I hope you're warm and cosy wherever you are (it's chilly where I am). There's lots (LOTS) to settle into in this week's Round-Up so we'd better dig in!
- If you're chilly, here's a smoky eye that will warm you right up. This gorgeous look was done using the Urban Decay Naked 3 palette.
- Sensitive skin? Clinique has a new line of nail polishes (A Different Nail Enamel for Sensitive Skins) that won't irritate your eyes or your skin.
- Concerned about toxins in your beauty products? Here's a helpful list of what you should look to avoid when shopping.
- Fashion Magazine's Beauty Panel share their tips for organic and all-natural beauty.
- Have you heard of the Caveman Regime for skin? The idea is similar to the Paleo Diet, going back to a very simple routine like our ancestors would have done. Somehow I don't think cavemen and women would have been overly concerned with having clean and clear skin. Here's a XOJane contributor's experience with it.
- Tracey from Beauty Reflections takes a look at some of New Brunswick's Reve Maxeville Handmade Cosmetics.
- New Beauty Magazine share their picks for beauty essentials - Cutex nail polish remover, Bobbi Brown makeup brushes, FHI flat iron, Smashbox primer, Dove body wash, Colgate toothpaste, Elnett hairspray, and Guinot face mask among others.
- Dencia, a Nigerian-Cameroonian pop musician, has released a line of skincare products that claim to lighten hyper-pigmented areas of the skin. It's the latest in "skin toning" which is what it's called in Nigeria, where 77% of women use skin-lightening products on a regular basis in order to adhere to a Western standard of beauty, improve their marriage prospects and social mobility.
- Hungarian singer Boggie has released a new music video for her song "Nouveau Parfum", in which her moving image goes through a Photoshop transformation. It's pretty pretty fascinating, and disturbing to see her transform through makeup, lighting and digital manipulation.
- Vancouver makeup artist Samantha Ravndahl is suing Lil Kim for copyright infringement after the rapper took one of Samantha's Instagram images and passed it off as her own to promote her new album.
- Take this with a grain of salt, but because it's good news, new research from Dove shows that 82% of women think that social media drives the definition of beauty. And, that means that fashion magazines and advertising have less to say over what is beautiful than they did ten years ago. More women feel that they have control over what they think is beautiful now compared to ten years ago. In this link you can read more and also watch 'Selfie', a short film made by Dove that looks at just this, and talks to teenage girls and their mothers about their different views of their own beauty.
- After Canadian model Elly Mayday was diagnosed with a rare form of ovarian cancer, she chose to continue modelling for Forever Yours Lingerie, despite her surgical scars, weight and hair loss. Rather than representing a sexy, beautiful ideal, she's representing a sexy, beautiful reality.
- 3D printed nails? Yikes.
- Curly haired ladies, you'll want to bookmark this site. Wavy haired ladies, you too.
- Orange lipstick - yes, you can wear it. Here's some inspiration.
- Illamasqua's Sculpting Powder Duo reviewed.
- Red carpet makeup secrets from the pros.
- MTV's Fora shows off some of their favourite headphones with the help of Phoebe Dykstra and MUA Lucky B recreating the looks of M.I.A., Lorde, Miley Cyrus and Rihanna.
