Category: Beauty

Review: Ella Baché Australia Summer Range

So it’s another Australian Summer and two things are on my mind. One of those things is how to prevent myself from turning into a bright red tomato by inevitably getting burnt from three seconds of incidental (and accidental) sun exposure. Another is how I’m going to prevent my pasty white legs from blinding people when I wear shorts because it’s just too hot to be considerate of the retinas of others. Consequently, I was pretty stoked when the summer range from Ella Baché turned up on my doorstep. Today I’ll be reviewing their Active Lotion Great SPF50+ sunscreen, their Great SPF30+ Sunbase Foundation, the Great Tan Without Sun and Great Tanning Mitt. As a hint, these products are pretty aptly named.

 

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Spring Makeup for the Professional Girl (who needs time for coffee) plus Everyday Makeup Review

It’s no secret that I love makeup, but I’m the kind of person who loves makeup when I have the time to stuff around and play with it at my leisure. I’m decidedly less of a fan of the chore of putting on makeup before I go to work. My last post was all about the super-fast lazy approach I use when I hit the snooze button one too many times, but sometimes I want to look a little bit more like I put an effort in (without really putting an effort in). With that in mind, I thought I’d take you through my current daily routine and review a bunch of products along the way – think tutorial turns review turns rambling. Personally, I’m a busy-body and I love seeing which products people actually use on a regular basis, so I thought some of you might enjoy that peek into my routine for the spring season.

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Five-Minute Makeup in Five Products

Let’s be honest: most of the time, doing a full face of makeup is a pain in the butt. It’s all fun and games when you have the time to sit there blending eye shadow for twenty minutes, but when it’s 5:30 in the morning and you’re getting ready for work it’s a different story. Worse still, sometimes it’s 7:34 in the morning and you were meant to leave for work half an hour ago. Most of the time, you need something quick that will hide the fact that you haven’t had coffee this morning but without going too far over the top. With that in mind, today I’m going to share the five products you need for a super fast makeup when you’re on the go. Added bonus? These types of products are also what I recommend throwing in a gym bag to redo a quick face after a sweaty workout.

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Current Handbag Hangouts

I tend to carry handbags so giant that they can fit everything including the kitchen sink and a small bathroom renovation. I have, however, been trying to mend this habit slowly and I’ve consequently downsized my bag in the last couple of weeks. Alas, gone are the days where I can let twenty-plus lipsticks/glosses/balms accumulate in the depths of my bag (and no, that isn’t an exaggeration – that happened quite a lot). With this in mind, I’ve had to vastly cut back on the beauty essentials I keep on hand. I thought it might be nice to share the six products I felt I couldn’t go without – though honestly I’m still a bit nervous about no longer having that kitchen sink in there. You just never know…

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Review: LUSH Christmas Range 2017

Two words: LUSH. Christmas.
Are there any two better words in the English language? Well, probably, but not to me right now. LUSH Christmas is always my favourite limited edition run of the year as it usually involves an increase in Twilight scented products, and we all know how I feel about that. It seems like it gets bigger and better every year, so the LUSH Christmas Collection for 2017 is unsurprisingly stepping up to new levels. In saying that, there’s a reason that LUSH products always make it to my list of products to actually write up, and it comes down to two things: practices and products. The 2017 range is a perfect embodiment of everything right with the LUSH world.

I’ve mentioned it in passing before, but part of the reason I’m a fan of LUSH is because of the way they approach business. As I get more and more involved in beauty products, I become more and more conscious of how my buying choices impact the world around me. LUSH’s new Christmas range reflects their push towards trying to offer more “naked” products – that is to say, products which don’t require packaging and thus minimise our impact on the environment. Now, the Christmas body conditioners and shower gels are available in solid forms for the environmentally conscious among us. With the recent addition of solid lip scrubs and lip tints, as well as their already existing solid shampoos, conditioners, hair dyes and bubble bars, it’s clear that LUSH is making this a key tenement of their business and I couldn’t be happier.

I was kindly sent some of the range to review. Whilst the only naked products in the mix are the bubble bars, the scent family is the exact same of their solid counterparts (which I’ll be picking up myself next time I’m in Rundle Mall!).

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Review: LUSH Halloween Collection 2017

Halloween is one of the things I miss most about Canada. Here in Australia, a lot of us don’t celebrate the holiday so it always feels just… underwhelming here. When I lived in Canada though, the excitement and fondness people have for the season felt like Christmas all over again. I’m a bit of a sentimental idiot and I love the vibe of the holidays so I loved having a whole extra dose of fun and goodwill. Fortunately, LUSH is bringing some of that fun home with their 2017 Halloween Collection. I was kindly sent quite a selection (yes, I did squee like a little girl and run around the room in excitement), so today we’re going to be reviewing a stack.

Before we get into it, I want to give a huge shout out to LUSH for the focus on cutting back their packaging with this collection. So many of these were “naked” products. I’m becoming progressively more active in cutting back the waste that I create so it was a breath of fresh air.

Read on to find out what I thought about the LUSH Halloween Collection for 2017!

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Review and Full Face First Impressions: Priceline and Adore Beauty Hauls

If you follow me on Instagram and can put up with the rambling often present in my Insta Stories, then you’ll know that I recently bought a bunch of new products during the Priceline 40% off cosmetics sale (NOT online, for reasons I’ve outlined before). Coincidentally, this happened the same day that my order from Adore Beauty arrived and I thought it might be a good idea to review a heap of the new products at once (because hey, that always ends well). I was particularly curious to see how such high-end products would pair with such affordable options.
Being reviewed today are the Becca First Light Priming Filter, NIOD Photography Fluid, NIOD Fractured Eye Contour Concentrate, NIOD Multi-Molecular Hyaluronic Complex, Luma On the Glow Highlighter Stick in Cashmere Casbah, Physicians Formula Butter Bronzer, Maybelline Hypersharp Liner, and Essence Lash Princess Volume Mascara. I purchased these items myself because I have a problem and can’t seem to stop buying stuff I don’t need.

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Review: LUSH Father’s Day Collection 2017

Ahhh Father’s Day. As someone whose father is notoriously difficult to buy presents for, this time of year inevitably causes me to break out into a cold sweat of anxiety. Dare ask the man himself and the usual answer is “I don’t need anything”, as if gift giving were even based upon need. If that were the case people would be paying my phone bill for my birthday (actually… not a terrible idea really). LUSH has the answer, naturally. Today I’ll be reviewing the LUSH Father’s Day Collection 2017, which was kindly sent to me for review purposes. The collection will be available in store and online from now until September 3rd unless sold out prior.

My father himself tends to approach skin care products with a typical blokey “meh” attitude. In saying that, my mother informs me that he started using the Nivea Post Shave balm I left on his counter. Apparently he’s even gone so far as to start using the occasional face wash and moisturiser. Perish the thought! My strategy is therefore to leave these products in his bathroom and see if I can get him using them by osmosis. In the meantime, I decided to test them out for myself. I like a lot of the scents targeted a more male audience – basically my entire goal in life is to make my house smell like a pretty boy without ever actually needing a pretty boy to enter it. I’m one of those people who wants a partner just so I can choose his cologne. In the absence of that option, I’ve been searching for a candle or other scented products to fill the gaping hole in my life instead of weeping into a tub of ice cream most weekends (I’m lying – being single is pretty awesome. But so are pretty smelling boys I guess).

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Review: Matrix Total Results So Silver and Brass Off Shampoos

It’s no secret that I change my hair colour about as often as I change my mind, which is to say… a lot. I’ve gone from brunette to ombre blonde, back to brunette, to brunette with purple, to bright purple and finally to blonde in the last couple of years alone. The blonde has been the look which I’ve loved more than any other (apart from maybe the purple), so I’m eager to maintain it. Because my hairdresser (Cara from Daly Salon if you were wondering) just gets me, my blonde is a bit of a balayage style because I’m a lazy, lazy individual who would be very unlikely to bother getting her roots redone as often as they would need to be if I went fully blonde. Consequently, I have quite a few different tones of blonde through my hair and the darkness varies depending at what length on my hair it is. I was thus pretty intrigued to hear about Matrix’s new Brass Off shampoo which is designed to remove the brassy tones that come along with being blonde, especially if you’re naturally brunette.

I had a chat with the amazingly lovely and helpful Josephine from L’Oreal Australia (who are the parent company of Matrix along with a whole host of pretty awesome brands) via email to figure out if Brass Off would be right for me. Based on that conversation, she very kindly sent me both the So Silver and Brass Off shampoo to try. Today, I’ll take you through my thoughts and how to tell which would be right for you.

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Review: Harvest Garden Soaps and Bath Salts 

Do you know what heaven smells like? I do. Nowadays, anyone who walks into my bathroom does. As a matter of fact, a friend recently asked to see my current bath collection and as soon as she walked in her first question was “What is that amazing smell?!”

Scent is obviously a personal thing and different people are attracted to different things, but I’m really not exaggerating when I say that Harvest Garden has managed to produce products which have the most incredible smell which seem to have universal appeal. My friend Felicia from The Beauty and the Geek AU and I are notoriously on opposite sides of the spectrum as to which scents we like in products, yet we both love what we’ve tried from Harvest Garden.

With this in mind, I maybe flipped out a little in excitement when Harvest Garden offered to send me a few things to try. Read on to find out a bit more about the brand and what I thought of the products.

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