November Favourites... A bit late, sorry!

I was originally going to film this post rather than write it, but I also want to film a haul video which has most of this month’s favourites in it anyway so I decided to make this a written post just to break it up a bit. Let’s just jump in!

HOURGLASS AMBIENT LIGHTING POWDER IN DIFFUSED LIGHT:

This is a luxury item I have been wanting for ages but never allowed myself to buy because of its ridiculous price tag. When I first tried out this powder it was about $70, and at just the thought of purchasing it you could hear the tiny screams and cries of your bank account or credit card. Every time I went in Mecca Maxima or Mecca Cosmetica I would hover around the Hourglass section just swatching the powders and blushes, trying to pluck up the nerve to spend that much money on 10 grams of powder, but it never happened. Instead I bought the Elizabeth Arden Ceramide Loose Setting Powder and tried to convince myself that it was even better because it was slightly cheaper and had more product.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago, when I was in the new Mecca Maxima. I was waiting while one of the sales girls and the manager were putting out all the stops to help me with a foundation conundrum (a matter that was eventually solved with extraordinary results, if you live near Westfield Garden City on Brissy’s southside you definitely need to pop in there and check the store out), and I found myself hovering once again by the Hourglass stand, except this time the powder was $59, a respectable price drop in my eyes. So, swayed by the tremendous help I received, I bit the bullet and bought the powder. It has been the only face powder (not including under the eyes and a bit on my nose to stop my glasses from smudging my foundation) I have used since I bought it. It is so light and glowy. It sets your makeup without leaving a powdery matte residue, which is exactly what I look for in a powder. It was well worth the wait and the $59. Also, can I just talk about the exquisite packaging for a sec? It’s so pretty! I mean, sure, it gets kind of fingerprinty, but who cares! It’s beautiful!

THE BODY SHOP MOISTURE FOUNDATION IN SHADE 01:

I don’t have as much to say about this as I did about the Ambient Light Powder. The colour match is pretty perfect and it has a very hydrating, dewy finish. It’s not super long wearing, so I wouldn’t recommend it too oilier skinned people, but for normal to dry skinned people it will wear okay. I’ve been really liking it paired with the Bobbi Brown Skin Foundation Stick, topped off with the Ambient Lighting Powder. It applies well with most brushes, but I like it best with my Real Techniques Miracle Complexion Sponge. The price point is good too, coming in at just $27.95. All-in-all this is a great foundation.

AUSTRALIS LIP & CHEEK COMBO IN FLAMINGO SKIES:

This is the only product in this month’s favourites that is not something new I’ve bought. I bought this ages ago, but it was lost somewhere in the depths of my makeup drawers for a while, so I forgot about it. I’ve been using this on my cheeks a fair bit lately. I grab my stippling brush and swirl it around both shades to get a really nice, deeper peachy pink colour and then I just stipple and blend it into my cheeks. It gives a really nice flush to the cheeks and because it’s a creamier product there’s no risk of becoming cakey or looking over-powdered.

BOBBI BROWN SKIN FOUNDATION STICK IN ALABASTER:

This is a product that I had sort of discounted ages ago. My skin got really dry and the foundation started to cake up, especially around my nose area. Originally I also had the shade Porcelain, which was a hair too dark for me (big shock, I know). Then a while ago I changed the moisturiser I was using. Now I use the Aveeno Daily Moisturiser, or whatever it’s called and it hydrates my skin amazingly. When I got The Body Shop foundation I would sometimes put the NARS Radiant Creamy Compact foundation underneath for a bit of extra coverage. Then I pulled out the Stick Foundation in Porcelain and tried it, and was amazed at how nicely it sat on my face now I was using a different moisturiser. So, I went out and got myself one in Alabaster and I’ve been using it either on its own or with The Body Shop foundation ever since. I can’t believe I discounted it the way I did. It’s so nice to wear. Not too heavy, not cakey, and if I really didn’t feel like it, I wouldn’t have to set it with a powder. Just a lovely foundation. It might even be my HG foundation. We’ll just have to wait and see.

NYX GEL LINER IN DARK BROWN:

This last favourite might be a bit of a weird one. While I have used this liner as an actual eyeliner, it’s not what I bought it for. I went into M.A.C. a little while ago and tried to get the Fluidline brow gel stuff, but since it was a new store they hadn’t received the shipment yet. The girl helping me told me I could try dark brown gel eyeliner instead. She said even though it’s a thicker formula, it would still work. I wasn’t entirely sure about that, so I certainly wasn’t going to spend 30-something dollars on M.A.C. eyeliner. So, I popped over to Target and got the NYX one. It has been working a treat. I use it to shape out my brows and then top them off with a bit of my trusty old Gimme Brow from Benefit. My brows stay on all day and look nice and well formed, instead of the bushy feeling I always get from pencils and powders. The NYX stuff is cheaper than M.A.C. too, which is just an added bonus! 

I hope you guys enjoyed this long-winded favourites! Sorry it’s coming to you a little late. It would’ve been up last weekend if I had of known I was just going to type it up… oh well, better late than never! Stay tuned for a haul video coming soon! xx

Friendship Chats

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about friendships. Friendships are something that are so important to your continuing development and it is so important to surround yourself with positive, respectful and loyal people who accept you. This is something that I feel has taken me a lifetime to fully achieve. I have had a lot of friends over my 26 years and I have lost touch with most of them. This is mainly because when I was growing up my family moved a lot and as a kid it is hard to maintain long distance friendships. It’s completely okay to lose touch with people too. It’s a natural part of life. Lately though, my life has had friendship changes that were unexpected and somewhat hard to accept.

When I graduated high school I lingered with a lot of the friends I’d had for a while before we all started to drift off in our separate directions. I made a couple of work friends in the couple of jobs I had when I was 18 before I moved to North Queensland. I lived up in Bowen for a couple of years, and worked in the tourism part of the council. Despite a nutcase for a boss, I got along well with most of the people I worked with, which made the fact that I was very far away from the friends I had left behind in Brisbane a little easier to deal with. As much as I respected and liked the people I worked with, especially those that kindly taught me all the things my crazy boss was incapable of teaching me, I (as usual) was somewhat out of place.

I think a big reason I’m quite often out of place is because I actually really prefer spending time alone a lot of the time. I like to sit quietly with a book and some music or a movie and just be alone and I think that seems odd to a lot of people. I think maybe people thought I was strange for not wanting to constantly go out shopping or clubbing or whatever, and a majority of the time was happier to just be by myself. I’m not even sure why I’m like that. Maybe from moving around so much… I don’t know. All I know is that I like myself that way and I don’t want to change.

This brings me to the main point of this post, which is pay homage to the people I’m lucky enough to call my friends nowadays. I won’t name people out of respect for privacy, but these people know who they are. This post isn’t about disrespecting old friendships I once had, because I needed all of them for one reason or another when I had them and I don’t discount them at all. What is different about the individual friendships I have now is that I feel like I don’t have to try hard at all to fit in with any of them. They’re cool with all my weirdness, even my desire to be alone 70 maybe 80% of the time. My best friend, who I will name, Kate, is an amazing chick who pushes me to do more with my life, but doesn’t force me to change if I don’t want to. All my other friends are just as amazing for a million different reasons. To go from friendships where I felt the need to change myself somewhat to fit in, to friendships where everything is cool the way it is feels really awesome and relaxing. 

I think the important thing to remember with friendships is that it’s totally okay to drift apart from people and simply not be friends anymore. Even if that person was utterly important and special to you. Sometimes even the special friendships fade away. You just have to learn to not be offended or too hurt by it. Try and see it as a gateway to things that will be even better and healthier for you. Trying to grip onto something that isn’t real anymore isn’t healthy and it holds you back from growing and changing into the person you need to become next. Well, that’s what I’ve learnt from all of my past and current friendships anyway!

My New Obsession... I Can't Believe It's Taken Me This Long!

Okay, so I’m a little late jumping on this bandwagon, I know, but hey, better late than never! A couple of weeks ago I bought Lena Dunham’s book, ‘Not that Kind of Girl’ as incentive to keep studying and get through my end of semester exams. Once I survived the horrors, I was finally able to open up the book I’d heard so many good things about. I was first intrigued by this book after watching one of my favourite YouTubers, EssieButton rave about not only the book, but Lena Dunham as a person. Before buying the book I’d never really known anything about her. I’d never seen her show, ‘Girls’ or anything else she’s been in (that I know of). The only time I’d ever seen her on something was when she was on ‘Ellen’ a couple of months ago, and I have to say that I wasn’t really paying that much attention to the interview because I was wait for Melissa McCarthy to come out.

Fast forward to now and I’m just over halfway through the book and after reading the introduction was compelled to get my eager little hands on all the episodes of ‘Girls’, of which I am currently up to episode 5 of season 1. Her writing style is fantastic. It’s quirky, sometimes a little edgy and always entertaining. The way she writes is almost as if she’s telling you in person, which I love. It makes her stories all that more real (which they are, of course). Don’t even get me started on the show. I love it. The only words that come to mind when I try to describe it are ‘HOW WAS I NOT ALWAYS WATCHING THIS?!’ It’s everything I love in a show: quirky, funny, emotional and realistic with regards to how people actually look and think and act. I’ve heard it be described as the younger woman’s ‘Sex and the City’, but I don’t agree. It’s far less glamourous and therefore far more relatable and believable. Don’t get me wrong, I used to really love SATC. I even used to have all the DVDs, but I can safely say that, even after only 5 episodes, I prefer ‘Girls’. In SATC the woman were gorgeous with their ‘perfectly’ sized and shaped bodies. They all seemed to be fairly well off with very successful careers, which isn’t completely unrealistic, because there are plenty of successful women out there, but it doesn’t really speak to the struggling woman. Also the relationships are somewhat glamourized in SATC. There’s a slew of beautiful men traipsing through the seasons (not that I’m complaining about beautiful men!). I like that the women on ‘Girls’ seem to be on different ends of the relationship and career success spectrums. Each woman has problems that appear to seem almost alien to the others because of their vast differences, yet they each try to understand one another. To me, that is far more realistic. Friends who band together despite being worlds apart in personality, etc.

The point of this post is to neither review the book or the show, but more to marvel at the creator of both. I’m so fascinated by Lena right now, and so in love with the way she presents herself and her work to the world. In such a short time I have grown to admire and be wholly inspired by her. I love to write, but lately I haven’t been feeling inspired at all. I think very creatively and need to feel inspiration to complete creative work (although I wish I had the talent that others have of being able to muster inspiration on command). Each time I read a little of the book or watch the show and see how talented and driven she has been, it makes me want to go out there and do what I know I can do fairly well (if I do say so myself). If you’re a Lena neophyte like me, I definitely recommend you check out the book and watch anything she might be in. If you’ve been on this side of the fence for a while, then allow me to introduce myself: Hi, I’m Cassie and I’m so happy to finally be in the land of Lena.

I hope you guys enjoyed this little bit of something different. I really just wanted to share with you all the reason I’m finally feeling inspired again xx