Lust Have it! October

I wasn't impressed with this months box. I've come to the realisation that I probably only need to get one subscription box (I don't use that much skincare other than moisturisers, and skincare I can't use seems to be what both brands boxes are filled with) and I've been far more happy with Bellabox than Lust Have It!, so this month is my last LHI (unless they really get it together and start giving great boxes).

Here's what I got. I wanted to use all of the products before I did this post, but I just didn't want to use them, which is surely a bad sign.

Mask in a Cup facial mask for sensitive skin. I'm not really a mask person, but I have dry sensitive skin so I will use this.

NYX nail polish in clear. This would have made me like the box, but I never use clear nail polish. Unless it's a top or base coat. And I already have a great top coat. I did use this as a top coat though and it's pretty thick and fast drying.

Avéne cleanance skin. I'm not quite sure what cleanance is supposed to mean... but this stuff is for oily skin, so it's going to dry out my already dry skin. I might use the gel, but I already have a good cleanser.

Caron Waxaway ready to use sensitive wax strips. I don't wax, so I probably wont end up using these.

Star & Rose white bath fizzer. I have a bath bomb from lush I haven't used, so I doubt this one will be used any time soon. Especially since we're heading into summer.

As you can see, a pretty disappointing box. Can't win 'em all.

Halloween nails

Ok, I should really move to the northern hemisphere. We don't celebrate halloween in Australia. Well, we do, but it's mainly just an excuse to have a party, dress up and get drunk. For some reason, even though we're getting to spring/summer and bright colours and pastels, I've decided to paint my nails black and orange. I've been eating a lot of pumpkin deserts lately, made some pumpkin cupcakes and ate some pumpkin pie. Totally in the autumn mindset (and yep, I almost said fall. I watch too many american vlogs/tv shows).
I used Essie Fear or Desire, which is from one of their summer collections, so that counts as ok, right?
I also used Rimmel 60 seconds black out, glam nails nail art pen in vibrant orange (which I got in a gift bag from Priceline) and a toothpick.

Wishlist: Lipstick

I  have a tiny collection of lipsticks. Currently most of my lipsticks are reds - and mostly really cheap ones (except for one Chanel one, which is not even my favourite!). I own 3 other colours, 1 is Australis lick the icing, and the other 2 are bright pink shades that I won (and are pretty much exactly the same).

I feel it's about time to branch out and try something different.

1. Face of Australia lip quench in lychee crush  2. Australis colour inject mineral lipstick in honky tonk  3. MAC lipstick in venus  4. MAC lipstick in vegas volt  5. Lime Crime lipstick in retrofuturist.

I've been really digging nudes and corals lately, and I'm planning to get my hands on lychee crush and honkey tonk in the near future (yep, the staples for Aussie girls. I've been looking for lychee crush everywhere recently and haven't been able to find it). I have a friend who bought her first MAC lipstick recently and raved about it. Right now I'm not willing to spend $36 on a lipstick (yeah what?! $36!? ps I got my Chanel one duty free in Hong Kong). However, when the time comes (ok, when I next travel overseas and can get it duty free/in a cheaper country) these are the two shades I'd love to try, they're not all that different so either would do. They're both lovely corally colours.  Ok, so the last one on the list is another red. But it's such a nice red, and I've heard so many great reviews about it that I could justify adding it to my collection of other reds.

Zombies!

I have a thing for stories with zombies in them. Well, really all movies about the appocolypse. I have no idea why but I just love them. Jericho, 28 Days ( /weeks) later, Dawn of the Dead, Zombieland and my absolute favourite right now, The Walking Dead. I love the whole the world has been turned upside down and you have to sneak around to just find something to eat. It probably started from my love for the Tomorrow series by John Marsden when I was in primary school.

However, I always think they do things wrong, and I always find myself thinking about what I would do if I was in the same situation. The same thing goes for viral outbreaks (think Contagion). I've done a few semesters of microbiology, including one unit called biosecurity and microbial forensics so along with everything I've learnt from movies I think I'm a bit of an expert. I'd love to write a book about a zombie apocalypse. So far no one seems to have written the perfect zombie story (If you think there is one, dear god, let me know!!!). The Walking Dead comes close, but there's still a lot of annoying bits. I guess they're there to make the story interesting, but somehow I think I could do better.

Now, I'm not a writer. I was terrible at English, so much so that I googled synopsis of books I had to read so I didn't have to read them (like The Tempest. I just couldn't read it.). And then I crapped on about what little I knew and somehow managed to pass. I think I could give a story a good crack anyway. I mean, if 50 shades became a best seller, surely anyone could pull anything out of their arse and have people read it?
At the moment I'm way too busy to be writing anything, but in my winter break I wrote a page and a half and got the basic idea of where I wanted the story to go. I think the most important part is the zombie. My idea of a zombie is they move kind of like humans, not too fast but not slow walkers. It's (not sure what it is yet, virus perhaps) spread by being bitten and people turn within 24 hours but not straight away. Do they die first? I'm not sure. And killing the zombie is the classic beheading or destroying the brain. I also know that I want my main characters to be prepared, having some sort of medical and/or military background, and to involve the Australian bush (best place to go when there's a zombie outbreak imo!).
That's where I'm at now but it will be interesting to see if I ever get around to writing more.

Cute as a Button.

I've been hunting for some coral toned nail polishes lately, after using an amazing OPI shade at a body shop party and finding out it was discontinued. I looked at Essie's collection and found a few shades that were kind of close. The other day I was strolling through Myer and found they had a sale on Essie (Ok, I hadn't been in Myer in so long I didn't even know they sold Essie!). Cute as a Button was on my list to I bought that.
It's not as dark as I would have liked, but it's still a nice colour. Very summery.

Cute as a button in natural lighting.

It's one of those colours that changes depending on the light. Sometimes you look down and it's barbie pink, sometimes it's more coral than red. But it always looks pretty.

The Essie polishes that I own aren't my favourite formulas. Most take more than 2 coats to go on evenly and opaque, and they don't last very long. Also, their brushes are quite small. However, all the colours are beautiful, so I'm willing to put up with having to put a little bit more effort into them.

October Bellabox

I am SO happy with this bellabox. Maybe it's because the last subscription box I received was just awful, but I think it's mostly because this box is great. There isn't a single thing here that will be tossed aside, which is great.

Box contents (minus the choccie, I ate that straight away)

In the box:

DKNY Fresh Blossom Eau So Intense: I'm always happy to receive perfume samples in these boxes. It's something I would usually never be able to afford to buy, and now I've got a few of theses sample vials around if I ever want to smell pretty. And this one smells VERY pretty! 

Carmex moisture plus extra hydrating lip balm - sheer pink tint: Yes lip balms! And tinted! And full size! This does leave a lovely pink tint on the lips, and is super moisturising. ++.

Clinique extra turnaround concentrate radiance renewer: Ok, so I'm not quite sure what this is supposed to be, but from the product card it looks like an exfoliator. But you don't have to use water? It's very gentle for an exfoliator, and I'll use it anyway to see what it does.

Estee Lauder Resilience Lift: This wasn't on my product list, but a friend got the exact same products as me and got this, so I don't think that was an accident. I'm not sure if I need something like this but I'll use it anyway.

Bobbi Brown extra repair eye cream: Everyone seems to be really excited over Bobbi Brown, so I expect good things from this. Extra moisture on the super dry skin around my eyes can never hurt.

Prestige total intensity eyeshadow in Spellbound: This is great! In the pot it looks pink with a gold sparkle, but it's mostly just gold when applied. It's super creamy and is really long lasting. I've worn it for 6+ hours now without any fading.

Organic rose hip skincare seed oil: I haven't used an oil before, but I'll try this on my hands with my body shop gloves at night.

Adorn mineral eye create intensive eyeshadow in Obsidian: This is a browny gold colour. It looks nice and I will definitely use it. I haven't yet so I have no idea how long it lasts.

L-R: carmex lip balm, Prestige eyeshadow, Adorn eyeshadow

Prestige and Adorn

I'm looking forward to see what Lust have it! give us this month. I wasn't happy with last months box and I'm giving it another month to redeem itself. Not sure if I need 2 boxes a month and so far Bellabox is far better.

My puppy!

George is my 8 month old Italian Greyhound puppy! We adopted him from ACT Rescue and Foster organisation in April, after his (pregnant!) mum and dad were found in a pound in January (:( !!!). These photos are a few months old now so he's grown a bit, but he's still pretty small. He's really energetic and loves biting Sadie. They chase each other around the backyard a lot really fast. His favourite toys are empty toilet and paper towl rolls and his favourite place to sleep is in between your legs. He's also great at giving hi5's.

That teddy is long gone.

Snuggles with our whippet Sadie right after we got him. So cute!

Body shop party

Last weekend I went to a Body Shop party at my boyfriends house that his sister was holding. It was manicure themed so we did our nails while we shopped. We soaked our hands in this amazing milky bath powder stuff (I wish I could remember what it was!) and painted them. The consultant bought her own nail polish and I used OPI Tropical punch, which I loved and then found out it was discontinued :(
Anyway, on to what I bought.

Mango body scrub. This stuff is ah-may-zing!! It smells so good and it makes my skin feel lovely. I have dry skin, and I've only just started using scrubs but I can tell this is a great one.

Born lippy in lychee. This smells great and feels good. I thought it would be a light pink, but it's actually clear. It does have a bit of a sparkle in it so I'm not really disappointed with it.

Lily Cole lip + cheek dome in pinch me pink (which I managed to get for free because the BF's sister hosted and she is super lovely!). I've never used creme blush before so that might be why I can't get this right. It's quite sheer, but I guess that's good so you can build it. It is a great colour though.

Lily Cole cheek tint on my cheek.

Organic cotton moisture gloves. I get dry hands from washing them a lot at work, so I hope this helps.

I'm going to another body shop party at the end of the month (hopefully) and there's a few things I'm really keen to get my hands on then! They've got christmas things now and 2 scents are cranberry and gingerbread. YEP! I'm going to have to work hard to restrain myself from buying all of those products!

1. Cranberry body polish. Not too sure what body polish is, but it sounds nice. And Cranberry is my favourite.
2. Ginger sparkle body butter. This would smell too amazing not to get!
3. Extra virgin mineral foundation. I had a look at this at the party, and it looked like it would be really good. It's also SPF 25 which is a plus. I have already bought some Nude by Nature powder (almost a month ago and I still haven't got it! Worst online shopping experience ever!), but if I don't like the NBN, I'll give this a try.
4. Born lippy in pomegranate. This one has more colour to it so it might give more of a tint on the lips.
5. Shimmer waves in blush+bronze. The consultant used the bronzer on a few girls at the party and it looked great, so I'd like to give this a go! You can also use is at eyeshadow which is good. And I'd love some more blush.

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What I won!

This week I won Priceline's friday competition! This was a bunch of Covergirl products. I found out on  Wednesday afternoon that I won, and got it in the mail today!
This is what I got:

Lash blast volume mascara in very black, lipstick in spellbound, liquiline blast eyeliner in blue boom, eyeshadow quad in tropical fusion, and blush in soft sable.

Pretty excited to use everything here. Not sure about the eyeshadow palette though.

Excuse my horrible pictures.

The blush is a nice browny-pink shade. I'll be using this a lot!

Here is the liner (smudged + not). It comes with a smudger on the end. And the shadows... they're not very pigmented and need a bit of work to get a good colour going on. They've also got a bit of glitter in them, which you can't see here, nor when they're in the pan.

The lipstick (on the left) is really similar to a rimmel one I also won in a facebook competition. I'm still unsure about how to wear pink lipsticks (I'm yet to wear the rimmel one), so I'm not sure how much I'll use this one.

My face today, with my new blush + lippy. (That necklace is my favourite bit of jewelry at the moment.) I also applied for some christmas casual jobs today. One of them I am reeeeealy excited about and hope I get. After all I've heard, I really don't know why I am so excited to move into retail work, but I am. I'm getting over stinking of coffee after work and having coffee grinds and chocolates under my nails constantly.

Floriade

Yesterday I went to floriade with the boy. Really the only reason we went was to get a kransky because we knew it was going to be super busy being a public holiday and a really really nice day. I did manage to get a few photos of the flowers while we were there (and some sunburn).

The pink flowers are my favourites.

I love daffodils. It's a bit late for daffodils so most of them were dead :(

These were one of my favourite flowers. 

We saw this guy stealing bread off the ducks when we were leaving.