3 months??

I can't believe it's been 3 months since I last posted... Time has absolutely flown. I have managed to complete yet another semester of uni, and have made a lot of new purchases. I've copy and pasted my recent purchases from my short-lived Tumblr (much prefer the dashboard here) which is below this post. So far, I've received the MAC foundation, and the hair curler. I'm still waiting for the Naked palette and the Sigma brushes... I can't wait!

Since I made that post I have made two small purchases.

Chanel Rouge Coco Hydrating Creme Lip Colour in 76 Sari Dore. It's from the Summer 2011 Collection. I just tried taking a few pics of swatches but the flash washes the colour out and does not do it justice. I will get around to doing a review on it and include some pictures then. But my initial thoughts on it are... I LOVE IT! It is a perfect coral-y, pink-y, bright but not overwhelming colour. And that Chanel lipstick smell is to die for. Next on my wishlist is Teheran.

I was inspired to buy a new lipstick after seeing the 'Are you a lipstick or eyeshadow person?' thread on VF. It got me thinking - I always put effort into my eyes but then abandon my lips. No more! In fact I am excited because it means I can put in less effort on the eyes and then focus on the lip colour. This should drastically reduce the time it takes me to do my makeup for special occasions.

I've also bought Revlon ColorStay Liquid Eyeliner in Blackest Black. After watching youtuber emilynoel83 use it and rave about it i bought it for myself. It was about $25AUD (so wayyyyyyy exxy for what is considered drugstore) but to ease the pain i had $10 on a Westfield gift card which i put toward the purchase.

Other products I am loving at the moment:

Joico Colour Endure Violet Shampoo

picture from joico.com

I LOVE THIS! IMO it beats Matrix so silver HANDS DOWN! It's far more pigmented and much less drying (although, beware - it still is NOT what is considered a moisturing shampoo).

Palmer's Cocoa Butter Gentle Exfoliating Facial Scrub

picture is my own!

As you can see... I've almost squeezed the death out of this! I love it. My only gripe is that some of the exfoliating particles are way too big and a bit scratchy?! It's very moisturising, removes makeup well, and does NOT leave skin with that tight feeling. It has not broken me out at all despite the formula being quite heavy. I will definitely be repurchasing this!

(it has a flip-cap on the lid, but I have unscrewed it to get the dregs of the tube out!)

I'm not on uni holidays, so I hope to get around to some regular posting!

Post from my tumblr...

Recent purchases

When I went through all my stuff to see what I’d bought recently/what’s on its way to me, I got a shock to see just how much money I’d spent. And this is just beauty related items. So as ashamed as I am, I’m also excited! I love stuff!

In no particular order:

Maybelline Extreme Wear quad in Designer Chocolates






pic from maybelline.com

I haven’t bought a low-end palette for a very long time - in fact I don’t have any others in my collection and can’t remember the last time I bought one. (Apart from the Coastal Scents ones! they don’t count!) I picked this up from Woolworths for around $12. I’ve only swatched it on fingers but the colours seem to be nice and pigmented.

Urban Decay Naked Palette






pic from hqhair.com

I’d heard the hype about this palette so when it came on hqhair.com for $41 AUD (using a discount code) I couldn’t resist. Thank god for the strong Aussie dollar at the moment.

MAC Studio Fix Powder






pic from maccosmetics.com.au

I got this in shade NC25. I’ve used it before and when I saw it on Strawberrynet for $31.50 AUD I bought it. I got matched to NW25 in the liquid foundation but oh my god it’s so RED and unnatural looking on me. I stupidly bought it in store as well. $49… ouch. Needless to say it’s still in its box.

Dolce and Gabbana Light Blue






pic from Strawberrynet.com

I love this fragrance! I first bought it 8 years ago and have picked it up intermittently ever since then. I hadn’t used it for about 3 years and saw it on Strawberrynet and couldn’t resist! From memory I think it was about $85AUD for the 100mL. The smell brings me straight back to my last year of high school. Isn’t it amazing what the power of scent can do?

Assorted Sigma brushes… I can’t remember which ones exactly. I think a few eyeshadow brushes, a pencil brush and a blush brush.

Babyliss Ceramic Conical Curler






pic from ry.com.au

No, it’s not something naughty! Hehe.
Have given up trying to curl with my ghd, and I saw a few awesome tutorials on YouTube using one of these so I bought one for myself. It cost $71.86 AUD, but I used a discount code for 10% off.

Rimmel Lasting Finish Lipstick - Coral in Gold. Am undecided how I feel about this yet! The staying power doesn’t seem to be that great. Picked this up from Kmart, was $10 AUD - must have been a promotion

MAC Mineralize Blush in Dainty - love this! Got for about $22 AUD from Strawberrynet.

Moroccan Oil Light






I picked this up when I had my hair done last week. Love the smell of it and my hair feels awesome after using it! $50 AUD - yes I realise I could have gotten it cheaper online!

Yay, it’s Friday and we have a long weekend in WA!

Too bad I have uni exams.

Dear Blog,

I promise I haven't forgotten about you, it's just that I've been really busy with uni work recently. Don't worry, I've still done plenty of online shopping and bought shoes, clothes and makeup which I'll put up here as soon as I have another spare second.

Love,

Emma

Waiting Game

I love ordering things online, but I hate when they seem to take forever to arrive. I'm incredibly impatient. Currently I'm waiting for 2 ASOS orders - the one I posted about before, and also another order (I'm hopeless) of a skirt and a pair of earrings, and 2 Sigma Beauty orders (yes, I made another one). I want to have them right away!

I haven't ordered any cosmetics (or purchased in store) since I blogged about my ACW order. That is such an achievement for me, because usually I get the urge to buy something at least once a week. Most days I make up mock orders, but then once I get the guilts I close my browser and do something else to distract myself. I think I am getting to the stage now where I have found products that I am happy with and know how to apply them properlyish.

The Chevron City to Surf is on again in about 5 months time. I have already started to train for it, and by train I mean only doing a mere 3.5km run per day. The weather in Perth has been atrociously hot and HUMID the last 19 days. It's still been 32C when I've gone for a run at 7:30pm. I'd love to run in the mornings but I am a grump in the mornings and won't get out of bed if my life depends on it. I will increase my distance when it cools down a bit, but my fitness is already a little better.

Bedtime!

ASOS etc

I bought this off asos.com today:

It cost 21GBP but I had a 10% off code. And there's FREE SHIPPING! That eases the pain somewhat.

I also bought these: (top - Sigma E30, bottom Sigma E10)

 

pictures ripped from sigmabeauty.com 

I wanted to get the pencil brush as I've been wanting the MAC one for a while but couldn't justify the price, and got the fine liner brush because I've heard it's an excellent dupe for the MAC 210.

Today I had a lovely fish and chip lunch in Fremantle. Then a gigantic icecream at Baskin Robins. I swear that Baskin Robins serves you so much more than any other BR! So I was feeling pretty fat after that, which made me decide to go for a brisk hour long walk along the river in South Perth.

Our city is beautiful.

Just a Boring Tuesday

Today was extremely uneventful. I went to work and that's about it. My makeup today was...


Eyes:
- Foundation base
- Stila Launey e/s (lovely shimmery pale peach with gold flecks)
- MAC B&G Fluidline
- White shade from the Bobbi Brown Shimmerbrick in Bronze in corner
- Maybelline Great Lash Blackest Black (people are either lovers or haters)


Base:
- Revlon Colourstay Sand Beige


Face:
- Stila Sun Bronze in hollows
- NARS Orgasm Illuminator on apples


Lips:
- Stila Lip Glaze Stick in Peach

I never wear black eyeliner. It does nothing for me, and I've never quite been able to master getting both eyes even. However, today I really wanted to wear a sharp, fine, dark line over a peachy/gold base. I was craving the clean look, and I think it worked really well. I wish I had a peachier e/s but Launey did the job well enough. I had no time for photos before I was rushing out the door so you'll just have to use your imagination! I got a few compliments from my colleagues so it must have looked okay.

Adding the following to the list of my current lemmings:



Bobbi Brown Long-Wear Gel Eyeliner in Chocolate Brown

A new one of these:

picture ripped from allcosmeticswholesale.com

MAC Studio Fix Powder plus Foundation (will stalk StrawberryNet for this, my shade occasionally appears)

Studio Fix Powder plus Foundation is amazing. I use it over a tinted moisturiser, buff it in with my 187 and there it stays until I take off my makeup. And I am very oily, so for this to hold up is brilliant. Unfortunately mine has only a small amount left, so I am using sparingly.

Hump day tomorrow! Yippee.

Back to It!

When I started this blog I thought I'd be mainly blogging about makeup, however I've had a few 'what I'm doing' 'baking' etc posts as well, so basically Emma-Me is now my online diary to which my 8 (at current) followers are privy.

Yesterday I wore this out to Leederville.

I went to dinner at Jus Burgers, and then enjoyed a nice pint of Becks at The Garden.

My recent purchases include:

From thebookdepository.co.uk. Exciting. It's for uni. I wanted to order all of my books there but the other two I need were out of stock. Who knew HR books were so popular?

Happy Monday.

It's Been A While

Since I last blogged.

As promised here is my cake / ganache / fondant attempt. First ever.

Ganache:



I put it into the fridge to set, and then got started on the fondant. I made a marshmallow fondant because I've heard that most fondants aren't very tasty. Plus this one was easy (in fondant terms...)

Melted the white marshmallows with 1Tbs water for about 20 seconds, until they went all puffy:



Sifted in this until it formed a dough texture:

Then I did the same with the pink marshmallows, only I added a touch of food colouring to make it look even pinker:

I made this ghastly mess:

The fondant had to set, so I whipped up a lasagna for dinner:

Here is the cake ganache-d:

I did smooth it off much nicer than it looks here, I just didn't get around to taking a photo. The cake is actually two cakes, a white chocolate mud on the bottom, and a chocolate mud on the top. I just made White Wings cakes, because I didn't want to put in a lot of effort to just fail miserably (same with the Select chocolate you might have noticed that I used!).

Here is is fondant-ed:

Excuse the lumps and bumps. I tried my best!



I now have 7/8 of a fully ganached/fondanted mudcake in my freezer. It ended up weighing over 4kg all up.

Cooking Dinner

For dinner tonight I've decided to make this:

picture ripped from lifestylefood.com.au

It's a 4 Ingredients Sour Cream and Pumpkin Quiche. It looks bloody delish, and I am a sucker for pumpkin anything. Here's the recipe (taken from lifestylefood.com.au)

1 sheet Puff pastry

3 Eggs

300 ml Sour Cream

½ cooked butternut pumpkin, cut into pieces

1. Line a rubber pie dish with puff pastry.
2. Beat eggs and sour cream.
3. Pour over pumpkin. To taste, add sea salt and pepper in a 180C oven for 30 minutes or until set.

It doesn't get easier than that. I roasted the pumpkin instead of just steaming it because I think it will be yummier. Also I didn't use a rubber pie dish, because I don't have one.

Tomorrow I am going to attempt to make ganache and fondant, a practice run for valentine's day. I've never actioned a fancy cake or frosting before so it should be an experience. I will blog about it. (i've already noted runningincuteheels.blogspot.com for tips!)

See you tomorrow!

It's Monday...

There's a thread on the Vogue at the moment about favourite eyeshadow brands. I just posted about my Chanel quad Nymphea, which is one of my favourite quads.

Here it is:

And here's one I found online, as my picture isn't very true to the colours:

ripped from strawberrynet.com

I like this quad because even though it contains a pink and a green (which IRL is not really like either picture, it looks a lot green-er than in photo), they're still neutral and not super duper bright. I wear this quad by starting off with a wash of the light champagne colour, then wet-line with either the green or the pink, and then smudge the sparkly chocolate brown into the crease.

I also named Stila as some of my favourite shadows, except I think I prefer Chanel, because Stila shadows seem to be very soft and your brush picks up too much colour as the pan seems to crumble when the brush touches them. These Chanel ones are a lot harder, but are still just as lovely to blend.

Today I went into the city to see if the Stella McCartney bag I wanted was there. It was. And at $19 (was $99) it was a bargain. I plan to use it as a uni bag for this semester.

Not a great picture, but you get the idea. The accessories were the only thing I really liked from this collection. I wasn't overly fussed on the clothes. I wanted to get the oversized sparkly knit in the black or nude (not fussy) but every one I saw had pulls in it. No thanks.

I wonder how many people we'll see in the lace camis now that they're all on sale!

Thursday

I have been loving Target recently. I'm a student so I don't have a lot to spend on clothes (what with my makeup addiction!) and lately I've found Target to have reasonably fashionable, good quality pieces. Not to mention the fact that their stock turnover is pretty quick so they always have sales and clearances.

Here's what I picked up today:

It's a Stella McCartney for Target clutch ($19 down from $69) and 2 Grandeur bath towels ($8 something each). Here is the clutch up-close:

It's textured like fish scales. I won't be using it as a clutch, probably a makeup/toiletries bag, or something to chuck all my stuff into when I go to uni. I hope there's nobody out there that forked over $69 for it. I wouldn't have bought it if it was full price.

I bought these yesterday:

They're just draping cardigan things, and yes they were clearance (spot the red sticker!). They were originally $45, then marked to $29.88, and then another 30% off clearance items. I think they will come in handy when I go back to uni and for that awkward change of season time. I was only going to get the grey one, but then I saw the cream one so I decided to get both. I think they were a bargain. The seams have some metallic detail which makes me like them even more.

I also bought a new Revlon Colourstay at Target, as I finished mine yesterday. It is the first foundation that I have ever finished in its entirety. My foundation drawer is depressing. I have a few 99% full foundations in there. A once used NARS Sheer Glow in Deauville (which the MUA in Mecca grossly mismatched me to...) and a Chantecaille Future Skin in Nude, which is far too orange to even have the slightest chance at matching human skin. Also mismatched in Mecca. When will I learn!? I'll have to save the Sheer Glow for winter, and the Chantecaille for if I ever get the desire to be an oopma loompa.

Anyway I noticed that this Colourstay has different labelling, and does not have the soft-flex formula. I wonder if I'll notice a difference.

I went au naturale to work today, with not one scrap of makeup. I got asked if I was sick by about four different people. One person even commented "you don't look like you've been out of bed for long!". It made me feel... unpretty.

Try & Spot The Dolphins

Here are some photos of my walk I went on to watch the sunset on Sunday.


I spotted some dolphins in the water right off the shore, but they don't appear for very long. I was snapping away like a mad thing hoping to catch a glimpse of them on 'film', but I don't know if I was successful or not.
Here are the photos. Let me know if you see any dolphins in them. If not, oh well. The photos are lovely anyway. I love Perth beaches. Especially at sunset.

And here is one of the lovely sunset.

I don't think I"ll do a makeup post today, but my FOTD (Face Of The Day) was Revlon Colourstay foundation, NARS Orgasm Illuminator, Full N Soft mascara and a swipe of Smashbox Agent lipgloss. Boring.

Sunday.

Hello.

I have my first follower. I feel very special! Hello lashka_.

Today has been very hot in Perth, 36C. I haven't left the house! Instead I have been actioning tasks such as cleaning and tidying. I'm not a fan of either. My cleaning and tidying involved going through my makeup collection and discarding anything I don't use (I am a self confessed hoarder, so I don't like to part with my makeup - but I was brutal). I decided I probably didn't need those fluoro BYS eyeliners that I bought two years ago. Or that Kryolan foundation that turns orange as soon as it touches skin.

Anyway, whilst I was going through my makeup, I noticed that most of my eyeshadows were either of the 'purple' family, or the 'gold/bronze' family. This is because one source will say that purples are the best colours to bring out green eyes, yet another will say that golds and bronzes are the best colours to bring out green eyes. So, I decided to do a side-by-side comparison to see which works best for me.

Here is what I used:

The bronze colours are Shimmer Cubes #6 from The Body Shop. I used Cover Girl Perfect Blends eyeliner pencil in Black Brown. The purple colours are a Sephora palette which is actually meant for brown eyes (go figure). The eyeliner is Christian Dior waterproof crayon in Precious Violet (or Violet Precieux for those who care). I used Maybelline's Full N Soft mascara for both eyes.

My eyes are not looking particularly green today, instead an off-grey colour. I swear, they are green in natural light!

Here is my bronze eye:

And my purple eye.

And a side-by-side comparison.

You'll have to excuse my unkempt and asymmetrical brows. 

I think that the purples make the green stand out more, and the bronze makes them look slightly blue. 

Right-o. I'm off for a walk at the beach to watch the sunset.

allcosmeticswholesale.com order

Hello.

How devastating are the QLD floods. I'm in WA so feel very helpless. I have donated to the appeal at my local Coles which I hope everybody who can does.

Just 5 minutes ago I placed my first ever allcosmeticswholesale.com order and by god am I excited. I've wanted a MAC 187 for so long, and at USD$41 I couldn't not buy it. I needed to replace my Manicare stippling brush which leaves stray brush hairs all over my face and isn't dense enough to apply liquid foundation, I just wasn't prepared to pay retail (AUD$85). Here it is in all its glory.

picture ripped from maccosmetics.com.au

I noticed they had the new OCC Lip Tar shades as well, so I popped Trick in my cart. I am not a huge 'lips' person, but there's something about Trick that directed me to buy it. So I did. It cost USD$12.50.

picture ripped from allcosmeticswholesale.com

On a slightly less exciting note, I also picked up a Stila Kitten eyeshadow pan (USD$10.99) and an empty Stila 4 pan palette (USD$8.99). I find people either love or hate Kitten. I am a lover.

There are so many things from ACW that I want. I hope my parcel arrives soon!