Lorac Pro Palette & Summer Getup

I ordered an eyeshadow palette a while ago which finally arrived today - I think it was beautybar.com. I've never really had an eyeshadow palette before, besides my miniature $2 trio (refill pack) from Missha. I was tempted to get the Urban Decay Naked palette, but I'm not a huge fan of all that shimmer so I went with the Lorac Pro because 50% of it is matte, but I can still play around with shimmer.

Thank god for the eyeshadow primer, because I have none and never had any before...

'Lo and behold! Hot dayum, that case be smooth like a baby's butt.

A mirror is always a good thing in a palette.

Doesn't look 100% because I decided to be a retard and smudged some around with a tissue... :P

I also ordered some makeups for my biffle for her birthday! Checked the packaging and stuff, all good. Hopefully she loves these and find them suitable, I did get them because the reviews on them seemed pretty decent! The concealer/foundation is available at Mecca for around the same price (there's shipping and exchange rate involved) but the eyeshadow trio however, is not. Both products seem pretty suited to a apply-and-go type of gals, being compact and multifunctional sort of products. 

The weather has been so disgusting lately, I can almost feel a heatstroke coming on. Sucks how hot, sticky, humid weather doesn't allow me to wear the clothes I want. Ain't nobody got time for effective thermoregulation AND fashion sense.

Being the weirdo I am, I actually googled whether or not people can regulate their body temperature properly in this kind of weather in a range of clothing.

Turns out NOT. According to Wiki (don't tell me you don't believe anything on Wiki, we all secretly do), in hot-humid temperatures, clothing can impede efficient evaporation, and clothing made from plastic fabrics (basically most clothing that's not cotton) are impermeable to sweat and does not help heat loss through sweat evaporation and actually contributes to heat stress. Um.

Glad I'm actually quite picky with clothing materials, definitely favouring cotton over anything. But who wants to wear the same t-shirt and shorts everyday for half a year...

Top - ASOS, Shorts - Melrose Avenue

Stationary Gift Ideas

I realised that buying stationary/office-ware is a good way to go if you don't know what to get someone. It's useful, simple, and even if it doesn't do much lying around the house, there's a good change it will get used at some point.

Better than getting someone generic Christmas stuff like soap, candy, candles, mugs and plain home-ware. (Although I actually like all those things, some people find them useless and throw them/give them away.)

A picked up a few things, for gifting and for myself for Christmas and 2015.

A Sentence a Day?
Or a journal. Something to use everyday. Something to get your mind off things and something small to commit to, if you're not big on huge journal entries and all that.

 Pretty cool, you answer a different question everyday for a year and do it again for another 2 years!

A 2015 diary, because who doesn't love a sleek little diary to fit into your bag?

Although the exterior is really nice, the inside of it doesn't really appeal to me that much, something about the layout seems a bit off. But nevertheless one of the better ones I came across!

A beautiful little notebook for school, home or office :)

 Cute little designs are an added bonus!

A sturdy, refillable pen - so you can keep it for as long as possible.

Cute little quotes on them are also an added bonus!

A diary, but a customisable, refillable, leather cover diary.

You can refill the inside, you can change things and take things out/put new bits in, and it also kind of works as a folder, you can fit lots of things in there. A pretty little gift for anyone who likes to keep organised in style :)

 Don't forget the diary part, to organise actual time!

DIY Cactus Vase

I recently bought a beautiful faceted vessel, and also received an idea from a customer on how to use the vessel as more than just a makeup brush holder or a pencil holder. A plant pot! Mostly for cacti/succulents - because they are low maintenance and don't need to be watered, hence you can use any old vases and pots.

All you need to do:

Step 1. Acquire a cute little vase. The quirkier, the cuter.

Step 2. Acquire a cute little cactus/succulent. This one is a cactus.

Step 3. Acquire some pebbles/small stones for drainage. (So the water has somewhere to go to prevent drowning the plant.)

Step 4. Place a good amount of pebbles to fill the bottom. roughly 1/4 to 1/3 of the vase.

Step 5. Remove ridiculously cute cactus/succulent from original pot.

Step 6. Fill the vase with the plant, add any extra soil if you need. Adding water helps get the plant into the vase - to press the soil down and stabilise the cactus.

Step 7. Add any extra pretty pebbles on top to hide the soil and enjoy your prettied up cactus/succulent!

If you get cacti or succulent that bloom flowers, that's an added bonus. I'm not sure if this one will, it was a random cactus my mum got as a gift, from a place called "Dans Plants'.

The instructions tell me how to take care of the plant: give them light, water well and allow the soil to dry out between waterings. It also says "dryer in winter" - which I don't know what that means, whether its its drier (spelling error?) in winter, or if I need to use a dryer in winter. I'm gonna go with the 'the plant is drier in winter' theory and hope for the best!

My ultimate plant wish is an actual DIY succulent farm, in a huge shallow dish with lots of pebbles and a collection of my favourite succulents. Also, I have just learned that all cacti are succulents, but not all succulents are cacti. (Like the saying all German Shepherds are dogs, but not all dogs are German Shepherds). Interesting...

Skincare Drama

My skin is acting seriously crazy recently, and I think it just may be a combination of not-so-great food choices, lack of a proper sleeping cycle, water, and unsuitability of the skin care products I'm currently using (including the type of Clarisonic brush head).

After switching to the Sanctuary Spa Hot Polishing Cleanser, I realised when I tried using it as a regular cleanser by rinsing it off with water that as nourishing as it was, it was too oily and rich for my combination skin.

So, I went out and bought a some new skincare products hoping that it will make a difference! I ran out of my Chia seed cream, and didn't want to buy a new one because I'm getting a few of them next year when a family member comes back from Korea.

Along the way, I also got a new hand cream because I have also run out of my Jurlique one. I have to admit, Antipodes stuff seems a bit gimmicky to me because the prices are quite high and not a lot of people say that the products do what they claim. But I do think you won't know anything until you actually try a product on your own skin.

The H20 plumping serum seemed to have pretty much the same ingredients as the Tone correcting serum, just without some extra added fancies. The price was much lower as well, so I purchased it for a good deal, $38 from priceline (there was a 20% off sale). Just a few drops is enough for the entire face (but it absorbs insanely fast so I have to spread it out as quickly as I can), and it leaves my skin feeling soft and moisturised in the lightest form of hydration possible. Great for oily/combination skin!

The hand cream is my new favourite - I love the smell so much! It smells like oranges and reminds me of orange chocolate. I don't need as much as I do with the Jurlique hand cream, and price-wise it is also cheaper. I think I will go back to this brand more often from now on.

The Moreish sensitive moisturiser is nothing amazing to be honest, I think it's just a cheaper version of any other natural New Zealand skincare brand (similar to Trilogy, Antipodes, etc), but the price is really great for what you get. I think it's a bit rich for my skin when I use both the products, but I think it would be a great moisturiser for winter.

After trying out a Sanctuary Spa product (which was so-so for me), I took a risk and snagged another product of the brand. I have to say, I am thoroughly impressed by this mask compared to the polishing cloth cleanser! It's amazeballs! I don't care much about the thermal shenanigans, it just feels hot when you first rub it in. But, after I rinse this off, my skin feels sooooooooo soft, soothed and hydrated! No new spots, reduced redness/swollen spots and supple skin the next morning, sweet.

Hopefully these new products will keep my spots at bay, considering I have a pretty decent skincare regime in removing my makeup properly, cleansing twice a day, applying toner and what not. So far, so good!

Mini Homeware Haul

Just a few things I grabbed at kikki.K to put some makeup products and brushes in. I will probably buy more things seeing as I can get a good deal in the store, but man, I seriously wonder what a real Swedish or Scandinavian homeware store would look like. Scratch that, ANY Scandinavian store to be honest... *drool*

I reckon these pieces scream sleek but cute! It has that "edgy" look but made of really soft colours with gold detailing - which actually seems to be a theme in some of the products.

I will probably do another post once I set them up with my other little bits and bobs on my table alongside some of my room décor! Maybe I might grab a few more things too...

Also, how cute are these Charlotte tea towels from Target? You'll never guess how much this pack of 3 were... $1! I was after the plain white towels (which were also incredibly down to $2 for a pack of 3) when an employee (an older lady) showed me these saying how much of a bargain they were. She was definitely right... I think I've probably found the biggest bargains ever at Target, David Jones and sometimes Myer. Big places tend to have random items lying around that have been reduced to crazy prices. It makes you feel pretty awesome when you do stumble across ridiculously low-priced things!

Some Essentials

I'm not one to use much makeup, let alone makeup that requires attentive use and careful precision - ain't nobody got time for that.

I recently purchased the Daniel Sandler watercolour fluid blusher in Cherub (apparently the best seller and easiest to match). Due to my lack of lip products, I also purchased two very different Barry M lip paints because they are similar to Lime Crime lipsticks but are much more affordable. I also am not that keen on spending much on lipsticks because I don't really bother with lips most of the time.

One is a moisturising lip paint in black cherry (a vampy berry colour) and the other was sunset (a bright, pastelly coral colour).

The blusher is like a more watery fluid like paint that seems to separate and needs to be shaken vigorously before use.
It stains very easily but also blends easily, so I can see the attraction in why this is a great long-lasting blush.
The after-feel of it is very matte, slightly chalky yet dewy unlike powder blushers. 

Everyday essentials, minus the foundation. (I change between foundations day to day, so sometimes I go for BB cream, sometimes I go for full coverage, sometimes I go for tinted moisturiser and sometimes I go for nothing at all.)

Summer is here!

December - the month where my life is full of mundane things, when it's starting to get ridiculously hot, when life is full of shopping, and all things Christmassy.

I started off December with some baking yesterday, and these cookies were a complete hit. They turned out better than I thought despite the fact I made up the recipe as I went along and made these just to use up left over ingredients in the pantry. They are... gluten-free cereal peanut butter cookies!

I used up the rest of my gluten-free corn flakes, some sorghum flakes and added a random gluten-free Weet-bix to play around with the consistency. I then dumped the remaining contents of my gluten-free self-raising flour mix (not even 3/4 of a cup) into the mix.

To bind it together, I used roughly 75mL of rice bran oil, 1/2 of sugar, and 1 egg.

To flavour it, I added a teaspoon of vanilla and 2 tablespoons of natural smooth peanut butter - because I thought it would make the right consistency.

And right it was! They turned out as puffed up mega crispy cookies (my mum likes crispy), they were sweet but not too much, and the texture was insane! It had chewy bits of corn flakes, and some bits in the middle were chewy (when it was warm) while being crispy on the outside.

It was a gluten-free and dairy-free recipe, but I think I could have omitted the egg if I wanted to make it vegan.

Just a bunch of cereals in a wet sloppy mixture!

Home-made looking, decently sized cookies!

Due to my skin recently acting up, I followed up with the baking with a home-made DIY facial mask. I think the Neutrogena naturals products I'm using aren't going well with my skin, and my face prefers the sensitive Clarisonic brush head than the normal one I am currently using.

Mask: Oats soaked in liquorice root tea + coconut oil + dash of vinegar + small egg white.

It was a very runny mixture, but I only needed a thin layer on my face anyway. If it was thicker the oat bits might have slid off my face in chunks!

I bought this cleanser to replace the Neutrogena stuff, and I am liking the process of using a hot muslin cloth to rub the cleanser off. Not sure if it has done any good for my skin, but I've only used it 3 times so far.

Outfit of the day, for work! I am running out of Topshop clothes to wear to work...

On the way to the bus stop, I came across this patch in the pathway. It smelled like roses or something, and had all these flower buds fallen onto the ground to create some floral layer.

Wasted so much time walking back and forth to the bus stop (I had to go back home because I forgot something and came back out with a camera). I ended up sweating like a pig, it was disgusting. I also realised I was running late when I was taking photos! So... cue impromptu watch photo! But isn't the ground so lovely? And the smell!

Snack Attack!

So, I love snacks. WHO DOESN'T?!

I like to eat when I'm bored, I like to eat when I'm hungry, I like to eat when I'm not hungry, basically I just like to eat. But I don't eat a lot at once, so I usually need to eat smaller bits more frequently, which actually leads to eating a lot of snacks... which isn't always the best for you.

But never fear, because healthier snacks are here! Obviously don't eat these in place of a proper meal, but it's a lot better than eating a ton of junk food (I still need a little bit of that too hehe).

Eating the least processed type of food is the best way to go, because that way there's less additives in there and you're eating the more purest form of real food.

Nut-based bars are really great, because they fill you up, give you sustained energy and they taste amazing! Most of the raw bars that I like are nut-based, and usually made of dates, almonds and cashews.

Chocolate can be healthy too as long as you don't eat the entire block, and the darker it is, the better it is for you. It's packed with antioxidants and it honestly satisfies my sweet tooth cravings more than anything else. Well, how can it not, it's chocolate!

Some of my favourite bars and one type of dark chocolate I usually get. I also don't normally eat protein bars because they're usually loaded up with a load of bad things, so it's quite a treat when I do have one. Even when I do, I get the most natural/unprocessed type I can get without artificial sweeteners colours, flavours of preservatives.

These two are my all-time favourite snack bars, and they're both' raw. The first one has cocoa liquor in it, which gives it a genuinely chocolatey-taste without the yuckiness and sick-feeling you get from eating actual chocolate. It's basically a "healthy" chocolate bar.
The second one is so good because it's practically a muesli bar made up of everything unrefined. It's tastes all coconutty and coffee-like, and satisfies any cravings.

I don't know how these tomatoes are made/grown, but they are out of this world! It's nothing like regular cherry or grape tomatoes. It's softer, but not in the ew-it's-not-fresh kind of way, they're like tiny balls of a tomato-melon hybrid. It's unbelievably sweet compared to a regular tomato, and I have been going back for more week after week.

These are just some of my favourite healthier alternative snacks, but I can name a ton more that incorporates smoothies, cereal and even popcorn into the mix. It's just nice to know you can eat a chocolate bar without feeling guilty though, and having muesli bars on-the-go is really handy!