Oh Mr Postman! Merry Christmas to me :-D

Ah no I won't start quoting B*Witched lyrics. Am I the only one that had their first album? Anyway this is what happens when you go away for two weeks and don't check your mail. The post office people know me by name and it was a little funny going in to pick up 6 packages :-P Some were for the bf though but this is what I scored:

As soon as Benefit's new blush Bella Bamba came out, I ordered it, along with a few other goodies as you can see. The box powder is different to earlier versions as the lid no longer detaches and there is a little mirror inside. Pretty shiny reflective box:

And inside... described as a 3D watermelon blush so it'll be interesting to see how it compares to their standard blushes.

I also picked up the Illamasqua nail duo boosh and harsh:

I can't wait to try boosh. I don't have a black so this is exciting for me :-) I also ordered two Philosophy shower gels, firstly Rainbow Sherbet:

This smells fresh and fruity and is great for summer. But I couldn't resist also picking up cookies and cream:

It does smell oh so sweet so probably doesn't appeal to all. I don't mind it given my recent candle haulage.

And I just had a lush bath to finish off the second Pretty Little Liars book. I'm DYING to see episode 11 so hopefully I can watch that tomorrow. But I'll probably start getting the book and tv show mixed up so I better finish off the books quick smart!

TMI time but I'll show you what a 'halloween' Lush bath bomb Calavera looks like when dissolved. Oh looks pretty and pink in ballistic form:

Read the fine print and it says '... turn bathtimes (and halloween) into a real celebration!' Well if by celebration you mean creature from the black lagoon style then yes:

When you combine blue and yellow and orange flower petals you get creepy green bath with bits! Luckily it still smelt nice. Honestly it was no way visually appealing or inviting but it smelt like lush so it's all goooooood.

P.S. You all need to reminisce and get on the b*witched :-)

Mecca Cosmetica Holiday goodies and Iori Japanese Restaurant!

I went out shopping tonight for a few reasons (forgot to go to Borders and get paperchase stuff but oh well). One of them was to pick up some xmas presents from Mecca Cosmetica. They had a beautiful Philosophy stand with all their holiday packs and I was very very tempted to buy several. I restrained myself well and only picked up a lipgloss set. Oh and the Philosophy Grace mini fragrance set. So lovely!

I also picked up the Girls Best Friend nail polish duo which I wasn't going to get at first until I saw it had a sparkle to it! I thought they were creams. No they are gorgeous and I eagerly look forward to swatching. Oh and I finally picked up two Lush Christmas eve bubble bars. Oh they have glitter in them... this shall be interesting. But they smell fantastic. Seriously, they are smelling up my room and it's not that typical 'lush store' smell.

Then we went out for dinner (randomly, I had a sudden need for Vegetable Tempura) at Iori:

Tucked away in the city is a sliding door that reveals a charming Japanese styled entrance:

Now I apologize for crappy iphone shots but it was very dark and fairly small inside so it's not like you can just whip out your SLR. First we have the Sapporo beer... which still tastes like beer so not really to my taste but the bf liked it.

Next we have the Teriyaki salmon. I've had the Teriyaki chicken several times and I love it... but it MAY have given me food poisoning last time I was there and I refuse to have it again. I can't pinpoint anything else that it could have been (only place I ate out and I had a fever with it). Anyway, onto more positive things:

Teriyaki salmon. Bf loved it.

The vegetable tempura. Yummy. Contained snowpeas, mushroom, pumpkin, eggplant and seaweed I believe. The salts are fantastic. This is worth trying. Then we had sushi and I was too busy eating to take a photo (sigh).

Well I picked up some good Christmas decorations from Myer on special and am eager to finish the tree. Hope everyone survived their week and has a fantastic weekend :-)

My Adelaide Trip and Haul in pictures

I'm back from Adelaide! It was just a short trip, but essentially I was going to the Metallica concert (the bf is a massive fan) with a few friends. I only insisted on three things: Pandas, Haigh's and the Himeji gardens.

I'll start with the haul! I found an Inglot store in Rundle Mall (then again at Marion!) I wasn't drawn to the makeup but I did spy some lovely nail polish. I was telling mum and she joked 'some Polish polish!' (I come from a Polish background). I was interested by the O2M line of polish which is meant to be more breathable due to a new polymer in the formula (used in contact lenses normally) which allows more oxygen through. Translation? Supposedly less nail damage and discoloration. As I've actually gotten yellow nails from just ONE day of usage from another popular brand, I'm pretty much scarred for life and always check for formaldehyde if it's not OPI (I've never had a problem with OPI).

Anyway, I picked up 4 colours which I will be swatching shortly. They don't have names but numbers so for reference I purchased 641, 642 (purples), 644 (green) and 631. I also picked up OPI Bring on the bling from the burlesque collection because it was sold out in DJs here and also a DS polish corination because I thought it would be pretty for the holidays.

Other purchases include a glasshouse candle (the ones they burn in Peter Alexander stores), some Lush (they were sold out of Christmas Eve bars, boo) and of course a Panda from the Zoo :-D I thought I'd share some pictures from my trip in case you ever wanted to visit :-P

Firstly we stayed at the Majestic Roof Garden hotel (garden, meh) which is in an excellent location with regards to Rundle Mall and has 24hr reception and valet parking. The view from the rooms is nothing but you're paying for the convenience. Previously I have stayed at the Stamford (in both the city and at Glenelg - Glenelg location highly recommended, the views are gorgeous of the beach) as well as Sofitel with those 'New York style' lofts. That hotel was nice too. But further towards the University, so an easier walk to the Botanical Gardens and the Zoo.

That is Wang Wang, the only panda that came out of the glass enclosure. The girl panda, Funi, not so social. Well according to their descriptions on the website, it's the other way around :-S

The flamingos were hiding most of the day and didn't come out until there was bad lighting. Sigh. But aren't they just beautiful?

The Macaw was on show when we arrived.

Ok this cutie wasn't part of the zoo but he caught my attention sitting on the fence of the Giraffe enclosure.

The Arcade was well decorated for Christmas.

I stocked up on some Haigh's from the original retail store, the 'beehive corner'. Sooo many nice Christmas things for sale.

We then went to the Himeji gardens, Adelaide's sister city of Japan. These gardens were smaller but much prettier than the Nara Gardens we have in Canberra.

More of the gardens. These gardens were beautiful.

The entrance to the gardens. Definitely worth a visit.

Another SA original, Fasta Pasta. I know there are locations outside of SA, but there aren't any in Canberra, so we went to the one on South Terrace. This is the pumpkin ravioli. Delish!

I might as well include some snaps from the concert since it was the reason for my trip ;-) I just spent a good 10mins trying to pick a couple of photos from the several hundred I took.

I must admit - I'm not the biggest Metallica fan but the concert was pretty damn good.

Last day in Adelaide we went to Felici espresso on Rundle St.

And who would order something silly like a nutella croissant? Me!

Well I hope you enjoy the piccies and if you're considering visiting Adelaide, now is a good time to go! I previously went during March and that happened to be during the biggest heatwave. I was not happy jan! Being in stuffy wine cellars with 40+ degree heat was not ideal.

Been Haulin', hopshopgo woes and other misc things!

So I've been stockpiling a few things lately. I'll begin with the excessive amount of hand sanitizers (and there's more to come in the post!)

Drama. So. I wanted to get some bath and body works stuff for xmas pressies this year. I quickly learnt that you had to use the 'buy for me' option because they didn't accept non US/Canadian credit cards. That was cool, I like buy for me :-P I wanted to order lots of hand sanitizer "pocketbac" thingys with the 5 for $5 deal and went ahead and authorized my big order. Then they contacted me and said that flammables cannot be shipped to my destination so they only purchased the remaining items in my order (despite the fact I said to cancel if something isn't in stock but I guess it's not the same thing) because of the specials on the others products that could be shipped (buy 3 get 3 free I believe). Which is again, ok by me. So I used the awesome dollar to spend up big and buy all the scents I wanted to try on eBay :-D

Then I decided to go back to hopshopgo and order more goodies from Target.com. Jewelry. Which Target decided to ship ONE AT A TIME. So I got charged shipping for 3x1kg boxes which basically had a small piece of jewelry in each box. I did use the 'live chat online' facility and spoke to a very polite Sophia who said that the boxes couldn't be repackaged because "... we do not want to change the way the merchant packed them for shipping. We fear that repacking the item would compromise its condition when it reaches you." again. Fine. Just thought I'd ask. But I paid for 3kg of jewelry. Seriously.

What can you do ey? If you want something you have to pay for it. And I'd rather be able to get it than not so at the end of the day all is good. Let's move on.

Of course a haul of mine wouldn't be complete without nail polish. My mum screamed 'oh my god' when she saw my nail polish rack. Sigh. I kinda filled it up completely... whoopsie. Anyhoo I found a pharmacy in Canberra that stocks Orly so I picked up It's Up To Blue. Gorgeous peacock. I'm so obsessed with peacock colours right now. And of course there's a purple. There's always a purple :-D Velvet rope. And a mini VIP because I'm also slightly obsessed with glitters. Which leads me to the OPI burlesque glitters. I didn't like the orange, blue or green ones and they didn't have the yellow :-| So I picked up sparkle-licious and show it and glow it!

Lastly we have a small lush haul. I wandered in and saw all these nice smelling things that looked like flat bath bombs and they were called emotibombs. Supposedly for the shower! Awesome idea, I can't wait to try it and see if they last a few showers like the sales assistant claimed. I picked up two Up You Gets (the orange man) and one Sex in the Shower. The bath bomb is a new limited edition I believe and it's called Calavera Bath Ballistic. It's actually two different colours inside!

Well I'm not feeling very well at the moment so I'm going to head to bed and hopefully not dream about hand sanitizers exploding in the mail. Oh the joys of online shopping... meanwhile my entire desk smells like 'zombie squad' / marshmallows :-|

MAC Venomous Villains Haul, Philosophy, Haighs and other faves!

Last week I checked out my (new!) local MAC counter in Myer and by Friday the majority of the Venomous Villains collection was sold out :-( But I got to swatch the things I wanted and prepared myself to pounce on the website as soon as online orders were up. They were up Saturday so by 10am Saturday I was a very happy lady! I didn't even mind walking down to the PO Box in the rain to collect my stash:

I wasn't planning on getting much from this collection, I was particularly interested in the nail polishes which are a Pearl finish and gorgeous by the way:

My MAC counter didn't have a display version of bad fairy (for some reason there was a dark cream purple looking polish in its place?!) but I ordered all three going on the first two that I saw. In order of preference we have Formidable! Mean & Green and of course Bad Fairy:

I cannot wait to wear these! One of the MAs at the MAC counter was wearing mean and green and it was so interesting!

I also picked up the Innocence Beware! cremesheen lippie, the Her Alter Image veluxe pearl eye shadow, the Oh So Fair beauty powder and the My Dark Magic mineralize eye shadow. I love Malificent so I had to get something with the special packaging! I opted for beauty powders because I prefer them for travel as they have a mirror and I cannot explain the eye shadow. It was simply me going me want :-D

While I'm at it I might as well mention things that I've been enjoying recently. It isn't limited to makeup :-P I mentioned in an earlier post that I went to Haigh's to stock up on choccy - well my cherry ripe bars are gone and this is all that's left of my assorted creams:

That rose cream would be done and dusted by now but that's the bf's :-( And what's with the tiny pink sugar candy on top? Those used to be huge! Ripped off I tell you. But my faves are: Violet, Rose, Lemon Myrtle, Lime, Strawberry, Peppermint, sigh the list goes on... but I really hate coffee, and I'm not the biggest fan of almond, passion fruit or mandarin. But I love dark choccy so it's all good. And I always get dark choc pastilles @_@

Next we have the Philosophy shower gel in unconditional love. Oh my gosh I cannot describe how much I love this scent. I received a sample some time ago from Meccacosmetica and I was in love! Then I went to mecca and they said we don't have a purple shower gel, and I couldn't remember the name at the time and I ended up going home with Falling in Love shower gel instead. While it's nice and somewhat similar, this is so much fruitier and just wonderful! I just purchased a new bottle :-D

Lastly we have the beauty products I've been loving right now. I'm someone that finds something and runs with it non stop for a good month or so and I've been doing that with the NARS rajasthan eye shadow duo, MAC MSF in Stereo Rose, Dior shimmer powder in Amber Diamond and I although I've been mostly using the Clinique long wearing mascara, I just fell in love with the Volume Million Lashes by Loreal. Despite its odd smell :-/ And oddly I'm using the benefit stay don't stray eye shadow primer as more of an actual concealer due to a bad pump where it ALL comes out at once. But I love Stereo Rose. It was nice and warm but now that winter's over I don't think I'll be getting away with it for much longer. Time to tone it down. Perhaps with the Dior rose diamond shimmer powder that I have :-D

MAC Originality nail polish and small haul!

I have been meaning to get this LE nail polish for ages but I kept forgetting. MAC originality came out with the Pret-a-papier collection. It is a frost and it looks very pretty in the bottle:



It's a bronzy gold colour and with two coats, very easy to apply.



Flash shot above. Here's a foggy Canberra morning shot!



I don't know why but I feel disappointed with this colour. It looks pretty in the bottle but perhaps it is better suited to a darker skin tone. It looks washed out on my pale hands :-P

Onto the haul. I don't know why I get suckered into new lip gloss. I hate sticky lipgloss and quite frankly glitter on the lips doesn't really appeal but I just had to try :-) I got 2 of the new superglass (well new in Australia) lip glosses with my MAC originality nail polish. And a MAC to the beach eye shadow because I wanted the pretty sea shell green packaging. Such a sucker for new and pretty :-|



Oh my gosh these are glittery. I swatched on my hands and it took a shower, several hand washes to 1) get the stickyness off and 2) get the glitter off. I thought I had showered in a lush glitter bath ballistic I had that much glitter left on my hand.



There is really a lot of big glitter in that swatch. Big. Chunky. I'm interested to see how these go over some of my lippies. I think these may be worth it if you wanted to try the big bold colours in the collection. These two shades? Nothing special. I think I prefer the lip gelee's that came in out the lillyland collection. Those were super glittery but not so tacky.

UPDATE: Oh my gosh. If you thought getting glitter off your nails was hard, this Originality polish is even worse! I'm fairly certain I have molten rock glued to my nails :-|

MAC To The Beach Haul and Swatches

When I was in Hawaii last week I looked for Marine Life but of course it was sold out everywhere :-P But no matter, I checked the MAC Australia website every day until it was out! Lucky I did too because it was gone by the time I got back to Australia :-S So I got some things in the USA, some things here and here they are:



Here is the coveted Marine Life in all its glory:



So pretty :-) Should have gotten two but they were $55 each!



I also got the beachbound glaze lipstick, splashing and easy lounger lipglass, rosemary and thyme eye kohl (love the design) and the cream nail polish in scorcher.



Splashing is quite pigmented, so much more than easy lounger which is like a pack of glitter.



As for beachbound, I love it. I like glaze lippies, I'm not a big lipstick wearer so the subtleness of a glaze suits me fine. And I really like this colour. Initially I thought it would be too peach but it's not, it's gorgeous. It's nude but with a shimmer. Well suited to warm tones. Lovely.

Finally we have the scorcher nail polish, at 2 coats:



Nice to apply, not streaky and I could have done with just one coat, but went for two.

And if you're interested, I did these day by day Hawaii videos for friends and family back home. Here's day 2 (the shopping day = Sephora woohoo!), you can check out day 1, if you missed it here.