The Gift of Flower

After reading about what everyone got for Christmas I decided that I really wanted to write about what I received; however, I also really wanted to review and talk about what I had bought in sales and the things I'd just been given on the last few weeks randomly. So, I decided that I would just put everything together and do two hauls, rather than an overabundance of small ones.

Needless to say, I was incredibly lucky with what I have received recently and I am grateful for every piece of it. At the bottom of the post, I'll make a list of all of the items mentioned and swatched throughout the post; however, here is a picture of all of them together. This post is just going to be the products that my Mum brought back from America.

Just to make things easier I'll be starting in the back row and the most left item; the lipstick. These first two products are from the American company called 'Flower', to my knowledge they are not available here in Australia. The lipstick I have is a 'Kiss Stick' in the shade 'Dahlia Dahling' and I absolutely love it. I have had a few bad run ins with red lipstick but, this one has changed my views on them - as this one has a nice finish, it doesn't feel heavy on the lips and the colour isn't harsh. With that said, the next Flower lip product I have, isn't crash hot. The 'Shine On Lip Gloss' I really could have done without, as it is really sticky and it smells really weird. I know that makeup does tend to come with a smell but, this is just unpleasant and is intoxicating; however, the coverage is really good and it's nicely pigmented. I have this lipgloss in the shade 'Zen Zinnia'. 

The top swatch is 'Dahlia Dahling', the middle is 'Zen Zinnia' and the
bottom is the  gloss on top of the lipstick.

The next products are the Sally Hansen 'Hard as Nails' polishes. I had only ever tried Sally Hansen stick on nail products, so it was really nice to get my hands on a set of polishes. My lovely Mother picked up 'Limestone' 620, which is a nice light green and 'Die- Hard Fan' and just the name of the polish is totally me - never minding the awesome sparkly orange colour. These polishes are an amazing cheap polish, as they both have really strong colours, they dry quickly and they only need two coats (if you needed to you could get away with the one coat). Although, I do prefer the orange over the green quite a lot, as the green almost has a plasticky finish to it.

I'm now going to skip back to some more Flower products but, this time they're cream eyeshadows. The Flower 'Color Play Créme Eyeshadows' are super pigmented and are really easy to apply, with or without brushes. I have two colours, one a dirty green in the shade 'Vine of the Times' which I've found is a good colour to use as a base on a smokey eye and a coraly/pink in the shade 'Mum's the Word' which I think is just the cutest name and it's a really nice colour that can be worn by itself. 

The next few items are some eyeshadow pallets that are once again, by Flower. The first little pallet that I get was a shimmery purple pallet called 'Face the Grey'. (Please excuse my shotty excuse for a swatch, it's more than a tad blurry) Needless to say this little pallet wasn't too impressive, as the only colour that I somewhat liked was the darkest purple. The others are just a bit too light and shimmery. 

The other pallet that I was given was a lighter, less shimmery one. The shade of this pallet is 'Blue Lagoons' and I love the name of it, for some reason I think it just sums the colours up perfectly. With these four colours, I had a tough time deciding which one was my favourite so I just decided that I would share my least favourite. My least favourite colour in this pallet was definitely the white, as it was far less pigmented, most of the shadow fell off as soon as I moved my arm and it just crumpled in my pallet. With that said, I love the other three colours that were included. The remaining colours are really pigmented and after brushing over them I discovered that the colour stuck pretty well. 

Overall, I'm pretty happy with these flower eyeshadows as they were cheap and were okay quality; plus I love the packaging, the gold outline is super cute.

Last but not least, my Mum got me a 'Powder Trip' powder foundation in the shade PP6. My Mum did an amazing job in picking my shade, as I obviously wasn't there and I'm a pretty odd shade. Although that it calls it a 'foundation' I certainly wouldn't expect anything much in terms of coverage - especially with the brush that is included; however, if you needed to throw something on before you ran to the shops or you only used it as your backups backup, then it wouldn't be too bad.

With all things said and done, these products aren't too bad considering my Mum didn't pay more than USD$8.00 for any item. The packaging of everything is cute, they all work relatively okay, they all come with applicators and (my favourite part) they all come with a little paragraph on the label that tells you how to use it. It isn't like anything I've seen before, it's weird because it isn't a step by step, it's just a vague 'oh yeah, do this and maybe this and everything will be fine'. In all seriousness though, these products would be ideal for those just beginning to get into makeup or you just wanted to explore a new avenue.

Have you ventured outside your countries tried and tested and tried anything new to you lately?

xx

2013 in Review

As it's the day before New Years Eve, I thought I'd follow a popular trend and contribute my review of 2013.

Just incase you don't feel like reading the whole thing, this will be a tl;dr (too long; didn't read): 2013 was amazing.

This year has definitely been one to remember. As throughout the year I experienced some firsts of the last, for example: my last time wearing a school uniform, my last inter-house carnival, the last time playing with my band, my last chemistry, maths, English, graphics and physics assignments and tests, just to name a few. With that said, a lot more has happened throughout the year and it's those events that I quickly want to talk about.

Below is a collage of the main events that have happened in my life throughout the last year.
Please excuse the odd numbering I couldn't change the order in which they appeared but, I had to number them in the ways in which I could talk about multiple pics.

1. A few months ago, my friend and I had the opportunity to cross a major point off of our bucket list - as we decided to audition for the popular competition show 'The X-Factor'. As a group we managed to make it through the first two rounds of auditions; however, we find out in early March if we have made it into the round of live auditions. We spent the most part of the day waiting in queues, we had a lot of fun doing so. Once we had passed the initial audition we spent a could of hours with a few others that had also passed the first audition, we spent the time getting to know each other and singing songs. It was honestly the best time I've spent with a bunch of strangers. Also, a 23 y/o chick called me babe.

2. BRITTANY SNOW RETWEETED ME. This was honestly the best moment of my social media life ever. She is a massive inspiration and I just love her.

3. I've slowly learnt throughout the year that I love to draw. I'm obviously not the best at it but, I've learnt that I really enjoy it and it really helps my creative outlet. The photo in the middle of the top row is of a tattoo that I would really like to get but, I probably won't. The photo in the bottom right corner you've probably seen before as it has been floating around the internet for all eternity.

4. Some people will probably dismiss and think that I'm really stupid, ect.; however, I reached the end of the year with a passing grade in senior chemistry. I ended up with a grade that placed me in the centre of my cohort, which came as a major surprise to me. All through grade 11 and 12 I really struggled with Chemistry but, after working my ass off with my homework and study with my tutor and multiple friends, I somehow managed to grasp some understanding. It got to a point where whilst my teacher was passing out final grades, my teacher congratulated me and gave me a massive hug (which came as a massive shock to all).

5. The picture that is placed in the middle was taken by a friend of the drive up to the mountain and the photo on the left I took from our dining hall. I was privileged enough to join 108 girls from my cohort and the year below for a week on our schools Ski Trip. The week that we spent away in New Zealand was one of the best weeks of my life, there wasn't any drama and we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Even though the trip was called a 'ski' trip I spent the week snowboarding which was a big mistake on my part. Nonetheless I enjoyed ever moment of it even though I had not even seen snow before - needless to say it was more than difficult.

6. So, I kind of stuffed up with these two pictures. The picture on the left that has all the people in it was taken at my formal, with all my friends. Although it wasn't as good as it's pent up to be, it was a pretty amazing night. Getting dolled up, spending it with friends, seeing everyone all pretty and being in the Hilton was enough to make anyones night memorable.
The picture on the right is the count down wall that my school does. Each year the seniors use it to count down the days of school that they have until graduation, they begin at 100 and they end at 0. This simple, daily task somehow managed to bring the cohort together (even though we were already pretty tight); being at school so early every day, I saw nearly every number that was put up on the wall and the team work and creativity that went into them. For some weird reason, this is one of my favourite memories of my grade.

7. I'm not completely sure if this picture is legible at all but, the asterixs says 'snake pit bellow chapel'. This was taken in January during my first ASDC (Australian Space Design Comp)National competition. The national competition is held over a weekend at a local university, meaning that the night that you do stay you don't really sleep - as you're too busy working your ass off getting your teams proposal ready. It was an amazing experience that I can't wait to do again this Jan.

8. This is a pretty general picture as I had to chose one for my grade. This was taken on one our lasts Friday's during our last religion lesson and yes, we had permission to do so. The next few sentences are going to be some of the cheesiest I've ever written but, they are going to be 100% true. I can honestly say that the last 5 years have been the best of my life thus far and it's all because of these girls (plus the few who didn't jump in). I feel so proud to have graduated with them and spent every day in that awful uniform with them. We've experienced things together that no one should ever have to, we've had our ups and downs but we ended it all as one big family.

9. The two bottom pictures indicate the first of the lasts, the left being my last assignment and the right being inter-house carnivals. They are pretty self explanatory but, for me they made me realise that I am actually beginning to enter the big wide world and that I'm no longer a high school student; that I'm actually going to have to get my act together.

So, how was your 2013? Did you enjoy it or are you hoping for 2014 to be your year??

xx

The Beginning of Something New!

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Corniest title ever. 

Since this is my very first post (eeek!) I thought I'd just give a little outline of what I would really like this blog to be. Hopefully, I will get stuck into tutorials and 'How to's', as they look super fun and as I'm always getting asked how to do my hair and the various things I do with it. As for the makeup side of things I feel that it will defintely be a journey that we can all go on together, as I'm not the best; however I'm not the worst.

Because the year is coming to a close (and rather quickly I might add), I will hopefully get two posts up and rearing before the new year. The first being a typical year in review and the second being a haul, combining: what I received for christmas, what I bought in the boing day sales and finally what I've just randomly been given lately. After this is up and it is the beginning of 2014, I will then crack into some basic hair tutorials and then onto my January favourites!

I know for the most part no one will actually read this and no one will actually are about this blog but, if for some reason someone does stumble across this, I hope you enjoy your stay and if you want to request anything, that you don't hesitate. (:

Have a lovely day.
xx