Customize your Beauty!

 A post dedicated to women:

When it comes to beauty products, the choice we women have is extremely wide.

From luxurious brand like Dior and Givenchy to more affordable ones such as Maybelline, Rimmel and MaxFactory, you can find what best suits your needs, your age, your style and your skin type: smoothing cream if you have started to have wrinkles; eyelash extenders if you do not have sexy enough eye-look; an infinite number of foundations in cream, powder, sticks.

However great the available selection, it is not for granted you will find what best suits you.

An example? I have an uncommon skin complexion and texture, so it is not easy to find a good foundation to match my needs and a lipstick in a colour which would not make me look like a (weird) doll.

I bet you know what the solution could be, here. Yes! Customized items!

Let' s start from what you need in order to have a perfect facial base.

At Giella.com (www.giella.com) you can have a personalized foundation, powder, bronzer and highlighter. You start by selecting the colour matching your skin and then you choose what type of "function" the product should have. For instance, if you have oily skin, you may choose to mix it with tea tree oil or oil control; you can then choose if you want the product to have a medium or full coverage, if you want some shimmering in it and if you prefer to have it in a bottle or in a pump.

When ordering a foundation, you can even select the texture your prefer: liquid, cream, coloured cream or concealer.

Once you have your perfect facial base, move on to the blush page (http://giella.com/productList.aspx?c=262). Over 60 tones to choose from and - again- the possibility to select mixers, coverage, garnish.

If you, like me,  have a preference for organic and vegan products, have a look around at Etsy.com and stop by at La Mellite (http://www.etsy.com/shop/lamellite). La Mellite allows you to customize three products: glow face and body bronzer, lip shimmer and body butter shimmer with 24K gold. For all three products, you can have them scented or added with perfumed oil, essential oil or certified organic essential oils, such as lemon, sweet orange, peppermint and basil.

For a  feminine look, how about a nice lipstick?

For this, you can either go back to Giella.com or

you can try Lilie (http://www.liliemakeup.com/).

At Lilie, you can customize lipsticks, lip polish,

stackables and lip pots. You select the colour pigment you like and then customize it by choosing: type of base (cream, matte, butter), frost or toner (if you want a slightly different tonality), add-ins (lip plumping, moisturizer, sunscreen and others), flavours and essence (carrot cake, chocolate, vanilla and many more), foils (if you want a shimmering look) and ayurvedic essential oil, if you like it.

In case you had in mind a specific lipstick colour from a specific brand which is not easy to get, no problem: Lilie would recreate it for you! Just send a sample or find the brand and lipstick among those listed on the website.

After a nice day with a nice customized make up, time to sleep comes.

Before going to bed, you will likely need a face cleanser. I bet you will not find a more natural cleanser than the one Grateful Body (direct link: http://www.gratefulbody.com/CustomCleanser_p/hc.htm) offers: certified as cruelty free (not tested on animals), vegan, environmental friendly and organic/chemical-free,

the cleanser can be customized according to your skin type. You can then add in appropriate boosters, such as skin detox or anti-bacterial and then choose a scent. The base cost for the cleanser is $ 24, with each additional feature costing between $ 3 and $ 4.

If you are a big fan of customized items, then the next step could be to make your own beauty products. Considering the number of books Amazon offers on the topic, it seems like there will be a lot to say about it.

Well...let's save it for another blog post!

Sofia of Nu-Nomad

Tailored-Made...Food!

When you go to a restaurant and you don’t really like an ingredient in the dish you are ordering, in most cases you can ask the chef to remove that very ingredient from your dish. 

Have you ever wondered if there is any similar option for food sold in shops? 

In many supermarkets in Sweden, you can make your own breakfast muesli. Big plastic jars in shops display a good selection of cereals, nuts and dried fruits that you can pick and mix at your own taste. Which is a good way to have muesli not only in your favorite ingredients’ combination, but also in the quantity most suitable for your needs.

In a time when one can order food online, also people living outside of Sweden can now enjoy to personalize their own food. 

So, here are some shops found on the internet which allow you to personalize your food. The shops listed have been selected  - among others - for two simple reasons:

1. Products are shipped internationally. But especially and most importantly...

2 ....their website was in English, hence accessible to the writer of this article !

After a "google" look around, it seems like food personalization is offered mainly in sweets. 

 Customized chocolate bars makers deserve a star for the variety of ingredients one can choose from.

At www.myswisschocolate.ch, for example, you can add to your favorite chocolate base (white, milk or dark chocolate) various spices and ingredients. You can find common ingredients like coconut flakes or banana chips, but also uncommon ones, like curry and blue poppy seeds. You can then decorate your bar with real lavender flowers or even edible golden flakes. If you wish to make it a gift, you can add a “Happy Birthday” writing and wrap your creation in a personalized paper.

Similar offers come from www.chocri.co.uk, which add to golden flakes also edible silver flakes and the possibility to enrich your chocolate bar with ingredients such as tiny cookies or tiny pretzels. If you feel lost in front of all the potential combinations, get inspired by the recommended creations and you won’t go wrong.

Youbars (www.youbars.com), instead, allows you to make your own energy bar. Also here, the selection is wide and as a plus, there is a Nutrition Fact Calculator to calculate the nutritional values of the bar you create. So, for a bar made of organic dates, soy protein powder, almonds, apples, agave nectar, vanilla extract and rice cereals, I got a 154-calorie bar. You can see how bars are made in this video, from the shop’s website: www.youbars.com/press/

Continuing with our list, Myowncookie (www.myowncookie.com) gives you the possibility to personalize your own fortune cookies. You can select the dipping you prefer and insert the fortune message you prefer.

Need an appropriate drink to serve your personalized cookies? 

Go visit www.adagio.com and create a tailored tea blend. You can mix up to 3 tea types and choose among blends which have detailed descriptions and reviews. Once you have made your selection, you can give your new blend a name and write a short story about it. And as final step, you can add your photo on the tea package that will contain your new creation. 

Could it be more personalized than this?

Now, if you live in US, have also a look at the following article: http://mashable.com/2011/01/24/customize-food-online/

You will find a list of interesting options which are – unfortunately - available only for shipping within US.

There surely are many other shops where you can customize food that I have not yet stumbled upon. 

Do you know any?

And there are for sure many people who have already had the experience of buying customized food. 

Are you one of those?

If your answer is Yes to one of the above, please share your experience with us!

Sofia of Nu-Nomad

Starting off the blog - How did we get here?

When I started making handmade bags, I somehow thought the way for it to become a business was to create a fashion brand.
That meant creating a style, seasonal collections, specific features that would make the bags easily recognizable as "Nu-Nomad" bags.
And this is - I would say - what most fashion businesses do.


Then customers´ themselves shaped the way for a change. 
Very often I would hear "Do you by chance have that bag in that color?" or "Would it be possible to have a bag with that fabric, that pattern, but in this model...?"


Clearly, many people had a precise idea of what they really wanted! 
Therefore, why not focus on allowing them to make bags in the way they liked, rather than trying to promote a whole new style?
And here came the idea that Nu-Nomad should be a sort of "personal" handbags´ factory.


Today, there are many companies that allow you to design your own products. 
Most famous examples are likely Nike and Converse, which allow you to make your own sneakers; Zazzle. com, which allows you to customize various items, from t-shirts to mugs; Lego, which allows you to create your own set of Lego bricks.


Then, there are independent designers and artists who would also customize for you a big variety of interesting things. I have gathered some of them in this list:
http://www.etsy.com/treasury/4def5dd992c08eef1b0d368e/customize-yourself?ref=pr_treasury
They are all sellers from Etsy.com and they all handmake their products.


The concept of personalizing what you buy is extremely interesting. 
After years of mass produced items, it is nice to have something which truly fits your taste. And even more if it is handmade especially for you.


As you may have already guessed, this blog will be about customized things.
We will have a look not only at items to be personalized which are available for purchase, but also at trends and ideas which can be inspiring if you would like to customize something but feel short on creativity.


Please feel free to contribute with comments, links and others, if you also love customized stuff!


Sofia of Nu-Nomad


See Nu-Nomad´s shop here:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/nunomad


See also Nu-Nomad´s Facebook Page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Nu-nomad/103100143079459