Hailing from a city called Palakkad which lies almost on the line dividing Tamil Nadu and Kerala has its own strange perks! We get to celebrate Keralite festivals without looking like a South Indian going on Karva Chauth fasts (er…yes I have some such friends! :P)
Tag: Chennai blogger
Of Indian Prints and Western Twirls ~ Ft. Tadka by Madhu
My favourite kinda clothes are the ones which resonate Indian but come with a small western twist to them! That’s why Madhu’s Tadka popped from the hundreds of other vendors on Instagram for me!
Summer Style – Part III/IV – Nature Hues
Hi you guys! It feels great to be sticking to a routine and coming back to the blog every Monday 😀 wonder how long that’s gonna last for… Anyway let’s fuggedaboudit for a moment now and talk about the next summer styling idea and it is *drumroll* the traditional Salwar/Chudidhar and Kameez!
The salwar kameez is a traditional Indian three piece suit which has a kameez which is a top that you can equate to a knee length dress and a salwar/patiala pant/Chudidhar which is the pant and a dupatta which is shawl we cover our torso with!
The Patiala or simply a salwar pant has a lot of gathering and looks great with a short top or a tshirt even! The Chudidhar bottom is comes more like a tightish pant (that’s what I’m wearing in this look!)
This outfit was infact bought on my birthday! A gift from me to me 😛 last year! It wasn’t a set when I bought it (just putting that in so you would be like oooh how do you mix n match so well!! Lol!)
This salwar has Churi sleeves which means the sleeves like the pant has gatherings at the end too! Its pure cotton and feels great to wear!
Salwars in general are a great option to wear in summer and whenever it’s possible to ditch the dupatta, do it because honestly, minimalism in any which way possible in a 40•C weather is extremely essential!
I’m just realizing all the three summer looks I have put together this time are yellow and green hues..er so much for variety!
Outfit Details: The whole set – top, pant and dupatta – Fab India, Slippers – Koblerr, Earrings – Kushals
When we did the whole photoshoot for the four outfits I must say this outfit was my least favourite because I was feeling all conscious in it…I know it’s just a salwar! What’s to feel conscious right? So anyway, I was dreading seeing the pictures of this one but I must say this Sneha Chandrashekar knows what she’s doing! Follow her on Instagram where she goes by the handle @purplecurlss! ❤️
That ladies (and the very few gentlemen who read my blog!) brings us to the end of Part 3 of the 4 part summer series! So tell me are you enjoying the looks? Did you try to create a summer look yourself? Comment below cause I would love to know. Have a fabulous week! Bye!
How to pull of a graphic tee w/o looking like a 9 year old! Part-I
Hi everyone! Since I gave away the whole theme of the post right at the title let’s jump into the main content straightaway!
So I thought there are four ways to get away with wearing a graphic or a cartoon tshirt without having to look like :
a) You are sporting a right out of bed look or
b) a 9-year old basically!
I thought I’ll do this post as two parts with two ideas each and here they are!
For the two ideas of this post I chose a colorful graphic tshirt full of butterflies!
1. Give the look some structure
Adding an extra layer like a shirt or a jacket or a blazer is the easiest way to look put together! Since I’ve done the shirt over tshirt look several times (and since I simply wanted to wear the red blazer) I decided to go for a blazer 😬👍🏽 Take a looky!
2. Give the look some much needed BLING! ✨✨
For the second look I kept the rest of the look the same and replaced the blazer for a statement necklace ! A heavy necklace or a pair of earrings really take such a pre-teen-like tshirt into a suave and sophisticated outfit! I know you might at first think it is crazy to wear bling with cartoon and graphic tees but once you find the right piece of jewelry you’ll love it! Take a peeky!
Outfit Details : Red Blazer – ONLY, Butterfly Tshirt – Gift, Jeans – 109•F, Statement necklace – Some Instagram account (forgot which one!), Heels – Zara, Watch – Fossil, Sunglasses – Rayban
I will be back next week with two more ideas to look neat in a cartoon tshirt but until then make sure you try the two ideas in this post! ❤️ Happy Monday!
Casual Chic on Fleek Look
Hi my lovely readers! I’m back after quite a while with my next post but before that I got to tell you why I was MIA! I live in India in a city called Chennai which became pretty famous globally last week for a tragic reason. We were ravaged by extremely heavy cyclonic rains and floods and in a matter of a couple of days the city was left looking like a dumpyard. So many people lost their lives and a thousands more their homes. Chennai traditionally being a very dry city (remember how I always say we have summer throughout the year?) is not built for such rains and so the water levels reached 10-15 feet heights in several low lying areas causing massive damage. But as any positive story goes, here’s the part where there’s light at the end of the tunnel! 😊 The people of chennai showed such solidarity in relief and rescue missions. NGOs, corporate offices, actors and ofcourse the Indian Army came together and did such phenomenal and unbelievable work rescuing people, distributing food and other survival kits, conducting medical camps, etc and while life to come back to normalcy is going to take several months, these rains and floods have shown what a city chennai is, it is secular, giving, and so sensitive and independent. We will be up and raring to go in a while but until then please make sure you keep us in your prayers. 😇
So I kept my look super simple today because I’m still not in a position to shoot elaborate theme based posts! This would ideally be a look you can sport on a day full of running errands or simply a day out at the mall with your friends! Here goes!
It was such an easy and loungy and a no-brainer sort of look and it took me just a few minutes to put together which is usually the time late-lateefs like me get before heading out 😂 so if you are like me make sure to stock up on a lot of basic tshirts like this one because they are so versatile and it is almost like you have a new outfit every time you wear them.
Here I paired this basic black tee shirt with my trusted light blue jeans and a statement neck piece. The rest of the look was simple in muted gold tones. Just adding a statement necklace or a scarf or a shirt over such tee shirts elevates the simple and basic outfit into something so much more suave and sophisticated! 😍
Outfit Details : Black T-shirt – Forever 21, Blue Jeans – 109•F bought at Lifestyle, Necklace – FabIndia, Earrings – Forever 21, Sandals – Zara
That would be all from me for today’s post folks! Make sure you have an amazing week ahead! And tell me you had a ball! ❤️😄
FestiveFun IndoWestern ColorBurst!
Hi and GoodMorning my lovely readers! Hope you had enough and more fun this past weekend to take on Monday headstrong! 😛 As a final part to my festive fun theme here’s my last IndoWestern fusion look. I have paired my palazzo pants which has shown its “flair” on this blog long ago with a contrast kurta and a colorful dupatta! Let’s go straight into the look!
I love this pink and blue combination and I often wear this kurta to work with blue bottoms. So pairing it with these blue palazzos were a no-brainer!
I completed the look with a topknot and a gorgeous pair of heels in the same colour scheme!
Sorry about the squinting in every photo! We shot this look in the afternoon and the sun was in my eye at every angle!
Another way of wearing this look and making it look a little festive is wearing a tank top and wearing the dupatta around it knotted at the waist like a jacket! Take a looook!
My beautiful neckpiece is seen at last in this look! Yayyy 😍
Such a look is so easy to recreate because who doesn’t have palazzos these days and they look gorgeous with kurtas. Also, if you are one of those girls who has lost interest in wearing jeans then these outfits are the way to go babe trust me! Advice from a person who’s been there and done that!
Outfit details : Kurta and Palazzo pants – Fabindia; Heels – Flipkart; Square long chain – Sundari Silks; Tank top (racer back) – Jockey; Dupatta – Mom’s very old and Unknown!
That’s all from me folks! Hope you enjoyed this short and sweet post! Please tell me that you’ll try recreating this look for the festivities ahead! Have an amazing week! May all your to-do lists have nothing but satisfying strike throughs by the end of this week! 😂😃 Ciao!
Festive Chic! + Giveaway Winner Announcement
Hi all you lovely readers 😍! The only thing I am looking forward to after a long weekend is a short painless week which I hope runs away quickly!!
Moving on, Navrathri is right around the corner and I thought a good way to get back to my Fashion game would be to give y’all some inspiration for looks you can recreate this Navrathri! So stay tuned!
I bet everyone of us has this odd lehenga/ghagra/dhavani we are kinda ashamed of now because it looks like we just stepped in and out of a rainbow carrying the entire frikkin VIBGYOR out with us! One such Dhavani I own my is this one! (Don’t laugh 😐)
While I individually love the blouse and the skirt I hate, with all vehemence I can muster, the Dhavani or the green brocade portion of the attire. So I decided to tone down the whole look by just using the skirt giving this look a much needed twist!
That’s right! I wore this bright (I’ll blind you with this skirt type of bright) skirt with a very plain ethnic Kurti or short top!
It was like an explosion in my head when one day I saw this Kurti and this skirt lying next to each other in my closet and I thought why not?!?
It’s grand and underplayed at the same time and it is the perfect look for a function or a party/reception
The mild embroidery along the length of the top gives it a very traditional touch making the pairing so easy!
I completed the look with a pair of violet heels I bought over a year ago a sneak of which is shown here!
This is a look you can easily recreate for the festive season this year by pairing a bright piece with a sober one in the same colour scheme! I’ll try and add a few more outfits you can recreate this Navarathri to look fab and festive while going light on your pocket too!
Outfit Details : Skirt – Material from RmKV, Chennai and designed and stitched by my Tailor, Top – Shilpi CP Ramasamy Salai, Heels -Flipkart, on my lips – Lakme Absolut hi-Definition Matte in the shade Pink Caress
Photography by Pranav Agarwal 😊
Also, the Winners of the Giveaway are :
First : Namitha Radhakrishnan
Second : Srishty Grover
Thrid : Niharika Singhal
Have a lovely week ahead! ❤️ Here’s a cute puppy to get you through the rough week
Basic Makeup Hacks and how to Get Started – A Guestpost + Giveaway!
Hey Ladies!I am so glad to write this post for Shilpa, our friendship goes back long in time, about 5 years back when we used to be colleagues. I still remember her suggestions to me for wearing formal clothes to a client in Delhi, haha! I knew there was something in this girl even then 😉 Shilpa has given me a great opportunity to write a post on makeup after seeing my collection! I want to thank her first for noticing my interest and giving me a stage to share my thoughts. Okay, now right into the post!
I never really thought too much about makeup until I decided to do my own makeup for my engagement and wedding. I was inspired by one of my close friends who did this and I was closely helping her. It was so much fun and you don’t need to be worried thinking what some random person will do to your face on your wedding day! That thought used to scare me a lot, so I stepped into the makeup world myself to explore and decide the way I want to look myself! (I make it sound like some big venture, LOL)
I am not going to be talking about bridal makeup of course; it is a wideeee topic and involves many products! However, as I learnt that, I discovered how to use few products to make yourself look bright – where people can’t say whether you have or do not have make up, just that natural look, highlighting your best features! I thought it would be best to share those tips here 😊
I will try to keep the number of products as minimum as possible, but please pardon me if I go overboard in a few places 😀 I am going to split it into face, eyes and lips as usual.
Face
- For a natural look, I usually don’t prefer to use any liquid foundation. For me it is just about touching up the face with a powder based foundation with light/ medium coverage. Try a Compaq powder if you want very light coverage.
- The product I recommend here is the MAC studio fix foundation powder; you can build this foundation powder to give more coverage as well. I know this is going to be pretty expensive, but I would spend the money on a good foundation since it is the base for your make up. If however, you want to go for a cheaper product I suggest the L’Oreal true match series – they are my all-time favorites. A great alternative to the MAC one!
- Next, BLUSHES. I love blushes! I think using a neutral/ light pink blush gives you a natural look. It just adds so much sheen and color to your face. You can use a matte blush if you want a morning look and shift to mineralized blushes which come with a glow for a night look!
- Again here I love MAC Petal Power blush! You can use a little for a light glow and build on to it for more glow for a night look! Honestly I haven’t tried many matte blushes, because I feel a blush should make your cheeks glow rather than just sitting there matte if you know what I mean 😏 Of course, everyone may not like it, so for matte finish I recommend the Revlon Matte blushes. If you want to go glowy (like me) then a cheaper alternative is the NYX baked blushes, I just loveee this product! It just makes your cheeks pop and make you look super cute, definitely recommend it! 👍
From left to right: Milani baked blush, MAC studio fix foundation powder, MAC petal power blush
Those are the two basic things for the face. If you have lot of under eye circles, sorry I have to say that you need some sort of a neutralizer and a concealer (like me :/) But I don’t use it for a natural look, they are a part of my face and I won’t let it bother me too much for an everyday look!
Eyes
- Eye Shadow : When it comes to eye make-up you need to shape your eyes and give them some depth so that they look nice and gorgeous. I recommend using a neutral palette for an everyday look. I love to always add a tinge of pink when it comes to my eyes! I don’t go for dark colors because I have dark circles and without properly concealing them, a dark eye shadow will make the eyes look even darker. That is something to remember for those who have dark circles around your eyes.
- I recommend using the Revlon/ L’oreal/ Lakme netural eye shadows. I also have a MAC palette which has one light color, one dark color and one light pink color.
- So to sort of take you through it, use the dark color just on your crease to give some depth and shape to the eyes, the pink one on your lids and the light color under your eyebrows. That is the basic pattern, just apply these colors and blend them together for an everyday breezy natural eye shadow look! (Shilpa here hi guys! I really had to poke my nose here at this point and add, I realised adding white eyeshadow below your brow bone and ever so lightly to the inside corner of your eyes really make them look wider! My limited gyan I have now passed on to the world!)
From left to right: MAC eye shadow palette, Lakme 9 to 5 series eye shadow palette
- Eye-liner and Kohl : I sometimes use just eye liner since I have dark circles; I try to avoid the kohl since it may smudge. *Tip* : to avoid smudging, top your kohl/ kajal with some black eye shadow, it will not smudge since the powder will prevent smudging!
- I love the Maybelline master precision eyeliner! In the Lakme series, I love the plain old liquid kajal, it is one of the best things I have used! For Kohl I recommend the Maybelline kajal and MAC Kohl
- The best part of eye make-up is…wait for it…MASCARA! Believe me, whatever eye make-up you do, it will not be complete if you don’t finish it with mascara. If you want to go that extra step, applying mascara after curling your lashes will make a bigger difference than just applying mascara.
- I recommend L’Oreal’s mascara or Maybelline mascaras. Benefit’s mascara is really good too! I haven’t tried any high end brands, but I have used Dior once and that one is great too!
From top to bottom: Benefit they are real mascara, Lake eye liner, Maybelline master precise eye liner, MAC black Kohl
Lips
- Once again for an au natural everyday look, I prefer a nude+pink color. In the picture below to create this color, I mixed a peach and dark pink color. I have always had a hard time finding a right color for indian skin tone in the US, I found this mix of colors to give the right blend I wanted, these lip colors are from Lakme! I also like the colors from Revlon and MAC. The NYX shiny lipsticks they are a personal favorite too!
- If you have some discoloration on your lips, use a lip liner before you put on your lip stick. A beige/ nude color would do the job perfectly; I use the NYX/ Revlon lip liners. This will form a great base to your lipstick and make it look seamless.
- Another great lip tip – just like how you moisturize your face before make up, don’t forget to moisturize your lips as well, put on a lip balm when you start your make up so that your lips are ready for make up by the time you get there 👍
From left to right: Revlon lipstick, Lakme lipstick, NYX Lip liner
From bottom to top: NYX lip liner, Lakme lipstick, Revlon lipstick, All blended – notice this color is between a nudish peach and pink – I thought this perfectly suited my skin tone and the lip liner has given a strong base to the two lipsticks which make the lipstick look flawless.
Oh and one last thing, I didn’t mention about brushes I used, mostly for this look I used the small brushes that came with the palette and also my hands of course. If you are interested, I suggest owning a couple of brushes for the face and one for the eyes (mostly for blending the eye shadows)!
Finally in the pictures below.. The natural everyday no make-up/ make-up kinda flawless look I created for a casual Saturday shopping with all the above mentioned products, but I used a concealer since this post is too special and I definitely wanted to make the make-up special, haha, anyway all the other products are just the ones I have listed above (P.S. you can see that the blush on my cheeks becomes a bit glowy when the light hits my cheeks – the last pic was taken in the night in front of lights, please ignore my bag behind 😋)
Overall, I hope this post was useful for you people out there and I hope it inspires you to try on make-up and feel dressed up and festive about yourself during special occasions or even daily to office!! I am not suggesting going overboard, but believe me a little of it will make you feel good 😃
Oh and I hope you guys had fun reading! Take care you all!😊
A note from Shilpa : Deepika has explored makeup from scratch in a span of couple of years and I thought she ll be able to teach all girls (like me) who want to start their makeup journey but just don’t know where to start it! Recently I saw this picture on Deepika’s wall on Facebook and that’s when this guest post idea struck me and we got talking and the rest I would like to grandly claim is history! 
Plum Cosmetics Giveaway!
A couple of weeks back I had reviewed the Plum NaturStudio All-day-wear Kohl Stick (read review here) And Plum found the response so overwhelming that they decided to host a giveaway on my blog! This giveaway runs for seven days (winners get announced with the post next Monday) Giveaway is open through my Instagram profile, blog and Facebook profile.
All you got to do is follow my blog/Facebook page Click here/Instagram profile (@frillthrills_fashionblog/Instagram) and subscribe to the Plum mailing list here. Once you’ve done that comment in this blog post saying done and add one home remedy beauty hack you follow for your eyes and skin. One lucky winner gets a NaturStudio All day Wear Kohl and the second and third winners get the Choco-Latte creamy body wash and Choco-Latte luxuriant body lotion respectively!
Giveaway open to Indian Residents only! Do enter and stand a chance to win these amazing products 😊 have a nice week ahead !!
Shades of Summer! ~ Ft. Just my luck by A&M
The change of climate is such a looked forward to event in the west…closets, schedules, timings and emotions all change with changes in the seasons. My country in general and my city in specific however (here we go!) has just one two climates – summer without rains and summer with rains. Yes. YES. So basically we are wet for 8 months of the year because of sweat and wet for the remaining 4 months of the year because of…wait for it…sweat + water (rains!) We have no anticipation or nervousness while pulling back our curtains every morning or while checking the daily weather forecast. We are the land of the risen sun. We do sunny. forever. period.
All that being said, we have some major advantages. We can use every piece of clothing through the year without thinking about things like transitions or changing wardrobes like three-four times a year. We get to plan for that road trip we have been meaning to take in December or May or August without giving a thought to any factor other than our mood (really!) We enjoy parks and flowers and lawns and hills and sands and beaches through the year. We do sunny forever and you’ll find us really happy about that!
As an ode to this Indian Summer, here’s a really summery and bright and vibrant outfit I put together. Its the perfect sunny-sunny and the sunny-but-rainy outfit you can probably lay hands on!!
This is a beautiful dress which is a mix of chanderi silk and a Kantha work fabric designed completely by the fabulous Just My Luck by A&M ! Had you told me lime yellow with lime green butta work on it would go so well with blue block prints I would have scoffed at you. But loook!!👇👇👇
While trying out the look I was trying out a couple of different accessories to sort of figure out which went best with the dress, but ended up loving each piece completely so decided to include every picture of the shoot in the post (except one where I looked positively hideous because I was sneezing and simultaneously asking my sister to stop clicking. Yes.)
This dress to me defines summer. An Indian Summer! It’s bright, its light and comfortable which makes it my go-to piece when its bright warm and sunny and its a one piece, well above the ankle, just wear it and you’re good to go sort of, elegant outfit just right for the sunny yet rainy sort of day where jeans is just not an option. Aaand needless to say, I felt fabulous in it. I was very particular about getting the brightness of the lime green against the morning sun and my sister, my photographer, so sweetly and readily agreed to get up for this photoshoot 😍😘
Just my luck is a boutique store dealing with every Indian fabric, designing them with a modern, retro kind of twist and yet giving them a very desi vibe. They deal with fabrics ranging from ikat (as seen in this post) to chanderi silk and outfits ranging from booty shorts to maxi dresses. I got to interact with Aruna, and she is the perfect example of “do what you love and you’ll outdo yourself every single day!”
Outfit details : Kantha Dress – Just my Luck by A&M (catch them on Facebook by clicking here or Instagram by clicking here!), mini gladiator sandals and nude pumps – Westside, Long bubbles chain – Westside , Necklace used as headgear – thrift shopped off the streets of Mumbai.
Hope you enjoyed this post readers. I sure enjoyed putting it up. I’m off to bask in the summery morning of Monday (too positive?) You enjoy your Monday too and if you are from a tropical country, I would sign off by telling you to keep calm, because winter is never coming. Haaa!
Fighting Blues!
Are cringing and complaining the first reactions you have on waking up on a bright Sunday morning too? Is that like..normal? The thought that the weekend is 50% over just beats out the “the glass is half full” kinda optimism out of me. So to help you (and me for that matter) push those sad Monday blues out, I’m showing you how fun blue can get with this “all blue” outfit.
After months and months of searching tirelessly, I at last found the right pair of light blue jeans readers. And I honestly couldn’t have been happier.
I paired my perfect blue jeans with this midnight blue with white star printed shirt and with my blue Aldo loafers.
Sometimes I find that going high on various shades of a single color works after all when we tread with caution and don’t go over board. Do try the technique with soft shades like blue, peach, cream, green etc and SHOW ME!
In this case for example, a kind of balance was restored, or so I would like to think, by bringing in many aspects of white into the look. Any pastel shade would actually do the trick, black and white being the perfect colors that they are, would do the trick even better!
That brings us to that one accessory which I’ve never shown on this blog though it has been with me for ages now, my Rocky-S bag!
Woohoo dont you like love that bag ? What with the golden zippers and metal rings it gives the whole bag such a “I’m the boss” look.
Ever since I went public about this blog, I have had some amazing suggestions about how to make my blog work better and reach out to more people effectively. I’m so glad I have such a receptive creative and helpful bunch of friends. Shout out to one friend in particular who just killed it (nailed it more like) with his amazing ideas about how Frillthrills could grow into a household name. Jaydeep I’m totally capitalizing on the free advise you gave me and the ones I am going to get soon. Thank you. 💝 after all its not every day you meet your extra ordinarily smart friend who has a flair for ideas about literally everything under the sun. Remember that story about being able to sell refrigerators to Eskimos? That’s my friend for you. 😎
Outfit details :
Light blue jeans : 109° F (Lifestyle), Starry shirt : Fast fashion Besant Nagar (have you checked out that store already?) Bag : Rocky S (Shopper’s stop), Shoes : Aldo, Watch : Fossil
Have you guys gone high on one color like I did? What contrasting or complimenting color did you guys use to subtle down the look then? Tell me! Show me! 😀 have a great week. *grumble*
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