November Empties/Products I've Used Up!

 

Hi everyone! Earlier in the month I decided that I would start doing some "Product Empties" posts. I love these on YouTube, so I am going to have a go at my own blog versions. I've been trying to make an effort to use up a bunch of products that I've had for quite a while. I have forgotten to take pictures of quite a few products before I threw away the packaging, but I will list them at the end.

 

So, without further ado, these are some of the products I have used up in November.

 

 

 

I used up my Christian Dior gentle toning lotion, which was kind of sad for me because I bought this while I was in Vegas (along with quite a few other products) and I absolutely love it. I'm not even sure if I can buy this in Australia, which is also really quite sad. I love that this is good for sensitive skin, because my skin really is very, very, very sensitive. It also has velvet and peony extract, which makes it smell really nice and feel really nice on my face. If I can find this product again, I will most definitely be repurchasing it.

 

I used up a lot of perfumes this month. I used up a bottle of Vera Wang, Princess, which I have had a few times now and I never get sick of it. I will probably repurchase this because I love it so much.

 

I also used up a bottle of Jimmy Choo EDP, which is a very interesting fragrance and I can never quite put my finger on what exactly it smells like. The small bottle at the bottom of the picture is a miniature Miss Dior Chérie, which I used up this month as well.

 

I used up my Chanel, Chance perfume this month. This is a lovely fragrance for spring, and I suppose it's quite fitting that I used it up on the second-last day of spring for the year.

 

I used up a full-sized Miss Dior Chérie this month, but I had to throw it away with a tiny bit left in it because it was starting to make my skin break out in a rash. :( I suspect that it was just getting a bit old, because I've never had a reaction to this perfume.

 

Another very sad moment for me this month was the day I used up the last of my Mango Temptation fragrance mist from Victoria's Secret. I LOVE this fragrance, and I have been using it so sparingly since I bought it in Vegas (in 2011). I was sad to see this go, because obviously we don't have Victoria's Secret in Australia. I guess I'll just have to go back again soon to stock up!

 

 

Other Products I Used Up This Month (Not Pictured):

 

One tube of Lucas Paw Paw Ointment (essential product, will definitely repurchase)

A tube of Veet bladeless hair removal cream

Coconut body scrub from the Body Shop

One bottle of Brazil Nut shower cream from the Body Shop

One Chanel mascara, in black

 

 

I hope you guys enjoyed this post! I'm saving up for a video camera at the moment, so hopefully I'll be able to start making some YouTube videos to complement these blog posts as well. :-)

 

Love and Light,

 

xoxo

Christmas Haul!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

These are some of the bits and pieces I have picked up for this Christmas!

I am totally in love with these wristbands, I am going to be wearing a different one to work each day until Christmas. :-) These teddy bear earrings are super cute as well; and I absolutely adore my smiley snowman mug. I'm going to drink my coffee out of that on Christmas morning.

 

I may have gone a little crazy at Dusk, buying candles this past couple of weeks. But these were so yummy, I couldn't not pick them up! The candle on the left is called "Red Velvet Cake," and it really does smell exactly like a red velvet cake (funnily enough). I actually have this candle burning right now; and my entire bedroom smells like a yummy cake. I know it's not specifically a Christmas candle, but who doesn't love dessert smells?

 

The candle on the right is a Christmas candle with a double wick. It is gingerbread and orange peel. I adore the smell of this candle, and I really like that it's made from soy. I prefer to have soy candles, and this one smells absolutely amazing. It smells like freshly baked gingerbread. I haven't burned this one yet, because I'm saving it for Christmas. The packaging is really gorgeous as well, I love the purple jar and the beautiful patterns.

 

The next two things I bought were these candles, also from Dusk. I got Pink Butter Icing, which again is not a Christmas candle, but it smells like a patisserie and it's pink... Need I say more? Even though Christmastime is really hot here in Australia, I still like the idea of burning yummy candles to get into the Christmas spirit. I have burned this one quite a few times, and it's a really nice sweet fragrance, but not as strong as the Red Velvet Cake candle.

 

The last candle for this haul is a Christmas candle, called Candy Cane. This lovely candle also comes in the large size with a double wick, but on the particular day that I went shopping, I didn't have very much money so I settled for the smaller size. Knowing me, though, I will probably go back to get the large size because this candle smells very strongly of peppermint; and I LOVE peppermint. I haven't burned this one yet, because as I said, I'm waiting until it gets a bit closer to Christmas to burn my Christmas-specific candles, but I can't wait for my room to be filled with this amazing smell.

 

This is a tealight holder that I bought as a Christmas present for my mum. I saw it in Dusk on my trip there last week and loved it, so when I went back this week I decided to pick it up. It wasn't overly expensive, either, so I might get a couple more to give to her. It has a lovely pattern of reindeer, swirly trees and snowflakes, which I think my mum will really like.

 

 

 

I am proud to say that I have indeed finished my Christmas shopping, however I tend to pick up a few extra things for people in the lead up to Christmas. I do want to get something extra for my dad, I'm just having a really difficult time figuring out what. And I want to get a couple more things for my mum and my best friend. Again, I'm not sure what those things will be.

 

 

So that's what I've hauled so far for Christmastime, I hope you guys are having an amazing day/night wherever you are.

Love and Light.

xoxo

Outfit of the Day!

Hi guys!

I really liked my outfit today, so I thought I would do an Outfit of the Day post!

I have been getting so sick of wearing black all the time (at my jobs), so today I decided to put on a little red dress and feel a bit more summer-y. I curled my hair on Saturday and now it's Wednesday (I only wash my hair once a week... Don't judge me), so this is a very messy, undone hairstyle but I think that's okay. Nothing I'm wearing here was very expensive, apart from my makeup. It just goes to show that sometimes you can put together a really cute outfit on a small budget!

Outfit:

Dress: Kmart
Watch: Forever New
Shoes: Kmart (I'm sensing a theme here, hahaha)

Beauty Notes:

Nail Polish: Australis
Foundation: Yves Saint Laurent
Lip Gloss: Bonne Bell, Vanilla Frosting
Eyeshadow: Nars 'Isolde' duo
Mascara: Yves Saint Laurent, Noir Radical in black
Eyeliner: Napoleon Perdis kohl eyeliner in black
Bronzer: Nars, 'Laguna'
Tan: Kate Somerville tanning towellettes


I hope you guys enjoyed this OOTD, let me know in the comments if you would like to see more of these!

Love and Light

xoxo

Does Size Matter? (Or, How Much Makeup is Too Much Makeup?)

Lately, I have been watching a lot of beauty videos on YouTube. I particularly like the ones where the YouTuber does a tour of their makeup collections, so I have been watching quite a few of those. And it got me thinking, how much makeup is too much makeup?

I thought that I had a lot of makeup, but when I started watching beauty vloggers on YouTube and seeing how much makeup they purchase on a regular basis, and witnessing the enormity of their makeup collections, my own collection started to feel very small.

 I am in no way judging these girls, I think their collections are amazing and I don't think there is anything wrong with having a large collection of something that you love. It is just a concept that I find curious. How much makeup can one person realistically use?

There are all kinds of varying "rules" about how long a makeup product lasts for. Some people say you shouldn't keep a mascara longer than six months; and others say three months is the absolute maximum. Personally, I have used certain mascaras for over a year and not had any problems. Creams don't tend to have as long a shelf life as powders, but should we really throw them away just because we've had them for longer than six months? That seems silly and wasteful to me. I take care of my makeup; and if it still smells and looks as good as the day I bought it, I'm not going to throw it away. My makeup collection is carefully and deliberately constructed. I don't just buy makeup because it's there, so if I spend my money on a product, I want to use it until it's finished, not until some magazine or blogger on the internet says I should throw it away.

But in saying all of that, I have to wonder: If a product has been in your makeup collection for three or four years and you blatantly state that you never use it and will probably never use it, is it really worth holding on to? Makeup can carry sentimental value, certainly the red Chanel lipstick my mum gave me for my birthday many years ago holds a lot of sentimental value for me and I still have it. But it also hasn't dried up, it still works, and I still love the colour. But what about makeup that vloggers point out in their collections and say, "I don't really like this product," or "I never use this/will never use this"? Do those products really belong in your collection, if that's the way you feel about them?

In the spirit of not being wasteful, you could give away the products you don't use/like, provided that it's hygienic. A liquid foundation with a pump, a lip gloss you've never, ever touched, and any kind of powder is perfectly okay to be given away to somebody who might love it. I don't recommend giving away used mascaras, eyeliners or lip products that you have used on yourself, though. You could gather all of your untouched, hygienic products and get together with a group of friends for a swap.

I recently purged my makeup collection, cleaned up some palettes and gave a whole bunch of stuff to my mum. I wasn't really using them, or felt like I would never be able to use them all up, so I gave them to my mum. I gave her a bunch of powder eyeshadows, a powder blush, things like that. It was all perfectly safe to share; and they look much nicer on her than they did on me!

The added bonus is the fact that now I have heaps more room for new makeup. ;-)

So, with all of these things in mind, I'm still left to wonder what constitutes "too much makeup." The best I can figure is that it's different for everybody. Everybody who has a makeup collection should be content and comfortable with the amount that they have. I am content to have a relatively small-to-medium sized collection of lovingly collected, carefully selected products which make me happy every time I look at my vanity or open my makeup bags. Other people are content to amass hundreds of products, just because they can, regardless of whether or not they like them. All I can say to that is, it must be nice to have that much money!

What do you guys think? Is there such a thing as having "too much makeup"? What do you consider to be excessive? How big is your makeup collection? Drop me a comment below, I'm curious. :-)

Until next time,

Love and light.

xoxo

New makeup!

Well, I finally went out and bought some new makeup, which I have been wanting to do for a long time now. Unfortunately, my trip to Mecca Cosmetica did not go well at all, because they didn't have what I went in for, so I gave up on that for the moment. Also, despite being the only customer in the shop, once the salesgirl informed me that they didn't have the specific eyeshadow I had requested (Nars Bombshell, which I want quite desperately but cannot find anywhere), she went back behind her desk and that was that. So even though there were a couple of other products I quite liked, I left the shop right away because I felt so uncomfortable.

But then I went to Myer and had a wander around the makeup counters. I passed over Chanel because there was a very snooty salesgirl there and I wasn't interested in being made to feel unimportant. But I did stop for a while at Christian Dior and Yves Saint Laurent, where I did have a very nice interaction with the ladies at those counters.

In the end, I didn't have as much money to spend as I would have liked, but I did pick up two really lovely products. The first thing I bought was a Christian Dior lipstick, in Rose Dèclamation.

Rose Dèclamation

 

 

 I have worn this lipstick a couple of times since I bought it, and I absolutely adore it. It's a gorgeous soft rose-pink and it is quite rich and creamy to apply. It feels very luxurious and it lasts ages on the lips. I have always loved Dior lipsticks and this one is a lovely addition to my collection.

The other product I picked up was a limited edition Yves Saint Laurent eyeshadow quad; and oh my goodness. I had told myself that I would finally cave and buy bronze, gold and brown eyeshadows, because I have blue eyes and those colours tend to make my eyes really pop. But I never seem to buy the things that I set out to buy, especially when I go makeup shopping, so I ended up coming home with this:

Wow. What can I even say besides that?

I'm not sure what it is with me and blues, greens, pinks and purples, but the majority of the eyeshadows that I buy and like are usually one of those four colours.

I haven't tried this on my eyes yet (I'm almost afraid to use it because it's so perfect and beautiful), but I did try the colours on my wrist in the shop and I totally fell in love with it. It was very expensive, but then everything is, here in Australia; and it was totally worth it. The colours are stunning and I think they will look especially nice with my new rose pink lipstick.

My two beautiful makeup purchases, all cuddled up in prettiness

I used to have this thing with keeping the boxes for my cosmetics, but I don't do that anymore. I do, however, take pictures before I throw the boxes away! Am I the only one?

I also think the packaging is really gorgeous!

So those are the only two makeup products of note that I have bought recently. Hopefully after Christmas I will be able to do one really big makeup and beauty splurge and have a more interesting collection of products to show. In the meantime, I will post some smaller haul posts and reviews of various products. One of my previous posts, about my makeup collection and the process I was going through of cleaning it out, got quite a lot of attention, so I might do some more posts in a similar vein to that one. If anybody is interested in seeing an update on my decluttering adventures (I have had many!), please do let me know in the comments. :-)

I'm also looking at buying a video camera and starting a YouTube channel, possibly as a combination of books, beauty, fitness and ballet, similar to my tumblr. Of course, that means I will have to get over my hatred of the sound of my own voice, but nevertheless, stay tuned for updates on that front as well!

Thank you so much for reading, goodnight!

xoxo