Summers coming! Part 1

Well actually it feels like its already here, doesn't it?! It's been so warm in Sydney lately that you'd be forgiven for thinking that summer has started! Alas, its still over 20 days away - but no worries, that just means more time to prepare for the silly season! cue fun summer music! ummm... 'we like to party' by the Vengaboys? haha..

Anyway... Ignoring the poor (but unbelievably catchy) song choice, some of my favourite things to do leading up to and during summer include:

Eating mangoes! Literally everyday, because what could possibly be a better start to the day or make you happier then eating a sweet, awesome mango for breakfast every morning?! (pretty sure the answer is nothing..) oh.. maybe world peace?.. possibly... ;)

mmmm juicy!

Drinking water! Waters always good (and necessary) but during summer, drinking it just feels like less of a chore and more like a glass of refreshing awesomeness. So drink lots!

I knew you wouldn't completely understand 'glass of water' unless i proved a visual... ;)

Vitamins! I've been taking vitamins for a while now and I really do think they generally make me feel better - more energetic etc. So if you don't already take vitamins, I recommend you start immediately! I take fish oil, flaxseed oil, iron plus and vitamin C everyday, and if you don't wanna take all those tablets, get a multi vitamin. Super easy! :)

nothing suss...

Moisturising! It's too cold in winter to wait around for your moisturiser to dry, don't you think? But in summer the high temperatures make it dry way faster, so moisturise away and reap the rewards of awesome, smooth skin! As well as regular moisturisers there are ones that offer 'body conditioning and toning' benefits*... *supposedly. I find the one im trying out at the moment (Garnier Body Tonic) does make my skin look firmer, but i'm guessing exercise is a big part of it - so while these lotions are fun to try - don't expect miracles!

So ladies,
              Do you love mangoes as much as I do? (doubtful..) ;)
              Do you take any vitamins? Which ones?
              Do you hate moisturising in winter too? Its so cold and my clothes stick to it, if I don't let it dry for long enough :S lol

-Kathy xx

Did someone say…bargain??

I'm sure everyone across Melbourne is feeling the pinch (particularly in the lead up to Christmas) and of course, it's the time of the year that we have the most parties and festivities to celebrate! Which of course, means that we need to be dressed appropriately......

Rather than wear the same dress to every event (and I guarantee that at least one person will catch you out if you do that) I would rather find a super-awesome-amazing dress, but with a super-awesome-amazing price tag!

This is mostly for Melbournites (although I do believe there is a similar shop in Sydney), I have to share this fantastic shopping hot spot –at the risk of missing my most precious bargain shop to the masses! :) 

Clear It! Brunswick St Fitzroy

This is the clearance centre for notable names such as Gorman (a Melissa George favourite designer I believe), Alannah Hill (your one stop shop for all racing, wedding and evening ultra-feminine attire), and more funky brands such as Princess Highway, Dangerfield, Friends of Couture

There are lots of other fun items, many accessories and shoes… the fascinators and jewellery make this store super crazy busy just before the Cup Carnival –and most fascinators are only $40 or less.

I go here mostly for the Alannah Hill products (all the accessories are usually crazy cheap!)

although as Alannah Hill tends to encompass the upper stratosphere of expensively priced garments, you may find her clothes are still around the $200 mark… however, sign up for emails from clearit online and you may spot a sale with dresses down to around $40-60!

 Also for the more creative of us, upstairs also houses a range of fabrics, ribbons, bits and pieces from Alannah Hill, and faulty items (if you’re handy with a sewing machine you could fix these easily, but only pay as little as $10-20 for a dress!).  There are many brides to me in here with their mums trying to find ribbons to match a DIY bridesmaid dress!

Last time I was there I picked up a cute 1920s headband for only $20 (which was great, as I needed it for... a 1920s dress up party, yipee!)

Clear is open daily until 6pm, check them out at http://www.clearitonline.com.au/

(not in Melbourne? hit 'contact us' on the website for a list of stores across Australia, booyeah!)

On the corner of Moor St and Brunswick St, its is a big white building with a tiny sign on the front that says “Clear It”…. Once inside, your mind boggles at the sheer site of so much stock –don’t get disheartened, going through all the clothing racks and discovering all the nooks and crannies is quite fun and almost therapeutic!

Halloweeen version 3.0!

Good evening, lovelies!

I'll let you in on a secret; I love Halloween, and I've always been rather disappointed that I've never been able to experience 'trick or treating' in the United States, where Halloween is celebrated with a passion!

I love the idea of being able to dress up in costumes, go crazy with your make-up, overindulge in spooky-themed candy and generally have a great excuse to scare the crap out of your friends! Unfortunately, I won't really be able to get the chance to do much of that this year, as Halloween falls on a Monday and I will be at work for most of it.

I have, however, made arrangements to have dinner with friends at an American restaurant here in Melbourne (TGIF), which I know will be getting into the spirit of things by having their waitresses/waiters dress up and even putting together a little ghost house for the kiddies! Now, as I'll be going to dinner straight after work, I won't really have much of a chance to dress up as such, and so I'll just be experimenting with my hair and make up a wee bit, and possibly popping on a cute headband to complete my 'look'.

To give you an idea of what I'm talking about, I'll be doing something like this:

I'm calling this 'channelling my inner she-demon'...all I've done is use some grey eyeshadow for a smokey eye, black eyeliner on the upper and lower lids, a smidge of pale gold liner on my waterline, and lashings of mascara. I also drew on some 'tears' with liquid eyeliner, and applied a wee bit of glitter to the tears to make them stand out. I used some brow powder to fill, darken and shape my eyebrows slightly (because every she-demon deserves dark, well accentuated brows!). I then applied some concealer to my lips to block out my natural lip colour, and finished off with a nude lipstick. Last but not least, I popped on a cute headband with horns to complete my look!

I think having a pale, shimmery polish or dark polish would go really well. In these photos, I was wearing Orly 'Go Go', which I picked out when I had a manicure three days ago.

However, since GlossBandit informed us all that the Sally Hansen limited edition nail polish strips for Halloween were available in Australia, I just HAD to go out and pick some up to wear with my new look, and 45 minutes of painstaking application later, voila!

 I used 'Spun for you', which is a metallic silver with lacy black cobwebs over it.

Sally Hansen nail polish strips: Spun for you

Well, that's all from me, beauties! I hope you all have an ah-mah-zing Halloween!


Much love,
MM.

UPDATE: To Pumpkin or not to Pumpkin

(check out my update at the bottom of this post!) :)

I’m sure now that we are all grown up many of us don’t find Halloween candy that fascinating anymore (if we ever did!)…. However, all budding beauty enthusiasts must acknowledge that a dress up party for Halloween is a fantastic time of year to experiment with make up!

I thought I would get into the Halloween spirit a little this year:

I named him "Trevor"

As I will be working said All Hallows Eve, rather than go all out on face makeup I thought I’d have a little play around with nail art.

I think Sally Hansen has read my mind, and has come up with some fantabulously ghoulish limited edition salon effect nail art strips!

***UPDATE***
Ok since posting this, I have come up with a few pointers about carving a pumpkin, based on personal experience:
1. Don't plan to use the inside of the pumpkin for cooking soup or ...anything... I had to run out and buy more pumpkin for the planned pumpkin pie after I failed miserably at saving the insides of the pumpkin (which looked gross enough that you wouldn't want to eat it anyway)

2. Cover your pumpkin with plastic and put it in the fridge during daytime.  Trust me, that pumpkin will detoriate like it's nobody's business...After a night away from home, I returned to the pumpkin patch (a la my house) and found that my pumpkin was no longer a nice orange shade -rather he'd 'gone green' -and not in an environmentally safe sense, rather a mouldy and downright disgusting sense....

3. Get that moudly pumpkin outta there! -did anyone else know they collapse????? the bottom of the pumpkin gave way, and what was left was something out of a horror movie (pumpkin themed, perhaps we could call it 'nightmare on pumpkin street' or 'silence of the pumpkin' or 'the rocky horror pumpkin show')....i was left with a sloppy pumpkin mess that has turned me right off pumpkin carving for a good few yeras (I even removed my pumpkin nail polish, grrrr)


All I can is.. no pumpkins will be taking part of my next year Halloween festivities!!!!!!!!!!

A ghastly zombie green, spooky spider webs and eerie (although I think they are just plain adorable) mini ghosts are included in the collection, perfect for accessorising your outfit (and the spider webs would look awesome on toenails!)

Sally Hansen  Salon Effect Nail Strips retail for around $14.95AUD (one pack will be enough for a full set of nails)

After my pumpkin carving escapades I am loving all things orange hued for my chosen Halloween flavour:

I used Orly nail polish, in shade “Papaya Punch”

So tell me:

-What is your favourite Halloween make up?

-Are you dressing up this year?

-What do you think about the Sally Hansen limited Edition Nail Strips?

Halloweeeen

Hey Ladies (and Gentlemen),


Even though Halloween isn't massively celebrated in Australia its still fun to get into the spirit of it with make up, costumes and crazy hair - maybe even some fun decorations for your house! :) This is especially true if you are attending a Halloween party!!


There are soooo many looks/characters to choose from - you can literally go as ANYONE or ANYTHING!! But i've chosen a romantic/gothic Tim Burton look, inspired by (Tim Burton and his characters obviously..) But also Michelle Phan and her wonderful YouTube videos teaching us how to create such looks - and making it look ridiculously easy. It so was not as easy as she makes it look.. but anyway - Heres my experience! :) - - -


I started by curling my hair as curly and whimsical-y/romantical as possible. I also applied my moisturiser, primer, foundation, setting powder and eye shadow primer. I then filled in my brows with Benefit Brow-Zings.

Next I followed the steps of Michelle Phan's video to create my smokey purple/black eye (using many different shades and eye shadow palettes). Applied about 5 layers of mascara and contoured my cheeks with blush (rimmel) then used my Benefit Daffodil on the apples of my cheeks.
I concealed my lips, then lightly pressed my lipstick onto my lips with my finger.
I then messed up my curls by running my fingers through to separate them, and getting as much volume as possible, finishing with hairspray.
And Voila! This is the finished look!

These are the products I used  >>>

VS Sassoon hair curler and ghd hair clips to hold my hair in place while I curled it

(Photographed in the order I used them - and no need to say the names because they are pretty clear..right?) :)

Brow-zings Benefit eyebrow kit in 'light', momo cosmetics eye shadow palette (bought from Sasa in Hong Kong), Revlon colourstay 12 hour eyeshadow in '13 Lavender Meadow' (I used the darkest purple colour, at the bottom of the palette), Maybelline 'The Falsies' in Very Black/Noir Intense, Avon eyeliner in 'Black Noir' (I forgot to include it in the picture, but I used my Shu Uemura eyelash curler before the mascara)

Benefit blush in 'dandelion', Rimmel blush in 003 Autumn Catwalk, M.A.C Viva Glam lipstick in 'Gaga Lustre' 

Hairspray to keep my curls in place and perfume to finish the look.. 'La Lune' is mysterious and edge and super sexy - not sure if it really suits me, but I like wearing it occasionally when I go out at night time. 

And ANOTHER photo of me.. I seriously could not stop flicking my hair around!! haha

So there it is! My chosen Halloween look.. Check out Michelle Phan's YouTube account, specifically the video that I got the inspiration from - HERE.


To be honest I'm not completely happy with the eyeshadow, but I have small eyelids so I need to 'pick my battles' and accept it lol.. And although I really like my finished hair, if I ever need super curly hair again I will definitely buy a wig! an hour and a half is way too long to be doing my hair.. haha


So ladies, What do you think of this look?
                What costume/look are you going to be wearing for Halloween, if anything?
                Have you heard of Michelle Phan before? If not check out her videos!! they're great! :)


-Kathy xx

squeaky clean hair tip!

Good day beauty addicts,

One of the three everyonelovesbeautyettes here (hmm must come up with a better name to describe the three of us -perhaps the three beautettes, in beauty musketeer fashion?) -I might call myself the glossbandit to differentiate myself.

I came across a rather unusual product the other day after a friend mentioned it, thought I would share it with you!

Redken Sea Polish. Basically, it’s a scrub… but for your hair, not your face or body!

The idea of rubbing a scrub into one’s hair is not everyone’s cup of tea  and  as anyone who has tried to remove the salt and sand from a day at the beach from long hair could attest, it sounds like a fright to remove from long locks!

Right?

Hmm well actually… its not.  It’s so crazily easy to get rid of it’s ridiculous! Just washes right out J

So what does the product actually do?

First things first, it’s an exfoliator.  As we know with a normal face or body exfoliator, this gently buffs away impurities and removes dead skin cells, leaving a fresh and clean surface on the skin and body.  Same thing for the hair! It cleanses and exfoliates the hair shaft, removing product build up and restoring hair to a clean base.

I was a bit perplexed when I heard this, and set about busily trying this out for myself.

After easily  scrubbing the product through, washing out as normal, I found the hair felt cleaner and softer.  I think it also helped my piece of mind to think my hair had been removed of product build up (personally I think I put more product in my hair than on my face, but don’t wash it off as often as my face).

I did notice a little more frizz than usual the first time I used this product, but after a few weeks (using this product weekly) that settled down, and the hair looks healthier and shinier!

I would recommend using this if you are worried about product build up.  If you use minimal products I would probably say you could skip this product, but it’s up to you!

Retail for approximately $28.00 (all hair care stockists such as Petra Hair Care should have Redken brand)

Check it out for yourself at: http://www.redken.com/products/haircare/natures-rescue/refining-sea-polish

And tell me:
-has anyone tried this product out?
-if so, yay or nay, does it work?
-are you as intrigued by the idea of hair exfoliator as I am?

Spoiler Alert: New OPI Collection!

Has anyone noticed the most recent OPI mini collection???

If you haven’t, about to give you a spoiler alert………

Da daa da da (my impression of a drum roll)… it’s the MUPPETS SHOW!!!!

Yep that’s right, apparently you can turn a troupe of crazy furry puppets into nail polish shades, complete with cute as a button names!

I won’t divulge all the colours and names (you may want to rush out and peruse them yourself, I can’t ruin the surprise for you!) but I will shine the spotlight on just one of the colours, with a gorgeous name:

Gone Gonzo!

What could also be construed as the Cookie Monster on acid (he he), this is a bright electric blue glitter with silvery flakes….craziness!

I have to admit I wasn’t sold on the colour just by viewing the bottle alone, rather I started lusting after it when I saw it being worn.

Perhaps this picture will help you judge it better:

I have used three coats, I found two quite enough for coverage (very sheer with just one coat) but three gave a nice coating…I then topped it with a clear coat (to smooth down the rough edges of the glitter) and sprinkled a dot of OPI rapid dry over the top (a lovely little product that makes the nail polish dry toot de suit)

A full size bottle from the OPI collection will set you back $19,95, there is also a mini pack of 4 colours with little bottles for $24.95… just suss out the colours though, I prefer the other shades than the ones in this pack J

Best location for the biggest range of OPI is David Jones (and very helpful staff) or selected chemists and cosmetic chain stores.

Happy OPI hunting everyone!

PS -a little update, three days on and the nail polish has not chipped once (not at all!)... however when I had to remove it, the stubborn polish refused to budge! It took an hour and a big bottle of nail polish remover to get the glitter off -just bear this in mind if you need to remove it quickly :)