Positano

This past May, I had one of the best/most memorable experiences visiting Italy! I fell in love with the country from the onset; the people, the food, the climate… there really wasn’t anything not to love.

This post recounts my first visit to Positano (It was also the first time I wore my favourite beach coverup! 😀 ) Positano is so full of life, it seems as though everyone is in a rush to be there. Admittedly, I didn’t enjoy Positano as much as I loved the more secluded and less “touristy” areas. Nevertheless, visiting one of the most talked about towns in the world was an experience of a lifetime that I am so grateful to have had.

Outfit details:

Cover up: H&M Coachella limited edition

Sunglasses: Oscar de la Renta

Accessories and flip flops: Aldo

Hope you enjoy!

kimbastyle

Endless Summer!

For years now, I’ve suffered with terrible heat allergies (part of the reason why I love frigid Canada). So, when summer comes around, I almost quite literally have to strip down and dress as cool as possible to minimise the outbreak of hives I could potentially get in the sweltering heat. All those boring facts being said, my heat allergies (and street urchin ways haha) lead me into this outfit choice…

Crop tops in the summer time are the best at keeping me cool (for obvious reasons, other than me being a wannabe hippie of course). I love pairing them with long pants or even high waisted pants just because I think that wearing both shorts and a crop top makes me feel a little too exposed (even for being someone with severe heat allergies and all).

My outfit details are as shown below. Forgive me if I can’t recount the exact location of some of the items listed.

Crop Top: Camden Market, London, England.

Jeans: High Street, San Fernando, Trinidad.

Denim Jacket: H&M, Bloor Street, Toronto, Canada.

Watch: My mother’s Timex

Sunglasses: A gift

Hope you enjoyed! (Yes, I know it’s been a while!)

kimbastyle

Everyday Makeup

Hi all,

So for this week’s post, I thought I’d share some of my daily makeup items with you. My essentials on a regular basis, starting with my most important items, are as follows:

1) Brown eyeshadow

This is used to fill in my eyebrows. I use an angled brush to fill in my brows with a colour that is most similar to my own hair colour. If I have time, I use a slightly lighter brown at the start of the brow where it is thickest, then fill the rest in with a darker brown. It creates a nice transition as opposed to having stark, solid brown on the entire brow.

2) Concealer

I use concealer in my exact shade (not a shade lighter as used in highlighting) on a daily basis. I apply this under my eyes, around my nose and on problem areas or any area that tends to get red.

3) Blush

This is a must for me, especially if I’m in a rush and not doing any contouring. It makes the face look more alive and helps give dimension.

4) Lipliner/Lipstick

Again this helps to liven the face. Sometimes, just a little lip balm is also fine if you are comfortable showing the natural colour of your lips.

5) Mascara

A must to lift those lashes and frame the eyes!

6) Eyeliner/Eyeshadow

In my opinion, this isn’t absolutely necessary for everyday use. If you have the time, use a brown instead of a stark black eyeliner for a softer, more youthful look. One of my favourites is a Revlon smudge eyeliner

7) Highligh

If time permits, use a small amount of frosty/gold toned eyeshadow (or other actual highlighter products) to place below the brow bown, cheek bones and tip of the nose. Some of my favourite highlighters are Soft and Gentle and Gold Deposit from MAC and Uplight from Makeup Forever. In most cases though, I just use eyeshadow.

Note* These images are duplicates from various websites. I don’t usually use images other than my own, but some of my supplies are low and not exactly in the best shape to be photographed. 😉

Cheers,

kimbastyle

I’ve Graduated!

Hi all,

Let me just begin this post by saying I’VE GRADUATED! 😀 This is the biggest news I have to share. After four years of dedication, hard work, tears, happiness, anxiety…all the works, I am proud to say that I have finished my undergraduate degree!!!!! I earned a Bachelor of Commerce in Fashion Management. For those of you who aren’t Canadian, a Bachelor of Commerce (BComm) is the equivalent of a Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) in US territories or Business Administration (BA) in UK based institutions.

The program that I did was quite an intensive one focused strictly on the Business side of Fashion. No, contrary to popular belief, I did not sew, sketch, design or any of that. I did the boring stuff, the numbers, the analysis and forecasting and so on. At the end of the day, what most people fail to realise is that fashion, first and foremost, is a business like any other. Some of our world’s largest, strongest and arguably oldest corporations are retailers of apparel. Thus, as a 19 year old four years ago, I thought it fit to pursue a degree that was focused on the Business side of the industry as opposed to the creative side since I felt I could do the creative things on my own. Plus, I’m pretty much a big ole boring nerd anyway! Haha.  So the “textbook-y” and “business-y ” elements of my particular degree appealed to me.

Anyway, enough of that boring stuff. The point is, I’M DONE, it’s OVER and at this point, I couldn’t be any happier to be soaking in all of the free time I now have. 😀

If any of my readers are graduates from any institution, whether high school, college or university, you know the bliss I’m in right now. With that said, a lot more posts are coming! So please stay tuned!

xo

kimbastyle

Sorry for being a lame blogger lately :(

Hi all!

I know I haven’t been posting a lot, but I promise the website will be up and running as it should very soon. I’ve just been on vacation with family since graduating, so I haven’t had much free time. However, starting Thursday May 21st, 2015 you can all look out for weekly posts each Thursday from that day onward on http://www.kimbastyle.com. I need to complete a logo for the site and create the exact look and feel that I really want.

I’m really excited about the upcoming looks I have to share with you!

xo

kimbastyle

Liebster Award

Hi all,

So sorry for the lack of posts lately. These past couple weeks have been a complete roller coaster finishing up school (but more on that in a later post). In the interim, I just wanted to share this with you…

I was nominated for the Liebster Award by @BeautyByElyse. Thank you so much for this! For those of you who are unfamiliar with this award (like I myself was), it basically is not an actual award per se, but a means to get to discover new blogs by asking a list of questions to chosen nominees.

Here are the questions @BeautyByElyse asked, along with my answers. I kept it pretty brief… Hopefully it’s not too boring! :p

1. What inspires you most?

“Any and everything…but mostly nature and people. (In that order).”

2. If you woke tomorrow in a foreign country what would you do?

“I feel like I wake up in a foreign country everyday being an international student. I just live life normally and try to enjoy it.”

3. Three makeup items you can’t live without?

“1) Brown eye shadow to fill in my brows (I almost never leave the house without filling them in) 2) Blush because it gives my face life and 3) Lip liner/lipstick; my mum always says never leave the house without lipstick.”

4. Last movie you watched? Would you recommend it?

“Insurgent. Yeah, I would recommend it. It was good action, not the best. Very teeny bopper-ish…but have any of you seen Theo James? I watched it just for him! Haha.”

5. Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

“Operating my own company.”

6. How much time do you invest in your blog?

“Maybe one day per week; not nearly as much as I should be. I definitely want to increase this now that I’m done school.”

7. Where do you go when you just want quiet time?

“Anywhere that’s…quiet? Lol.”

8. What’s your favourite holiday (if any)?

“I have many favourites, I can’t decide.”

9. Favourite food?

“This is SO tough. Basically anything Caribbean, Italian or greasy, fattening, salty, spicy, sweet haha all all all of it. I love food.”

10. How has blogging improved your life?

“It has been a great creative outlet for me to share my thoughts on fashion with others.”

11. What are you most proud of?

“This one was tough because I never really had to think about this. Maybe it’s that for every time I thought I could not achieve something, I still tried. Sometimes I succeeded and sometimes I failed. Regardless, I still gave it a try. Trying is better than failing and it is something to be proud of.”

I would like to nominate @minamajesty and ask her the same questions.

Cheers,

kimbastyle

PS, currently having the worst jet lag! Time differences suck!

Outfit Post… It’s Spring!

Chinatown, Spadina, Toronto. Copyright 2015© kimbastyle. All Rights Reserved.

It finally is starting to feel and look like Spring in Toronto and I am SO excited! Spring is probably my favourite season as I just love seeing everything wake up and come back to life.

The streets of Toronto are bustling again and everyone/everything is coming out of winter hibernation. This past winter was so dreadful and long for the city with tempuratures maintaining below 0ºC for 37 days straight…and when I say below 0ºC, I mean -25ºC and under. FRIGID!

Anyway, thank God it’s over! For the past few days we’ve been experiencing milder temperatures (about 15ºC) and having lots of beautiful sunshine!!! (Yay!) So I thought I’d kickstart the Spring/Summer outfits with this post! 

I absolutely love Keds, I used to wear them throughout secondary school back in Trinidad. It was mandatory for us to wear all white sneakers with our uniforms. I used to kind of hate bulky sneakers because my ankles were always so skinny I thought sneakers made them appear even smaller along with my actual feet looking HUGE. Haha. Anyway, now that Spring has sprung, I needed a pair of closed toe shoes because it still isn’t quite warm enough to have my toes exposed. Keds seemed to be the right fit again 🙂 Serious déjà vu.

Outfit details:

Necklace: Forever 21

Denim Jacket: H&M

Vest (what we Trinidadians call “wife beaters” haha): Not sure where I purchased it from. It’s just a plain white vest.

Skirt: Forever21

Watch: Fossil

Shoes: Keds (from the Hudson’s Bay Company shoe department on Queen St.)

Hope you enjoy!

kimbastyle

Makeup looks by kimbastyle

Hi all,

I know it’s been a while. These past couple weeks have been so, so hectic with school and finishing up graduation makeup looks for portraits. I finally found the time to share some of the looks I did on my clients/friends for graduation season.

Do you like these transformations?

Share your thoughts!

kimbastyle

P.S. I promise I will post a lot more once my final exams and final year projects are out of the way!

Look out for many many more posts after April 24th, 2015!

Follow my Makeup Instagram profile @kimbastylemakeup

Makeup Background

Makeup application has been an interest of mine since my teenage years. I always loved the way makeup has the ability to allow individuals to gain a newfound confidence through a little enhancement of their natural self. As a teen, I found myself obsessing over YouTube makeup gurus such as Panacea81 (Lauren Luke), Julia Graf, Promise and Michelle Phan to name a few.

These makeup gurus/beauty bloggers were largely influential and I often would sit and try to mimic their looks (and get utterly frustrated as I didn’t have access to all of the makeup brands they used at that time nor was I able to get the looks quite like they did haha). Regardless, I made use of what I had and practised, quickly making a hobby out of makeup artistry.

When I moved to Toronto for College, I decided to pursue my hobby a little further and enrolled in a side program at Canadian Beauty College to become a certified makeup artist. After that, I had the opportunity to become a freelance/on-call makeup artist with M.A.C Cosmetics at their location in Gulf City Mall, San Fernando, Trinidad. (Yes, I am a South girl… and proud!) 😀 I developed much of my skills from the guidance of the makeup artists at M.A.C. and will always be thankful for what they taught me.

I constantly find inspiration for makeup looks here in Toronto, especially from my friend, Mina, who is currently a M.A.C makeup artist as well. Currently, I do not work with any company in Toronto as I am finishing up my undergraduate degree, but I sometimes do freelance makeup looks.

My friend, Mina. (Check her out on Instagram and follow her blog @minamajesty)

Since this post is already very long, I will make a separate post just for my own makeup looks!

Stay tuned,

kimbastyle

P.S. Its Tuesday on the Rocks everybody! Enjoy this Kes the Band music video (my favourite Trinidadian band).

Beauty Post

Since beginning this blog, I realised that inspiration can be found just about anywhere. From the comfort of my home to the streets of Toronto, it really is not that hard to observe the beauty all around you.

This post is dedicated to the beautiful makeup artists I met a few days ago at my roommate’s birthday get together. It’s amazing how you sometimes come across individuals at the most unexpected moments who you just instantly click with and share a similar passion.

Margaret (a.k.a Pretty Brows :p) and Geri are both make-up artists at Shu Uemura, a Japanese makeup artistry brand. Both ladies are effortlessly flawless with very simple looks that display strong eyebrows, matte lips and soft blush.

What do you think of Margaret and Geri’s makeup looks?

Stay tuned for more posts.

kimbastyle