Cherryculture.com Annual NYX Sale Purchases!

One of my favourite cheap but cheerful, and not to mention great quality, beauty brands in NYX.  Although it isn't readily available on Australian shelves, there are countless online stores selling the brand.  My top webstore for purchasing NYX products would have to be Cherryculture.com and I took full advantage of their annual 40% off NYX sale that came around a few weeks ago.  Shipping normally takes between two and three weeks (to Perth) with the cheapest postage rate, but it's well worth the wait.  My order arrived on Friday, which was a great surprise to start the weekend.

My purchases included:

Slide On Eye Pencils in Pink Suede, Green Papaya, Azure and Gunmetal
Rouge Cream Blushes in Tea Rose and Glow
Sharpener
Single Eyeshadow in Red Bean Pie
Blush in Taupe (for contouring)

I will be posting separate reviews on the Slide On Eye Pencils (I already own two of these and adore them) and Cream Blushes - I haven't been the biggest fan of cream blush in the past so I'll have to see how I go with these.

The best part?  All up, these nine products cost me a total of $51.23 including postage!

What's your favourite bargain beauty brand?

xx

Sally Hansen Smooth & Perfect

I don’t know about you guys, but I got over the whole ‘pastel’ trend pretty darn quickly after it became just that little bit too overdone.  That is, until I saw the new (well, new in Australia anyway) Sally Hansen Smooth and Perfect Colour + Care range pop up in my local Priceline.  I’ve actually been really liking Sally Hansen’s recent releases, particularly the Gem Crush polishes (such intense glitter, I’m in love).  Anyway, last week I purchased a bottle of Smooth and Perfect on a whim in the colour ‘Air’, which is a beautiful powder blue with a teeny tiny amount of pearl shimmer.  I couldn’t walk past the stand without buying at least one; the colours were just so pretty!  It has quickly become one of my favourite polishes and I’m planning on buying some more colours when I next get the chance.  I've got my eyes on the peach, mint, lilac and pink shades in particular.

This is the polish after three coats (it is quite sheer) plus a top coat.  After three days I have no chipping at all, which is pretty satisfying.   The formula of this line is supposed to hide ridges and imperfections on the nail and apparently they allow 20% more oxygen through so that the nail can ‘breathe’.  My only gripe with the formula is the fact that it bubbled quite badly on almost every nail.  Luckily, a top coat covered all of these – NAIL CRISIS AVERTED.  Overall, a highly recommended polish!  

These retail for $9.95 in Australia but psst – Priceline have a 3 for 2 deal on a huge range of beauty products, including Sally Hansen, from tomorrow.   

xx

Blues

Thrifted lace cardigan

Two Ruffians tee

American Apparel corduroy skirt

Tony Bianco boots

Diva silver ring

Buckle ring from Brisbane Finders Keepers markets

Tottomoto bracelet (birthday gift from my boyfriend who is blessed with incredible taste)

We've been very lucky in Perth this weekend with beautiful sunny weather, so I thought I would give this American Apparel skirt a whirl and show my legs some daylight.  It's a little on the short side so I'm always a bit apprehensive to wear it.  After today's incident in a clothing store in the city, I will probably never wear it again.  The story?  I was waiting to try on a couple of items in a small girls clothing store, when a man (who coincidentally was the same man who creeped me out so badly at uni a couple of years back that I never returned to my favourite lunch time reading spot on campus) walked past looking at me with a... 'dirty' expression on his face.  He proceeded to crouch down to 'look at something' in a cabinet beside me and luckily I had caught on and quickly positioned the garments in my hands to cover my legs as he turned around and attempted to look up my skirt!!  I couldn't believe it, and really I should have said something to him but I was just too disgusted. 

 Perhaps the cooler weather and subsequent reduction in teen girls with their butt cheeks hanging out of their shorts has forced the raging perverts of Perth to take more drastic measures to get their fix.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I hate wearing anything short.

xx

Style Craving: The Dropped Waist

Reminiscent of the 1920s flapper styles and with perhaps a hint of sixties Mod, I am loving the resurgence of the dropped waist.  

Left to right:  Galliano, Victoria Beckham, Alexander McQueen

I'm not really sure what it is exactly about the drop-waist that has me swooning, but I think I can put it down to the more relaxed but still flattering fit.  Somewhat effortless yet still undeniably girly.  Ever since watching Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris last year, I haven't quite been able to shake my craving for twenties dresses... I have been scouring my local vintage stores for a little beaded number with no avail.  Perhaps I will always be stuck in this style time machine with endless desires for vintage wares that take months to hunt down.  For the moment I think that's okay.

She Was Fair as is the Rose in May

It may seem very grannyish and boring to some, but I love all sensory connections to roses (except for the thorns of course).  The smell of a fresh cut rose, the feel of it's velvety petals, even the ultra powdery rose scents from cheap body lotions at the pharmacy... for me, nothing compares.  And don't even get me started on turkish delight.

I thought that for you fellow rose lovers out there, wherever you may be, I would share some of my favourite rose products of all time (I'm always on the hunt for them).

Clockwise from the bottom:

OPI 'Japanese Rose Garden'
Anna Sui Moisturising Body Lotion
Jurlique Rose Love Balm
Anna Sui Rouge Jar in 500
Pop Beauty 'Rose Belle' Blush Palette
Yankee Candle 'Fresh Cut Roses' Candle
Paul Smith 'Rose' Eau de Parfum
Anna Sui 'Sui Rouge G' Lipstick in 500
Cath Kidston Wild Rose Body Cream
Jurlique Rose Hand Cream
Anna Sui 'Sui Lip Gloss' in 305

As you can see, the most common brand featured here is Anna Sui.  Simply because her products smell AMAZING.  They don't have a fresh rose smell but more of a sweet, Turkish delight indulgence scent. All of her products that I have tried (besides her perfumes, I wish she made one that was simply a rosewater scent), from face powders to hair treatments to lipsticks and everything in between smell just like this.  I enjoy the lip products and lotion the most though because the scent is lasting and products themselves are lovely to use.  Unfortunately, as far as I know Anna Sui is not sold in Australia and I have made all of my purchases off Yesstyle, Strawberrynet or eBay (beware of fakes on eBay).

Jurlique is another brand that makes lovely rose products and I would definitely recommend their hand cream.  I have heard through a friend that Jurlique have recently reformulated a lot of their products (sadly, not for the better) so I might not be so quick to repurchase this one.

My everyday perfume is Paul Smith's original 'Rose'.  This is a fresh, subtle scent with a hint of green, and is simply beautiful.  Ever stuck your nose right into the very centre of a freshly cut rose?  Probably not. But if you have, that's what this perfume smells like.  The Cath Kidston body lotion compliments this perfume really well as it has a similar fresh scent.  It also provides divine moisturisation and is paraben and sulphate free!

I don't even know what to say about the Yankee Candle, it's that delicious.  Light up this baby and you will drift off into a meadow of well, fresh cut roses, but to put it simply, if you're a rose lover you need this candle in your life.

The Pop Beauty 'Rose Belle' palette has some beautiful colours, I'm not too keen on the more brown shades but the pinks add a pretty flush to your face.  The coppery colour on the top right is surprisingly wearable if you use it sparingly.  All of the shades have a slight bit of shimmer, but not too much, so if you're a matte blush girl like me these are not too bad.  Definitely a great addition to my collection!

So, if you're a rose lover... what is your favourite rose item?

Xx

First Attempt...

Vintage shirt dress

Wheels and Dollbaby brooch

Dotti belt

ASOS tights

Jeffrey Campbell 'Wanted G' shoes

On the lips:  YSL Glossy Stain #10

I finally bit the bullet and splurged on a new camera - my first DSLR!  I felt like it was kind of a necessity for blogging purposes seeing as my new place has very little space to take full outfit pictures (hello lens that makes this now possible). Plus I needed a camera that could perform well in low light, seeing as I work all day and never have any decent natural light to photograph with.

Before going out last night I decided to have a play around with it to see how it went in the awful lighting in my house... not too shabby I guess, but I obviously require a lot more practice.  I am by no means a good photographer, by any stretch!

This dress is one of my favourite market stall finds.  It's actually an oversized kaftan, but I love the loose sleeves and the collar and gold buttons just add a little bit of something I simply cannot resist...

xx

Revamping DIY

So I only recently moved out of my family home and into a nice little townhouse closer to the CBD with my boyfriend.  Seeing as I was only just moving out of 'home' for the first time and he had been living in furnished student housing, we really had very few furnishings between us to set up our new home.  But being the thrifty little anti-Ikea clams that we are, we've scoped second hand stores and Perth Gumtree and managed to pick up all sorts of bits and pieces that fit our young couple budget.

When buying second hand furniture, it's important to keep an open mind and be willing to make a few tweaks to the pieces you find to make them just right.  I was looking for a 'perfect' corner whatnot shelf to store some bits and pieces in my room and picked up this less than perfect, rather daggy shelf from a local second hand furniture store.  It was shoved in a corner and covered in spider webs but I could see some potential lurking beneath.

How to Turn a Daggy Wooden Shelf into the 'Perfect Shelf'!

1.  Grab some sandpaper, paint brushes and acrylic paint in the colour and finish of your choice (I chose a glossy white to match my other furniture).

2.  Lightly sand the surface with some medium grit sand paper.  This will create a better base for the new paint to stick to.

3. Wipe down the piece of furniture with a damp cloth to remove any dust.

4.  Start painting!  I applied two coats and waited about 24 hours between applications.  It's a good idea to let the furniture sit outside for a couple of days to avoid your house smelling of paint (and to make sure no semi-dry paint gets places it isn't supposed to be. 

The Finished Product:

It's a pretty easy process and it's surprising how just a little bit of paint can transform something!  I'm looking forward to many more weekends spent recreating my little home.

xx