My trick for long nails and a nail polish review

After many years of rectangular nails, I filed them pointy and discovered that I could grow them longer. They are so long now that there is a problem typing this down. The problem with the rectangular nails was that they got a notch in the outer corner and then broke. Sometimes they broke under the nail line and that was painful. By filing the weak part down and making them pointy, the nail got stronger.

The tube I'm holding in the photo above is a product we are making at the factory were I work. It's a baby bum salve containing vaseline (usually avoid that), peanut oil, citrus oil, and zink oxide. I discovered that this salve is making the nails very strong, hard but still a bit flexible. You can try any fat cream or salve if you can't find this one.

I can only paint my nails in the weekends, because of hygiene instructions at work. But to get a polish that lasts longer than a weekend you can follow a few simple steps. 

Always start with a protecting basecoat. Glitter nail polish directly on to your nails aren't very good.

Then nailpolish in the amount you need.

This polish came with my monthly Glossybox. The brand is Models Own and sells many different colours. This one wasn't anything I would recommend though the quality of the polish itself is good. Those aluminium foil looking chips were few and had to be fished after in the bottle. To get a decent spread of flakes, I had to paint the nails 3 times. This polish can maybe be used over a warm toned nailpolish for funky effects.

Another item that came in the Glossybox was a sample and a deo spray of a new perfume line. Panos Emporio is a Swedish swimsuit designer that tries a new concept with perfumes. The sample (forgot the name) was a light perfume nothing extraordinary. But the Goldflower deo spray was a nice surprise. It's a powerful vanilla, orange, heavy flowery fragrance. As a typical Swede I'm usually not fond of the heavier perfumes, but this was really nice. Johan loved it as well, so I will definitely buy the eau de toilette. 

I think the Glossybox is a great way to try new beauty stuff that one never would try. 

During saturdays Earth hour we shared a bottle of Prosecco, an extra dry sparkling Italian wine. It tasted nice, dry but although nice. What we were celebrating? Our 5 year anniversary, my math exam and a few more private things :)

 I think Earth hour can be a good event for those who need to be enlightened (yeah funny) by how we influence our environment. All these latest abnormal weather fenomena is actually caused by us humans. The best you can do is to try to lower you electrical consumption and try avoid taking the car. 

Falu Skyline

I rarely visit our city, maybe because it's always a boring errand to run. But on some occasions I visit a café with one of the kids, to sit down and chat while eating some pastry and drinking a latte. Alfons is such a pleasant company and he is a big gourmet, he had to go to the counter and buy another black berry macaron.

Outside the cafe I was strucked by the beautiful eveninglight and the towers in the skyline. We actually have lots of towers pointing at the sky in this town. You can see 4 towers on this photo. 

From left to right:

1. Västra Skolan (The Western School), this is were my oldest son studies, it was built 1915 and is 4 levels high, it's kind of a landmark in this town (except the churches). It is built like a castle with thick stone walls and high windows.

2. Gamla gamla brandstationen. The oldest old Firestation. Thats the red brick hous behind Alfons. The water hoses had to dry in a straight hanging line, therefore the tower, it was built 1884. 

3. Medborgarhuset. Community house. It's not that small, almost hidden behind the red brick firestation. This is were our local County radiostation resides. It was built as school for technical engineers in the 18 hundreds.

4. The old firestation was built in 1911 and is now a big atelier for photographers.

These buildings are not so old, comparing to others but they give the town a dignified look. I promise that when the weather is warmer, I will take a walk with my camera and take photos of my hometown. It's very beautiful and has lots of history.

The black building to the right, is quite a sad story. It's the police station built in 1968, black and dull looking.  The black facade is made of slag stone from the copper mine. It has the shape of a half circle because it was built around the towns bathing house. It was a castle like building with 5 large towers. You had several choises of taking baths, showers and swim and of course there was a sauna. It was torn down 1972 because it stood in the way and was not a modern facility. There were many manifestations against the demolition.

Fire and ice

 I have returned from a couple of hectic but fun days at the university. The way home looked like this for three hours, small road crossing the big forest only sparingly passing small sleepy villages. I hoped to show some photos of Karlstad because it's a beautiful town but I unfortunately had no time.

Almost at home there was a huge traffic jam that caught me stuck for another one and a half hour. The weather has been very unpredictable.

I was inspired by a Lebanese lunch at the university and cooked Lebanese meze for dinner today. On the plates you can se spicy sausages, kaftas, hoummus, falalfel, baba ganoush, fattoush and youghurt. I also served pita breads. 

As you can see on the photo below spring arrived again. The saturday evening was warm and calm. As the ground was wet it was perfect for burning twigs and as a celebration to the Vernal Equinox.

The magical fire fascinates the boys and they helped me to keep it alive as the daylight got weaker.

In the end there were only a glowing pile left. The ashes and the coal will be nutrition to my root vegetables this summer.

Interior details for a Lolita

 Many things at IKEA are soo boring, that so called Scandinavian style can be very dull with too many straight corners. But Ikea do have some few items that are must have's as well. 

Take a look at the childrens department next time, they have a new line for young girls wich I think is lovely and irresistable. The bed linen called Silkig (silky) have a unicorn and bouncing bunnies print along with swirls and flower ornaments. The flipside of the duvet cover is pink. They also have small matching cusions with a unicorn print. I beleive those who love Lolita style also would love these. 

The glass on the bed was only 1 €. I bought eight glasses and these will be our new everyday glasses. Even if they are a bit chunky I think they will add a little Victorianescue feel to our everyday dinners.

You know I'm fond of owles. These cute ones were bought at a store called Rusta for 10€. Johan saw them on his Instagram feed and I hurried to buy them. They must have been popular because they ran out immediately.

I'm about to finish my essay and prepare my presentation for next weeks visit at the University. I'm looking forward to going there and see my friend C and my awesome study mates. One was published in a science newspaper in an article about 3-d printed organs. Read it here.

Instant language lesson

At home. Sick. And too tired to write my essay I'll have to get finished this week. It's about school history and politics and it's not what I'm interested in. Here's a lovely video that can cheer anyone up: This girl speaks finnish, english and swedis but I can tell you that she doesn't speak swedish even if it sounds like this. The same for the other languages.

She has another video with more languages, australian english for instance and a video were she sings different genres.

I really should study.....

Liebster award answers

Miss Lou who challenge me some questions along with some questions is a nice blog I frequently read. If you are the least interested in how the Victorians lived, this blog is a must visit. I can't beleive she is the same age as me, she look like an early 20's age. So here are the questions I had to answer.

1. Describe what subset of goth you are?

When it comes to music I would definitely call myself old school goth. I love the guitar based goth music with a slice of synth, the music I grew up with. Otherwise I listen to gothic metal. When it comes to style I’m quite ambivalent. If I dress up it’s mostly in dark mori kei but I also love trad goth and romantigoth. You could actually say that dark mori has elements of both trad goth and romantigoth.

2. What one makeup item could you not live without?

Black mascara, but I could live just fine without makeup.

3. If you could have only one dessert for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Something with chocolate…dark chokolate. There is an Italian brand of chocolate, very expensive but oh so tasty and one little piece lasts forever.

4. You are trapped on an island with three books - what are they?

Master and Margarita by Michail Bulgakov  

Emma by Jane Austen

A survival book, (don't try to fool me...)

5. You have to write the ultimate goth novel - what is it called and what is it about?

I have written a steampunk-gothic novel with adventures, love, science, gadgets and gothic buildings, but I have no name for it yet. Maybe “The last one to be expected"...Give me a good advice here, please!!!

I live mostly in my own mind, there are a few stories circling around in my head.

6. You start a goth band - what is it called? Describe it.

Obscuro creperum (means dark angst or something like that) and would of course play trad goth. We would take ourselves very seriously, ha ha.

7. What is your favourite time of year/weather and why?

I would say winter. The summer season is so hectic in my vegetable garden, lots to sow, weed and harvest. Even if I love that, I’ll have my “vacation” in winter when I cuddle up in the sofa wrapped in a blanket, lighting candles and sipping red wine. And if it’s lots of snow, I can go skiing downhills or crosscountry in the forest. Actually I love every time of the year.

8. What TV show is your guilty pleasure.

Ghost Adventures, ha ha “duuude”. But looking at the paranormal series there are too many that has the goal to fright people. The swedish show; "Det okända" and American "Ghost Hunters" are maybe those who have a more neutral tone.

We have our share of paranormal events in our own house, it's not scary, except when someone litterally loudly coughed behind my back(home alone) or stood by the bed at night.

9. You are invited to a goth meet up and picnic, what food are you bringing?

A bottle of Apotic Red, pierogis and a dark chocolate coffin cake.

10. You must name a black cat an über gothy name - what is it?

Bastet of course, an ancient Egyptian cat goddess. I had a cat once called Lupo wich means wolf, she was absolutely crazypants.

I'm sorry but I don't have much time to think out questions to pass along. We had finally beautiful weather and we have spent time in the garden.

 The little boys playing.

The big boy helping me with tidying the path.

The magic show we saw last week was nice. The fire show made it cooler. A few of the magician's tricks got me really confused but the others were nearly ok, it was too easy to follow. If you wan't to see a sample of the show, click the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofR7MC4rM-E