Urban Decay Launch at Mecca Maxima!

It’s official! Urban Decay has finally landed in Australia! Mecca Maxima online store and their stores all over the country launched the brand at 9:00 am this morning. I went to my local store at Westfield Garden City here on Brisbane’s south side and was lucky enough to be able to have a chat to one of the beautiful staff members, Tamara. She was kind enough to let me ask her a few questions and I had a chance to browse and give in to one of the lip glosses (more to come about that in a minute!). Just a warning: this is going to be a long post. Today was a very exciting day for me!

I was thankfully stuck in a uni lecture this morning and missed all the craziness of the opening at the Garden City store. According to Tamara there were over 100 people waiting by 8:00 am. “We had people turning up at about 5:00 am, which was commitment, you know we weren’t expecting people to really turn up until about 7:00 am,” she said. I can’t even comprehend a crowd that big for a makeup brand that is launching permanently. I’m glad that it was far less crazy when I went this morning.

The setup is fairly standard for Mecca stores, but this isn’t to say it wasn’t beautiful. They had everything sorted in a way that made it look shiny, appealing and basically just fabulous. I was very pleased with the range of products they had. I really didn’t know what to expect. Mecca was very good at being coy about what products they were getting. The advertising was heavily focussed on the Naked line. Mecca has most of the things that most people would be wanting to try out. They of course got the Naked stuff like the three big palettes and two Basics palettes, the foundation and concealer, the powders and the Flushed palettes. Bright colour lovers will fawn over the Electric palette. Here’s what Tamara had to say about the Electric palette:

“It definitely can look a little bit scary at first. The colours are beautiful and so workable as well. And you can use it in multiple ways. I’ve used it as a hair chalk. I got to play around with that a little bit and turning them into lip glosses or lip stains. So they’re super pigmented, but used in all those different ways, it’s just amazing. Even taking that electric green, because I know it can be a little scary looking at that, it’s so bright, but it just adds that pop of colour to everyday wear. Lots of people like to use the white in the inner corner, but that green just opens up the eye and just makes it pop. I like it because it’s really whatever you’d like it do. If you’d like to make your own lip glosses or stains, or if you’d like to use it as hair chalk. I mean, even in dark hair it’s so pigmented.”

After hearing her thoughts on the palette my thoughts are cemented in my desire to have it in my life… and soon!

 Until today I’d only ever tried one UD product and that’s the Naked Basics palette which I got last year. It’s one of my favourite palettes of all time though. It’s just amazing, so I knew I was in for a treat with any products I bought in the future! I asked Tamara what her favourite products were. Understandably it was a very hard choice! “I love it all! I’m excited to try the foundation. I haven’t had the chance to try it yet, so that’s one of my must-tries. I’m loving the Naked 2 palette and also the All-Nighter setting spray. Just using it multiple ways as well. It’s definitely a setting spray for 16HR wear, but I also like to spray my eyeshadow brush and then go in with my shadow and it just makes it more pigmented and really just lovely and creamy to work with,” she told me.

I personally wasn’t overly excited about the Naked palettes. I know, I know! How could I not be?! Honestly, I was all about tracking down the original one for ages last year, but then I found the Chi Chi Nudes palette and I lost interest in the UD one. The Naked 2 and 3 didn’t interest me all that much either just because I didn’t find the shades to be ones I would use regularly. Cut to me checking out the real life palettes in-store today. I was right about the Naked 2. I just wouldn’t use the shades, but the Naked 3. Can we just stop so I can take a moment to picture it again in my mind. It is exquisite. It’s filled with rosy and rose gold-y shades. I never imagined that I would love it so much, but now I desperately need it in my life!

 

Let’s talk about pricing. I know Australia has become notorious for having ridiculously price makeup, among other things. This is why I’m happy to see that Mecca has made UD reasonably priced. It may seem expensive at first glance, but when you compare it to U.S. pricing and factor in the exchange rate it works out fairly even. “It’s somewhere from I think maybe a $2 to $6 difference and with some products it actually cheaper. When you think about having to buy it online and then you have to think about shipping and the exchange rate, I know it’s a struggle sometimes. You can’t even get shipping to Australia sometimes and you have to use external shipping. It can become super expensive just to have it shipped here. It’s nice to be able to give our customers a nice easy way to shop,” Tamara said when I asked for her view on the pricing. Check below for a little list of UD products and pricing from the Mecca website.

Eye look using 24/7 Pencil in LSD

The products I got today were: Naked Ultra Nourishing Lipgloss in Walk of Shame, 24/7 Glide-On Eye Pencil in LSD (sample size) and a sample of the Naked Skin Foundation in the shade 0.5. I’ll do a first impressions on the foundation sometime next week, when I get the time, but I was able to try out the gloss and the pencil this afternoon before I head back to uni. The gloss, which I purchased myself, is a beautiful peachy/coral shade. It’s not completely sheer, but it just gives a nice flush to the lips. I wore it on the top of my nude Essence lip pencil. I’ll write up a full review on it over the weekend once I can wear it a little more. The eye pencil is a great colour too. It’s a deep dark blue with lighter blue shimmer through it. I really loved how it looked with the eye look I did. I swiped it across the upper lashline, smudged it out and then added a little bit of Crave from the Naked Basics palette over it. This colour pencil has helped me fall in love with blue/silver eyeshadow looks again!

Finished look with Pencil and Gloss

My last question for Tamara was about which product she would recommend to a newcomer to makeup. This is what she had to say:

“Honestly, I’d probably start them off with one of the eyeshadow potions, purely because it makes such a difference. And for someone just starting out and learning how to do their eyeshadow it just makes it so much easier to work with. It just creates a really blank canvas. Some of the potions, like Sin, which is beautifully champagne and pigmented then adds that colour without you having to do a lot to the eye look. So, I think starting yourself out with one of the eyeshadow potions is great because I think your going to find it easier to work with, really simple to build you confidence as well and just to see that longevity and have it stay there all day makes it a good one to start off with.”

Overall it seems like the UD launch at Mecca was a success. Mecca has done a great job in their advertising, pricing and in obtaining a fantastic variety of products. I want to say a big thank-you to the girls at Mecca Maxima at Westfield Garden City for always being so helpful and kind. And a massive thank-you to Tamara for taking the time to talk to me on such a crazy busy day! You were absolutely beautiful to chat to and I really appreciate it!

If you live in the area pop in and check out UD at Mecca Maxima Garden City and say hi to all the wonderful staff members! If you don’t live near a Mecca Maxima store there’s always the internet. You can check out UD and all Mecca’s other awesome brands at: www.mecca.com.au

Here’s a list of some of the products Mecca launched today!

Naked 1,2 & 3 palettes - $78 each

Naked Basics 1 & 2 - $42 each

Electric palette - $70

Naked Skin Foundation - $56

Naked Skin Concealer - $36

Original Eyeshadow Primer Potion - $30

All Nighter Long-Lasting Makeup Setting Spray - $44 (4.0 fl oz.)

Naked Ultra Nourishing Lipgloss - $30

24/7 Glide-On Eye Pencil - $30

There’s a ton more products to check out on the site and in-store!

What are some of your favourite products or some of the products you’re dying to try out? Let me know! 

+Mecca Maxima 

Chats: Happiness Jar

On Facebook I follow Elizabeth Gilbert, the woman who wrote ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ and over the last year or so I’ve noticed a lot of feeds about Happiness Jars. The concept behind these jars is that at the end of every day you write down the best thing that happened to you that day on a small piece of paper and put it in a jar. It’s supposed to help you see that even the crap days have positives, or at least show you how to pull a positive out of a pile of negatives. It also helps to dig into it on terrible days and pull out a random positive thing to remind you that this bad day is just one day in your life and there have been and will be more positive things.

 

Over the last few months I’ve been feeling really down and was fearful of falling back into the depression I’d spent years crawling out of. So on January 1^st I decided to start my own Happiness Jar. Initially I had more of a Happiness Tin because that’s all I could find. I just write my positives down on Post-Its, fold them up and put them in my tin/jar.

Its affect it had on my mood was really surprising. By forcing myself to find positives in each and every day I found myself feeling happier and less negative. Of course there have been days when it was harder to find the positive, but that made the discovery of one even more rewarding.

I know this all might sound really wishy-washy. I know it did to me every time it came up on my Facebook feed, but it has really done wonders for me in the last couple of months. I haven’t missed a day and it just feels good to think about the positive things that have happened throughout each day. I’m also finding myself feeling more relaxed and thinking more positively in general. This is not just from the Happiness Jar alone, but I know it has been a major contributing factor. At the start of the year I made myself a list of goals and maintaining the jar was one of them. I’m so proud of myself for sticking to it. It’s such a simple goal and it would’ve been really easy to give up on it. I’m glad I didn’t.

I’m thinking about doing a sort of belated New Year goals post soon to kick of a series about how I’m going in achieving them. I’d love some feedback to see if that’s something that would be interesting or not! Until then I’m off to write up today’s positive!

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

My thoughts on writing

Hey guys!

Today I wanted to talk about writing. Not just techniques, but what I do to keep my writing muscles limber and all that good stuff. I want to mainly focus on writing fiction today and keeping up with your inspiration.

The first thing I really want to say is that there is no one right way to write. Inspiration comes in many different forms and you sort of have to roll with it and let it show you the best techniques to help you in that moment. I used to think that there was a ‘right way’ of writing and was convinced that the reason I felt so crap at it was because I was doing it wrong. In actual fact the reason I felt crap at it was because I was overthinking it.

Some techniques that I’ve noticed that I take when I do start writing is taking actual pens and paper rather than computers and keyboards and doing a little be of freewriting. I’ve tried freewriting on a computer, but I find that when I’m typing I think too much about spelling and punctuation and whatnot. When I sit quietly (well, I’m quiet, my music is not) with a pen and paper and just write I find I am more productive because there’s no backspace button. So my piece of advice on freewriting is find a method that makes you the most productive. If you find typing on a keyboard keeps your creativity flowing then that’s what you should do. If you’re like me and prefer putting pen to paper, that’s cool too. I do know that freewriting can be important when writing fiction because it can take your story to places you didn’t originally imagine it could go.

Once I think of a character I like to think about every aspect of that character. I like to know where they came from before the story is set, how their journey will affect them and what kind of life they might have once the story is over. I like to use the characters to guide the story rather than creating characters to fit the story and setting I create. I like to create people I relate to on different levels, and I like to create people who might raise serious questions about my mental stability.

As I go through the process of trying to create a new story I would like to keep you guys updated on how it’s going and any new methods and techniques I might discover along the way. At the moment I have mapped out the two main characters and written the first chapter. I’m working through the second chapter and I’ve written up ideas that constantly run through my mind about it. I keep all my story and character ideas in a notebook and keep a separate notebook for freewriting and chapter writing.

I hope this post helps anyone who loves to write but maybe have some insecurities about it like I do. These posts won’t be super long, but I do want to do them somewhat frequently. I don't claim to be a fountain of completely useful knowledge. like I said before, everyone writes differently, but, just as I have taken tips from others along the way, I hope that some of my tips can be added to some of your writing arsenals. :)

Something a little more personal...

Hey guys!

In light of my plans for a revamp, I decided to make my first post a little bit of a personal one. I went into a little bit of detail in my last post about why I decided to revamp the blog. I know my blog isn’t that old, and giving it a makeover might seem a little odd, but it’s something I need to do to maintain my interest in doing it.

Before I started my blog I mulled the idea of it over and over again. I’m kind of weird about my privacy and sharing my thought and things like that, especially on such a potentially large scale, so it was actually quite scary for me put ideas into reality. Along with being private, I also have a bit of a self-confidence issue too. It’s not something I talk about very often, or really at all. Actually, I more prefer to just pretend that it doesn’t exist. But alas, it is always there, in the back of my mind. It rears its ugly head in a big way when it comes to my creative side. I’m so critical of my own work that I find it hard to believe when other people give me compliments. I know it’s a common problem that people must have, but it doesn’t make it any easier to overcome.

On a very personal note, I suffered depression for a while and it definitely plummeted my self-confidence even lower. I’m my own worst critic in the absolute worst way sometimes. For example, I recently went to a wedding and when I was thanking the couple for including me in their special day I was literally confused when they told me that they wouldn’t have not invited me. I have the hardest time believing that I’m any kind of afterthought for people, and I think that’s another thing that kept me from initially jumping in and starting the blog. I think that’s also why I started this blog with the intent of it just being about beauty stuff. Beauty stuff can help make you feel somewhat special when your inner self can’t muster the strength to do it on its own. Now I realise that, while makeup is fun and makes me feel good, and I want to share that with you guys, it’s not the only part of me I want to share. There are so many other things I’m interested in that I can talk about and from now on, if it’s something I want to talk about on my blog, it will go on there. I don’t want to confine myself to a specific genre.

I’m hoping that by pushing myself in this direction I might be able to start to combat my self-confidence issues so I can start to feel genuine in my inner confidence and not just like I’m faking it.

I hope you guys liked this slightly more personal post. If any of you out there have a similar confidence issues I’d love to hear of any methods you have come up with for dealing with them.

I’m thinking that my next post will be about my writing methods and how I go about doing certain things. Also stay tuned for a monthly beauty favourites video, which I might film tomorrow if I feel like it :) 

Hey guys!

It’s been so long since I’ve even sat down with the intention to type something to post on here. I have tonnes of ideas for blog posts and even a couple of YT videos, but honestly, I haven’t felt the slightest inclination to put them into action yet. I do know that I want to talk about the M.A.C. Rocky Horror Picture Show line. It was released in Australian stores last week and I picked up a couple of things. I also have a teeny haul I’m thinking about filming.

The thing is though, as much as I love and am obsessed with makeup, I realised that I don’t want to write only about it. I feel like I need to write about other things. Books, movies, music, things that happen in the world… just whatever is peaking my interest.

I haven’t done a lot of personal writing on here, it was originally designed to be just about makeup and skincare, etc. but now I feel like I want to expand the horizons of what makes me comfortable on here. I’m a somewhat private person. People usually only get information about me that I want them to have and there are very few outside my family that pass that threshold. Now, I’m not saying that I’m going to be spilling all my secrets on here, but I feel like, if I expand the range of things I write about on here, it might help to display my personality better. It’s really hard to talk about makeup, especially to a camera and inject tonnes of your uniqueness into it. I’ve been watching YT videos for a while now and I know that the people I watch regularly were not originally as comfortable and personable as they are now. I know, given time, I will probably feel more comfy on camera too, but honestly, my real passion is writing. It has been since I was a little kid.

The break I took from doing makeup stuff originally started so I could get through some assignments and then once they were finished I realised that I didn’t feel like writing or talking about makeup constantly. As much as I love makeup and watching other people on YT talk about it, I wanted something else for a little while. I even started writing fiction again. I’ve done a whole chapter and a bit, plus some intensive plot and character workups. I won’t be talking about the plot and story ideas on here, because I find that as soon as I start telling other people about my stories, I kind get bored with them, probably because then I get the feeling people expect something out of me and I hate feeling that way about my writing. What I do want to talk about on here from now on (along with all the other stuff mentioned before), are my writing processes. I’d love to here about other people’s processes too. It doesn’t have to be for story writing, it can be for any form of writing. I just would love to share my experiences and the things I’ve learned over time. I’m not success by any means, but writing isn’t about that anyway, but I figure maybe if I share some of my thoughts, you guys can open up and maybe even give me some new ideas and methods that work for you.

So, basically the message I’m trying to get across in this (now very long) post is that my blog is going to be getting a revamp. It will no longer be An Occasional Beauty Dream. I’m even going to alter (not change) the name. I want to keep it close to its original name, just without the ‘Beauty’ part. Maybe I can exchange ‘Beauty’ for ‘Life’? What do you guys think? I’d love some input!

P.S. I just thought I might mention that just because I don't want my blog to just be beauty related anymore doesn't mean I think badly of people who dedicate themselves to bringing us reviews and such about beauty. It's just the opposite. Without YT beauty channels and blogs I wouldn't have plucked up the courage to start my own. I think the people who can make a success of themselves by bringing information about a subject they love to the masses are amazing and lucky, and I hope that one day I can have success in my own areas of interest like them. :)

Just a quick message...

Hey guys! 

I know I haven't been posting much lately. I've had a bit of a cold, but I am working on some new stuff. I'm trying to get my first video done, as well as working on a couple new reviews and stuff. I promise to have something up this week! :)

Just a little shameless pluggin...

Hey guys!

I really hope you enjoy the content I post! I love writing reviews, and I hope to get the hang of the tutorials things soon! If you do like what I post, I'd love it if you could pop on over to Facebook and give my blog's page a like! 

Stay tuned for more reviews and tutorials soon! Thanks for reading my shameless Facebook plug :)

https://www.facebook.com/occasionalbeautydream