New makeup!

Nyaaa, someone stop me. It's Christmas time and Christmas time is makeup palette time and I keep on ordering them...so far I have three coming. Nyah!

I've also been shopping in real life (real life, what?) and I am very excited about some things I've recently purchased.

So something I bought yesterday was the Revlon Photoready concealer, I'm 002 if you're interested, and I'm really excited about it, but I also received in the mail the costal scents camo quad (light) on the same day...so I get to try out two new concealers, which is exciting, but then I will eventually decide I like one more than the other and the other will be taken to the wasteland of half used makeup. So I'm muchos excited about them, I played with them both when I got home last night and the main things I have to say is that the camo quad is a tad light for me, even though I'm super pale, so it might have been better to have gotten the medium one and used the white concealer that comes with all of them to lighten the colours a bit. I'm not sure that the Revlon concealer is going to be good for my under eyes, which is what I bought it for, because it's kind of thick and doesn't blend super easily. And lastly, I think I'll need to use my fingers to apply and blend for both of them (I was using a fluffy brush before with the much more liquify Lancome Effacernes concealer).

I also went to Lush and bought Daddy-o shampoo, I don't have blond hair, but one of the Lush girls a while ago said that she dyed her hair red, put Daddy-o on and left it for a few hours and when she washed her hair it was pink! And I'm going to be dying my hair over the holidays, so I want pink hair!

And that is all of my shopping adventures.

My favourite part of my day is putting on my makeup

I damn love putting on my makeup every day, on days that I don't wear makeup (Sundays haha) then I don't get the fun of putting on my face and it saddens me. It really is fun for me, definitely not a chore, just fun and it makes me feel pretty.

I feel really sorry for people that don't enjoy putting on their makeup and only put it on because it evens out your skin tone, etc. It literally is the best part of my day, which sounds sad, but not with the amount of enjoyment I get out of it.

The reason why I'm writing about this is because it's Christmas time and Christmas time means makeup companies bring out their holiday palettes! I've already ordered quite a few and I'm really excited to try some new brands. We don't get NARS or Urban Decay and a lot of other brands that Non-Australian people are always raving about here, so this time around I've bought them online from websites that aren't the official NARS website, for example, and I can hardly wait to get them.

I think that people that don't enjoy applying their makeup aren't doing it right or using the right products. I love putting on my mineral foundation with my Sigmax brush because it doesn't feel icky and it looks natural. Questioning whether your makeup is the right colour or is too much wouldn't be very fun. I like using multi-use products, not even for the multiple uses, but because their often unusual consistencies, eg. Benefit Benetint cheek and lip stain, I hardly ever use this on my lips, but it's really fun to use on my cheeks. Or buying a new brush brings me much happiness, I've had my Sigmax brush for some time now and it still makes me smile.

So to people that don't enjoy putting on their makeup, change something, because it brings me so much joy I couldn't imagine not loving it or other people missing out on this.

I'm cured! Also natural sunburn remedy

So remember how I was really sunburnt yesterday? Well thanks to my natural remedies I have cured myself (somewhat) and am not nearly as red as I was yesterday, huzzah!

The remedy:
Aloe Vera plant or bottled gel (plant is better)
Lavender oil
A carrier oil of your choice, I used almond

1. First you want to take the aloe vera leave (choose a big one from the outside of the plant) and cut it down the side, push your thumb between the top part and the gel and separate the green leaf part from the gel until you get to the underside of the leaf like so,
Cut the leaf down the side

Push your finger under the green leaf bit above the gel and separate

Separate until the top of the leave is away from the gel, but the gel is still attached to the bottom piece of leaf. Then cut off sections of the leaf with the gel on it.

Cut a section off of the leaf

Rub it where you are sunburnt. When the gel dries out cut off some of it and use it again.

2. Wait for it to dry

3. Then take your lavender oil and shake the bottle on wherever your burnt and apply probably 6-ish drops and massage it in. Don't put it on your face though because it could cause a reaction as the skin on your face is more sensitive than the skin on your body, so if it's on your face just do the first and last step.

4. Moisturise the affected area with a carrier oil of some sort, if you're going by which carrier oil to choose in this post then it will be different, you need one that is more moisturising than the one you usually use, I would suggest almond oil for all skin types.
So apply this to your legs, just enough that it makes them shiny, but not so much so that you can't sit on anything for fear of oiling it up, you will need to let it sink in for a couple of minutes.

So you're going to want to do this every day until the sun burn has healed completely.

I'm really sunburnt

So I went kayaking with some friends today to celebrate the school year being over and I'm really badly sunburn. I don't know how it happened, I applied and reapplied "invisible zinc" three times while we were out for two hours and I'm still super burnt. I now don't trust invisible zinc and will be on the search for a normal sunscreen that doesn't irritate my skin from now onwards.

I'm pretty peeved actually, because zinc was always some coloured tube thing that we put on our noses as kids so we didn't get sunburnt and now it doesn't work because it's "invisible"! Bollocks. Zinc is bollocks.

So I'm going to go and rub an aloe vera leaf on me and bathe myself in lavender because my legs hurt.

The good news is tha my thumbs aren't blistered like I thought they would be, they are however bruises...don't know which is better.

Soft, healthy hair routine

If you want soft and actually healthy hair, not just "healthy looking" then do these things. If you decide to skip one or a few of these things (some of them are a bit hard) then your hair will not be as healthy and soft as it could be, be warned.

The routine will be after the overall things you need to do.

Bolded things are extra important, but non-bold things aren't not important.

1. Stop using all silicones (all chemicals is best, but just silicones will do). Nearly all hair products (including shampoo and conditioner) have silicone in them. Silicone is a plastic, if you look up silicone on Wikipedia you will see that it is used in sealants, adhesives, lubricants, breast implants, cookware and insulation, do you really want to be putting this on your hair? Silicone coats the hair shaft making it appear smooth and shiny, when really it is drying and damaging the hair from the inside. Silicones are bad. This step is one of the crucial ones for actually healthy hair. (After you stop using silicones your hair will go a bit crazy, frizzy, etc. because of the lack of smoothing, but it will calm down and go lovely after a week or so.
You can tell if a hair product has silicones in it if it has ingredients that end in 'cone'. The usual silicones that are used in hair products are: dimethicone, phenyltrimethicone, amodimethiconem among others.

2. Use all natural products. All of the chemicals in hair care products damage your hair while giving the impression of silky, healthy looking hair, but in reality they only provide results while you are using the products, because otherwise your hair would be damaged and unhealthy. Using products that occur naturally or only contain natural ingredients will give you healthy hair that is healthy all the time, not just when coated with chemicals.

3. Do DIY hair masks. If you google "DIY at home hair mask" then it will come up with hundreds of thousands of completely natural hair masks that you can do. They are predominantly natural because things that you can find in your own kitchen are nearly always natural materials. The usual ingredients needed for various masks are: a form of carrier oil, egg whites, milk and honey.

4. Get a hair cut. You can't mend split ends, don't trust anyone that says you can, they're silicone lovers and aren't worth your time, before you can start getting healthy hair you need to cut off the split and irreparably damaged hair. Also getting regular hair cuts is essential as well, split ends feel rough and dry out, feeling rougher, they need to go.

5. Stop using heat tools on your hair, this includes blow drying. Heat tools should only be used occasionally, eg. if you're going out for something special. Natural products and substances will get rid of frizz and a lot of things that heat tools on hair will fix, like if you want your hair straighter, my hair and straightened a lot using natural products. Heating up your hair gives you split ends and dries out your hair, with prolonged use the damage can only be repaired by cutting it off. I don't use any hot tools on my hair and haven't in a very long time, there are a lot of heat-less ways to do what you want with your hair, the easiest being curls and waves, eg. pin curls, bun curls, and headband curls.

6. Don't dye your hair so much. Dying your hair also damages it a lot, but I like to dye my hair too, so just doing it as little as possible is best (I mostly dye is over the long holidays with a semi permanent crazy colour, this year it's purple or maybe red).

7. Wash your hair as little as possible. This one is important, washing your hair strips it of it's oils which naturally make it shiny, soft and healthy, which is what you don't want, and it's also quite harsh on the hair shaft with the stripping and also when your massage it in. I wash my hair once or twice a week and it doesn't get oily in between. This is from a gradual acclimation, I started with going from every second day to every third day and onwards, now I usually go 5-6 days without washing my hair and it's not oily, just lovely and healthy. If you're worried about your hair being gross use a dry shampoo in between washes because that's better than normal shampoo.

8. Use metal free hair bands. Goes without saying, the metal in some hair bands rips out your hair or scrapes along hair that's still attached and damages it.

9. Eat healthily, drink lots of water etcetera. All that stuff that people always say (this isn't exactly a necessity).

10. Don't brush your hair with a hair brush when it's wet, use a wide toothed comb. Hair brushes easily break hairs and can damage the ends.

Routine:
When you're washing your hair (which would be as seldom as possible):
1. Wash your hair with a natural shampoo, my favourites are nearly all of the ones from Lush and the Perfect Potion Chamomile shampoo.

2. Condition your hair with a silicone free conditioner. I like once again all the Lush ones, especially Jungle, and I friggin' love Perfect Potion Rosemary conditioner, if you're either going to go Lush or Perfect Potion, go Perfect Potion. When you condition your hair you need to do some specific things, squeeze all of the water out of your hair, run some conditioner through your hair, focusing on the ends, then comb it with a wide toothed comb to desperse the conditioner evenly, put your hair in a bun with the conditioner in and do other things that you would normally do in the shower, shave whatever, wash yourself, exfoliate, do whatever you usually do for as long as possibly, but no less than 5 minutes and then rinse the conditioner out with cold water.

3. Wrap your hair in a towel removing excess water. DO NOT rub your hair in the towel, only squeeze the hair out, rubbing your hair splits the ends and damages it. Leave your hair in the towel for a few minutes, you can do your face routine while you're waiting.

4. Apply a very small amount of coconut oil to your hair, focusing on the ends. Apply a really, really small amount, like just tap your finger into the top and apply that, you can apply more when it's dry. Then comb your hair with a wide toothed comb again.

5. Let your hair air dry and put in whatever heatless curl/straight techniques you want to or leave it natural. The bun technique also works really well for soft waves/curls on dry hair, just leave it in for an hour or so and you're good.

And you're done! Do you appreciate people that have naturally soft and healthy hair now?

Thanksgiving thankfulness

I really enjoyed Mid(twenty-something)-Life Crisis' post about what she's thankful for. I can totally relate to 2 through 5 and 7 onwards.

You should read it and agree.

Had a pretty terrible day, but now I'm sipping wine with my mum, so everything is alright

So I may or may not have sobbed uncontrollably...three times...today.

All of which have been injury related.

The first time I walked into a half closed garage door and embarrassed myself thoroughly in front of my brother and his friend.

The second was when I was telling my mum about it and feeling stupid again - thus sobbing uncontrollably.

The third I burned myself in a very stupid way. I was steaming some broccoli in the microwave and when it beeped saying it was done, I opened it and, wanting to see if it was done or not, lifted the lid off the steamer bowl, not realising that steaming something usually involved steam and that steam is hot. It's water vapour! Water vapour seems harmless. I'm an aromatherapist! I should know all about steam and whatnot.

But now everything's cool because me and my mum just ate dinner with a glass of rosè and now we are computing next to each other

Review: Lancome Effacernes Longue Tenue

This is my favourite concealer and it has been for quite a while. I don't think I've ever not liked something that I bought from Lancome, they seem to just make good stuff.

I use this concealer mostly for under eye concealing (I'm constantly tired even though I get 9+ hours every night, damn teenagers), but also for small blemishes and redness.

This concealer is really opaque and a little goes a long way. I would usually use a little less than this amount for my whole face (under eyes, spots and redness), I really like using a blending brush with it (Sigma E40), I used my finger for the photo.

It's super thick in this photo, it would be a lot thinner on the face and blended in.

I've had one of those 12ml tubes for about a year now and I still haven't finished it (though I'm close).

My makeup collection

So I have a fairly extensive makeup collection, it's definitely smaller than my Lush collection, but it is still rather extravagant.

My makeup bag

All of the makeup that I use often (not my full collection)

I'll break it up into sections for you guys, brushes, concealers, eyeliners, mascaras, blushes, lip things, eyeshadows and misc

Brushes

I won't list all of the eye brushes I have because I have a far amount, but I will list my face brushes. From top to bottom: MAC 182 kabuki, Sigma E40 tapered blending (favourite for concealer), Sigma F20 large powder, Sigma F84 angled top kabuki, Sigma F80 flat top kabuki, Sigma F82 round top kabuki (my favourite for mineral foundation), MAC 187 stippling brush

Concealers

L to R: Benefit Stay don't stray, Lancome effacernes longue tenue in 02 beige sable, Lily Lolo mineral cover up in NUDE

Eyeliners

I once again won't list all the eyeliner pencils, but I will say that I really like the Revlon Colorstay ones, they last a long time and don't move much.
MAC fludilines top to bottom: Blacktrack, Dipdown, Macroviolet

Mascaras

L to R: Benefit Badgal plum, Maybelline Great Lash in blackest black, Bloom full and flirty waterproof fake lash mascara, L'oreal extra-volume collagene (I don't recommend this, go for Great Lash or Badgal, Badgal is amazing)

Blushes

Top left to top right: Lancome Blush Subtil in Evening Affair, Benefit benetint (obviously much loved), Benefit posietint (also much loved) and new Benefit cha cha tint (which will be much loved and is so far much loved)
Next row: Benefit dandelion, Bloom sheer colour cream in Coy

Lip things

From top to bottom (though I also really like the Benefit tints as lip tints): MAC Angel, Lancome 302 1AEA, Blistex lip balm, Lancoem 312 0EAA (which is an awesome bright pink that I love, goes really well under Lush Snow Fairy lip tint), Bloom lip gloss in Sweat Pea, David Jones lipstick in Sunday Best, an old Estee Lauder True Lipstick in Chilly Berry

Eyeshadows

So as you can see I quite like eyeshadows, cream ones especially.
The MAC powder eyeshadows are (top to bottom starting at the left and then to the two at the bottom): Thru the night Styledriven pro long wear, Pretty and Prim mineralize, Hot Paprika and Sunny Outlook Styledriven pro long wear
Carbon and Blac Types.

I feel the need to talk about the LE MAC eyeshadows I have, all of the Styledriven ones are amazing, super pigmented, come in great big pots for only $10 more (AUS) and really nice colours. I am very disappointed in the mineralize eyeshadow that I have though, no pigmentation whatsoever, not even enough to be worn, so it's just a pretty colour in a pot. Do not buy the mineralize eyeshadows unless you are confident that they are pigmented enough (i.e. try them out in the store, not just on your hand because I did and they are still terrible)

Benefit Creaseless Creams

Love me some creaseless creams
Colours are as follows, Top to bottom, left column first: Skinny jeans, get figgy and a black Lilly Lolo mineral eyeshadow in Witchypoo
R.S.V.P, tattle tale, busy signal

MAC paintpots

Same deal, top to bottom, left to right, first column on the left: Groundwork, background
Painterly (awesome eyeshadow base), constructivist (awesome all over colour or crease)

Lancome ombre absolue palette in Parures d'Etoiles A1AA

I really like this palette, great pigmented eyeshadows with colours that compliment each other, I like to use the light blue one closer to the mirror and the darker blue one with MAC Thru The Night to make a really pretty navy smokey eye.

Misc

Random stuff that I keep in my makeup kit: a clinique pencil sharpener, Lush Dirty Toothy Tabs (so awesome!) a new concealer because I'm about to run out of my old one, and orthodontic wax.

Full makeup bag, it doesn't close...

I'm on Block exams at the moment and before my Study of Religion exam, my friend, Meg, decided to braid all of the girls hair, so every girl in the rows in front of me had beautifully braided hair. Look at all those braids!

When this photo was taken, all us SOR kids were having a mad discussion about Christianity, it was intense.

Fancy dinner all the time fanciness

So we went out to a fancy dinner for no reason on Saturday, rich people aye? Whatcha gonna do with them? Drink their expensive wine is what.

We went to Moo Moo, which is an awesome steak restaurant. It's all lovely and black.

They have a wall of meat, that's how you know a place is classy.

Look at my food ohmygod

Look at my desert ohmygod

Look at these delicious appetisers they gave us!

And Moo jus! I love Moo jus! I don't know what it is, but it's delicious and it comes in a cow shapes gravy boat

Chippies!

They have a big metal bull out the front too

You can see it better in this one, but it looks a lot worse...

This wine, I kid you not, was $1000. I had three sips and probably drank $150 worth of wine

Insanity

Look what they did to my napkin when I went to the bathroom

My printer doesn't know what collated means

Or maybe I don't know what collated means. I was under the impression that it meant the printer would print the last page first, so that when I came to get my printed things, they would be in the right order, apparently it means the opposite of that...

God damn, it's bright

I have stomach flue or something horrible like that and it's really bright outside, what am I to do?

I've been treating myself with voodoo and other crockpot theories (see: aromatherapy and science). I sent my dad to go and buy me supplies, the list I gave him was as follows:

Zinc tablets
Limes
Theives essential oil
Ginger essential oil
Aspirin

He couldn't find either essential oils, so I guess I'll just go and wallow in my own illness.

I appear to be treating myself quite effectively without them though, I feel heaps better than I did this morning and I have yet to throw up. Woot.

I'd say the most effective things I did would be:

Drinking lots of red cordial. The flavour or something has stuff in it that kills bacteria (believe me, my mum's a doctor), which is both awesome and horrifying.
Started taking zinc and I also took iron, that seems to be helping.
Peppermint and spearmint oil in my aromatherapy diffuser
Taking aspirin. It's like all anti-inflammatory and such...you know how it is with anti-inflamitories.

I've been reading a lot of fanfiction and doing some studying, I'd say I'm set for my Business test, not so much Math...

I've also been writing fanfiction. I really like this anti-procrastination website, it's called Written? Kitten and you can set it to show you a kitten every time you write 100, 200, 500 or 1000 words. Totally works. I've written nearly 2000 words of fanficiton in two days, when it would normally take me a week.

Using honey as a cleanser

Good for all skin types, especially really sensitive and acne prone. Can be used as an everyday cleanser or once a week as a mask.

Super simple, just about half a teaspoon of honey (manuka is best, it has more antibacterial/inflammatory/oxidant qualities than normal honey) and some water is needed.

1. If you wear makeup, you will need to take that off first, I'd recommend a carrier oil (see here for which oil is best for your skin and how to use it) or if you don't like the idea of oils, then any sort of makeup remover that you like.

2. Wet your face, quite wet, don't dry it off.

3. Apply splotches of honey to sections of your face and rub it in with the water.

4. Leave it on for a little bit (longer for a mask) and wash it off.

5. Moisturise if you need it.

It will leave your skin feeling clean, way more moisturised than chemical cleansers and will help immensely with acne and pimples.

I will destroy you and everything you love

Errrr! I hate my new hard drive. I hate it with a fiery passion that cannot be quelled. It continues to thwart me! Just like that paint in art.

I plug that bad boy in, settle down for a nice episode of Big Bang Theory and two minutes in, it says that my hard drive has been ejected unsafely. Shut up! No! That never happened! I was just happily watching BBT and now iTunes is stuffing up too. I hate you, hard drive!