Anna!

I don’t read many makeup blogs (blasphemy! irony?) mostly because I am both incredibly picky and incredibly busy, but Anna from Fenua Beauté is probably my number one obsession besides the eponymous Temptalia and I visit her blog daily, if not hourly. I bombarded her with questions and our fun interview is below!

1. How long have you been into makeup? When did you start? You’re so young but a thousand years ahead of me in talent with makeup – spill!

I started stealing my mother’s mascara when I was 14, she didn’t notice it for some weeks and then suddenly burst out in laughter and asked me if I wore make-up. That was the official beginning and it felt so embarrassing. But I got my first M.A.C eyeshadow at the age of 15, that’s officially the year in which I started developing my make-up skills and learning about brushes, blending and false lashes.

2. What are your top three favorite makeup brands?

That’s a tough one. My top favourite will always be Guerlain, everything they do is just stunning. Then next come the Korean brand Holika Holika, as it has a super cute design and a great range of both make-up and skin care products. Last but not least I’d also call Sugarpill my favourite brand, since I use their colours every day.

3. Favorite MAC collection?

I’m not really familiar with any M.A.C collections before 2009, but I would say I would’ve loved the Heatherette collection and Venomous Villain was definitely one of the best LEs ever. I sadly missed out on so many good LEs such as M.A..C in Lilyland, yet grabbed some precious treasures from To The Beach and Dame Edna.

4. When did you get into circle lenses? You must have a million.

I first tried out coloured contact lenses in 2006, on the concert day of one of my favourite Japanese bands. My friend and I had some time to kill and spontaneously went inside a optician’s shop. These visual kei fans usually wear cosplay lenses, like cat eyes or scleral lenses, I wanted to fit in and asked for grey lenses, as they felt so super ‘scary’ on me (I didn’t know better at that time). When I came back home, another friend of mine told me about circle lenses, as she spotted my grey lenses and couldn’t stop making fun of me and my wanna-be cosplay lenses. Shortly after, I received my first pair of circle lenses. As of date I have 65+ pairs, I honesty lost track of them and I get some sponsor packs from time to time. Right now, I’m waiting for a sponsor parcel with 10+ pairs inside. So crazy.

5. You wear asian makeup quite often, for the newbies, what is the best kind of products to start with if you’re new to korean makeup? Good brands to start with?

Definitely the famous BB cream, a well-made up face is the key to a colourful look. It must be even and matte to make the colours stand out more. You can also try out some funny gimmicks like masks, there are tons of them and they’re super affordable and actually do help (depends on your skin type and the brand of course). To be honest, I don’t think Asian make-up really suits me, as Asians have a different skin tone and I can’t use most of the foundations and powder the ranges offer, but Asian cosmetics unfortunately have the cutest packaging and that’s why I mainly buy them - to have something nice standing on my shelf.

6. BB Cream versus Foundation.

Depends on my skin. Sometimes it’s pure and flawless and then it’s just uneven and 'hilly’. I use foundation for the 'good’ days and BB cream for the 'bad’ ones, or if I do a super colourful metamorphose look (like the ones with the feathers), I use BB cream to give the impression of a doll teint.

7. I’m personally a sucker for packaging, luxury brands. Do you find yourself spending more on high end makeup for the name or the packaging or do you think it doesn’t matter, drugstore is just as good?

I totally spend way too much money on high-end brands, I hardly have any drugstore products in my stash, but that is because Germany’s drugstore brands are nothing but useless. If I had wet 'n’ wild, like in the United States, I’d rather buy more drugstore products. But packaging definitely plays a major role, I even buy too many high-end products because of the packaging only, the content doesn’t even interest me at all. I think there are some really good drugstore brands out there that could mess with the luxury ones, but as already told, none of the German brands could really do.

8. If you had a thousand dollars to spend on makeup, what would you get?

Firstly, I would get the entire Jill Stuart Blush Blossom range and some more Jill Stuart products, as it’s one of my favourite brands. Then I would complete my luxury brush collection and buy an entire set from M.A.C. I think the money will be gone by then, haha.

9. What are your HG items?

My HG items are my Etude House Precious Mineral BB cream, which you can always find in my product list at the end of an FOTD post, my Fairydrops mascaras and my Sugarpill palettes. That’s the three items I could spend the rest of my life with. But I lately find myself getting addicted to blushes, as the most colourful look doesn’t look good if the rest of the face looks like a corpse.

10. What are some products you absolutely loathe?

If you had asked me at the beginning of 2011, I would have said bronzers and lip glosses, but that changed and I love both of them now. There isn’t really a type of product that I loathe, except for like lash curlers, as they don’t work on my lashes. Neither a shu uemura one nor any drugstore curlers.

11. Favorite makeup brushes ?What are some must haves?

I’m a brush newbie, I bought one of these off-brand 'made in China’ brush sets for like12$ on eBay and am absolutely happy with them. I added some certain M.A.C brushes to the roll from time to time and could certainly never live without 213, 222 and 263. I’m dying to get my hands on Sigma brushes!

12. Where do you draw inspiration from?

My main inspiration is music. I listen to a song and visualize it, its harmonies and chords and combine that with my paint pots. Also, birds and other animals are a huge inspiration to me. I could never copy a YouTube guru’s look. I know they’re doing tutorials to help people creating their own looks, but it’s important to me to always stay individual.

13. You wear uber colorful looks, do you ever get comments on it? When I wear super intense outfits I definitely get looks.

I get a lot of stares from strangers and my friends are used to them, they still comment on the well-made ones (it’s so easy to screw up the entire look by choosing the wrong eye liner colour), though, and love them. The list of people, who want a makeover from me, is looooooooong.

14. Everyone has makeup faux paus when they first begin…. I distinctly recall wearing blue eyeliner through my eyebrows in middle school. >_> SPILL SOME SO I CAN FEEL BETTER ABOUT MYSELF!!!

(HAHAHAHA that’s one VERY good story, you really did that? OMG haha nice) It might sound super arrogant, but I always had a 'talent’ for colours, combinations and knew which item to use on what part of the eye. I, though, never worked with my brows and I still don’t, and I found this Anna Sui brow kit set in my mother’s stash one day and just heavily coloured them cocoa brown with the pencil, it looked hilarious.

15. What are your favorite makeup blogs?