Mini Mecca Haul: NARS blush and Hourglass Ambient Lighting Palette

For my birthday, I got a couple of Westfield vouchers. I spent ages considering what to spend them on…and then it hit me. I would spend them on that gorgeous palette at Mecca that was super luxurious and beautiful, but also really expensive and not something I could justify buying myself. Luckily for me, Mecca also recently lowered their prices (hooray!) so clearly the universe was validating my decision.

Of course, I’m talking about the Hourglass Ambient Lighting Palette. Much loved and raved about within the beauty community, and now it’s mine!

The palette has three gorgeous highlighting shades, Dim Light, Incandescent Light and Radiant Light, with the middle shade (Incandescent Light) being exclusive to the palette. 

These colours make the light bounce off your face in all the right places. I’ve found that lightly dusting my face with the left one gives me a good healthy looking glow when I’m feeling tired, I love the middle colour for a highlight on top of my cheekbones, just under the brow-bone, and down the middle of my nose, when contouring, and the right colour is beautiful layered over the top of bronzer. 

When applied with nice brushes, my face just looks so flawless with this palette. I am obsessed with the luxury packaging as well. This palette was worth every dollar, and I would totally re-purchase it with my own money. 

(R-L: Dim Light, Incandescent Light, Radiant Light)

I had a little money left over, so I also got a new NARS blush in Amour. This is matte, and quite a deep matte pink. I think this is probably more suited to darker skin tones as it is really pigmented. I make it work by using it with a really fluffy brush, so not too much product is picked up, and it is blended really well. Although this is such a deep colour, when blended well I think it looks quite natural and brings such a beautiful warmth to the skin. 

When was the last time you splurged on something high-end?



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What I Got for my Birthday!

 

It was my birthday last week (they feel like they keep coming around quicker and quicker!) and I got so many cool gifts, I really wanted to share what I got! I love reading these types of posts, and they’re fun to look back on. My family and friends are way too generous, and I’m really grateful for everything I was given.

 

I got some new accessories for my camera – a new travel bag from Crumpler and a new lens. The camera bag will be perfect for travelling when I visit mum. It’s got enough room to stash my laptop, all my lenses, external flash and room to spare for cords The lens was a combined gift from J and his parents. It should be a great all-rounder lens to replace my kit lens; it’s got capabilities to go wide angle or super-zoom and its also macro. I can’t wait to get some more practice in with this one.



My dad got me a new PS4, which I am super thrilled about. Shoutout to the Bondi JBHIFI team for hooking me up. I ended up getting a deal they had with three games – I didn’t like two of the ones in there though, so they let me swap them out for ones I did want. I ended up getting Thief, Murdered: Soul Suspect, and Watch Dogs. My little bro got me the new COD … I’m really excited to play this online. He told me I can’t play with him though because I’ll ruin his stats… thanks little bro. My sister and her boyfriend were going to pre-order me the new Tomb Raider, but then realised there were quite a few games coming out soon, so they bought me an EB Games gift card instead so I can decide when they get released.
J also got me Simcity (which is OMG so fun) and GTA5 on PS3. I am kinda annoyed my birthday is right before I go back to uni, because I just want to spend all my time playing these games now haha.



My good friend S gave me a gift card and a mini ecoya candle in French Pear. This scent is so, so nice  I love it! I also got a gift card from work, which I totally wasn’t expecting and is so nice of them. I love getting gift cards because I can buy something I really want and know I’ll love. Choosing what to spend them on is hard though!



I also got some new clothing… J bought the cool batman villain tights for me from Movie World! We saw them when we went there in February, and I mentioned they were cool. So thoughtful to get something that you mentioned months ago you wanted. Unfortunately they’re in the smallest size (Which is really big on me) and the material is really, really thin so they’re see through. It sucks because they’re such an awesome print. I am thinking I will wear them to and from pole. The stretchiness means they’ll be good pants for stretching in, and if I’m wearing my pole shorts underneath the see-throughness isn’t really an issue. My mum gave me some money, and with that I bought the ‘Win or Die’ Black Milk tights that I’ve been lusting over for months.
My sister and her boyfriend also bought me a really gorgeous vegan leather jacket, and a two-toned tote bag. The jacket is a perfect fit for me (which can be tricky because my body shape is kind of all over the place). I was using them when I took these photos...so completely forgot to include them. I'll have to do an outfit post soon to show them off!

Where do you stand on gift cards for gifts? I always feel bad giving them out, but I love receiving them, so that really makes no sense.

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My Week in Pictures #55

 

The week started out well! I picked up this beautiful colouring book, full of black and white patterns. I like doing things when I'm watching mindless tv to unwind. Last winter it was attempting to knit, apparently this winter it's about colouring in. I also took some time out during the week to hand-write a letter to my pen pal. I've really been enjoying getting to meet a completely new person through writing! 

It was my birthday last week, and I had such a great couple of days. J went to so much effort to make sure I had an awesome day, and it was so much fun to just take a day off and hang out.

 

We started off at Pancakes on the Rocks at Darling Harbour. So, so nommy, and massive serving sizes. Neither J or I finished our meals, but man we tried hard. 

 

 I then took the opportunity to kick his butt at bowling. We walked to Broadway, both got remedial massages and I picked up my free birthday boost!

 

  

We ended our adventure at Din Tai Fung in World Square. I seriously love, love, love this place!

  

 

  

I've been spending a lot of my (scarce) free time playing Simcity. I never played the original games, and I can totally understand why it's such a successful game. It's so addicting. Even J has been getting involved and staying up until all hours of the morning looking after his city! 

 

On Friday night  I celebrated my birthday with my dad, brother, sister and her boyfriend, and J. We went to teppenyaki in Beverly Hills. I've been here so many times before, and the novelty of watching your food being cooked and then having it thrown at you never gets old. The food is actually really delicious, and the chefs are great entertainment. 

I'm sorry my blog posts have been so scarce the past couple of weeks. Uni work for my PLT has just ramped up, I'm working crazy hours and I've just gone back to uni for Spring session. Still trying to work out my schedule, and when I have free time to blog. I just want to let you guys know though that I have so many exciting posts planned, and so many exciting products to share with you all!

Thank you also to everyone who wished me a happy birthday! xx

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My Weekend in Pictures #38

I spent the past weekend in Mudgee, for a work friend's 21st birthday. Mudgee is a quaint little town, about a 4 hour drive North West from Sydney, in central Western NSW. L (whose birthday it was), grew up here, so took us all up to see her home town and celebrate her birthday. It was such a fantastic weekend; not only was it really nice to just get away from life for a couple of days and spend it with a couple of the work girls, but it was really cool getting to see where L grew up...I finally had an actual image in my head now of places and people she'd talked about. 

We headed down to the markets on Saturday, before returning back to L's to set up for the party. There was lots of cute items here, and lots of homemade food and wine. I also found this awesome vintage camera. Of course I had to buy it. Although the film is no longer made for it, I may be able to use a different sized film...so that will be a fun experiment! 

I picked up some seeds to bring home as a present for J

That night we celebrated L's 21st ... it was an absolutely gorgeous party; lanterns in the trees, fresh flowers and fruit punch adorned the tables, and fire pits to sit next to and be warm. 

Before heading home on Sunday we had lunch at High Valley; a vineyard and cheese factory. 

Where we sat and ate lunch was cute, and the food was amazing...I may have bought some tomato fetta to bring home with me. 

On the drive home we stopped at Capertee Valley and I snapped this photo of the world's widest canyon:

Such a cute weekend getaway; even though Mudgee is a small town there's plenty to explore. Even just looking at these photos is making me nostalgic, and I can't wait to go back again and explore more of it. 

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Napoleon Perdis Birthday Haul

For my birthday one of my good friends, BR, gave me a gift voucher for Napoleon Perdis. (Thanks so much B!!!)
Apart from trying out products from the 'NP Set' when I was a teen, I've never had much exposure to their products. So I was pretty excited to get some fun new things to play with.

I ended up picking out two 'color disks' (does it bother anyone else that despite being Australian, NP spells colour the American way?) which are essentially single eye shadows, and a loose eye dust.

 

The colour disks are so, so pretty and so pigmented. I chose two fairly neutral colours, that I could create a variety of looks with. But I also wanted some colours I could just wear on their own for those lazy mornings. 

 

Left - Green Living; Right - Bronze Age

 

The palettes (containers?) themselves are plasticky, and kind of cheap. They have a teensy tiny mirror in them (smaller than the actual eyeshadow) which makes me think 'what's the point?' The packaging also doesn't have any kind of clasp to keep the lid down, which makes me nervous should I want to travel with them. 

The actual eyeshadows though, are smooth, super pigmented and last for ages on the eyelid.

I also picked up the loose eye dust in Bronze Ambition, which is  a bronzey-golden glitter eyeshadow. The packaging on this one is a million times better than the colour disks. I haven't had a chance to play with this one yet, but I'm thinking of using it for night time, when I want to amp up the colour a bit more.

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