Hey, Big Spender!

I had every intention of making this post a vlog, but unfortunately, my iMovie isn't co-operating today, and so I have had to make-do with photos and a written post, rather than subjecting you all to my nasty Aussie accent!

Last night I had a friend from uni stay over for an old-school sleepover, complete with girly movies, mass amounts of junk food, and a shopping trip to Pacific Fair, one of the larger shopping centres on the Gold Coast, today. We had what I could only describe as an extremely emotional night last night, watching The Vow, The Lucky One, Stick It and G.I. Joe. I think we almost flooded my lounge room with our tears while watching The Vow, which is just such an incredible movie, so we really needed some happy-go-lucky Channing Tatum in G.I. Joe to cheer us up after that!

Today, we set off for Pacific Fair with a very strict list of what we actually needed to buy stuck in our heads, determined that we wouldn't let all the pretties distract from what we were there for. I knew I needed a pair of jeans, some jumpers and some nice, uni-friendly tops and Mikeala knew she needed a nice jacket to wear out and about. Well, Mikeala walked out with nothing, and I walked out with only a pair of jeans from our list, but plenty more pretties as evidence of a day well spent!

The first shop we went into was Temt, and what can I say other than that I was Temt-ed by almost every single thing I saw in there to break my promise with myself! SO MANY PRETTY DRESSES! Thankfully, Mikeala reigned me in, and I walked out with only one thing, the maroon, paisley knitted dress which is at the back of my haul picture. For only $10, I just couldn't say no to it, because even though it is figure-hugging, I know I'll get a lot of wear out of it because it is quite nice to wear to uni, and it's really warm.

The next shop to make me cave was Jay Jays, to my surprise! I don't often shop in Jay Jays, but I really wanted a pair of black, high-waisted jeans and I knew they had them because my sister bought some. I'm planning on wearing them to see A Day To Remember tomorrow night, and so I bought the striped crop-top in Jay Jays as well, to wear with them, but I ended up finding the maroon and black top by my favourite surf brand, Mooloola for only $19 in City Beach straight after I left Jay Jays, so now it will be worn tomorrow, and the stripey top will just have to wait it's turn!

I love the cut-out details in this top, and I also love that it's a little bit longer than a few of the other crop tops I tried on today. I'm not usually much of a crop top person, because ew, belly! but with high-waisted things, I think this top will look really nice! One of the most exciting things that happened to me today is that this top is only a size 8, and the maroon dress is only a small! Normally I wear a 10 or a medium in clothes so this got me all in a tizz. I haven't been trying to lose weight or anything, but I have noticed it has been hapening and I quite like the way my body looks right now. I really started to notice my jeans hanging off my butt a few weeks ago, but it seems that I'm between sizes at the moment, becuase I still had to get a 10 in the black high-waisted ones, so now I'm just praying they don't stretch too much, as I know Jay Jays jeans tend to do!

OH! And today I found out that Australia has Lush!!! I've never seen a Lush store over here before and then, ta-da! There one was, right in the middle of Pacific Fair! This is really exciting to me, because I am allergic to sulfates and have really sensitive skin, so I'm always looking for quality, yet affordable natural products to use on my hair and skin. After describing my skin type to the assistant there, she recommended Angels on Bare Skin for me, as I had guessed she would. I was a little bit sceptical of it at first, after Erica's review, but I have heard great things about it from other bloggers, and when she demonstrated it on my hand, I had no bad effects from it. If I like Angles on Bare Skin, I will definitely be going back for a toner and moisturiser as well, because they felt great on my skin and I love the calming, rose and lavender smells! The assistant kindly also gave me a sample of their Rehab Shampoo, as I had asked about sulfate-free shampoos and told her that I had extremely dry hair and this is what she recommended. Unfortunately, Lush uses sulfates in all of their hair products which was a massive bummer to me. Their excuse was that they haven't found a replacement for it that they don't need to test on animals, but I call bullshit because I've been using natural shampoos for years, and none of them are tested on animals, nor do they have sulfur in them.Apparently the sulfates in Lush's shampoos is natural and derived from coconut, so I'm going to give it a little tester and see if I react to it. I've never had a reaction from eating coconut before, so I'm hoping that their products are safe to use on my hair!

The two nail polishes I bought are from Sportsgirl and I LOVE them! I've already painted my stubby, little fingernails in them, in the hopes that if they look pretty I won't bite them, and boy do they look pretty! The gold is really opaque, which is exactly what I wanted. It looks like frosted gold on my fingers and I only used two coats! I could have gotten away with one, as well if I hadn't missed a bit of my finger. The pink is a little less impressive, as it's much lighter than I anticipated and really needs three coats to even make your nails look painted, but on long fingernails, it would look fantastic!

All in all, I had a great day shopping despite not getting what I was after. Have you been shopping recently? I don't go often so when I do, I usually go all out. This was a very constrained shopping trip, compared to my usual! How do you go at controlling your spending? I would also really love to hear about your experiences with Lush products, since I'm so new to them!

The Clumsy Girl's Guide to Winged Eyeliner

I would just like to start off by saying there is absolutely no way that I am a beauty blogger, nor will I ever become a beauty blogger. For the most part, that stuff bores me and I'm rubbish at it. Absolutely rubbish! However, one thing I have always envied is normal women's abilities to do winged eyeliner that is actually even and pointing off in the same direction on each eye. I mentioned this to my gorgeous cousin who is a make up queen, and she gave me a quick little tip for doing nice, even winged eyeliner that she used to use when she first started out. Lucky you guys, because I am going to share it with you today! Please ignore the horrendous way my face looks in these photos, I was trying to best showcase what I was doing - not exactly my best angle!

The secret to perfect eyeliner? Sticky tape!

I know, shockingly simple, right? But does it actually work? Follow the steps and see for yourself:

1. Cut a small piece of sticky tape, and play around with it in your fingers to make it lose some of it's sticky. You want it to be just sticky enough to stick flat, without basically supergluing itself to your face. This is so when you pull it off your face, it doesn't hurt and is not too hard when your hands and face are already covered in foundation and whatnot!

2. Align the bottom of the sticky tape with the outside corner of your eye, pointing up and out to the corner of your eyebrow. Slipping the tape under your bottom lashes, smooth it flat onto your face so that the top edge of the tape is nestled right next to your eyebrow (mine are super thin on the ends so I'm sorry if you can barely see them).

3. Use a liquid eyeliner to frame your eye, starting thin on the inside corner of your eye and building it up towards the outer edge, following on with your kicks. Try and make the line as even and fluid as you can (obviously I didn't leave mine looking like that^^^ I smoothed it over when I was done with a wet cotton bud). Here is the great thing - you don't have to worry about how neat your kicks are because they sort out themselves! All you have to do is make each side is an even length and the top edge nice and smooth :) 

4. let your eyeliner dry a little, peel off the stickytape and touch up any bits that need touching up, before continuing on with your make up routine!

Isn't it great? I can't believe I can actually do proper winged eyeliner now! And it actually doesn't look like a five year old did it! Now that I have a little trick up my sleeve I feel confident enough to buy some proper nice eyeliner. The stuff i've been using is $5 crappy k-mart eyeliner because I didn't want to spend money on stuff I had to wash off every morning. Yay for decent make up! And yay for the fact that I have been using tinted moisturiser rather than foundation (nearly) every day! My skin feels so much healthier and smoother since I cut foundation out of my morning routine. Loving it! Do you have any other neat little tricks I can try out with my make up? I suck at being a girl and would love your advice!

And just because everyone deserves a beautiful duck face selfie to brighten up their day:

Isn't this just the sexiest face ever? You're totally welcome!