A pinch of pink

I'm always super excited about spring, my favorite time of the year, and when it comes to makeup I always love to go back in my drawers and pick up some products I've almost forgot during the winter in order to prefer some deeper colors, but spring and summer are all about bright shades, and pink has always been my favorite.

I definitely need to find a pink based but reasonably neutral cream eyeshadow, but for now the pink products I'm loving this spring are mainly lipsticks and blushers. I've always been very faithful to the Bourjois Cream Blush in 02 Healthy Glow (£7,99) as this immediately became my all time favorite blush as soon as I bought it a few months ago. This is a beautiful peachy pink which looks gorgeous on the cheek and gives the prettiest touch of color. I love the texture as well, as it is one of those cream-to-powder blushers which goes on very silky on the skin and looks always flattering. Another old favorite of mine is the NYX Cream Blush in Boho Chic* (£5,50), a very inexpensive product but a lovely barbie pink shade on the cheeks. It has a nice wet finish when blended and even though it could feel a bit sticky sometimes, I really like it for a soft touch of color. Lastly on the blushers front I have to mention another cream blush, the Urban Decay Afterglow Glide-On Cheek Tint in Score which unfortunately is everyday more difficult to find, but these blushers really have the best formula as they are not too creamy but a sort of tint and are pretty sheer but buildable so that you can build up the color as you like. Score is a beautiful peachy pink with a tun of golden shimmers in it that brings a beautiful light and color to your face.

As for lipsticks, a pink shade I felt in love with last year is the NYX Round Lipstick in Paris* (£4), a lovely drugstore find in a shade I don't usually go for, but this very bright matte barbie pink really suits my skintone and create a lovely contrast against my dark hair, so it's the shade I usually go for when I feel a bit braver and want a bright touch of color on my lips. Two new lovely pink finds are the Paul & Joe Natural Lipstick in Pret-a-Porter (£13,27) and the Urban Decay Revolution Lipstick in Lovelight (£15), two super nice shades and formulas. The former I reviewed here and it's the lipstick I'm going for non-stop since I got it two months ago now, a beautiful sheer pure pink which goes on very creamy and super comfortable and brings a cute but elegant touch of color to my usually plain makeup. The latter is a more recent discovery, one of the UD Revolution Lipsticks everyone talks about, which has the best sheer formula that last a very long time once on the lips, and comes in a pretty peachy pink shade with a tun of golden shimmers in there. I think of it as a more shimmery lipstick version of the UD blush I mentioned above as they both have the same color and are sheer and beautiful. I must admit I sometimes apply this lipstick on my cheeks as well! Lastly the Korres Lip Butter in Pomegranate (£8) is a product I purchased last year and I felt in love with last summer, but this still is a firm favorite of mine as I always love super comfortable and creamy lip products, and this ticks all the boxes with that lovely coraly pink shade that goes on very sheer and the hydrating properties my chapped lips always crave.

So this are the products I'm going to use non-stop this spring, but I'm probably going to buy more and more pink blushers and lipsticks before summer is over, so you can definitely expect an update sometimes soon, but for now this are going to fill the pink hole in my current makeup routine.

Which are your favorite pink products?

Black Cherry & Chocolate (Ben's) Cookies

Last month I was in London and of course I needed to give some Ben's Cookies a whirl for the first time. Fair enough I felt in love with them, and once I came home I knew I had to try baking them myself. A month later I came up with a pretty custom recipe very Ben's Cookies inspired and totally Luke Evans based (oh dear, check his channel out because he makes the most beautiful videos) and thought I could share it with you as I'm pretty satisfied with the result. I assure you, these cookies are delicious, my entire family loves them, and if you're looking for something easy to make but very impressive to offer to your family or guests, you should give them a whirl!

For 9 big cookies you're going to need:

• 300g brown sugar
• 200g unsalted butter
• 1 medium egg
• 325g plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• A lot of dark chocolate and some sour black cherries

As you can see the ingredients are pretty basic and the majority of them I'm sure you all already have in your fridge, the only thing you may need to buy are black cherries, but these cookies are very customizable and you can add whatever you want and make them as you prefer like nuts, almonds, white chocolate, everything really! They're also pretty easy to prepare, you just need to remember to preheat the oven at 220°C and having your butter at room temperature before proceding.

I simply beated all the ingredients together with a whisk as it's the easiest way: starting from butter and sugar, I wanted it to be very soft and fluffly so I beated those two ingredient together for a few minutes, then I added the egg and beated again. Once mixed flour and baking powder together, I added them to the butter, sugar and egg mixture little by little until the dough was formed and it was quite solid and firm and not too sticky. If you feel your doug is too sticky add a bit of flour and beat again. Then I chopped the chocolate and added it to the mixture with some black cherry as well and blended all very evenly so that all the cookies had the right amount of chocolate and cherry once formed. I created nine big balls with my dough, arranged them on a baking tin lined with parchment paper and flattened them a tiny bit with my hands. Keeping in mind these cookies will spread out, I placed them reasonably apart from each others. Then I baked them for 12/13 minutes in the oven at 220°C, and they came out very chewy and gooey, but you can definitely let them bake a few minutes more if you desire. Consider your cookies will continue cooking on the hot baking tin when you pull them out of the oven, so don't overcook. I left them rest and cool for 20/30 minutes before trying them.

I think the dark chocolate really compliments and balances the sweetness of the sour black cherries, but I can't lie, they are very sweet, and if you don't love super sweet things you may have to consider using a lot less cherries than I did. But these to me were perfection, and I'm really satisfied on how they came out, so I hope you can enjoy this recipe too and try them in the upcoming future! 

What is your favorite cookies flavor?

A fresh new start

You may have noticed I've stopped blogging regulary this last week, it was because I had plans for this blog of mine to change a little bit and have a new fresh interface, but things has changed a lot more than only that. It was a while I couldn't feel my blog like somewhere to truely and completely express myself, but this is exactly what blogs are meant to be, places where you can share things you love and enjoy doing it. I started worrying a bit too much about stats, I was a bit bored with my only beauty related content, and these and some other reasons brought me to the decision to refresh it completely and start blogging in a different way.

I was very inspired by some recent posts on other blogs and decided to stop worrying about stats and things, but only appreciate what I have, a place where I can completely express myself, and so I decided I'm going to widen my contents and start blogging about other things I love instead of only beauty, such as food, deisgn, home decor, and also to include some lifestyle posts more often, which are definitely my favorites to read. Of course my main passion is beauty so I'll continue blogging about that, but I'm going to try not treat it as my main and only topic on here and spice things up a bit more often.

You may have noticed my blog has a new name, which I definitely like a lot more. Also changing my blog name can be a bit a tricky decision, but really makes things easier when it comes to make a big change in the content. My old blog's name was too beauty related and didn't go well with my new purposes, this new one instead is definitely a lot more appropriate. The word Café always makes me think of a cozy place where to spend a beautiful afternoon, and Miel, well, you know I'm obsessed by honey!

I also decided to stop writing in italian, and this was probably my biggest decision and doubt as I know a lot of my readers read me in italian, but writing in two different languages takes a lot of time and is way too demanding, plus I always hated that moment when I had to translate all my post from english to italian, it was very boring as you can imagine. It really took all my inspiration and creativity away, whereas writing in one language only is definitely more quick so I can post more often and is never boring. Also I recently started hating the italian blogging reality for way too many reasons, it really made blogging something I wanted to stay away from, and this wasn't right, so I decided to finally escape from that reality.

Of course I changed my blog template, and this is nothing more than my favorite between my premade blogger templates, Lilac Tulips, edited just a bit.

I'm really excited to see my new content go live super soon on here since as soon as I decided to make this big change I came up with some beautiful ideas for the upcoming posts. Hopefully this way will keep my creativity always alive when it comes to my blog since I love blogging more than everything else! Hope you can appreciate this fresh new start and understand my reasons. 

Back to minimal

Recently I've bought way too many skincare products and incorporated all of them in my morning and night skincare routines all at once, since I was so curious to try them and report back to you. Some of them are true skincare gems on me, others actually aren't as loved by my skin and I blame them for some bad breakouts as I didn't see for a while on my face. This is why I decided to detox and purify my skincare routine and going back to basics and minimal, and for basics and minimal I mean only four products I blindly trust for morning and night to stick to, hoping I'll last at least one week.

I had to choose between serum, tonic, acne treatments, SPF and a lot more, and I decided the number one three things I can't survive without are eyecreams, an eczema treatment and moisturizer, and as I had to pick only four products I thought I could definitely have all of them and give my skin a little rest a few times a day. Eyecreams are never been my go to products before but I'm recently discovering a lot of benefits from them and I and my skin really enjoy the results as well, and as I'm troubling with some eczema and dry patches all around the eye area, I need my eyecreams to keep it at bay, so I went for my super reliable Botanics 80% Organic Hydrating Eye Cream (£5,99), which I mentioned a lot of times recently but which is really helping in getting rid of those eczema issues, and the Caudalie Polyphenols C15 Anti-Wrinkle Eye and Lip Cream* (£26), which is actually a new entry in my stash but which I'm really liking recently. The former I use in the moring as it's always very lightweight and perfect to go under makeup, the latter is better in the evening as it's a bit thicker and richer but very hydrating and soothing at the same time, and also has a lot of anti-aging properties which is always good. I use it only around my eyes and not next to my lips as I don't need it there and because I apply something different in that area.

If in the morning I can go for simply eyecream, in the evening my skin really craves a little bit of extra moist, so moisturizer is definitely needed and the one I adore and blindly trust is the Antipodes Vanilla Pod Hydrating Day Cream (£26,99), actually a day cream but which I love in the evening better, which not only is super rich and smells amazing, but is also natural, very hydrating and soothing and my skin loves it a lot as in the morning always look so pumped up and reinvigorated. I find shea butter and avocado are the way to go for my skin when if comes to hydration, and this contains them both.

Lastly to keep my dry patches and eczema issue at bay I can't live without the A-Derma Exomega Emolient Cream (£9,45), a very thick emolient cream that features oat meal and omega 6 fatty acids, which is thought to sooth atopic and very dry skins and can be applied on the face or any other body area that need a little treatment. This truely is a lifesaver and I apply it literally several times a day when my skin feels too tight and I want some rest.

I probably will go for a little bit of organic aloe vera gel onto those pimples and breakouts I now have on my face to try helping them heal faster, but otherwise I'm going to try sticking to only these four products everyday for a week at least, and I will for sure report back any result. I feel sometimes going back to basic and drain a too complex and overdone skincare routine can be good, expecially when you need to figure out which products do what and which are causing you some skin troubles. Of course I will reintegrate all the products I used gradually and little by little to really see what effects they have on me, but for now this will be the way to go for at least one week.

What do you think about the 'overdone' skincare routine topic?

Running my own business

Last month was the time of huge changes in my life, I went over a period in which I didn't actually know what to do with my life, and I finally decided to sit down and rationally think about who I wanted to be. I understood I was going the wrong way and what I was doing wasn't right for me. I'm young so a drastic change right now in my life didn't cause a lot of problems as I was just starting building my life, but now I'm trying to follow some of my modest dreams firstly by starting my own business.

Comparing Cleansing Balms

Since the first moment when the Merumaya Melting Cleansing Balm started appearing in the blogging world, it was inevitably compared to the more expensive and hyped Emma Hardie Amazing Face Moringa Cleansing Balm, as they have a similar name but also a similar consistency and very close properties, but the former is a lot more budget-friendly and comes in a more pratical tube whereas the latter is very luxurious, falls within the more expensive cleansers out there, and comes in a cute but less hygienical big pot. But do they really are that similar? How do they compare?

Dal primo momento in cui il Merumaya Melting Cleansing Balm ha iniziato ad apparire nei vari blog, è stato inevitabilmente comparato al più costoso e super acclamato Emma Hardie Amazing Face Moringa Cleansing Balm, poichè hanno un nome molto simile, ma anche una simile consistenza e somiglianti proprietà, ma il primo è molto più economico ed è venduto in un pratico tubetto, mentre il secondo è molto lussuoso, ricade nella fascia più alta di prezzo per un detergente, ed è venduto in una grande jar meno igienica. Ma sono davvero così simili? In cosa si somigliano?