I’ve travelled domestically more this year than since I was a kid but unfortunately none of it has been for holidays >_< The plus side of this is that because we don’t have any large luggage I’m now adept at packing several days worth of stuff into an overnight bag haha!
You can see the overnight bag we took in the top left and then my handbag and James’ camera equipment bag at the bottom left.
Not including my hangbag, James’ camera bag or the two pink make up bags next to them the rest is made up of:My clothes:
2 pairs of shoes
5 dresses (for 3 days plus a night event and one emergency change)
1 scarf
Pajamas, underwear and a singlet
Belt
James’ clothes:
1 pair of shoes
2 pairs of jeans
1 suit jacket and pants
3 shirts (two 2 shirts and 1 button down)
Now on the the interesting parts, make up and toiletries!
I took two small bags with me, one for make up/bathroom stuff and one for accessories and anything else that didn’t fit.
The make up one:
Inside was:
Brush
Travel straightener
Toothbrushes/paste
Moisturiser
Eyelashes/glue
Brown shadow palette
4 Shadows in pink/purple/white shades
Mascara
Eyeliner
Lipstick/gloss
Hair ties
Plastic bag to put wet toothbrushes in
Mini containers of foundation/primer/hair spray
Face masks for de-stressing at night (so important!)
My biggest tip for traveling with make up is to take mini versions of things if you can. For things like foundation I use old contact lens cases 😀
On to the jewellery:
I didn’t want to take much jewellery for the trip because I always end up losing small items like this when I travel so I take versatile things which can be worn with anything…
1 hair bow
1 headband
1 peal chocker which can also be worn in the hair or as a bracelet
2 pairs of earrings
2 bracelets
1 brooch
1 ribbon thingy which can be worn in the hair or as jewellery
To save space I only packed things which could be squished up with no problems, below you can see the headband squished into a bracelet.
I learned the hard way many years ago to pack anything that can’t be replaced into carry on luggage when one of my suitcases was lost so this is what comes in my bag…
Inside:
iPad
Tamagotchi (Hat)
Phone
Camera
Headphones
Microphone
Money
Pens
Tissues
Make up bag for doing my look on the plane
Sunglasses
Business cards
Mini brush roll/toiletries
Scarf (which can be used as a heap of different things in an emergency
Inside my make up bag and mini brush roll…
There are:
Mints
Nail glue
Perfume oil
Handkerchief/face washer
Jewellery I’m planning on wearing that day
Comb
Cuticle stick
Lip glosses/sticks
Mirror
In the brush roll:
Mini travel brushes (duh…)
Eyeliner
Tissues and cotton buds
bobby pins
Now that I’m traveling a reasonable amount for work the one thing I actually wanted to splurge a bit on was a good bathroom travel set. I spent quite a while looking for a cute one which held a good amount and in the end I didn’t have to splurge because I was contacted to review a local business called “Groomy“. To be honest I almost said no because it didn’t sound relevant for me to blog about… then I saw that they had an entire range which was pink with carousel print *_* So freaking cute!
The large set I received came with one gigantic bathroom bag which I would use when going on longer trips, 3 smaller bags (which I used at IMATS), the mini brush roll and a good old fashioned tissue holder. It’s been so long since I’ve seen tissue holders anywhere and I love this idea!
I really want to make a bunch of them so I have one to match every outfit/handbag now haha! You can see below a better shot of the cute fabric it’s all made of too.
The large bag is very large. It wouldn’t fit in my overnight bag but I could definitely see myself taking this overseas for an extended trip where we actually have a suitcase. All of the other bags fit comfortably inside it for storage in the mean time which is a plus. There are pockets on both sides of the main compartment as well as 4 elastic bottle pockets on the lid and an elastic strap for other things.
The main bathroom bag I took to IMATS was the second biggest one. It’s basically a smaller version of the above one with more pockets. 3 on the right and 3 with another elastic strap on the left. There is a huge amount of space in the center too even with all the pockets filled so I was really surprised that I could fit all my make up and have my brush/toothbrush/straightener in the middle! I also really liked all of the pockets and things as it made it much easier to get things out without spilling everything else everywhere.
The two smaller bags were useful for accessories and random things. They are very square so they hold a lot while also stacking easily in the bags. Everything (other than the tissue holder) was covered in clear plastic so spills etc were easily wiped away with no problems, it wasn’t the kind of super shiny plastic though so they didn’t look at all cheap. It looks a bit shiny in the photos but that was from the flash being so close.
The absolute best out of the bunch though was the mini brush roll/ beauty tool roll. Best idea ever! It fit my mini travel brushes easily but it was also the *perfect* size for cotton buds, bobby pins, eyeliner and cuticle sticks. I loved this one so much that I now keep it in my handbag regularly too.
So verdict, the set is probably in the more expensive price range but if you travel a lot I think good luggage is something worth splurging on and they are very good quality materials and very well sewn while still being adorable. With that in mind and knowing I’m probably going to be traveling a bit more often now, I’m currently saving up for the other items in the set. It’s a change (here in Aus at least) to see such cute girly prints too so if that’s up your alley definitely check out the Groomy website because they ship worldwide and have a lot of other cute items.
Do any of you have any awesome travel tips? I would love to hear them, especially if it involves being able to sleep on the plane because I suck at that!!
How many times can I re-organise this table? Well apparently several >_< I just can’t settle with a design that is practical and still pretty so I keep redoing it every time it gets messy. I promised to show it next time I finished reorganising so here it is!
One of my next projects is to recover the stool, that fabric is so worn >_<
Eyelashes are stuck to the wall and claw clips around the mirror.
You can see all the lighting around the mirror that I use for my videos too and the mini mirror I actually use in front.
On the right I have make up removers, brushes, mascara and anything pencil shaped.
I have a lot of brushes packed in there because of the Royal Langnickel set we were given at ABBW, before that I only had like 5 XD
My straightener is kept on a heat proof mat thingy and then the rest of my hair stylers are beneath the table.
In the middle is a silly boyfriend and a big coastal scents palette.
I have a container for bobby pins and lashes I’ve used but haven’t cleaned properly yet. It used to have a candle in it and was too cute to throw away.
James’ guitar case is on the left of the desk so I keep my big hair sprays etc on top.
Recently I got this big set of drawers from Office Works for around $15. Very good value and it holds heaps of stuff!
On the very top are the products I use pretty much every day.
Then the top draw is full of lip products.
Then eye shadows and glitter.
Next drawer is all bushes and eye palettes.
And lastly big things that don’t fit anywhere else XD It’s mostly facial moisturisers etc.
I want to de-stash though because it seems like a lot of stuff to have and I can’t keep track of it all >_<
So how do you store your make up? Do you have drawers or some other way to organise? I’m definitely thinking it’s time to de-stash pretty much the whole house. My craft stuff is getting out of control especially >_<
Now there a hell of a lot of ABBW/IMATS posts going up, with 85 bloggers attending it’s not surprising. Everyone has already done the hauls, goody bags, event run downs much better than I could so rather than that I’m just going to tell you about our weekend snapshots style and show what we actually got up to. Enjoy ^_^
For an overview of the whole weekend crammed into a video here’s my V-Log from the event and do keep reading for the longer and much more anecdotal photo version below ^_^ Seriously, it’s a massive post because I’m cramming 3 really busy days in here so you’ve been warned!
It’s been a really long week. Last weekend James and I visited Sydney for the second time and it was just as busy and stressful as the last time we were there on our relocation drive to Melbourne. This time we were there for the Australian Beauty Bloggers Weekend to visit the International Make Up Artist Trade Show. James and I had quite a bit of debating leading up to the event as to whether we would be going because of the costs, over the last few months almost every single piece of important work technical equipment we own broke: my computer (fan broke), his computer ( power supply literally exploded), his camera (mirror thing shuddering) and the list goes on. It was very expensive having to replace everything and considering we have never actually just taken a non- work holiday/trip in the entire time we’ve been together (we have always been trying to save for a house) I really wasn’t sure I wanted to spent our savings on something else work related. But the time came, some things beyond our control happened, favors were begged, borrowed and given and things were booked. So off to the airport we went last Friday.
Me being classy in a face mask the night before and my nails:
And the whole airport thing didn’t quite go to plan. In fact for a lot of the weekend it felt a bit like we were in one of those old 3 door British comedies and John Cleese was about to burst in from somewhere!
We arrived nice and early to the airport because of my travel paranoia and it was a good thing too because Jetstar didn’t bother to tell us during online check in that our flight was actually a connecting leg of an international flight so international rules applied. Ok for James, he has a drivers license, not so much for me as I only had my 18+ card which isn’t good enough to get on an international flight. The only other thing I had on me was my ambulance card so I spent a while arguing with the official until he let us through. In the end he said immigration on the other end of the flight would deal with it and I was left with the distinct feeling he was just screwing with me because I was so upset ugh. On international flights you are also only allowed 10 liquids and gels per person in the cabin and of course to save space we were only taking cabin luggage so I had to go through my whole make up kit and decide what was needed. I was so lucky not to have to dump anything as I could give it to James but I saw others behind us who had to chuck things!
Cute plane lunch box they were selling at the airport:
Stressful yes but at least we were at the airport and about to leave yes? Well our lovely travel buddy Celina had been told a completely different time to be at the gate and then got stuck in the immigration line with a billion other people. After frantic texts we finally got to meet each other on board the actual plane but with no sign of Shizuka who was also on the same plane but still in customs *_* we didn’t discover she had managed to get on in time until we were landing!
So we waited for take off… And waited… And waited… And as it turns out waited for around 2 hours because someone had loaded 2 bags on to the plane that didn’t have an owner so it was a security risk and they had to go through everything one by one. Did I mention we were traveling with a very loud obnoxious group of footballers/some sports team and cheerleaders? After they finally found the bags two virgin blue planes decided to park behind us so we couldn’t get out. The captain was piiiiissed! So we got in thoroughly shaken up by the turbulence and a couple of hours late but at least we actually made it in one piece!! Everyone I spoke to on the weekend had their own travel horror stories including completely missed flights and some that were a lot worse so I think we got off lightly!
When we got there:
The rest of the weekend. *cough* SOMEONE *cough* told us it was 29 degrees and to dress appropriately so none of us bought jackets!
From there we caught a very expensive taxi to the hotel and were very underwhelmed by it too XD seriously for the amount of money we ended up paying for the Novotel I was not happy with the level of service at all. It’s by no means a cheap hotel but there was no breakfast, no complimentary wifi and some very surly staff. The room itself was very nice and definitely enough for the three of us but it was little things like the concierge not arranging taxis when we asked but instead telling us to wait outside in the cold/rain in case one showed up.
Shizuka, Celina, James and I wandered across the river looking for some lunch but we took so long getting there that we settled for ice cream, I’m pretty sure ice cream is one of the most important food groups!
Some gigantic whale things:
Staying classy at the fountain:
After suitably stuffing ourselves with ice cream and wandering back to the hotel we plugged in to get some work done before dinner. The internet at the hotel was ridiculously expensive and only allowed one connection at a time so no on-the-road-updates from me and very little work was done XD
Jerk sea gulls waiting to steal icecream.
James was pleased with his healthy lunch…
We did early registration for the weekend so got to say a quick hello to everyone and take some of the gift bags back in the room so we didn’t have to carry them. Dinner was another comedy of errors, our taxi driver spent the entire trip telling us stories and jokes of different ways to murder his insane mother in law *_* Yes seriously. He was joking of course but some of them were very descriptive!!
Colour changing fountain found while looking for dinner.
We had been planning to go for dumplings and bubble tea at some place which as it turned out closed super early on Friday night. In Melbourne the CBD has late night shopping on Friday but apparently Sydney isn’t the same >_<
So we wandered for a good chunk of time (a lot of which involved stopping at Zara) but everywhere we found either couldn’t take all of us or had a line out the door. So after some debating the decision of KFC was reached 😀 That’s the thing about beauty bloggers, we do love our junk food. In fact, other than the Maxted Thomas Gala dinner I don’t think I ate one nutritional thing the entire weekend hahaha!
So dinner was had and we headed back home to the hotel to help Tina prepare the Face of Australia gift bags.
You’d be amazed how quickly 10+ girls can unbox and pack 90 or so gift bags!
After finishing Celina, James and I were so tired so we went back up to our room for some much needed sleep.
DAY 1 OVER!
We woke up bright and early Saturday morning and James headed out to pick up Mcdonalds breakfast while Celina and I got ready. Seriously between the who of us I think we brought almost enough stuff to stock a whole make up store 😉
First event on Saturday was IMATS itself so we walked across the road to the convention hall and met up with everyone else.
I was so glad that we didn’t have to get up early for registration on Saturday, I always have so much trouble sleeping when I’m not at home. By the time I got home I was pretty much a zombie.
IMATS was really interesting, probably not exactly what I was expecting in size but still really interesting.
With Pretty Random and her friend who’s name I didn’t get, her blue hair streak was EPIC! Of course the only photo I got with them was completely blown out because we hadn’t set up the gear yet >_< I look like some kind of adorably vengeful ghost haunting them!
I wanted to talk to more of the stall holders but it was so busy. Inglot has 30% off (so prices were almost what they are in the US) but getting service there was pretty much impossible with the number of people lined up! There were some aweome special effects booths as well, they were my favorite part:
The prices on everything were really good though, Illamasqua especially had huge discounts. There was a lot of really cheap brushes too which I was very tempted to get.
We did a lucky dip at the *** place and then went to visit the Royal Langnickel suite. Hoooomygod it was awesome! They had set up a chill out area for the ABBW attendees upstairs where we could kick back, have some food and relax. There were manicures and all kinds of other fun services too, hell by this point they probably could have cut my fingers off and I would have still been happy to just have somewhere to sit 😉
With Gilded Nails, she was so sweet and she’s about to go on her honey moon!
I really want to go back to IMATS next year with a big budget to stock up on things and more time to actually look at the events going on.
We went back a bit early so we could pick up some things from our room and then it was down to the Beauty Directory event. I took copious amounts of notes in all of the events so if anyone actually wants them just let me know and I’ll type them into something more coherent 😉
The Beauty Directory panel started off with mini talks from a couple of the brand representatives and evolved into a panel discussion on various topics like what PR expect from beauty bloggers and what bloggers can expect from PR. I couldn’t actually see what was going on because we were right at the back but I still took a lot of notes. The last part of the this was a table discussion where each group was given a question to answer. We were lucky enough to have one of the co-founders of Beauty Directory at our table: Janet Hayward. She was really lovely and it was great to get to know her a bit as we discussed our best and worst experiences when dealing with PRs.
Celina and I with Janet.
We then had a two hour break to get ready for the Maxted Thomas gala event so more primping and getting changed back at the hotel. This was favorite event of the weekend because it allowed us time to socialise with not only the PRs but also the other bloggers. I made it my mission to not be so timid and actually interview some of the bloggers and also PR reps. You can see some of the interviews in my video. Let me know if you enjoy it because I have heaps more that I didn’t have room to put in so maybe I’ll make a sequel!
There were several brands at this event including Nivea, Coty (who deal in a lot of high end perfume brands), Burt’s Bees, Remmington, Orly and Sebastian. The idea was that we could actually talk to the representatives for each brand and they could recommend products we might be interested in etc.
I thought this was such a good format because I took away so much more information that I think I normally would. It was pretty squishy with that many people trying to talk to the brands but totally worth it. My favorite part was the Nivea photo booth, seriously whoever came up with that idea needs a promotion because it was SO much fun and I got to take away photos with my friends so very happy!
Didn’t know we were getting a photobooth that night so James and I stopped at a completely different one during the day XD
We were treated to a fantastic dinner with some *very* attentive wait staff (seriously with the amount of wine offered I swear they were trying to get me drunk 😉 ) and got to learn a bit more about Maxted Thomas itself. The whole weekend I felt like royalty *_*
I was lucky enough to interview one of the owners Ian Thomas so check that out in the video too! I was so nervous interviewing people as I’ve never done it before but I muddled through and I know next time I’ve got so many points I can improve on. In fact I was so nervous when the actual film crew who was there asked to interview me, I froze up a bit and probably made a bit of a fool of myself >_< Oh well!
Maxted Thomas also announced a competition wherein whoever writes the best post on the weekend will win $2000 travel vouchers. When they said that I was so excited because as I mentioned before, James and I have never really been on a *holiday* together, we always just go places for work. So if this posts wins I think I would want to go to Japan with him via Singapore and Malaysia to visit friends or maybe visit all of you guys in the USA, I don’t even know, there are so many cool places we could go! What do you guys think? If I came to your town would you come meet up with me?
One of the best moments of the night was being asked if I would come and meet the head chef because she loved my hair 😀 So cool!
We headed back to the hotel and luckily got a taxi right away because the downstairs of the Establishment turns into a club at night and it was pretty full of partying people. It was raining really hard when we got out too so we were all FREEZING in our lack of winter clothes, then we realised that the taxi had taken us to the wrong hotel! >_< seriously, why would they build two Novotels by the harbour!?!?!
DAY 2 OVER!!
So on our final day we packed up our bags and checked out very early that morning. We left our bags at the desk and headed upstairs for light breakfast and the first seminars.
The first event was for Alpha H skincare and it was hosted by Karen from The Morning Show’s advertorials. Again I took a lot of notes so if anyone wants them just let me know and I’ll publish them here.
After that the MBBE girls helped out with setting up for the Face of Australia event again. This one wasn’t so much a talk like the others but a make up class.
This is my favorite of the new looks:
We got to see the new look books coming out and we got to see a couple of colours in the new range (OMG I want Malibu Barbie) and try the look that make up artist *** was doing on Briony ourselves.
Testing stuff out:
We had mirrors, tissues and little brushes and the range in the goodie bags so it was really awesome that you could follow what was happening on the big screen and do it too.
The last event of the day was the key note speaker, Bahar Etminan from Rescu.com.au (not linked because it keeps throwing me a malware warning when I try to visit). Phew was this an interesting note to end on. Controversial is probably an understatement! Twitter was going absolutely nuts during her speech *_*
While I personally disagreed with a lot of points she made and I think perhaps her talk wasn’t really well targeted to her audience, it has been discussed to death so I’m not going to go over it again here. The only thing I want to say is that making judgments about what other people do on their blogs is completely pointless because in the end the reader decides, if people don’t like it they won’t read it. Making a distinction between certain types of bloggers and others makes me feel like high school again. Why waste time and energy getting mad about something that doesn’t effect you when you could do something constructive with yourself? Honestly sometimes events make me think we should all spend less time talking about blogging and just get on with the actual doing of it ^_^ That’s what my goal going forward is anyway!
There are a bunch more photos but this post is getting pretty epic already. I’m still waiting to get most of them from James so I’ll probably do a second gallery style post.
So that one went a little bit over time and we headed off to the airport! We decided to go very early because we weren’t sure whether all of the giftbags would put us over the baggage weight limit *_* Very luckily we managed to juggle everything around to avoid some fines and thank you Celina for letting me borrow a suitcase!
The flight back was just as eventful, even being so early we almost missed it because they changed the gate at the last minute but didn’t have it over the speakers >_< We were sitting at the gate at take off time thinking “Hmmm are we boarding soon??”, finally Celina asked someone and we found the correct gate right up the other end of the airport. Celina can fun FAAAAST when she needs too haha! So borded safely and on a flight that actually included dinner we were happy to relax for an hour or so. I have to say, after the debacle with Jetstar I will never fly them again, I’ll pay the extra and go with someone else that includes food!
Hilarious plane safety thing, honestly does anyone even own a Furbie anymore? And who carries a walkie talkie?
By the time we got home I was about ready to fall asleep in the car. It was an amazing weekend. A huge thank you to Kimmi and Jacie for putting it together, thank you to the sponsors for being so generous, thank you to James for being awesome and Celina for being a great room mate.
Also thank you to everyone who came and said hello! I was pretty tired the whole weekend as I was just getting sick so I didn’t get to say hello to everyone I wanted to but I’m sure there will be more chances soon. Thank you everyone who we met for making us feel so welcome. Even though Sydney seems to hate me, I totally want to come back anyway 😀
It was an amazing weekend and I hope you all enjoyed the photos and videos. Now I want to hear from you guys! Where would you go if you won the $2000 travel vouchers from Maxted Thomas? I know it’s a long shot considering some of the other amazing posts but if I did win where should I go? Would you like me to come visit your town? If I did, where would you take me? We could have tea parties all over the world, that would be SO much fun!!
So far all of my experiences with KMS California have been really positive so when their PR rep offered to send me the new improved range I was pretty excited. New and improved is a always a little nerve racking when you love a product range, I can’t tell you how many times I have products I love then the company “improves” them and they just start sucking.
Funnily enough this time they actually took on board some of my feedback and gave the ugly plain packaging a make over! Seriously my biggest complaints with the products I’ve reviewed from KMS was that even though they are in the higher price range, the packaging and design didn’t reflect that. They’ve been given a complete make over and now have bright and prettier packaging.
So I was sent 5 items (and received one more in the bags from ABBW which I’ll review later), here are my thoughts.
Free Shape, Quick Blow Dry.
Price- $31.95
This is actually my favorite out of all of the products. The idea is that it cuts down the time you spend blow drying, conditions the hair while also protecting it from heat. The best part? It actually works! I HATE blow drying my hair, I will do anything possible to avoid it. My hair dryer is heavy and with how long and thick my hair is it takes forever to do. Using this spray cut my drying time in half. After using it my hair felt silkier as well which is a big plus in my books. The formula is a two part thing which you shake to activate and then spray all over towel dried hair. It also smells quite nice, there’s a little hint of alcohol to it but mostly it’s just a nice floral- ish smell. Definitely DO WANT.
Free Shape, Hot Flex Spray
Price- 31.95
This is your basic heat activated hair spray. No alcohol scent at all in this one, just a sweet fresh smell and it’s another pump action spray. I found this to be a medium hold with heat and worked on pin curls fairly well without heat too. It worked nicely in conjunction with my straightener and I noticed that my hair stayed in place longer with it. While it didn’t take care of or smooth down fly aways like regular hair spray it kept the actual styles in place longer and felt light and non- crunchy. Kind of like not wearing anything at all. So I think the best use for this one would be for natural styles that involve heat styling but need to have movement. The kind of styles that take you a while to do but look like you just woke up with awesome hair 😉 I’m now using this instead of my regular heat protector spray because it does double duty.
Hair Play, Dry Touch Up
Price- $28.95
This is a bit of an odd product. I was pretty much expecting a dry shampoo, it looks like a dry shampoo with the aerosol looking bottle etc but it’s not actually an aerosol and it’s not actually a dry shampoo. Generally with dry shampoos you spray at the roots to soak up oil and grossness, this one suggests that you spray around the middle and ends of the hair to give it new life. It was a bit hard for me to test it because generally I have more problems with oily roots than ends so it didn’t do much for me. Again this one has a very nice sweet smell with a tiny bit of an alcohol too. So while this one wasn’t any good for me it still left a nice finish and smelled good so I think it would probably suit someone who did have problems with limp ends.
Add Volume, Volumizing Spray
Price- $31.95
This is another of my personal favorites of this range. Volumizing spray 😀 James has been bugging me to try Volumizing spray for years because when he had hair he used to swear by it. I complain about my lack of top volume all the time but I’m also very lazy so I ignored him until now XD So yes this smells just as nice as the rest of the range but does it work? Well yes. It works ridiculously well. Here is a terrible phone shot of me after I used it and blow dried for the first time.
Results speak for themselves I think! Once it’s in I was expecting it to make my hair feel dirtier but it just felt grippy not dirty which was a nice surprise. Big plus one. The ability to use wet and also dry for touch ups was great and the volume lasted for me pretty much until the next wash, very happy with this one!
Curl Up, Wave Foam Mousse
Price- $36.95
This reminds me so much of that gel shaving cream that James uses! It comes out as a gel which you then lather into a kind of foam and run through towel dried hair then blow dry on a diffuse setting or air dry. Like pretty much all of these products it has heat protector in it which is awesome. I chose to diffuse dry but my fickle hair couldn’t keep a curl that way. I had more success scrunching it with my fingers and then letting it air dry, the result was more like beachy waves. Quite a nice effect considering how little effort was involved! The smell of this one is kind of like the pink flavor of that Vitamin Water which is my favorite haha. My personal taste is for more heavily styled hair but I think this is nice for casual days.
So overall as a collection I loved it. There were 2 stand outs for me, the Volumizing spray and the Quick Blow Dry spray, they have both made it into my every day routine and I would purchase them again. The others were good too but these two were personal favorites. The bottles are all nice and big so it makes me feel better about spending more for a higher end hair brand as a treat for myself. The whole range is definitely worth checking out and I love the new packaging, it’s really nice when brands listen to feedback!
We’re off, I’m hoping to try to update from the hotel while we’re away but if not feel free to check out my mobile Cuties blog because I’ll be posting photos there as I go and as per usual the most recent 5 will show up in this post below ^_^
As I mentioned the other day I’m going to be making V-Logs there as well as interviewing as many people as possible so let me know if you want to see anything specific. Otherwise bring on the make up and beauty fun! Hope you all have a fun weekend too!
A while ago I went to an event to celebrate the Kiehls price drop here in Aus. The idea is that they finally move prices into line (roughly) with the rest of the world’s prices. Yay that! So I was given a couple of items in a gift bag and here is my review of them.
So this is a huge bottle. HUGE. It’s the kind of thing you could knock someone out with. If you were going to try this I would suggest going for the small version for $10 to see if you actually like it because I have no idea how I’m going to use all this lotion XD
It smells like standard moisturiser and is really thick. It leaves the skin silky and smooth but I don’t like to use it on my hands because it’s a little slippery afterwards. Feels nice on legs though. So it’s a very nice lotion but there was nothing about it that made me excited, it’s just a standard good lotion. Nothing bad about it but for some reason there are just a lot of other lotions I reach for first before this for some reason.
I actually really hate things that are coconut scented but I found this really growing on me. It’s hard to describe but it’s kind of sweeter than coconut scents usually are. You don’t need much at all to coat your lips and it feels very moisturising. After reading so many rave reviews on what a life saver this balm is I was quite apprehensive about it and while it didn’t disappoint I don’t think I’m a raving fangirl here either. It absorbed into my lips quite quickly but the soft feeling didn’t last long so I felt myself reaching it for it much more often that the balm I was using before it. After using several times a day the last few months I haven’t seen long term effects. It’s been nice to use, the price is great and I would definitely give it as gifts to my beauty loving friends!
This moisturiser has been a lifesaver for me. When I think of Acai berries, I think of those terrible weight loss infomercials so I was pretty sceptical when I started using it. It’s billed as being able to smooth and even skin tone and for me it worked really well. The pump bottle is great because none of it is wasted and it makes application nice and easy. When I had allergic reactions to other products I applied this to soothe it and the blotchiness that usually hangs around for days was gone overnight, my skin felt less dry and more moisturised. It felt softer and smooth. I don’t think it’s a miracle cream by any means but it works well for my skin type. The one drawback I have is the price, even with the price drop it’s still 1/3rd more than the US version which while I understand that we have higher minimum wage etc still sucks. At $68 for quite a small bottle if I had infinite money I would definitely repurchase but in reality I’m rationing it so it lasts as long as possible 😉 This is one of the examples where I think a higher end product is worth the extra money though.
VERDICT:
So while not everything was for me there were no major negatives. 2 products that I liked and one that I loved. I think these particular ones were a good introduction to the brand in general and I would definitely head back to Kiehls to check out other products whether they are out of my budget or not. Definitely worth a look, especially the last one!
Illustrator. Strong tea, knitting, watercolours, and making a video game called Moonlight in Garland. Living with her adorable husband Jimmy, fluffy puppy Miss Lottie and Bergamot Bunny in Melbourne, Australia.
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