There is no Christmas without the glittering Swarovski tree at Zurich main station! Since I was a child, seeing this tree has been the big highlight of my festive season. A lot of things about how I choose to celebrate Christmas changed, what stayed is my love for the iconic tree by the Austrian jewellery brand.
Year after year, I am excited until the beloved tree with its crystal decoration is back. It’s my favourite tradition to be on the platform at Zurich main station when they turn on the lights with a show. For me, this event is the beginning of the festive season.
This year, I participated in the exciting event with my dear friend and blogger Jesca Li and Switzerland’s Next Topmodel candidate and style inspiration David Beer. We had a lot of fun and sweet mulled wine. We created our own eucalyptus wreaths and couldn’t get enough of gazing at the ten-metre high tree in awe. It’s so cool that our tree is the role model for all other Swarovski trees in cities such as Dubai, Milano and Moscow.
We were surrounded by a lot of other people in a merry mood and since Swarovski lovers gather around the iconic tree we saw a lot of jewellery sparkling on the ears and necks of the visitors. Of course, Jesca and I were wearing Swarovski too to spark delight.
I wish you a beautiful Christmas time and may all of your wishes come true. I have one wish I’m gonna share with you: I’m dreaming of being the lucky one who is pushing the button to light Zurich’s Swarovski tree one day. One may wish and dream…
Toothpaste is not boring anymore: Curaprox brings the whole rainbow into your mouth. “Be you” is the mantra of the six exciting whitening toothpastes. The idea behind the innovation is that you can choose colour and flavour according to your mood and have fun while brushing yoru teeth.
The Be You toothpaste has the mission to transform the time you daily use for your oral hygiene from a necessary chore to something enjoyable. Be You tastes unlike any toothpaste you know and brings a sensation of gin tonic mixed with persimmon, watermelon or other unexpected flavours to your bathroom. Swiss oral health brand Curaprox developed the flavours together with Givaudan SA, the world’s largest company for fragrances and flavours.
The result of this collaboration does not just smell different but has a unique and gentle whitening formula. The enzymes, hydroxyapatite and herbs in the toothpaste do a lot for you: They protect your teeth against tooth sensitivity and decay, minimise plaque, prevent the appearance of aphthae and take care of your gums. Menthol power pearls are responsible for a longlasting extra-freshness. And yes: It’s vegan and free of microplastic too, for those who mind.
Every Be You toothpaste has a gorgeous fitting mood toothbrush. You can buy it either alone or as a set with the brush. People always fall in love when they see the cute brushes in my bathroom and my visitors love it when they get one as a gift.
Express yourself and show the world your brightest smile.
My Opinion
I’ve been using Be You for quite a while now and I can honestly tell: There is no way back! I think it’s worth its price (which might be higher than what you paid for your toothpaste right now) and the colourful tubes make me smile whenever I see them. My favourite flavours are Challenger with its gin tonic and persimmon flavour and Pure Happiness’ irresistible mix of apricot and peach.
Maybe you give Be You a try too and smile your brightest smile!
These are the six mouth-watering and unique Be You flavours:
Rising Star Grapefruit & Bergamot
Pure Happiness Peach & Apricot
Candy Lover Watermelon
Challenger Gin Tonic & Persimmon
Daydreamer Blackberry & Licorice
Explorer Apple & Aloe
Pictures: Sara Streule
Samples sent by Curaprox, I was not paid for this review and the content reflects my own opinion.
After a breakup, you don’t need Halloween or scary movies to feel like you arrived in the middle of a nightmare. So what to do when your life is like a rollercoaster that seems to go down only? Let me share my 10 step plan that might help, maybe not right now, but in a future (hopefully) not too far away. Good luck and keep going!
Cry, baby cry, as much as you like
When I was younger, my mum always told me to not cry, cause I’d get wrinkles from it. I say it’s nonsense and who cares! Emotions need to be expressed, face cream can solve the skin afterwards. So let it all out: Cry into your pillow in the dark of the night or on the bus at rush hour. Very important, don’t worry about what others might think about you. It’s great that you are a human being capable of feeling deep emotions. One day you will cry tears of joy again.
Go out like you’re the happiest girl in the world
Yes, you do feel like staying at home, not brushing your hair and crying all day long. It’s ok to wallow in hurt and self-pity, but as well very important to connect with the world and the people among you. Do all the things that you used to love and like, even if it’s hard. If somebody asks you out, never say no and fill the gap that he left behind in your life. One day your smile will come back without being forced and you will enjoy yourself again. Don’t give up, fight for every happy second!
Give in to your guilty food pleasures without feeling guilty
Playing Bridget Jones and eating a big, big bucket of ice cream? Hell yes, if it makes you feel just a hint like you’re a movie star! Since you are terribly sad you might not eat properly anyway and some calories are just what your body and soul needs. You will laugh about your ice cream nights once you feel better. Otherwise, don’t worry: At least you had that delicious chunky chocolate ice and your excuse was good…
Work it out, work it out
You can cry, but you can sweat as well! If you do sports your body is producing happiness hormones and this is exactly what you desperately need! So no matter how hard it might be, get your body to the gym, run, swim or kick-box. Nice side effect: It’s work on your revenge body! The better you look, the better you will feel and whoever left you behind, missed their chance to touch your new firm butt.
Lose yourself in art
There is nothing that has an impact on the soul as art! Visiting a museum – or even better: being part of an installation – feels like a bath in a different world and feeds your mind with colours, ideas and visions. Some art pieces cheer you up like a Jeff Koon’s sculpture, others make your problems appear small and harmless. Thank god you’re just absolutely miserable, but not in Dante’s Inferno… There are plenty of galleries and museums out there, what are you waiting for?
Dress up like nothing bad ever happened
Wear what makes you feel super self-confident and beautiful, just like the glamourous diva you are in your heart. Feeling bad doesn’t mean you have to look bad too. So say no to the potato bag dress that drags you down even more and wear the crazy party clothes. You might get covered in compliments, what an ointment for your broken heart!
If you can’t be happy, try to make others happy
Instead of keeping your mind occupied with thinking about your own misery, gather people around you and make new friends. Support each other and help each other, you are all not alone if you join forces. Listen to their worries and share yours, hug each other, cry together and tell each other how great you are. You will experience that shared pain is less pain. If you even want to do more, apply for some social work or offer your services to a charity. All of this helps to make you forget about yourself for a moment and turns your misery into something useful.
Clean, Tidy up, Rearrange
Taking care of your home, making it clean and tidy helps you to order your mind as well. If your whole home reminds you of things that hurt you, rearrange things or change your habits: Sit on the chair you never used, buy yourself flowers instead of pitting yourself that you don’t get some and get rid of things you never really liked anyway. You are not in control of everything in your life, but you are in control of giving yourself a safe place that is beautiful!
Invent new Rituals
It might be very strange to sleep alone or prepare dinner for one, honestly: I hate it. What helps a little bit is to invent new rituals, like having a cup of lavender tea before you go to bed, listening to music for a while before you sleep or read at least a chapter of a book before you close your eyes. It doesn’t sound like much, I know, but the structure in your life will do you good.
Afraid of the future? Fill it with good things!
If the future frightens you, one strategy is to not think too much ahead and live day after day. But I think what helps even better is to create events for yourself that you can look forward or at least take away the fear of being lonely. I am extremely anxious about events like my birthday and Chrismas (both coming up hooray), my strategy is to organize my own gifts and invite friends.
Wake up and smell the sun, is the motto of Soleil, the new fragrance for her from French glassmaker design house Lalique. With their new creation, they made a contemporary perfume to celebrate the modern woman who likes the sun. Soleil feels like being tickled by light on a beautiful morning while smelling a hint of coffee in the air.
How it smells Soleil Lalique is a sweet gourmand composition that includes citruses, spices, sweet notes and almonds. The perfume is created by the perfumers Barbara Zoebelein, Alexandra Monet and Benoist Lapouza of Drom Fragrances.
My first impression was that Soleil is an unobtrusive and light fragrance. I imagine it on a free-spirited bohemian woman. The citrus and fruit notes are more prominent than the gourmand notes to my nose.
We conceived this fragrance like a burst of morning light in a bedroom. A radiant halo of serene, intimate notes. Soleil Lalique is an invitation to wake up to the world with a smile.
Lalique
The bottle According to the name of the fragrance, the bottle is a sparkling, golden sun. With Lalique’s long tradition in the making of the most stunning bottles, I always expect a lot when they announce a new release. Soleil fulfilled the expectations and is a classy beauty. The 100ml bottle comes with a playful golden tassel charm bracelet you can wear. How extraordinary!
Pictures: Sara Streule. Samples sent by Lalique, I was not paid for this review and the content reflects my own opinion.
Don’t be fooled, this is one of my most colourful rainbow outfits, yes, but that doesn’t mean I am the happiest girl in the world. My world just crashed and no rainbow in the world can hide that.
Time for truth talk: I’m ashamed to say, but I am not well at the moment. When I started this blog I told myself I would never talk about truly personal topics, now I’m just fed up with keeping up the facade. The world needs more honesty, more people who behave like they are humans and not cyborgs and don’t hide their emotions. I’ve decided to show you my not-happy face.
There are those mornings when I stand in front of my wardrobe with tears in my eyes while I choose my outfit and well, right now they happen er…every morning. Should I dress like I feel, like a black ugly void is eating me up? Shall I stop brushing my hair and wait till the pink washes out and leaves a pitiful mousy brown-blond? There is nothing that fits my current mood in my wardrobe at all. Not because I didn’t expect to be ever sad in my life, but because it’s simply not me. So here I am, wearing all my clutter, crying while my jewellery rattles and my pleats play with the wind.
You don’t stop being you no matter if you are happy, grumpy, totally heartbroken or very lost.
This year, I was busy building a marvellous dream castle made of clouds and believed with all my heart it was real. I had a lot of happy times in my life, but I never felt like this, like every day was a fairytale. Suddenly out of the nowhere something truly terrible happened: Puff, the bubble burst and I have to cope (or rather trying to cope) with it.
I don’t do very well: I don’t eat, I can’t sleep and all the things that used to make me happy seem suddenly stale while I indulge myself in sad music. Tears run down my cheeks without control and no matter where I am. Cold darkness grows in my heart, quite an irony for such a colourful girl, isn’t it?
Love and excitement have always been the biggest sources of my bubbly energy and I think that’s what people find fascinating about me. I have so, so, so much of them to give I sometimes feel like I could feed the world with my energy, but now I am just sad and empty. I struggle a lot, to be honest, can’t cope with being rejected and can’t accept that the bright vision of a future I saw in front of me was just mocking me and left me in the dark. I was ready to take my chance for happiness with all the good and bad sides, ready to fight without compromises and that’s why it hurts like hell.
People look at me and think I must be happy, go to a festival every weekend and have an amazing life, because that’s how I look. Don’t judge a book by its cover, you have no idea what’s happening inside.
I know I have to be kind to myself and stop the unhealthy coping mechanisms. Step one is to admit that I am not well, step two is to find more self-love. I need to have more patience with myself, it’s ok to feel bad until I wake up one day and start the day with a smile. That day will come, no matter how long it takes. Until then I don’t want to wear black or beige.
Wearing Angel by Mugler is a glamourous statement: If you experienced the iconic fragrance once, you will immediately recognize it among millions of perfumes forever. Angel, a classic since 1992, is a scent you either love or hate, but you can impossibly ignore it. Now Mugler continues the story and reinvents the fragrance. May I introduce: Angel Eau de Toilette, a modern approach to a legend.
How it smells The ethereal freshness of Angel Eau de Toilette awakes pictures of a big cloud of sweet cotton candy floating on a pink and baby blue sky. Angel Eau de Toilette is a floral, fruity gourmand fragrance. Where the Eau de Parfum is sweet and sticky, it’s more youthful and fresh. The new Angel has an almost girly attitude, is not penetrant but still pretty long-lasting.
I always loved Angel for its originality but had difficulties to wear it because of its heaviness. On some days I loved it, on others, it gave me headaches. Finally, this is an Angel fragrance that is very wearable. I don’t consider Angel Eau de Toilette as much a gourmand fragrance as the original. Chocolate and Caramel have been replaced with beautiful fruity notes.
The notes: Top: Mandarin & Peony Heart: Berries & Apple Oil Base: Patchouli & White Wood
The bottle I remember when I saw the iconic bottle of Angel for the very first time: I was in awe and thought this is the most beautiful bottle I’ve ever seen. The Angel Eau de Toilette comes in a flacon very similar to the original, but there is one cool new thing: For the first time, it has been transformed into a standing star. This is truly an exciting design change and convinced me to want it immedeately.
Pictures: Sara Streule.
Samples sent by Mugler, I was not paid for this review and the content reflects my own opinion.
When life gives you oranges, what are you supposed to do? I say: Turn them into juice or wear them as a jumpsuit! This might be my last summer look unless I manage to smuggle myself into the cargo bay of a plane and make it to Madagascar. If not, you have to be happy with this bright mix of orange and pink – one of my favourite colour combos – for a while and be sure that my autumn looks will not be beige either.
Lana del Rey sings “Summertime Sadness” while I write those lines. It matches my feelings so well right now: No, I don’t want to let my favourite season go. So please summer, kiss me just one more time with your warm rays of sunshine before you go. Just another time and another very last time and maybe one time more and I wear my orange jumpsuit for you.
My look and the song have those sweet and sticky vintage vibes in common, just like orange juice served with a lot of sugar. While the wind plays with my earrings I think of times long gone I spent on the beautiful island Bali.
Back then, I bought a wooden parrot necklace in a tiny shop at the beach and wore it all the time. The birds were just as colourfully painted as those on my new earrings. Many things I love to include in my looks have their roots in my childhood, this is no exception. I come back to them and reinterpret them regularly. Just like there is summer after winter and light after dark, they return.
So yes, if life gives you oranges, be happy! It means winter is not here yet and you received fruits that taste of summer, warmth and sweetness. You might remember something almost forgotten…
My favourite perfume brand Mugler is generous with us this year: The Brand just released another much anticipated flanker*. Aura Mugler Eau de Parfum Sensuelle, a feminine floral musk flanker to 2017’s Aura. Mugler says the fragrance invites us to reconnect with our inner nature and exalt our sensuality.
How it smells Where Aura is like an instant way into a green jungle, Aura Mugler Eau de Parfum Sensuelle is softer, lighter and more tame with a bigger dose of sweetness. I think it’s a fragrance lovers of gourmands will appreciate and it slightly reminds me of Angel, without being as overpowering.
If Aura is a jungle I’d say this one is an elegant Victorian conservatory. They both have the green notes and their botanical freshness in common, but where they are teamed up with rhubarb and orange blossom in the original, this one embraces the warmth of Sri Lankan sandalwood, white musk and spicy cinnamon leaf. What Eau Sensuelle lost in aromatic sharpness, it gained in sweetness and elegance.
It’s more feminine and I guess a lot of people would say more wearable. I find the Aura Mugler Eau Sensuelle quite long-lasting on my skin, but not too heavy. As a big fan of Aura (my second favourite scent right after Alien), I am very pleased with this new creation from Mugler.
The notes: Top: Cinnamon Leaf & Gardenia Heart: Green Notes Base: White Musk & Sandalwood
The bottle The faceted diamond heart of Aura is one of my favourite perfume bottles ever and this new version makes it even better since it looks like the heart got clothed in a pink and iridescent veil. Oh yes, you will stay on my shelf you stunner of a bottle, right next to the green Aura bottle!
* Flanker: A newly created perfume that shares attributes of an already existing one such as notes, name and packaging.
Pictures: Sara Streule.
Samples sent by Mugler, I was not paid for this review and the content reflects my own opinion.
Dear purists and lovers of minimalisms, I am sorry, but you entered the world of maximalism. More is more here, I do it the rococo way and live elaborate, wearing my pink Han-style kimono and ornamented sunglasses. Embracing life with all facets, saying yes to all, greedy for more without holding back.
With my love for maximalism and decoration, I couldn’t disagree more with modernist architect Adolf Loos who wrote the book “Ornament and Crime” in 1910. The opponent of Art Nouveau was convinced that freedom from ornament is a sign of spiritual strength. I’d say it’s a lack of love for details and humour.
Minimalism has been the main trend in architecture and fashion for a long time now. When Mr Loos made his provocative statement, he lived in a world where everything was decorated to the hilt. Since then we moved into the opposite direction and cleared our lives from decoration. Until the moment of the realisation that there is too much austerity around us and the warmth of tenderly crafted ornaments is missing.
I think it’s time for a change, time to go back to the times when getting dressed was an art and architecture was something you looked at in awe! Nothing against modernism, don’t get me wrong, I plead for coexistence, not black and white, good or bad but a world where opposites enhance each other and make our lives rich.
If you go shopping for clothes, it’s easier to find 20 plain jumpers in all shades of blue than discovering one single dress with delicate details. That’s a thing that I love about the Chinese brand Mukzin who made my pink Han-style kimono: Their looks are far from minimalistic, but a whole kaleidoscope of colour, prints and sequins. I mixed the Asian vibes with rococo inspiration and searched the whole city to find the most ornamental building to go with the look.
Sidenote: Did you spot the cute little angel on my sunnies? Mr Loos would hate it, but he shall move over!
My Outfit Kimono: Mukzin, Sunglasses: Pearls & Swine, Bag: Gucci, Shoes: Ego and Greed, Rings: Swarovski, Bangle: Bally
Hello good girls, bad girls and good girls gone bad: Do you already know that the fragrance Good Girl from Carolina Herrera is available in the country? It used to be on the shelves of the airport for a while. Since a few months, you don’t need to buy a flight ticket to get it.
Good Girl expresses the duality of the modern woman: She is audacious and sexy, elegant and enigmatic, good and bad. All but onedimensional and beyond stereotypical thinking. Karlie Kloss is the face of the perfume.
How it smells If I had to describe this fragrance with one word it would be sexy without any doubt! the oriental gourmand fragrance is strong and made for nights out.
Without smelling the fragrance I expected it to be super feminine and sweet from the look of the bottle, but don’t be mistaken: Good Girl has something very unisex and animalistic about it. Combined with its sweetness and the floral notes, it’s kind of an all-in-one scent for a grown-up woman who doesn’t want to make choices.
The bottle Seriously: Can a bottle be more spectacular than this black stiletto? It’s the dream of any femme fatale and her weapon. I bet this is what Cat Woman has on her bathroom shelf too!
