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Imagery ~ Backyard (Macro Photography)

May 24th, 2013 § 0 comments § permalink

Backyard

Yay! It’s Friday~ Typically on Fridays I aim to try and get a new video out (well I haven’t successfully been doing that for a while, but that’s the intent!) I’m still trying to get my act together, it’s a slow but moving process (yes please go ahead and blame work, I do). So instead I wanted to share a few photos I took of my backyard, or at least close to my backyard…

I’m really becoming quite obsessed with photography and working with different filters, I think it reallImagery ~ Backyardy adds another interesting level. Plus it’s incredibly fun and I often close the day feeling fulfilled and happy :) So enjoy and have a great weekend!

Backyard

Backyard

Backyard

Aerin Spring Style Palette – 02 Garden In Bloom Review, Swatches and Photos

May 23rd, 2013 § 1 comment § permalink

Aerin Spring Style Palette - 02 Garden In Bloom

Another Aerin endeavour! I’m so keen to try more from the range because of the whole “natural beauty” message that Aerin herself stands for. I can never resist a cute palette, so I decided to try out the Spring Style Palette in Bloom. One of the two palettes released as part of the Spring 2013 collection called Garden Colour. It contains three eye shadows, one powder blush, applicators and a large mirror, all contained within a beautiful colourful zipped compact.

Aerin Spring Style Palette - 02 Garden In Bloom

First thing I noticed is how tough the zipper was, it took a little bit of elbow grease to get the zipper moving so I could even open the palette. Probably not the best design given it would just make getting in and out of the palette that much more frustrating over time

Aerin Spring Style Palette - 02 Garden In Bloom

Once opened, I felt that the eye shadows were (not surprisingly) on the very subtle end. For my eyes to look as “dramatic” as they do in the photos below I really did had to pack the colour on and do a few swatches. However the same cannot be said for the blush, which was incredibly pigmented! Just a little bit goes a long way, so that’s a definite win in my eyes.

Aerin Spring Style Palette - 02 Garden In Bloom

The colours here I found were cooler toned, and work great for moving between day to night. Not a bad palette, but given the zipper issue and lack of pigmentation for the eye shadows I probably wouldn’t recommend it unless the packaging really won you over. I’m tempted to try the eye shadows on their own however. Often stand alone eye shadows perform so much better than those in a palette within the same brand.

Aerin Spring Style Palette - 02 Garden In Bloom

Aerin Spring Style Palette - 02 Garden In Bloom

Aerin Spring Style Palette - 02 Garden In Bloom

If you are interested, you can still check this out at Harrods for £45.

Aerin Spring Style Palette - 02 Garden In Bloom

OOTD ~ Lazy Photography Days

May 22nd, 2013 § 0 comments § permalink

Lazy Days

Temt Jumper; Bardot Skinny Jeans; Witchery White Top; Aldo Flats; Fujifilm Mini 8 Camera;

Lazy days on a warm autumn day are the best! Comfy clothes, no time limit and good weather to enjoy with people you love. I’ve really started to enjoy photography days, so much so I’m trying to make them a more regular thing. It also gave me a chance to take the new Fujifilm Mini 8 Camera I as recently sent by Fuji to try out~ It’s an adorable little camera, perfect for parties or just a fun day out! I’m very tempted to buy my own now, if only the film wasn’t so expensive!

Lazy Days

Lazy Days

Lazy Days

Lazy Days

Lazy Days

Lazy Days

Dior My Lady Healthy Glow Complexion Review, Swatches and Photos

May 21st, 2013 § 0 comments § permalink

Dior My Lady Healthy Glow Complexion

Hello pretty palette! This is Dior’s My Lady Healthy Glow Complexion, it sits in a bit of a gray area between an illuminating face powder and a highlighter. For me, I tend to group illuminating face powders into the highlighter family because I personally prefer a more matte complexion with some areas highlighter. I tend to feel an all over face illuminating gives my skin a greasy look.

Dior My Lady Healthy Glow Complexion

Back to the actual product, first the design. It’s an amazing design of different ropes intertwined together, absolutely gorgeous! And I love that it is quite heavily embossed so it would take many applications to cause the design to fade way (as opposed to overspray which disappears after just touching the product). The powder itself is incredibly finely milled, it has a very light shimmer to it and I would consider this more pinked toned than neutral or yellow.

Dior My Lady Healthy Glow Complexion

The thing that makes me lean closer to a face powder is how subtle the shimmer is when applied to your face. It’s barely noticeable in my photos and that’s after quite a heavy hand. The effect is far more natural in person and if you like skin with a gentle sheen, then this is actually quite perfect! Plus there is no notable scent which makes using this a lot more pleasant!

Dior My Lady Healthy Glow Complexion

Another bonus, this powder did come with a Dior Kabuki brush, which is incredibly soft and luxe in appearance, I however will not be using it with this product just because I prefer Kabuki brushes for powder foundations or face powder rather than illuminators. Still lovely brush though!

Dior My Lady Healthy Glow Complexion

Dior My Lady Healthy Glow Complexion

You can purchase this product for £48 from Harrods, I haven’t seen it anywhere else yet.

Dior My Lady Healthy Glow Complexion

Chanel Summer 2013 Collection Lete Papillon de Chanel Nail Polish Review, Swatches and Photos

May 20th, 2013 § 1 comment § permalink

Chanel Summer 2013 Collection Lete Papillon de Chanel

When I first laid eyes on Chanel’s nail polish collection for Summer this year I knew I had to own Bel Argus and Azure, they looked amazing in all the promotional photos I found! But what did surprise me was how incredible these were in person. It’s hard to tell by photos alone, and worse for the promotional photos, but these two polishes have just a subtle duo chrome effect to them, making them look amazing when under the sunlight. As always, all swatches are 2 coats with no top coat.

Azure
Chanel Summer 2013 Collection Lete Papillon de Chanel

A beautiful metallic turquoise polish with a slight duo chrome effect, it can tend to look slightly yellowish under certain lights. A gorgeous shade, turquoise appearing to be a rather big hit within the Summer 2013 collections this year!

Bel Argus
Chanel Summer 2013 Collection Lete Papillon de Chanel

A stunning duo chrome blue / purple shade, and my personal favourite because blue is my favourite colour! The only complaint I have is that the pigmentation for this particular shade runs a little weak and so extra care needs to be taken to ensure your nails have complete coverage.

Lilis
Chanel Summer 2013 Collection Lete Papillon de Chanel

Last one, a bright orange red shade with the finest of golden micro shimmers. Probably the most pigmented polish from this collection, if done right just one coat is all you need.

If you’re interested, you can pick these up at your local Chanel counter for $39AU at either Myer or David Jones.

Chanel Summer 2013 Collection Lete Papillon de Chanel

Book of Basics : Foundation 101

May 18th, 2013 § 1 comment § permalink

A bit of a change of heart, as you’ve noticed I’ve been struggling to keep up with video uploads on a regular basis on both my main and second beauty channel. It’s really the same old excuse, and the reality now is, I don’t see it changing any time soon. My career has been growing which is fantastic, but not so great for my life as a blogger / youtuber.

So despite my message only two videos ago, I’ll be combining all my beauty related videos on to this channel just so I can maintain a more consistent schedule with beauty. As for the second beauty channel, I’ll convert it to something else that won’t require such frequent uploads, and I’ll announce that soon enough :)

That said I wanted to introduce you to a new little series I want to start running here called the Book of Basics (creative I know). It’s like another version of the Book of Fables, just focused more on natural beauty and the basics that make up the more complex tutorials for my BOF series.

Today’s episode is all about foundation, the different types and how I apply them! Hopefully you’ll find this useful, please feel free to send back any feedback you have :) I’m here to learn!

Chanel Avant Premiere de Chanel Nail Polish Review, Swatches and Photos

May 17th, 2013 § 2 comments § permalink

Chanel Avant Premiere de Chanel Nail Polish

Chanel’s Avant Premiere de Chanel really feels more like a Fall / Autumn Collection, when in reality it came out during the northern hemisphere’s Spring! This collection is inspired by the French film industry, so the names are very appropriate. With the collection came a number of lipsticks, and here today I wanted to go over the nail polishes.

They all lean on the darker more reddish end of the spectrum, really perfect for Australia as we’re experiencing quite cold weather at the moment. No major issues regarding formula, I generally find Chanel is quite good with their darker more vampy shades in terms of application. Very pigmented and goes on smooth. All swatches are 2 coats with no top coat.

Cinema
Chanel Avant Premiere de Chanel Nail Polish

A vibrant orange red (chilli red?) crème, it a real stand out colour of the collection.

Paparazzi
Chanel Avant Premiere de Chanel Nail Polish

A muted reddish rusty colour with very fine micro shimmers, probably the least favourite of the collection as I find it would be a more difficult colour to wear.

Provocation
Chanel Avant Premiere de Chanel Nail Polish

A deep plum purple crème, very vampy and reminds me of OPI’s Lincoln Park After Dark released quite a number of years ago.

Starlet
Chanel Avant Premiere de Chanel Nail Polish

The lightest of the collection, a semi-shimmer coral shade and probably my favourite.

I believe these polishes are still available at Chanel counters for $39AU.

Chanel Avant Premiere de Chanel Nail Polish

Chanel Les Beige Poudre Belle Mine Naturelle Review, Swatches and Photos

May 16th, 2013 § 4 comments § permalink

Chanel Les Beige Poudre Belle Mine Naturelle

If you ever wonder who or what fuels my desire for more beauty products, then you can go right ahead and blame all the other Bloggers and Youtubers. This product as the result of that!

Chanel recently introduced a new range called Les Beige. And their intention behind Les Beiges was to create a product that would give a natural healthy glow to the skin, whilst being lightweight with a “barely there” feel. To mark this movement, Chanel changed the cases for this particular range to be beige rather than their iconic black case with gold details.

Chanel Les Beige Poudre Belle Mine Naturelle

I’m happy to vouch that this product did indeed meet all those goals in my books. The powder is incredibly finely milled and glided on seamless. I didn’t use the half moon brush provided, though I did note that the bristles were amazingly soft, even more so than some of the face brushes I own.

Chanel Les Beige Poudre Belle Mine Naturelle

If your main objective with face powder is to even out, set your foundation and give your skin a natural soft glow then this is the perfect powder for you. I love that a light dusting is all you need to achieve the look. The powder in the pan does have a fresh perfume scent which disappears once you apply it to your skin.

Chanel Les Beige Poudre Belle Mine Naturelle

The finish for me was mostly matte with just the slightest sheen, it does look very natural on your skin. I would be careful however not to over powder else it will make your skin appear less natural. Added bonus? It contains SPF 15+, still no excuse not to use sunscreen, but it’s a nice added bonus.

Chanel Les Beige Poudre Belle Mine Naturelle

Chanel Les Beige Poudre Belle Mine Naturelle

If you are interested, you can purchase it from Harrods for £38.

Chanel Les Beige Poudre Belle Mine Naturelle

My Mocktail ~ Fizzy Orange

May 15th, 2013 § 3 comments § permalink

Fizzy Orange

A while ago one of my friends decided to hold a super fancy dinner party :D So I thought it would be a great opportunity to put together a mocktail drink. I had to use all her equipment and glasses so fortunately she did have some very fancy glassware :) This is an incredibly simple drink, really just a matter of mixing two juices and adding some sorbet!

Fizzy Orange

Start with an big empty jug, preferably with measurements :D

Fizzy Orange

Add about 1 litre of orange juice of your choice.

Fizzy Orange

Then 500ml of lemonade then mix well!

Fizzy Orange

Add 1-2 scoops of lemon sorbet to each glass and you’re done! Fancy drinks are served!

Fizzy Orange

Fizzy Orange

Couple of photos of my friend’s very delicious dinner! She made everything on her own from scratch, really amazing! These photos make my hungry :9

Fizzy Orange

Holika Holika Magic Pole Mascara Review, Swatches and Photos

May 14th, 2013 § 0 comments § permalink

Holika Holika Magic Pole Mascara

Who doesn’t love Korean cosmetics? I know I do! Not so recently a co-worker of mine brought back a pretty impressive haul of Holika Holika products from Singapore for me! His mother runs a Asian cosmetics store in Singapore and when she heard I was a beauty blogger she very generously wanted to send me some products from her favourite brand to try out. Least to say I was very grateful and blown away!

First product I wanted to start with was the mascara. This mascara is based off fibre wig technology, which seems pretty common among a lot of Asian cosmetic brands, basically it coats each lash with this rubbery formula creating tubes. It doesn’t smudge throughout the day at all which is amazing! I’ve found that more fibre wig mascaras don’t give very good volume, however this particular one was probably the best volumising fibre wig mascara I’ve tried out thus far.

Holika Holika Magic Pole Mascara

The wand is very flexible and based of rubber with a little spiked ball at the end, due to the shape of my eye I could only really use the little ball at the end, my eyes weren’t big enough to sweep this mascara through traditionally. The up side is that it allows me to grab every little lash in the inner and outer corner of my eyes much easier than with a traditional wand.

Holika Holika Magic Pole Mascara

When I first tried out this mascara I had no idea it was fibre wig, so I went along with my usual method of cleansing that evening, put on my cleansing oil and noticed it wasn’t breaking down my mascara as it usually does. I thought maybe it was a strange waterproof formula. However once the water hit my face the mascara fibre tubes just fell off instantly, which is when I realised it was working with fibre wig.

Holika Holika Magic Pole Mascara

The thing about fibre wig that is they don’t smudge off like traditional mascaras, instead the little tubes around each lash simply fall off when exposed to warm water. Which makes removing them at the end of the day very simple, and prevents you from getting panda eyes :)

All in all, I really love this mascara. I wouldn’t say it’s as volumising as mascaras such as Lancôme Hypnose, but it’s perfect for everyday when you are going for a more natural look.

Holika Holika Magic Pole Mascara

Holika Holika Magic Pole Mascara

Unfortunately my co worker’s mother does not have an online store :( (They are working on one atm) I’m sure you’ll be able to search for this online, but if you happen to live in Singapore then you can pick this up for $20SGD from Isetan Department Store, B1, Wisma Atria, Orchard Rd, Singapore.

Holika Holika Magic Pole Mascara

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