by VioletLeBeaux | Nov 2, 2010 | Beauty, Craft
I’ve been on a mad organizing kick lately. On this scale, I am at the point of “Clean ALL the things!”. It won’t last but while I’m on the rampage I’m making the most of it and trying to tame my bathroom.
Before we moved to this apartment our bathroom was huge, before that house I had 2 bathrooms… so space was never really an issue! Now space is a premium so I have to be smarter, which is good for me because I tend to accumulate junk.
Nice clean pristine hotel-like bathroom before all my junk took it over:
First thing’s first. Eyelashes!
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I store my lashes in a two layered cakewhich has room for 16 pairs. I am bad with throwing away lashes because until recently they were quite expensive here. Also when they come apart I like to use the individual lashes for other things like to accent the corners of my eyes or layer them.So problem: too many old crappy lashes.
Solution:
Wash and clean off any dirt with make up remover. If the lashes have lost their shape, put them in very warm water and carefully bend back into shape.
Sort them all into pairs. Throw away anything that is broken, too damaged, un-cleanable or useless.
Clean out your storage area with damp paper towel and after it’s dry store them away again. DONE!
Problem:
Too many crappy shades of eyeshadow that I’m never ever going to use taking up space.
Solution:
Mixing and matching my own colours! For example, I have an unnatural number of blues and yellows in my collection. I really only need a couple of them… so I crushed them up and mixed them into green which I wear all the time.
Before…
After…
Also… I’m almost out of purple but I have lots of red/blue/white! So before:
After 😀
Super fun to experiment with colours and if you don’t like the end result it’s a good excuse to chuck out colours you’ll never wear anyway 😀
Problem:
I need some place to store lip sticks and glosses that isn’t just the shove-in-a-drawer solution. I hate not being able to find what I need at a glance. So I found this little wooden box that came with some bath salts I bought back when we had a bath and set to work with it using the same roses I’ve been painting on everything lately XD
Nail polishes at the ready…
Done!
I added a stripe of lace using a glue gun so the lip glosses didn’t slide out ^_^
And there you have it!
Very useful and easy to see everything!
Last problem for the day:
I can’t get any more lip gloss out of my favorite with the wand thing but I can see there’s lots more in there!
Solution:
This trick is an old one but just cut the sucker open and scoop it all into something else!
Even though I couldn’t get any out with the wand there was still this much left in my favorite gloss…
So that was what I managed in a night, once I’m finished over-hauling the bathroom I’ll make sure to take some photos of it all for you 😀
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by VioletLeBeaux | Oct 27, 2010 | Beauty, Review
My background in design means I tend to notice the little things. Little things like packaging and the way products are presented. Sure just having a product that is presented poorly probably won’t stop be buying it if I really want it but I think that brands who over look nice packaging really miss out on a selling point because if a package is nice enough I find ways to reuse them and thus have their brand in my house and mind for longer.
With the abundance of products in the goodie bags from MBBE it was quite hard to try and pick something to start off and try (I know my life is so hard right hahaha:P) but something caught my eye…
MOR Emporium Lychee Flower Body Butter. *Beautifully* packaged. So much so that I pried off the little plastic seal as a keep sake and kept the box for trinkets 😀 Tick number 1!
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So on to the actual body butter! Comes in a large round black plastic container and retails for $29.95.
Texture-wise this body butter is fairly thick and a little on the waxy side, it felt very luxurious going on but I don’t think it’s slippery enough to give massages with which is what I mostly use my body butters for. Value-wise I thought the size:price ratio was about average for a product of this quality.
The biggest point: I cannot describe to you how good this smells, there are simply no words. I seriously wish I could invent smell-o-vision blog posts for this because it is the best thing I have ever smelt in my life. It’s really fruity and sweet and… good. My bad descriptions are why I am no good at wine tastings XD
Verdict: Thick texture, FANTASTIC smell, reasonable price. DO WANT.
So MOR were lovely enough so send me out one of their little gift sets. This one is also lychee flower fragrance and contains a perfume oil and a soapette. It retails for AU$19.95. Details here.
Again super props for the packaging. Everything about MOR screams decadence at an affordable price to me. I swear when they created this all, they had me in mind XD I’m so imagining the conversation… “Ok so Violet likes pink packaging… check! Reusable tins… check! Pretty vintage floral designs… check! Attention to details… check! etc etc etc”
Anyway…. let’s start with the soap. Packaging is a reusable tin which I now store my bobby pins in 😀 The soap again has that same delicious smell. I found the smell to be quite strong (in a good way) when it was in the tin but then once I got it into the shower it was more subtle. It felt lovely and buttery on but did still leave that icky soap feeling which I’m not a fan of, the feeling only lasted until I got out of the shower though.
The perfume oil is I think my favorite of all the products I tried. Again, has a super cute re-usable package which I’m thinking might live in my handbag to keep bobby pins or lipstick in. Glides on smoothly and has just enough scent to be enjoyable without being overpowering. It’s the kind of scent that is pleasant but the guy at the other end of the train carriage isn’t going to get a wiff of XD
I’ve worn it several times now and almost every time it’s gotten a compliment 😀
VERDICT: For the set I think the value is very good, I probably would have bought the soap tin even if it didn’t come with the soap XD The smell is heavenly and I think they would make very good gifts coming up to Christmas…. specifically gifts to me so I can try the other flavors (marshmallow anyone!?)… Are you reading this Mum?? DO WANT |
by VioletLeBeaux | Oct 24, 2010 | Beauty, Review
I love face masks and pretty much anything that involves putting it on and being able to relax for a few minutes so I was very happy to try the Absolutely Gorgeous Pink Clay Exfoliating Maskwhich came in my MBBE gift bag.
I was even more excited when I checked out their website and all of their products are 100% paraben free as well as being Australian made and owned! The cute pink girly logo on the site helped too XD
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Ignoring all of that the mask comes in quite a big container as you can see and it retails for AU$34.95. I’ve used it maybe 5 times so far and have barely made a real dent in it yet, so I think the price is fair considering the number of uses you would end up getting.
Application is quite smooth, and the smell was pleasant but not overpowering. My skin is very sensitive and now that I’m looking on the website, it actually says this is not suitable for sensitive skin >_< |
The mask has tiny little beads for exfoliation which were a little hard on my skin and the first time I used it there was a minor burning sensation so I would agree that this is best for less sensitive skin.
The results are really good though, after using it my skin felt really smooth and I’ve definitely noticed an improvement after several uses 😀 I would definitely be interested in trying out some of the other items from the range as it’s so hard to find decent quality products which are paraben free and don’t cost an arm and a leg *_*
VERDICT: Suited for less sensitive skin but still does a really good job and is paraben free. A bit pricey but considering the volume still quite good. DO WANT.
by VioletLeBeaux | Oct 13, 2010 | Beauty, Review
Last week I was sent some Blix Nail Foilsto try out. As you all know, I’m a sucker for nail related anything so I was quite excited ^_^
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These are the designs they sent me:
They come in singles packs like the ones below or salon packs like the top 3 above.
The singles packs come with scissors, nail file/buffer and a little cuticle pushing tool which is used to apply them. According to the website these singles packs cost $17.50 which at first thought seems a little pricey considering you only get one application out of it. The price isn’t so bad when you consider they are supposed to last for up to 2 weeks and if you were going to get a professional design it would probably cost that or more. That said if I was to make a habit of buying them often… paying for a pair of scissors, file and cuticle pushes when I didn’t require them would probably bug me quite a bit.
Anyway on to the application! |
First you file and buff your nails so they are smooth and ridge free. If they are too bumpy you will be able to see the imperfections through the foil.
I decided to do these on my natural nails because at the moment I’m doing a lot of nail art and I can’t have fakes because the chemicals ruin them. I kind of want to do some nail art tutorials which are more work-appropriate and for girls that don’t have crazy long nails too.
Instructions said to pull off the top layer of the stickers next…
Then you match the closest size to your nail.
Now you should cut the bottom and sides to fit your nail exactly. This bit was a little bit confusing if you ask me. Each single set comes with 16 foils, 8 on each side which to me seems like a weird number to have considering that you have to cut them to fit your nails anyway. If it were me I would just provide 10 large sizes and then you could cut them to size… or provide 20 of them so you could get 2 uses rather than having 6 left over. That’s just my thrifty brain’s thinking though!
So you apply it to your nail and smooth it down with the cuticle tool. The instructions then say you should use the nail file to remove the extra… instead I used nail clippers to snip it off which was much quicker ^_^
Repeat and you’ve got pretty nails!
Now here’s the step which makes all the difference, when you first stick them you can see they bubble a bit and get wrinkles if you don’t have perfectly flat smooth nails. Well the instructions suggest that once you stick them you use a blow dryer to gently heat them up and then use the tool again to push out air pockets. They looked much better after the hair dryer treatment!
They are shiny as hell and I really like a lot of the designs on the website. I think they would be good for a big night out or a fancy event especially for those that don’t have the patience for painting intricate designs themselves ^_^
For good measure here is one I used on a fake nail:
I kept them on for 3 days with no problems and I only removed them because I wanted to change to a different design. To remove I just soaked my hands in warm water and peeled them off again.
Because they are quite thick (almost like vinyl car decals) and the heat molds them to your nails I think they would be quite durable. I could definitely see them lasting a few weeks easily if you were careful with the application. I really like the idea of these and they come in a huge amount of designs.
VERDICT: DO WANT
Yay I’m so glad to start doing beauty reviews again, I can’t wait to show you guys some of the cool things from the Beauty Blogger event the other week 😀
by VioletLeBeaux | Oct 4, 2010 | Beauty, Life
On the weekend I was lucky enough to be invited to attend the Melbourne Beauty Bloggers Event. It was spectacular!
We took cute beauty blogger mug shots on the way in to the party!
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It was held at the Oxygen Skin Centre in Docklands, food was supplied by the Earl Canteen and drinks were from Nudie. James had his fair share of his treasured “tiny sandwiches” haha! I’ve never been to a event quite like this before, everyone had so much in common that conversation was nice and easy and I felt like a princess being treated to so much luxury! I think I was a little out of my depth hanging out with so many beautiful and eloquent ladies but I had such a lovely time :DUnfortunately I can’t seem to get my stupid gallery plugin to do it’s job so you will have to make do with a smaller selection of photos and I’ll hopefully be able to update it when the plugin starts working again. Ugh technical drama![zenphotopress album=18 sort=random number=100] [zenphotopress album=27 sort=random number=100] [zenphotopress album=22 sort=random number=100] |
With James being photographer for the day we ended up with something ridiculous like 500 photos :OYou can see all of the photos of the day on my Flickr here.A special thank you goes out to Val of Ponikutawho organized everything, she was fantastic and it was awesome to finally meet her in person!The event was a long time in the planning and so I think most of us had been chatting on Twitter in the lead up, it was fun to put real faces to Twitter handles 😀 I met so many lovely bloggers and I’m really hoping that we can stay in touch!Here is the list of attendees, they all run fantastic beauty blogs so do check them out!
At the end of a lovely girly day full of pampering (foot spas and hand massages) we were treated to a *fantastic* array of gift bags! Val did some serious organising and put together a huge amount of goodies for us!This is what I looked like at the end of the day XD
Ok ok ok so only half of that is actually mine but still… HAUL and a half!You can see all of the goodies we took home here^_^ I’m such a lucky girl! So many products to try and that means lots more reviews on the blog!I had an absolutely wonderful time and I can’t wait until next year! I think I’m the luckiest blogger in the world 😀
by VioletLeBeaux | Sep 29, 2010 | Beauty, Craft, Storage/Utility-Tutorials, Tutorial
Today is all about cute storage. So many tutorials lately 😀
I have a lot of bottles in my bathroom, lots of hair spray, make up remover and things like that which are staples that I re-buy when they’re empty. Unfortunately the manufacturers that make all of those products didn’t bother consulting with each other on the designs so none of them match… how inconsiderate of them ;P
So how did I make my bathroom all pretty and matchy?
Slip covers. Very very easy to do and a very pretty result.
What you need:
- Whatever bottle you’re going to cover
- Felt or fabric
- Needle and thread
- Magnets or elastic
So you begin with something like this…
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Get your fabric together, I am using pink felt with while polka dot tulle over the top.
Measure around the outside of your bottle. You will need to cut a rectangle of felt which is exactly the right height and width to wrap around the bottle.
After cutting this out you can decorate it. I am just adding a spotty overlay but you can do pretty much anything. I’m going to make some more which have embroidery and other fun things.
Fold the edges around and sew in place.
Now if you have a metal bottle you can simply add some magnets around the side to keep it in place on the bottle. Super easy.
If your bottle is plastic then all you need to do is form a tube with the felt and add a little bit of elastic which joins the sides together, now you should be able to slip the cover on and off easily. |
And you end up with something like this…
Took about 5 minutes to make and they look much prettier all in a row in the bathroom.
Yay for quick craft!
