…

What CHANEL claims they do?

Virtually miracles if you listen to them here, which for any beauty-junkie like myself, seems utopic to say the least.

What these three musketeers actually do?

Everything that CHANEL claims, and more…

To start with, I’d like to admit that my skin is literally stupid. And by stupid I mean the type of skin that is either on the oily side (with zits and a very shiny finish) or on the extremely dry side (with flakes, but not missing any zit opportunities), an NO, I do not have combination skin. When I started using this trio, I was going through a phase of idiotic adult acne, and I do not mean the kind where your face is filled with red pustules that you can extract, no, I mean the kind with some under-the-skin-annoying-AF zits that just won’t come out. True, they were hard to spot with the right foundation and they were located solely on my chin and apparently, as my dermatologist told me back then, it’s not unnatural for someone my age that is under a lot of stress (I was finishing my masters degree back) to develop this type of acne. But natural as it was, I still hated it. I mean, come on, being 27, getting that first wrinkle and also getting this idiotic type of acne is totally unacceptable. After reading hundreds (literally) of reviews on these serums I decided to splurge on them (they are under no circumstances on the ‘happy-bank-account’ side, just like any other CHANEL product) even though I didn’t want to get my hopes up based on the internet’s to-good-to-be-true reviews.

After a few weeks, was I glad my bank account was crying!!! My skin almost completely cleared, and right now, my face resembles a baby’s ass, and not only because of my fatty cheeks! I am so hooked on them to the point that I always have a spare set in the house just in case CHANEL decides to discontinue them, which would be stupid of them if they don’t develop a better product (a very hard task).

I am currently topping Le Jour and La Nuit with Le Lift cream for normal skin types, but the pre-30s version of myself used to top them with the less expensive Hydra Beauty. Since Le Jour and La Nuit are serums you really need some sort of age/skin-type appropriate moisturizer on top of them.

Le Weekend is the only one you should use by itself, no make-up as well, and I’m currently using it one day per week because this winter my skin has been a bigger bitch than usual and turned extremely dry, and this third miracle works as a gentle peeling.

I’m not going to write about any scientific facts here, as you can find them on CHANEL‘s official site.

Thanks to this magic trio, I’m not a skincare-junkie anymore, but rather a CHANEL beauty-junkie. As detailed in the pics, everything that touches my face is CHANEL, because, to be honest, I’ve spent too much time looking for something as good as this miracle they created, and I’m not going to switch products anymore.

If you don’t want to spend the entire amount of cash on this trio yet, you can always buy the travel-sized version which is a fraction of the price.

There you go! My first beauty review-CHECK!

March 23, 2016

evenlymatched2 Comments

Bipolar March

Yes, it’s the 22nd of March, and yes, the weather should be warmer by now, or sunny at least, but it seems that autumnish weather is all we get for now. I would’ve liked this first fashion post attempt to be more on the stiletto-pastel side, but looking out the window, I realize that pictures of stilettos and silk tops would’ve looked stupid.

I did however use a bit of pastel pink, because as we all know it, well not all of us-I’ve only recently found out, Pantone 13-1520 a.k.a. Rose Quartz is one of the two colors of the year 2016 (the other one is Serenity-pastel blue, if you ask me). One has to align to the current fashion trends in order for online popularity to be achieved, right? But what should i do when the weather is down-right shitty and all i can think of is wearing black but the calendar insists it’s March (past mid-March actually)? I decided on pairing textures and colors, and by textures i mean warm and snugly Rose Quartz (!!!) knit with cognac leather(not as popular a color as the above mentioned) and the all-neutral jeans.

I wore this outfit during our Reset Weekend (see previous post) because the weather was quite cold (kinda like today in Bucharest) and i needed to not look ridiculously undressed. I’ve got to say that, just like March is right now, I’m quite bipolar as well when it comes to fashion and I’ve never actually taken it seriously. By fashion bipolar-ism i mean that i can either go for Uggs (i think i have a pair in every color and model) or for my much-adored stilettos (Loubs mainly, but more on that in a later post), basically I’m either formal or casual (very!), there is no in between.
Since we were on vacation in a nature inclined environment, stilettos were out of the question, so…here come Uggs!
The Uggs you spot in the pics are my current obsession this year, yes i know that they are from ages ago, but even though I’ve had them for two years (i think!) and wore them only a few times, this year I’ve over-abused them. Every year a different pair gets to be the ‘obsession’.

I almost always wear a leather jacket with basically any outfit as i think that this classic staple tends to pull-together any outfit. This jacket here is from Mango, but it’s beautifully crafted and you get a great value for the price you pay. As for the rest, the jeans are Replay, the ones with Hyperflex technology, which sounds sci-fi, but it actually means that these jeans are extremely comfortable and hug your curves the right way…meaning that for girls like me, with a small waist and a big butt, once you try these jeans on you’ll want to wear them all the time (no waist gap at the back!!). The bag is Michael Kors and I chose it as in my ‘expert’-opinion goes well with the Uggs and the leather jacket and most importantly everything i need on a daily basis (iPad, wallet, about 30 lipsticks and a million other small and useless things) fits perfectly well in it. The cozy, warm knit vest is from Bershka and even though I’ve bought it two years ago, this is the first time I’ve actually wore it.There are no fancy clothes in this post, just casual, non-expensive basics perfect for this crazy-weather.
Well, all that said, i wrote my first fashion post…sort of, at least. I’m not really all that into the fashion thing, but rather more into gathering the right statement pieces that will stand the test of time and that can make me skip a heartbeat, you can’t really detect that in this first post, but you’ll find out soon enough in the next couple of fashion-posts.
One last thing, the reason i look so serious in all, the photos is because I’ve done my research on fashion photography and realized that all the ladies in the pics look so serious, so I thought i’d align to the trend. This was extremely hard for me to do, but apparently fashion requires sacrifice!

March 22, 2016

evenlymatched1 Comment

Reset Weekend

We wanted to start our travel section locally, so we decided to give Atra a try last weekend, in order to have a Romanian start. Part of the reason we chose this place is because it’s quite popular, it’s not at the mountainside (so no freezing temps in March) and because the demand for it seems to be quite high (you need to book your weekend at least 3-4 weeks in advance).

What we knew about it beforehand?

stunning view
great architecture
gourmet food (to be honest, this is their most popular asset)

How it actually was?

It took us about an hour and a half to get there from Bucharest. About one km before we reached our destination, the road turned from decent asphalt to full off-road (no sign of asphalt in sight). You must take this into consideration, as nowhere on their official site is this mentioned and nor do they mention it when you book your weekend. Luckily, we took D‘s car as mine wouldn’t have been able to get us to our destination. The reason I think this is important is because this place is by no means on the cheap side and this is one important detail you need to know (this coming from a car-lover).

Once we got there (car intact and all), everything was way beyond expectation. The architecture of the entire place is amazing, the way nature hugs the building is exquisite (I’m an architecture junkie and D can confirm that I’m quite picky when it comes to it).

The rooms are average-sized, but, in my opinion, you don’t really need more space, and they are nicely decorated mostly with stuff from Mobexpert. Another fun thing about this place is that the rooms are not numbered, but they each have a color allocated, color that you can find in the decorative accents. What’s also really nice is that the view from each room is amazing. All in all, the architecture and the view are enough for me to want to come back over and over again to this lovely place…but, that’s only speaking for myself, as D needs good food in order for any place to be perfect (well, that goes for me too, but i actually need good soups, salads and a nice cheese-variety).

Getting to the gourmet part of the weekend, all i can say is OMG!!!! (yes, that’s highschoolish, but OMG!!!!) If you are a foodie, just like us, you need to give this place a try! I have no idea if the food was that good because most of the ingredients are sourced locally or because the chef is extremely skilled at combining sweet and savory, solid and liquid, and so on, all i know is that I’ve ate food this good only in a few other places in Europe (stay tuned for more posts on that later on). Did i mention the local cheese??? If you’re a cheese lover (like me), than you just have to try the local cheese.

Overall, not wanting this (first) post to become a travel diary, with ten pages of text, I’ll let you enjoy the photos we took there and really urge you to give this place a try!