Lab Muffin

Duri does colours??? Swatches and review

2013-05-20T07:45:00.000+10:00

I've always known Duri for their Rejuvacote (every Aussie chick from Lacquerheads of Oz uses it, I swear), but it turns out that they have some gorgeous polishes as well! I was recently sent some of them to review from Pink Tiger, Australia's exclusive Duri distributor.

Summer in the City is my favourite of the four - it's a pale bluish green with subtle fine shimmer which doesn't show up on the nail, making it essentially a creme. I have a weakness for pastels, and this hits the spot. It's a one coater, but I did two out of habit.

Lavender the Magnificent is definitely magnificent - it's a slightly bluish purple, with purple shimmer that shows up in the light. A close second in my affections! Again, this is a one-coater.

Endota Spa review (aka I am pretty awkward at life)

2013-05-17T07:42:00.000+10:00

I'm not someone who goes to spas often, so I'm pretty clueless when it comes to spa etiquette. Last Christmas I was lucky enough to win an Endota Spa Mind voucher, a one-hour package including a footbath and full body brush and massage. I chose Endota Spa at Martin Place - it has an incredibly convenient CBD location, just a few minutes' walk from Wynyard station.

The first thing you'll notice as you get into the lift is that the whole place smells really good - indulgent, herbal good. The friendly receptionist sits me down with a cup of organic chamomile tea and a client card to fill in. I write down details that could be imaginative questions for fraud protection, like how many glasses of water I drink a day (6, I swear!), how much pressure I want in a massage (firm), how much I would like the therapist to talk (very important question, I'm sure you'll agree), and any allergies to ingredients that may be in the products (happily, none). After a comfortable pause, I'm introduced to my therapist, Akiko, and taken to a dimly lit room with what I can only describe as "gong-y" music piping in, and told to strip to my undies and put on a robe. Hurray!

I wanted to just put a huge circle around both figures, but then realised that wouldn't be too helpful.

After turning myself into a burrito, I dunk my feet into a bowl of warm water in the corner and wait. This is when my newbie socially awkward paranoia takes over - did she tell me to get her? Should I have knocked on the door from the inside? I start worrying since my feet are wet and it's too late to go anywhere without slopping mildly bubbly water all over the wooden floor. Luckily, just as I'm frantically looking around for handholds to swing me to the door in the least number of steps, my therapist comes back.

More »

Artsy Wednesday: Pastels

2013-05-16T00:47:00.001+10:00

It's Artsy Wednesday! Well, Thursday my time, because I procrastinated so hard that I didn't have all the photos sorted until now. Without further ado, here are my pastel nails for this week:

Lush Fragrance review - Big, Twilight and Furze

2013-05-14T07:49:00.000+10:00

Attention Aussie ladies! Lush's annual forum special perfumes are available this weekend only at their online store - every year, the Lush forumites vote for fragrances to be made based on the scents from particular products, and the super limited edition perfumes are available online for a very very short time.

This year the options are Big, Twilight, Snowcake, Creamy Candy, Rose Jam and The Comforter, and at the Sydney Lush blogger event earlier this month, I got to sniff them all in person. I can assure you that they all smell just like their name sakes!

Lush kindly gave each blogger the chance to try out three products of our choice - I picked Big and Twilight, as well as Furze, one of Lush's new range of Gorilla Perfumes which will be debuting in Australia in August.

Big is named after the volumising shampoo, and has the same scent which reminds me of flowing kaftans and white and yellow flowers on a tropical beach. The official notes are neroli, mandarin, orange blossom and vanilla absolute, which on me starts off refreshingly flowery with a slight citrus kick and fades slowly to warm, sundrenched. It lasts ages on me, and is a bit more floral than I'm used to - it'll be too cloying for me in summer, but with the current cool weather I'm really enjoying how curly-locked, maxi-dressed goddess it makes me feel.

Twilight is a simple perfume with lavender, ylang ylang and tonka bean notes, based on the popular bath ballistic. At the beginning the lavender is big and flowery - even though I personally prefer a more herbal lavender scent, I do think a floral lavender is a better choice for a body fragrance. On my skin, the lavender shrinks back a bit after half an hour, allowing the creamier ylang ylang and tonka bean notes to come through. After about 6 hours, all that's left is a comforting yummy vlose-to-the-skin tonka bean. I've been using this in the evening, and it's super relaxing.

All the forum specials come in the same 30 mL black-coated glass spray bottles as the standard perfume line - as you might know, light speeds up the degradation of chemicals (both natural and synthetic), and blocking out light is one of the easiest ways to prolong shelf life. However, it does make it harder to gauge how much you've got left, and I've heard stories of the black paint running with the alcohol from the perfume.

Furze is my favourite Lush perfume ever. Yep, I'm declaring it - it's amazing. I'm a huge fan of edible type flavours, and this mix of furze (aka gorse), mimosa, neroli, coconut and vanilla is seriously yummy. I wasn't very impressed when I smelt it in the bottle, but after a few minutes on the skin it turns from blech into a warm woody, slightly leafy, very creamy but not too sweet scent, which turns comfortingly creamy and slightly nutty after the green scent wears off. I couldn't stop sniffing my wrist in the shop, and it smelt even better when I left the heady scent of all of Lush's other products. I even sniffed the hell out of my coat sleeve the next day.

The biggest con though, is the packaging - while I love the little screw top bottles with the cute label art, I wish there was an option for a spray bottle. That said, it's nice to be able to control the amount of perfume I'm putting on. I'm looking forward to the proper release of the new perfume line in August - I couldn't really appreciate the perfumes in the store, and I didn't have enough arm space to try them all out. I'm definitely going to try Sikkim Girls, Voice of Reason and Sun out first!

What are your favourite Lush scents? Let me know which ones I should sniff next in the comments below!

These products were provided for review, which did not affect my opinion. For more information, see Disclosure Policy.

DIY wet eyeshadow foiling medium and Pretty Serious eyeshadow swatches

2013-05-13T07:55:00.000+10:00

Finally, a DIY post! :)

I really got into the bold eyeliner look in summer, and while it'd be great to have eyeliner in all the colours, I have way too many eye-safe pigments sitting around unused already. So I've been turning them into eyeliner by using them wet, and the results are amazing! Applying eyeshadow wet (also called "foiling") instead of dry gives saturated, dense colour, and you can create sharp lines which last far longer.

The problem with using plain water is that the eyeshadow doesn't tend to have great lasting power - that's where using a foiling medium comes in. This is a water-based mixture which helps you apply dense eyeshadow with better durability.

I found a recipe for a DIY foiling medium, and luckily, it uses the glycerin you all have lying around from making the DIY gentle nail polish remover I posted here: simply mix glycerin with water in a 1 to 3 ratio. Unfortunately, I can't think of anything easily available and eye-safe that you can add to prevent bacterial growth, so it's best to mix it fresh (I just mix one drop of glycerin with three drops of water on a piece of foil using the brush I'm using for the eyeshadow, but if you want to store it, it should last at least a week).

To show the difference between wet and dry application, here are swatches of some Pretty Serious loose eyeshadows I've recently added to my collection. From left to right, I swatched each shade by itself, over primer (I'm using Etude House Proof 10 Eye Primer), and with the DIY foiling medium.

Morning Java - This is brown with reddish gold shimmer. The shimmer turns into a metallic gold sheen with foiling medium, but by itself, if you're not too heavy-handed, it's usable for an everyday look.

Jane Iredale PureGloss swatches and review - all 18 freaking shades!

2013-05-11T07:46:00.000+10:00

At a recent blogger event, I won all 18 shades of Jane Iredale's new formula PureGloss lip gloss. At first I was scared - I'm a long-lasting lip colour girl who checks her lips once every 3 hours, maybe. Lip gloss is notoriously short-lived, and I could see myself slowly eating through tubes of the stuff with my terrible nervous habit of chewing my lip. Not to mention that this was infinity times more tubes of lip gloss than I've used up in my entire life.

But then I realised I could wear lip gloss OVER other lip colours (quick on the uptake, I know) and I stopped being a gloss skeptic and set about playing with layering combos. The best thing about lip gloss, I've found, turned out to actually be how quickly it wore off - this meant I could wear three different lip glosses in the one day without tugging at the colour with a tissue and getting weird patchy lips, hurray!

Here are swatches of the 18 shades. Although my idea of lip gloss was sticky clear with sparkles, a surprising number of these were actually quite pigmented, to the point where I'd say they were more like sheer lipsticks. The descriptions from the company aren't super descriptive, and I couldn't find any pattern between how light the glosses were in the tube and how sheer they were on the skin.

Beach Plum - shimmering pink brown. This is a brown-tinged warm pink with fine gold shimmer. It's quite pigmented for a lip gloss, and could pass as a sheer lipstick.

Bellini - sheer pale peach. This has no shimmer and is a glossy pale peach. It's not very pigmented, and I think it would act like a clear gloss, unless it's applied thickly.

Black Cherry - sheer deep plum. The darkest shade in the range, it's maroon with fine silver shimmer and medium multicolour iridescent shimmer.

Candied Rose - frosted berry rose. Bright berry with fine gold/iridescent shimmer. Pigmented enough to give a berry tint to the lips.

Cosmo - shimmering true berry. Cool-toned mauve-pink with fine mauve/iridescent shimmer. Strongly pigmented.

Crabapple - sheer brick red. A nice red with no shimmer, but not pigmented enough to wear by itself - it ends up a bit patchy.

Project Pan Empties #21-30

2013-05-10T07:46:00.000+10:00

More Project Pan empties! I've loosened up a bit with the No Buy, and it's now a Low Buy, but I've kind of lost the urge to BUY ALL THE THINGS so it's been a pretty successful venture in my opinion.

21. Lux Luminous Touch Body Wash - The "luminous" mica flakes aren't really that noticeable, but I love the smell of this body wash. It took me for freaking ever to get through this jumbo pack.

22. Dove Intensive Repair Conditioner - This is my HG conditioner: it's heavy on the silicones but my hair is stiff and voluminous, so it actually weighs it down a good amount. I doubt it repairs my hair but it makes it silky and tangle-free. Will repurchase enthusiastically until they discontinue it, in which case I will stockpile like mad.

More »

Sayuri Nail Lacquer indie swatches and review

2013-05-08T08:01:00.000+10:00

I hope you're not sick of Aussie indie polishes yet! Today I'm showing off some Sayuri Nail Lacquers, made by the multi-talented Anthea of Nailed Obsession. They are inspired by Japanese fashion styles, and I can totally imagine the girls I saw in Harujuku wearing these on their nails!

Oshare - Being a follower of 300-odd nail accounts on Instagram, it's hard for me to see something I've never seen before, but I was actually really surprised when I first saw Oshare. Since then a few polishes have come out with the big flower glitters, but this is my favourite so far. I love the bright pop art colours, and the clear base makes it very versatile.

I've seen a few manis with randomly placed glitters, so I decided to try something different and place the yellow flowers down the middle over Orly After Party. Although the flowers look a bit stiff in the close up photos, they're actually very thin and lie down quite flat on the nail.

My 10 favourite scented products right now

2013-05-06T07:34:00.000+10:00

Sometimes when I'm feeling down, a whiff of a scented product can make me feel a tad better. Here are ten of my favourite "scentsations" (I apologise profusely for the pun, it's Monday!):

Elume Creme Caramel Candle - I haven't even lit this yet but I'm already in love. It occupies a permanent place on my bedside table, so I can smell it last thing at night and first thing in the morning. Healthier than sleeping next to a jar of peanut butter (which I have totally considered).

NIVEA Vanilla & Macadamia Lip Butter* (review) - Another dessert substitute. This one smells to me like Lindt chocolate, and wearing it on my lips kills any put-cake-in-my-face urges.

Vice & Velvet Siren Body Polish - I'm loving the scents from this handmade Melbourne brand. I'm getting into patchouli this winter, as evidenced by this and the Molton Brown body wash.

More »

Disney Princesses Challenge, aka I Hate Disney Part 8: Ariel

2013-05-04T08:16:00.000+10:00

"Screw everyone, girl's got needs!"

Oh, Ariel.

The traditional tale: Mermaid goes to sea witch and swaps amazing voice for really painful legs, mad dancing skills and a chance at eternal life. She tries to win the prince. She fails. Her sisters convince said witch to make a knife - if she kills the prince she gets to be a mermaid again. She refuses, dies, then gets eternal life anyways because she chose not to do the wrong thing.

Moral of the story:
- Don't take stupid chances
- Rely on yourself to achieve your goals
- You can't force love

The Disney version (The Little Mermaid, 1989): Mermaid goes to sea witch and swaps amazing voice for legs, and a chance at living as a voiceless human for the rest of her life, if she gets the prince to give her "the kiss of true love". She fails because the man she loves only loves good singers. The sea witch turns out to have been gunning for control of the whole ocean and imprisons the mermaid's dad, but the prince saves the day. Dad feels sorry for her and gives her legs, and she gets to be with the voice-coveting prince forever and yay!

Every scene with Prince Eric just makes me think of this video.

Orly Flash Glam swatches and review

2013-05-03T07:39:00.000+10:00

Five of Orly's Flash Glam glitter collection are being released in Australia for winter. They were released last fall in the Northern hemisphere, and are perfect for layering over a dark base for winter! They are basic one-tone glitter mixes of metallic hexes and dust, which is my favourite to use in glitter gradients, and today I have swatches of Watch It Glitter and So Go-Diva.

Watch It Glitter is a light copper glitter (swatch is 2 coats over black). I've been complaining about the lack of a copper glitter for a while, and now I've gotten to review two this month, hurray! Compared to Face of Australia Studio 54, it's less red-toned, and both the hex and dust glitters are larger.

More »

Artsy Wednesday: A colour I usually hate

2013-05-02T01:29:00.001+10:00

This week we're painting our nails in a colour we usually hate. My most feared nail colour is pink, but since I've actually been wearing a bit of pink lately, I went with more of a finish than a colour - bright, blingy foils.

And what better to try it with than actual foil, instead of just a foil polish? This foil was sent to me by Born Pretty for review, and while I love the look of it in my photos, it was just a bit too much for me on my nails. I did get a lot of compliments on this mani though, so I'm definitely in the minority.

More »

Lust Have It! April box review

2013-04-30T07:47:00.000+10:00

This is the last box in my annual Lust Have It subscription. I'm a bit sad because I've been really loving the boxes of late, but I have waaayyyyy too many mini cosmetics sitting around to justify spending money on more at the moment. Here's what was in my April box:

1. Molton Brown Patchouli & Saffron Body Wash - this tiny bottle is part of Molton Brown's Heritage collection, and pays tribute to the 70s with its retro scent.

2. Aveda Invati Exfoliating Shampoo and Thickening Conditioner - these little tubes are perfect for travel! The products are from Aveda's new hair care line and are small enough that if I don't like them, it won't feel like a waste (I'm pretty picky with my hair products).
More »

Expert tips on false eyelashes from makeup artist Allie Clark

2013-04-29T07:39:00.000+10:00

I love falsies, but learning how to apply them is a bit tricky! As well as the tutorial I posted earlier on how I apply my lashes, here are some extra tips from makeup artist Allie Clark, who designed the Glam by Manicare range and is a professional lash ninja.

More »

Disney Princesses Challenge, aka I Hate Disney Part 7: Belle

2013-04-27T07:41:00.000+10:00

Beauty and the Beast (1991) is a slight improvement on the usual princess mold. Belle is a bookworm, and isn't doing the endless chores that the earlier princesses love so much, although she's still all over the animals. And the inanimate objects are positively adorable - if you don't love Chip and the Angela Lansbury-voiced Mrs Potts, you don't have a heart! But naturally, I still have gripes...

"I'm the smartest Disney princess, and I think sheep want to hear about where to find Prince Charming."

What's all this about stem cells for my skin?

2013-04-26T07:47:00.000+10:00

The latest buzz-phrase in skincare seems to be "stem cells". Here's the nitty gritty on what they are and how they're relevant to skin...

What are stem cells?

Your body is made up of lots of different cells with different functions - some types of cells include red blood cells, nerve cells and muscle cells. But as you might know, all of us humans started off as one cell, which split into two, then four and so on, and eventually those few identical cells turn into all the different cells in the body. These cells, which have the ability to turn into any other type of cell, are known as stem cells.

As well as in embryos, there are stem cells in adult bodies, ready to multiply and replace a range of different dead or damaged cells, but these are usually buried amongst lots of other regular cells.

How are they relevant to skincare?

As skin ages, it thins, which means the skin looks less plump, it starts sagging, and fine lines and wrinkles appear. Therefore, in theory, if you can make the stem cells in skin multiply faster, more skin cells will be produced, and skin will appear more youthful.

More »

Disney Princesses Challenge, aka I Hate Disney Part 6: Pocahontas

2013-04-23T07:42:00.000+10:00

(This is a tad late, sorry!)

Faces of woe!

The third last Disney princess, Pocahontas (1995), isn't really a "princess" - and it's the only one here based on an actual historical person. It's pretty loosely based - they've changed her age, love interest, home, story, appearance - ok, they've just kept her name and ethnicity, and the names of a few other people in the already biased historical account, and changed EVERYTHING. And naturally, they've changed it into an interracial love story, where Native Americans are all lumped in one easy-to-digest conglomerate, with a glowy happy ending and talking animals (and their latest innovation - a talking tree), where people prove their love to each other and good American morals prevail. Why, Disney?

More »

Mckfresh Nail Attire swatches and review

2013-04-22T07:45:00.000+10:00

Mckfresh Nail Attire is a new Aussie indie line that launched on Saturday. If you had a similar adolescence to me, you'll also have a crush on David Bowie, and Mckfresh's first line is a collection of 13 polishes inspired by the movie The Labyrinth, which automatically makes me a tad biased.

(Excuse my awkward hand positioning in most of these swatches - I cannot for the life of me hold a mini comfortably.)

Jareth, named after Bowie's Goblin King, has colour shifting blue/green glitter with tiny grey dust and big black diamonds. A versatile topper (heh) which I'll be wearing a lot! This is gorgeous over shimmery polishes like Pretty Serious BSOD (photo 1), but I also swatched over Sinful Colors Savage (photos 2 and 3) to show all the glitter particles. 2 coats of Jareth gives good coverage.

Dance Magic Dance is a pretty combination of pastel purple and blue hexes, with blue dots and squares and a few holo diamonds mixed in. It's named after the most famous song from the movie (probably Bowie's lowest moment, musically - haha pun). This is my favourite of the ones I've tried, but it's not as dense as the others and you have to chase the glitter around a bit (it might be easier in a full sized bottle). This is 3 coats dabbed over ulta3 Orchid.

Ambrosius is a grey creme jelly with long white bars and small black squares. I love this combination, but application was really tricky because I kept zoning out and getting different amounts of glitter on each finger. D'oh! 3 coats on its own.

The Labyrinth has dots, hexes and glitter dust in four shades of green, and black bar glitter. This is another gorgeous combo, and will be on high rotation in my collection. Unfortunately I picked a really dark green (Australis Here Today Gone Tomorrow) to swatch this over and the black bars aren't very visible in the lightbox shot, but they're pretty obvious in the sun. 2 coats (you have to fish a little for the big green dots).

TBOES (The Bog of Eternal Stench) is a light teal jelly with lots of little squares in gold, blue, teal and white. The gold has a holo sparkle to it. This one applied easily and is interesting, but also very wearable. It's such a pretty polish, named after something so gross! 3 coats.

Personally speaking, I'm getting a bit fatigued from all the indie glitterbombs that have been flooding the nail blog world, but the well-coordinated glitters in this range are pleasantly un-garish (relatively speaking, anyway!) and subdued enough to be wearable, and safely out of teenage girl territory. I can see myself wearing these as mani accents quite frequently in the future! Some of the larger glitters (especially the dots) are a bit difficult to fish out of the mini bottles, but the polishes look fine without them - I suspect it's easier with the big bottles. I'm looking forward to seeing what Kate comes up with next! (You can also read an interview with her on Lacquerheads of Oz today, with some more swatches from the line.)

You can buy Mckfresh Nail Attire on Etsy, and keep up with the latest news on Facebook and Instagram.

These products were provided for review, which did not affect my opinion. For more information, see Disclosure Policy.

Tried and Tested (Face): Benefit Fakeup and Bioderma Sebium H2O reviews

2013-04-19T08:07:00.000+10:00

I've been road testing a bunch of products during the last few weeks - here's how two of them fared:

Benefit Fakeup ($35 for 3.5 g)

This concealer is launching in Australia tomorrow, and I was lucky enough to test-drive it early. Fakeup has a clever hydrating ring (containing appleseed extract and lots of castor oil) around a pigmented concealing core. It's designed for use on the under-eye area in particular, but you can use it anywhere on your face. The user-friendly lipstick design makes it easy to apply on the go, but since my skin is oily, I find I need to powder lightly over it, which makes it more fiddly. This would be great as-is for dry skinned girls though, and I've found that in general, Benefit skin products cater better to skin on the dry side.

The shade selection is a bit scanty (3 shades: light, medium, dark), and luckily light works well for me - as an indication, I'm NC25. Face swatches, with Fakeup in Light blended in under my eye with no powder (the shine perks up my eyes but it goes greasy pretty quick without powder):

More »

Artsy Wednesday: Redoing my first nail art blog post

2013-04-17T22:00:00.000+10:00

This week for Artsy Wednesday we're redoing our first blogged nail art. My first nail art was a black and copper tortoiseshell drag marble. This is my latest attempt, with the same polishes I originally used (ulta3 Tropez and Black Satin):

Lipstick mania! Arbonne and Face of Australia swatches and review

2013-04-16T13:15:00.001+10:00

More lipsticks I've been trying recently - last week I reviewed some matte lippies from Rimmel's Kate Moss collection, this time it's a few glossy offerings.

Arbonne Lipstick (RRP $36 for 2.17 g) comes in 14 shades - I've only tried out Jam so far. It's a muted plum/wine colour that's very flattering on my skin tone.

This lippie's packaging is slim with a narrow tip, making it easier to apply straight out of the tube. The colour is dense, only needing a couple of swipes for even coverage. Its texture is gorgeously smooth and buttery, and to me it feels as moisturising as a lip balm.

More »

How do deodorants work?

2013-04-15T08:07:00.000+10:00

My first real cosmetic purchase was deodorant when I started high school, but not until recently did I really think about deodorant and how it works. So I did a little digging and here's what I found:

(not actually sweat)

How is sweat produced and why does it smell?

There are two types of glands which produce sweat: eccrine and apocrine sweat glands.

Eccrine glands are found all over the body, and produce watery, salty sweat. Apocrine glands, on the other hand, are found only in certain areas of the body, in particular the armpits. They secrete sweat which, as well as containing water and salt (sodium chloride), also has peptides and lipids.

Sweat actually doesn't smell when it's first produced - body odour is actually caused by bacteria feeding off the nutrient-rich sweat from the apocrine glands (eccrine sweat isn't as tasty, plus it actually contains its own antibacterial chemical). That's why the armpits are usually known as the smelly sweaty bits, and since it's harder for sweat to leave the enclosed armpits, the bacteria happily multiply and product lovely body odour.

The amount of apocrine glands you have (and therefore how susceptible you are to becoming smelly) is largely determined by race - East Asians tend to have less, and therefore often get away with not using deodorant (although they'll still get pit stains!). Age also makes a big difference - your apocrine glands develop during puberty, so children don't have body odour problems. Men also tend to produce smellier sweat than women (to no one's surprise).

What causes the different types of sweat?

Sweat is mainly caused either by heat and exercise (thermal sweating), where the body produces water to cool off, or by emotions such as stress (emotional sweating).

Thermal sweating happens all over the body, and the sweat mainly comes from the eccrine glands, and doesn't cause body odour.

Emotional sweating happens mainly in the face, hands and armpits, and the latter is where the stink-causing apocrine glands live.

What's in deodorant?

Deodorant typically contain a mix of ingredients to combat smell.

Fragrances are obviously included most of the time to hide the scent.

Antibacterials are used to kill stink-causing bacteria. Many deodorants use alcohol, but this can sting and irritate skin. Zinc compounds are also used for their antibacterial action.

Antiperspirants are used to block sweat, and the most common chemicals used by far are aluminium salts. These react with sweat to form a gel, which plugs up the sweat gland. These plugs come out with the shedding of skin cells. Some people are allergic to aluminium, and get rashes if they use products containing them.

Does using deodorants put me at risk of breast cancer?

The Australian Cancer Council, along with many other cancer research and awareness institutions, states that it is "unlikely" that there's a link between deodorant chemicals (such as aluminium-containing compounds) and breast cancer.

Lately I've been road-testing NIVEA's new Stress Protect range, which comes in both spray and roll on formulas, with both a men's and women's version (the only difference I can find is the scent). They contain antibacterial zinc citrate as well as antiperspirant aluminium compounds, plus avocado oil. I tend not to use antiperspirants because I find that blocking off the sweat in my armpits makes me sweat massively everywhere else (so instead of a pit stain, I get a big circle-around-the-pit stain).

This range is no different for me, but I did find that they don't sting at all, probably thanks to the alcohol-free formula and the moisturising action of the avocado oil. This was a really nice change, since pretty much every deodorant I've ever tried stings my sensitive armpit area! It also claims to last for 48 hours, but I haven't skipped a shower yet to test it. The glass roll-on containers are pretty heavy, but since they're long lasting, you should be able to put them on in the morning and not have to reapply.

NIVEA and NIVEA Men Stress Protect are available mid-April, and come in both aerosol (women's $4.99, men's $6.59) and roll-on ($3.78) versions.

This product was provided for review, which did not affect my opinion. For more information, see Disclosure Policy.

Disney Princesses Challenge, aka I Hate Disney Part 5: Cinderella

2013-04-13T08:47:00.000+10:00

"I'm staring so hard into your eyes I'm going to forget the rest of your face. That's part of my charm!"

Cinderella (1950) is one of the classic Disney movies, and in my mind, the Disney version is the definitive version. As you might have come to expect after reading my whinging over the past few weeks, there are a few things that bug me, but these are the main two:

Ooh sparkles!

Fairy Godmother - In the other Disney movies, the princesses sat around and dreamt about their princes, who came and rescued them and happily ever blah blah. But in Cinderella, not only are we told that if we wait hard enough, we'll get a prince who'll make all our dreams come true, but a fairy godmother will also suddenly appear and help us get to the prince! While I don't think there's much wrong with the "believe in your dreams" message Disney plants into young, impressionable kids, I'm not so sold on the "sit on your ass and your dreams will come to you" theme. Good things come to those who do something about it. Random strokes of luck happen all the time, yes, but you shouldn't be relying on whatever your version of a fairy godmother is ("happiness", going on a reality weight-loss show) to appear on your doorstep. That's not to say that there's no merit to waiting for the right time to do something - it's just really unlikely that you won't have to kick things in motion, which is likely to involve substantial effort in that direction.

Also, where was she when Cinderella was being exploited? Did she think Cindy could do with some nasty chore work because chores make you a better woman?

More »

What's in the Autumn Lust Have It! Eco Box? Review (and Pretty Serious swatch!)

2013-04-12T07:38:00.000+10:00

I've had an annual subscription to Lust Have It! since they took over from Glossybox. I've really enjoyed discovering new brands through it, even though I frequently get products that don't suit me (luckily my two besties both have dry skin, and one has pale skin and the other has dark skin, so it usually works out quite well!). I've been tempted to switch to the Eco boxes when my yearly subscription runs out, and I've been really impressed with the ones I've bought with my own money so far. Here's my review of the latest one, which was gifted to me as a thank you for writing a nail art tutorial for LHI! earlier:

1. Savi Organic Body Cream Wellbeing - This little pump bottle smells strongly of cedar - I really like it, but I can imagine that the essential oils aren't for everyone. It's a light moisturiser and certified organic.

2. Pretty Serious nail polish (Tux) - I'm a nail polish addict, and Pretty Serious is one of my favourite Aussie brands, so of course I was going to love this! Amazingly, I managed to score a shade I don't already own, but was on my to-buy list. The formula is a tad gloopy, but very easy to apply with great coverage. It's black, with subtle green shimmer which shifts to purple. My favourite product in this bag!

More »

Face of Australia Glitterati Collection - Swatches and Review

2013-04-10T15:25:00.003+10:00

Cult Aussie brand Face of Australia have just announced their next limited edition nail polish collection, Glitterati. It's a collection of 8 glitters, and includes three milky-based glitterbombs. I haven't tried them on my nails yet, but here are some quick stick swatches and bottle shots (click to enlarge):

Dancing Queen (1 coat) contains black and green-toned gold glitter in a clear base. This isn't dense enough to wear on its own, and the big gold hexes are a little curly, but still lie smoothly on the nail. I love this colour combination!

More »