28 February 2014

The 100 Day Song Challenge - Days 16, 17, 18 & 19

Day 16: A song you like but a friend hates.

I love a couple of genres that Boris really dislikes, like Post Hardcore, Nu, Black and Doom Metal. All of mentioned I tend to explore per songs only, since albums are too much for me, but occasional hits from each genre are good to go. So here´s one that I really love:

Deftones / Bored


Day 17: A song from a movie (what is the movie?).

Have you not seem this film, which I idolize in every post possible??? Then talk to the hand, please...

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds / The Carny


Day 18: A song from the year you were born.

1991 wasn´t a blast in music, nor was the much anticipated end of the Soviet Union, and well everything was shitty back then, really. The only good song I found was this one:

The Clash / Should I Stay Or Should I Go


Day 19: A song you think most people would like.

You know, I think a lot of things, and I doubt most Opeth songs people could ever digest.... same goes for your ever so loved goth songs. I bet The Sisters Of Mercy thought that a lot of people would like their songs... but seriously this is just a stupid question.
So I´m just going to pick the most random song possible, coming straight from the most recent anime I am watching. So here, enjoy:

The Seatbelts / Doggy Dog
Cowboy Bebop OST

To be continued...
N. Finsternis

25 February 2014

Face Of The Night -somewhat sceneish-

Last weekend Boris and I went to a punk-queer event, got there too late when the place as too full so they didn´t let us in.
This however didn´t prevent me from taking some selfies before I went out, and although the night ended modestly, I still loved the look I´ve had so much that I will definitely recreate it again!



Foundation: Catrice "Photofinish Liquid Foundation" 010
Concealer: Jade (IL)
Eye Primer: Catrice Eyeshadow base (very shitty, can´t wait till it´s gone)
Powder: Manhattan "natural"
Eye shadow: Black eyeshadow by L´oreal (not animal friendly and very shitty)
Red eyeshadow random brand (IL)
Eyeliner: Catrice waterproof eyeliner (waterproof my ass)
Eyebrow pencil: black eyebrow pencil by Essence (it´s amazing!!)
Mascara: Manhattan "No End Volume Flex"
Lipstick: random brand (IL)

It´s nice how the nuances of the makeup are still visible regardless of the camera flash. Outfit wasn´t as exciting, just a mini skirt with a huge velvet top, it was cold outside and I didn´t feel like whore-dressing as usual.

Fun Fact: I´ve actually attended makeup school at Kryolan Prof. Makeup at Tel Aviv 2 years ago. It hasn´t taught me what you see on my face in this blog, and frankly it hasn´t brought me any other revelations except for some product differences which I wasn´t aware about. One thing they did bring to my attention- that good makeup survives heavy flash photography. I generally don´t recommend visiting makeup school. Your own DIY experiences are so much worth it! 

Lol NEVER look at the camera, that´s what I say. featuring the map of Berlin behind me!
I´ve also had some fun time with selfies, a pleasant experience which I didn´t enjoy in a while.


I´ve had a nice hair experiment for this look. Right after I finished my makeup I wanted to do my hair and surprise surprise- was out of hairspray! Talk about a goth´s biggest nightmare....
However I´ve managed to finally get to the bottom of a backcomb-like creme I´ve bough a while ago, which is called Taft Volume Booster Creme by Schwarzkopf.


Note: I do not recommend Schwarzkopf products because they are not animal friendly :( However this brand is dominating the shelves in all German drugstores, and vegan products such as Alverde do not provide hair products like this.

So the principle with that Taft thing is that you rub it on the roots of your hair, preferably as much spreaded as possible, which helps the hair to create a nice volume and look almost backcombed! I´ve decided to try this product as I didn´t want to torture my hair with backcombing, and it is much easier to remove.
The creme gets stuck to your roots and is very hard! So it holds the hair nicely, and if you want you can add a small backcomb on the top of your head (what I did). I´ve also spread a little bit of it on my hair. The result turned out somewhat scene-ish, yet I really loved it and will definitely use it again!

I only rarely smile to the camera, mostly because my eyes disappear when I smile. Although I do like my smile in those pics :)

I´ve been not busy at all during the past week, searching for a job as a room service girl and lazying my ass off by watching a ton of anime. I´ve finished Death Note 2 days ago after watching it for the first time and my heart still pounds when I remember the experience. I´ve been seriously fangirling ever since, such a forgotten feeling! I highly recommend everyone to watch this masterpiece! I think I´ve even persuaded Boris who dislikes anime!

Have a lovely week everyone!

I´ve fell in love with this soundtrack which reminds me of dear Opeth!

N. Finsternis

22 February 2014

DIY - customizing notebooks with industrial tape + flyers

Berlin is full of different events, and each event has a matching flyer.
I began altering my notebooks and daily organizers with flyers I´ve found in pubs and clubs since last year. I have already posted here some stolen posters that I love hanging on the walls of my room, so flyers were a great decor item for making stuff look more interesting.
I´ve found out that colorful industrial tape can lead to a nice punk-ish DIY result.


 I have only used red and black tapes so far. They are really comfortable to apply evenly and in a straight line, and in my opinion better than coloring the cover of your notebook with paint/ marker (color doesn´t fade and get everywhere...).

Front                                                       Back

My daily organizer (had and will have one forever! I used to collect my school organizers until high school) is the best DIY yet. I love the Specimen characters I´ve cut from various party flyers, including the nice decadent art thing in the corner. The back is also pretty nice with Depeche Mode and a cool cartoon flyer I found in a house project. The tape is just covering the left out spaces.



Note: Whenever I tape flyers to the cover, I cover them with transparent tape first, to make them stick to the properly and for the paper not to be harmed by anything while the notebook is being used/ carried. So that you end up with a lovely picture at all times!

 Another more tapped DIY is my current "spontaneous oh so important artistic notes and sketches" notebook. The front is entirely covered with black tape around a picture of the movie Blankenieves that I saw on a flyer at out University. Below a sticker of the band Programmed For Pleasure.
The back is also tapped, with a makeup art photo I´ve found in Vogue (I hate high end things, but I tend to buy Vogue from time to time, ending up misleading myself and being disappointed of how unpunk it is...)

 Front                                  Back

I would like to try the silver industrial tape which would probably look cyber-ish on a big surface. I´ve also had a hologram sticker (more like a huge hologram wallpaper) that I´ve used on another notebook, which looks very toxic! ;)
I love altering every little shit around me. And if you have your own methods to make your school supplies look more "you", please share them in the comments below!


N. Finsternis

19 February 2014

Little Things - Altar, Pictures and Frames

Ever since exams have been over I have been feeling rather moody. Uncertain if I´d passed the one exam I´ve worked so hard on, and ashamed of myself for oversleeping another exam which I will have to do in April. It´s comforting to know that I have a lot of time to prepare, but it left me very empty inside and uncertain of myself. I´ve been also having a skin problem which made me feel very down for a couple of days and almost nothing could cheer me up.
So I´ve spent my time drawing and crafting to let the bad emotions go.

One of the things I most enjoyed was to fill my altar with pictures! I love printing my photographs from time to time, I have 2 photo albums which I´ve left in Israel.
Ever since discovering the magic of spray paint, one of my new beloved hobbies is to buy cheapy picture frames and spray them black, print a couple of pictures at the automatic photo stands in the drugstore, and decorate my living space with my own creations.
Filling the walls around me with pieces of myself is essential for me, because I have been sharing a room with my little brother all my life, up until leaving my parents´ house.


 I´ve never had such a full Altar before! Seeing it makes me so happy! I still set a goal for myself this year to collect more pagan related things, like feathers, pine cones, leaves and twigs.



My own picture on the left is a new addition. A couple of months ago I´ve printed Boris´ photo from last year´s The Wings Of Desire photoshoot. The frames were an eye-cancer orange when I´ve bought them! Again, the magic of spray paint ;)



Those two simple frames were left in our flat share by a previous resident. They were colored as well, and look so nice in black. I´ve printed 2 of my favorite photographs, I love looking at them so much, especially the one with the 3 roses.


 The other 2 pictures are standing on a shoe box which, you can guess, I´ve also spray painted black. I´ve placed the shoe box so that the Altar would have more space and be more dynamic. It works great as a centerpiece for the 2 main candles I light almost every day (candle supply is always short ;)). The two frames are so tiny I´ve just used my home printer to print illustrations of an owl and a mouse. The quality isn´t great but they are so small it doesn´t matter much. They kind of have this cabinet of curiosities feel to them. Both frames are made of clay and were white when bought.


Back in our apartment in Israel (the first and second one) Boris and I used to always have a picture of us together standing somewhere. This beautiful frame I found last year for just 75 cents! This picture of us was taken last Spring. I don´t really look like myself in it, but I´ve always loved Boris´ makeup!

Do you print pictures as well? If you have any craft ideas you love to do please do share!

N. Finsternis

16 February 2014

Henna Hair - how to enjoy it and get rid of it

Yaayy, I can finally blog, ever since my exams at the University are finally over!
I had a total of 2 exams, one of which I hope to have passed since it was on statistics and was really hard, the second one, get ready- I´ve overslept (the reason behind that was stress, more than anything). So it´s chilling for now, and working my ass off again and again a bit later on. But at least I can live.....

This post I have decided to dedicate to my hair adventures, the Henna experience and that I can´t actually promise anything regarding hair.
So when I said that Henna was the most perfect thing in the world, bragged about how easy it was to color with it and how I will continue to color my hair with Henna for the rest of my life, I lied.

But let´s go back in time 2 months ago before Christmas, when my blonde hair was quite fried and I got tired of the bleach damaging it. I´ve wanted to have orange hair, I´ve always wanted to, and thought that Henna was a good idea.
I´ve used this incredible detailed guide on how to dye your hair with henna. Basically if you want to dye your hair with Henna, this tutorial will be very helpful.

Henna felt great. It was super messy to apply, and Boris and I had fun rubbing the shit-like mud on my head. My hair looked and felt amazing afterwards, Henna is actually the best hair mask out there. The color was amazing, I was so happy how it turned out!


But time went on, and so my roots grew. The color remained the same for almost 2 months, which is incredible!!! My hair felt so nurtured and healthy....
Yet alas, my roots reminded me about how no other product in the world would make my hair bright than bleach.....
I began to hate my natural emotionless hair color coming out, and began to long for that bright hair around my face.

 Roots after 2 months. A test strand is being bleached behind my ear.

The realization that Henna won´t make my hair bright was saddening. At that point it didn´t matter to me what color would be on my head, as long as it wasn´t my natural hair color or anything darker than blonde!
So the only option for me was bleaching.
I began to read a lot of frightening advice regarding bleaching henna hair, that it will melt your hair/ turn it green/ you will die.
But then I realized that I was actually looking at advice regarding henna from the US, where (as I understood) a lot of unreliable shit was sold. But my henna hair dye was 100% natural! So after reading some reviews in German, I was more confident about bleaching.

So after my second exam was overslept and I walked the walk of shame back home, the first thing I did was to color and wash my hair (I didn´t wash my hair a few days before the exam, it´s bad luck).

I´ve decided to bleach only the frame of my face, in order not to fry my entire hair. I´ve always had one hair color on my head, so I´ve wanted to try something new, and give my hair a more alternative look:
WARNING
Pictures of me without makeup, and for your entertainment I´ve decided not to edit them


When I washed the bleach out, I was more than happy to find out that the bleached henna turned almost pastel pink!!!! What a miracle, I have pastel hair without planning it! My hair had only one layer of henna in it, so I am guessing that played a roll as well.
I´ve dyed the rest of my hair in a cheapy plum color. I didn´t want black because I´ve already had black hair once. We´ll see how long the plum will last.

 Didn´t have enough plum color for the tips lol, but it didn´t really matter that much. Featuring my kickass thumb!


Featuring my kickass nose. I love my nose.

Before I go on on either disclaiming why my natural face looks so unfortunate or how I am absolutely in love with my new hair, I shall sum things up:

Henna would be a great choice if you:
  1. Want to stick with one hair color for a very long time.
  2. Like your natural hair color and want to spice it up just a little bit.
  3. Want to have burning red hair (not orange)!
Henna would be a bad choice if you:
  1. Are schizophrenic regarding your hair color.
  2. Absolutely detest your natural hair color. 
  3. Need to be flexible with hair and dye it differently each time.
  4. Want to have bright hair!


All in all, henna was a great thing. It just didn´t make my hair blonde. Bleaching over Henna is a okay, as long as it is 100% natural!!! If your henna had something chemical in it, the only way to get rid of it would be to chop it the hell off.
So far so good, and I am eager to post more and more!
Have a great week everyone!


N. Finsternis

10 February 2014

The 100 Day Song Challenge - Days 12, 13, 14 & 15

Sorry for lack of quality and quantity of posts lately, I´m having my exams this week and I am going nuts! O_O

Day 12: A song from any dead artist.

A hard pick, however Kurt Cobain came first to mind. I don´t know why him in particular, there are so many other famous dead artists! So I shall honor a different artist, which served me well throughout my high school years and inspired me so. I miss you, Jim Morrison!


The Doors / Break On Through


Day 13: A favourite cover song. (do you know who sang the original?)

Yet another cover came to mind, the first time I´ve read that question. Jolene is a very nice song, sang originally by Dolly Parton. But it´s a heartbreaking disaster sang by The White Stripes. I´m not a fan of the band, but the way they play that cover can tear everyone apart.

The White Stripes / Jolene


Day 14: A song with a good video.

I can already think of a whole lot of good songs with BAD videos, but this song by Radiohead (yet another band which accompanied my high school years) has the best video one can think of. I can watch this video for eternity, and cry with the song, wishing to make such a visual beauty myself one day...

Radiohead / Street Spirit


Day 15: A song you hate.

Anything by The Sisters Of Mercy/ Christian Death really.. just kidding ;) I suppose this one should be an honorable mention... As I don´t want to include here the obvious pop/ rap shit, let´s pic a goth related piece that I hate. I seriously hate this band and this song. Like really, just stop, and shut up.

Yazoo / Don´t Go

N. Finsternis