Money Saving Idea

Hey,

I don't know about you, but I tend to start projects, forget about it then come back when I feel like procrastinating and today I'm procrastinating something chronic. I have a huge assignment due tomorrow that I left until last minute and to make matters worse, I'm feeling horrifically ill and can't get anything to hold my concentration. So instead of continuing on the hair-pullingly frustrating task of completing my report, I thought I'd take this time to give my blog a little TLC.

So what I wanted to talk about today was something miraculous I discovered about a week ago. Now, I have a terrible habit of impulse buying or buying something, anything when I've had a shitty day. I even got to a stage where I would see something beautiful on some beauty blog, look up more swatches and reviews on other blogs then literally the next day go out and buy it and feel fine with it because I'd 'done my research'. It was a sad time. Then about four or five weeks ago I got really into skincare and was desperate to try out some nicer brands, nothing high-end, more mid range really. However, these mid range brands can still end up costing quite a bit when you start adding everything up so I decided to plan my spending. I literally wrote down every cent I had to spend and what it was going to buy with it all the way until mid November and guess what? I stopped needlessly spending money.

This was an absolute godsend for me and my bank account. It's even gotten to the point where I'm reluctant to spend even the money I have planned out. I'm seriously loving this new system I have going and if you too are a bit loose with your purse, I highly recommend giving this a go. I even gave up the opportunity to buy a Chanel polish today, which is something completely out of character for me as Chanel polishes are my loves, but they were sold out in store and I didn't go running for eBay. A great achievement, I assure you.

This is a massive step in the right direction for me so I thought I'd share my little tale with you :)

Have a great day,

Sam xx

P.S. Here is a sneak peek of what I did buy today. I'll hopefully be giving a review on them in a few weeks time :)

Chanel Illusion D'Ombre Collection

Hey guys,

So I've failed at posting the past week but it's just been such beautiful weather here recently, it just feels wrong to be stuck on a computer for any longer than it takes to finish my uni work. But I'm back today with my Illusion D'Ombre collection, the fancy new eyeshadow formula released by Chanel last year. So far I've bought four;

I absolutely love the texture, it's so bizarre! It's a gel-cream hybrid that is the only makeup item I actually prefer to apply with my fingers.

L-R: Fantasme, Emerville, Epatant, Destination

As you can see it all the shades are decently infused with a healthy dose of shimmer which means I tend to use them for night looks but it's entirely dependant on personal preference of course.

Natural Light

The first one I bought was Fantasme and it's also the one I use least and kind of wish I hadn't purchased as I haven't found a real use for it yet. Under certain lighting (ie. at the Chanel counter) it can look breath-takingly stunning with the multi-coloured shimmer however under normal lighting, it just looks like a sheer base filled with glitter particles.

Artificial Light

Emerville is obviously the most neutral and wearable for everyday but my personal favourite is Epatant. The colour is just stunning and looks great by itself or mixed with other shadows (as do all the Illusion D'Ombres).

I'm very much in love with this formula and if you don't mind shelling out $48 (AUD) for them, I would definitely recommend checking these out. I believe they've now released 11 shades with 6 of them being permanents (Destination is the only limited edition shade I own).  I hope the swatches were somewhat helpful!

~ Sam

War of the Makeup Removers

Hey there,

Today's post is not going to be super interesting but it's something I wanted to talk about anyway; makeup remover. I'm not the type of person who spends big bucks on designer brand skin care, though I'm more than happy to spend excessive amounts on fancy makeup. My reasoning for this is that my makeup will last me a very long time whereas skin care is used once or twice a day and if I can barely afford to buy the cleanser, toner, moisturiser etc. once, then how the hell am I meant to find the cash to buy the whole set again in 2-3 months?

Anyway, I also feel that purchasing expensive makeup remover is a massive waste of money as I personally only ever use it to take off eye makeup and as long as it's not some supermarket home brand I'm pretty much cool with whatever. 

I recently purchased Nivea Daily Essentials Extra Gentle Eye Make-up Remover when I couldn't find my usual makeup remover on the shelves and thought I'd give it a go. Notice that it is specifically an eye makeup remover and I thought that meant it would be better than my previous (eye and face one). How wrong I was. I cannot stress enough how disappointed I am with this product. I know it's cheap but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be able to perform it's job. Eyeshadows, liner and the like came off just fine but my mascara would. not. budge.   I'm not talking waterproof either, I'm talking about an everyday, run-of-the-mill, better-not-cry-or-you'll-have-black-streaking-down-your-face mascara. Instead it just made it flaky and made my eye area really sensitive as I had to resort to rubbing on the lashes to try and remove something. A truly terrible product that I would absolutely not recommend, even for only a few dollars. 

Now on the flip side, I managed to hunt down a bottle or my beloved Garnier 2 in 1 Waterproof Make-up Remover a few days ago and I have to say, I appreciate it's brilliance so much more now. It takes of my mascara, waterproof or otherwise in one fell swoop and is just all around amazingness. 

Should you be in the market for an affordable makeup remover, I would definitely recommend the Garnier. 

Have a great day,

~ Sam

P.S. photo quality is extra crap today, sorry!

NoTD: Essie Dive Bar

Another nail post. Today's nail polish was Essie Dive Bar, a dark almost teal-y blue. 

I've been craving dark colours lately because spring is right around the corner and come September 1st, I'll be reluctant to wear them anymore. It happens every year, even though it is perfectly acceptable to wear them, particularly at the beginning of spring, I just feel like I should be wearing pastels etc. So expect an uncommon (or what will be uncommon) amount of nail polish posts while I frantically go through as many wintery colours as possible in the next week or so. 

Natural Light

Back to the topic at hand, Dive Bar was not my favourite to apply. It was probably more to do with my application than anything but I found that the formula was inconsistent, if that makes any sense. On some nails it was fully opaque with the first coat and on others it was super sheer and streaky and the brush would immediately remove the polish just applied when doing the second stroke to cover the whole nail. I'm not the greatest at explaining things, if you can tell. I don't know why this happened as I used the same method for removing excess polish and I think I'm just going to stop here because I'm rambling and you've probably stopped reading by now anyways. I used two coats with three coats on a few uncooperative nails. 

Artificial Light

Colour-wise, it is absolutely gorgeous. The base is dark but not so dark that it looks black in dim lighting, you can still see that it's got a blue tinge to it. Overall, after a second coat the polish looked perfect so despite my application woes, I would definitely recommend picking up this polish not to mention it comes with a fabulously low price tag. 

I bought this polish from Transdesign.com for $4. 

~ Sam

Chanel Diwali

Another post? Am I on a roll or what?!

Today's post is of the Nail of the Day variety. Chanel Diwali is a limited edition from the Bombay Express de Chanel collection. 

Gold is not a colour I usually wear on my nails because it doesn't look too crash hot against my pale skin but I had high hopes for Diwali because a) it looks mildly silver in tone in certain lighting and b) it's Chanel and I have a bit of a hoarding problem when it comes to Chanel nail polish. 

Natural Lighting

Unfortunately I'm not convinced I can pull it off and I'm not thrilled with the finish either. It's perfectly opaque in two coats, which is great and all, but I was hoping the finish would be reminiscent of Graphite in that it has the most stunning, super sparkly finish but alas, in most lighting it looks like a plain old gold metallic. I'm not huge on metallic finishes so this is a pretty big minus for me but in really bright lighting, it is quite pretty. 

Artificial Lighting

Overall, not my favourite purchase ever but not hideous. If I had tried it beforehand, I can't say I certainly wouldn't have still purchased it but for those who might have missed it, don't feel like you've missed something spectacular though I can't help but think this would look amazing on people with darker skin.   

~ Sam

P.S. Sorry about the picture quality but I can't find my camera charger so all photos are currently being taken with my iPhone. Hopefully I'll find it soon and you won't have to endure blurry photos too much longer! 

Highlighter Collection

For someone who very rarely uses highlighting products, I have more than my fair share of them. After a recent clean out of my makeup, these are the ones that survived:

I'm not gonna lie, the main reason I purchase highlighters is for the packaging/pretty patterns embossed into the powder. Lame, I know but I can't help myself.

1st Row: MAC Shell Pearl, MAC Pearl Blossom, MAC Pearl Sunshine

2nd Row: MAC By Candlelight, MAC Lightscapade

L-R: MAC Truth & Light, Guerlain Cruel Gardenia

Lumiere Sculptee de Chanel

Of all these powders, I would say that MAC's magically Cool Liquid Powder in Truth & Light is my most used highlighter. As you can see in the photo below it also has the most subtle effect with an almost translucent base infused with tiny little 'glitter' particles, I guess.

L-R: Truth & Light, Lightscapade, By Candlelight, Shell Pearl, Pearl Sunshine, Pearl Blossom, Cruel Gardenia, Lumiere Sculptee de Chanel. 

The swatches are obviously done very heavily and so when used on the face, they aren't as powdery as they look above and there is little colour pay off.

I don't particularly like using highlighters on an every day basis because I have somewhat oily skin and I find highlighters can emphasis this so I mainly use them if I'm going out at night.

Well that's all for now. Have a great day and I hope to post again soon :)

~ Sam

Take Two and Chanel Pirate

Hey there, so lets try this again. I’m a full time university student so don’t expect frequent posts, should anyone decide to follow this blog. I’ve started this more for myself as a way to track my makeup collection and beauty purchases and *hopefully* keep my spending to a minimum. I recently cleared out a bunch of makeup I didn’t want/use anymore but I still have a crap-load more than anyone actually needs. 

For my first post, I decided to swatch one of my favourite red nail polishes (yes, this blog will extend to nail polish as well), which is Pirate from Chanel. 

Red is such a classic nail colour and I certainly own my fair share but this particular polish is a beautiful bright red jelly that is the perfect shade to be worn year round. It’s not so bright that it could only be a spring/summer polish but it’s also not too dark or vampy that it could be considered a winter only shade. 

It has a jelly finish so it looks gorgeously shiny and, I don’t know, squishy I guess? This picture is two coats and there is no visible nail line in real life. The top coat used was CND Super Shiney. 

Wear-wise, I find this to be one of the longer lasting Chanel polishes on me however I don’t feel super comfortable giving my opinion on wear-time as all nail polish, and I mean all nail polish, tends to last no longer than a day on me without chipping.  

Chanel polishes are something I’ve fairly recently fallen in love with and have been racking up a bit of a collection and I have to say Pirate is pretty high up my list of favourites. 

I would say that if you’re not intimidated by the price point and own nothing similar, I would absolutely recommend it. 

Well that’s all for today. Hopefully I’ll get another post out soon but we’ll see how we go :)

~ Sam