Things I'm Currently Loving

Bath and Body Works Warm Vanilla Sugar Fine Fragrance Mist
This was on my last favourites list, but I'm still loving it to death. It's the best kind of vanilla, warm and delicious. Om nom nom. I have taken to occasionally spraying it on my pillow a couple of hours before I go to bed so I can wallow in it.

MAC MSF Natural in Medium
Again, this was on my last list, and again, still loving it. I use it almost every day - either to add a bit of oomph to tinted moisturisers, or to set under eye concealer.

Queen Helene Grape Seed Extract Peel Off Masque
I love peel off masks generally, but this one is especially good - it leaves my face feeling soft and non-wrinkly at least for a while after. And it's as cheap as chips, less than $4US on iHerb.

The Garden Bath Fresh Roses Perfume Oil
A true rose scent with a touch of a sharp green note in the background. So pretty and girly, I just love it.

Maybelline Color Tattoo in Tough as Taupe and Bad to the Bronze
I've been doing the old swipe-and-go on the eyes a fair bit of late, and these two colours are just fool proof. I wear one or the other depending on whether I feel like matte or a bit of shimmer. The only problem I have with them is that I have to apply them exactly where I want them to be because they dry almost immediately, making them virtually impossible to blend.

Coastal Scents Shadow Worx Matte Eyeshadow Primer
I have never really been a fan of UDPP, so when I finally used up all the little freebies that come with palettes I had lying around, I went looking for something else, and decided to try this one and the NYX HD primer. The NYX is pretty much a dupe for UDPP, which I guess is okay from a cost point of view, because it's way cheaper, but for keeping my eyeshadow in place all day, this Coastal Scents one has it in spades. Love it.

Real Techniques Brow Brush
When I first bought the Real Techniques eye brush set, I thought this one was kind of rubbish - it seemed way too thick to be a good brow brush, and nowhere near as stiff and precise as my beloved company-that-shall-no-longer-be-mentioned-due-to-hideous-unapologetic-racism one, but I have found that it is actually perfect for filling in brows and making them look really natural rather than 'done'. It's also super super quick to use.

NYX Eyebrow Cake Powder in Taupe/Ash
This is a little set that comes with two brow powders and a wax, as well as an application brush and a spoolie. The application brush is a bit useless, though I do occasionally use the little spoolie. I don't really use the wax either as it's quite soft - I much prefer NYX's Eyebrow Shaper. However, the lighter of the two powders is perfect for me - a lightish medium brown with absolutely no red in it. I use the Real Techniques brush to apply and only takes a few seconds.

Also....

Etsy
I have been Etsy bingeing of late, though in my defence, it's mostly samples. Perfume oils, loose eyeshadows, skincare products, lip balms, etc. I just love Etsy, and the 99.9% of good experiences I've had far outweigh the one or two bad ones. I love that I can buy something from a creative person doing their own thing. Mind you, I feel like they are getting a bit lax in their definition of 'handmade'. I was looking for bracelets for Noodles recently and there are a hell of a lot of mass-produced little crap things coming out of Hong Kong and China on there. Not cool, Etsy. That's what eBay is for.

The Because Show
This is a podcast that I only heard about very recently, and it's three women who are probably in their mid to late 30s. There are elements of their cast that don't grab me (a tendency to chat a bit too much about farting - I'm not a 12 year old boy and that really doesn't interest me), but on the other hand, there's enough there that I do like and I've been listening to their back catalogue most of the weekend. They talk about loads of things, including makeup and books. MAKEUP AND BOOKS. Yay for chicks!

Parks and Recreation
I've loved this show for lo these many years (and again, this is the second time in a row it's been on my favourites list), but it has come up in conversation more often of late because I FINALLY have some other people to talk to about it. Natalie has been a fan for quite a while, but fairly recently we managed to cajole Jessica into watching, and now she is up to Season 4 and thoroughly hooked. Hurrah! I've just converted a bunch of episodes to MP4 and put them on my phone so I can just watch them randomly whenever I feel the need for a P&R fix. Oh, and a girl I work with texted me yesterday to say she had just watched all of Season 1 (which is only 6 episodes) and loved it. The word is getting out there!

Nacho Saturday
This kind of speaks for itself. It involves eating nachos. On a Saturday. And it's awesome.

(Fairly) Recent Shopping

Despite having been using Silk Naturals skin care for quite a long time and really liking it, I'm a fickle soul and no matter how good something is I want to try different things, so I have been picking up some other skin care products here and there over the last couple of months to see what else I might like. I've also bought a few perfume samples, despite swearing not to buy any more perfume in the forseeable pretty-much-ever, but tell me - how am I expected to go on Etsy and not look at perfume? Huh?

(Again, I must apologise profusely for the photo quality - I think I'm going to have to actually lash out when I have some cash to splash and buy a camera. Ben loaned mine his to his mother. Rude!)

iHerb
I have checked out skin care products on this site eleventy billion times, but aside from the cult brands like Queen Helene, a lot of the brands seem fairly obscure and it's hard to find reviews of them. Eventually I figured I'd just try some Beauty Without Cruelty cleansers and toner, since they were cheap as chips anyway and they'd get used up eventually even if I didn't love them. the Queen Helene Mud Pack Masque and Oatmeal and Honey scrub were just thrown in to make shipping worthwhile (this is before they brought in free international shipping for orders over $40) and are more for Noodles than me.

I bought the BWC 3% AHA Complex cleanser, the Vitamin C with CoQ10 cleanser, and the Balancing Facial Toner. I meant to buy one foaming cleanser for the shower in the morning and one cream one for double cleansing at night, but accidentally got two foaming ones. Slightly annoying, but on the plus side neither of them are drying, as foaming cleansers can be. Still leaves me short a cream one though. I quite like the toner - it's nothing fancy but it does what toners are supposed to do, and it's a nice big bottle so you get your money's worth.

Luxe Organics
I found this shop while I was trawling Etsy for natural skin care products. I decided to check it out since they had sample sets, and at the time there was a sale with 20% off everything (which appears to still be going). Shipping took a while on this one, but my mail generally has been really slow so I suspect a lot of stuff is getting held up in customs. I decided to try one of each sample set available - the Youth Collection and Antioxidant Collection for me, and the Clarity Collection for Noodles. Each of these comes with four samples of skin care products. The only one I've tried so far is the Youth Collection, which I've been using for a week or so, and really enjoying. That one comes with a cream cleanser, cream exfoliant, toner and serum. It's a bit annoying that they are all in little jars - even the toner - but let's face it, who among us doesn't have little empty cosmetic bottles around? I just decanted it into an old serum bottle that I cleaned out first.

Since I've been using them my skin has felt really soft, and you get a good amount to try out properly. The full price for each set was about $10AUD (and I got the 20% off - score!), and shipping all up for the 3 was $8.50. They come packaged beautifully in little boxes wrapped with string, and I also received a free sample jar of Hemp Lotion, but I haven't quite worked out what to do with that yet.

Blushie
I was sucked in by the description of The Cake Is A Lie, and that turned out to be one of my least favourite of these perfumes. They're a bit hit and miss as far as longevity and scent. A couple of them smell quite generic - the Vanilla Cupcake smells like every other Vanilla Cupcake scent on Etsy, the Caramel Latte has that caramel note that veers way too close to vomit, Pink Frosting is pretty but very sweet and sugary (and to be fair, that's exactly how it's described) and much more suited to a teenager than an old codger like myself - but a couple of them are really lovely. I liked True Rose a lot, and I really loved Gypsy Woods, a woody, musky, unisex fragrance that would be perfect for cold weather, or slathering all over Ryan Gosling. I'll be getting a full size of that one some time in the near future. The order came with a little sample of soap and that was really lovely - and I'm not generally a fan of bar soap. It smelled divine too.

Overall, if you're into smelly things that tend toward the foodie side and a few florals, I think this shop is worth checking out. You can get perfume samples in sets of 3 or 6 (your choice of scents), and soap samples in sets of 6 or 12 for pretty reasonable prices. I paid about $12AUD for the samples and $4.60 for shipping.

The Garden Bath
I mentioned this shop recently on my Etsy Lerve post, and I was in like a shot buying as soon as the owner reopened. Although I know I will definitely be getting a full size bottle of Chocolate Passion and Fresh Roses, which are two of my old favourites, I wanted to get some samples first and check out what else I might like to get my mitts on. I haven't tried all of these out yet, though from what I have played with, I definitely want a bottle or two of Vanilla Nutmeg, a limited edition on sale until the end of the year. It's one of those gorgeous warm, wintery vanillas with a delicious spice note. I cannot stop smelling myself when I am wearing it. So good! Caramel Apple didn't work on me at all - it was very sharp and sickly and I had to scrub it off after about 20 minutes.

The longevity varies - Fresh Oranges disappeared on me fairly quickly, but I put Vanilla Nutmeg on at about 4 in the afternoon (let's be real - the moment I ripped that package open), and I could still smell traces of it on my wrists the next morning. You can get sets of 6 samples for about $9AUD, either a particular collection or choose your own, and postage to Australia for samples is about $4.