Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Eat, Eat, EAT!!!

So I am sittin in my bed watching TV, eating a bowl of pasta and enjoying a nice glass of wine and thought about how completely unoccupied with dieting and losing weight I've been for the past few months and I absolutely love it. The funny thing is I haven't gained any weight. I eat what I want at whatever time I want, but I make sure I don't go overboard. I make sure to eat healthy and not take in too many heavy foods and  I just feel a lot better just doing this then going on no carb diets and counting every calorie I take in. If I feel like eating, I eat and if I don't, I don't. Simple as that. I want to be able to enjoy life and food is of course is an important part of enjoying life. This does not mean go out and stuff yourself with French pastries and cake. This means enjoy eating without feeling guilty while keeping in mind that you are nourishing your body, and one's body can not be properly nourished with strawberry ice cream and macarons...a little here now and then doesn't hurt though :) I love that I am not restricting myself to a suffocating diet anymore!

Eating healthy > Eating less

And here's a picture of kimchi pasta just because I LOVE IT!!!! I know some of you may think it sounds gross, but don't judge until you've tried it. I am a kimchi monster!!!!!

Monday, November 29, 2010

Post Thanksgiving Pounds :))

I had two Thanksgiving dinners this year!! Twice the food, twice the weight gain!! I had Thanksgiving dinner with my dad's side of the family on Thursday and hosted another dinner for my mom on Friday. With the long break last week due to snow, I feel well rested and thankful for what lies ahead. I hope to land a new job soon and look forward to Christmas. My honey and I also had our 2nd anniversary, but celebrations are postponed because of our busy schedule and the fact that our anniversary happened to coincide with Thanksgiving.

A recent online order purchase from asos.com. I got this coat in grey. I fell in love with the puffed sleeves and high collar <3


This month I've been loving:

-Stella by Stella McCartney
-Coconut Oil and Rose Water as a moisturizer
-Earl Grey Tea with milk and honey
-Flawless you forever floral blush in Romance
-House training my dog



Update on my experiment:

I have not used shampoo for about three weeks now. There was one exception when I went to get my hair trimmed, but other than that I've been shampoo free. However, I have wash my hair with a baking soda and water mixture to keep my hair looking clean. I do that 1-2 times a week and hopefully I can cut it down to once a week. Other than the baking soda, I only wash my hair with water, brushing thoroughly from scalp to the ends of my hair with a natural bristle brush. I do this for about 10 minutes to distribute the oil in my hair evenly as well as brush out as much excess oil and grime possible. Sounds gross I know because that's exactly what I thought when going into this experiment, but so far it's not as bad as I thought it would be since I've gotten used to the routine now.  I haven't seen drastic results in my hair's health yet, but I have noticed that my hair is a bit less dry and tangly. I'm happy enough with the results to keep going with this experiment. I don't know why, but doing this no shampoo thing kind of feels refreshing and to a small degree makes me feel liberated.

Monday, November 22, 2010

Woke up this morning to a gorgeous surprise! First snow of the season, looks like Seattle might have snow for the holidays!!

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Review: Flawless You Forever Floral Blush

I've been using these Flawless You Forever floral blushes for a while and I must say I am pleased with them. Not only are they pretty, but they have excellent pigmentation. I have two of the blushes in the colors Autumn(left) and Romance(right). The blushes can be purchased at flawlessyouforever.com at $19 a blush


Somehow this picture uploaded upside down, but here we have Romance on the left and Autumn on the right. The FYF floral blushes come in this pretty rose-carved design which was the biggest reason why I purchased them. I didn't want to fork up the money for Lancome's Le Rose Deco blush.

Romance is a soft rosy pink color which at first glance may look like it wouldn't show up on my skin, but like I said before these blushes have excellent pigmentation. It is composed of rose, mauve, peach and light pink color bits, which could be combined together or used separately as eyeshadow. The light pink color could work as a highlight. Some of the colors that make up this blush are shimmery while some are matte, so when combined an applied it will leave a slightly shimmery look.

Autumn is a peachy brown color and looks really nice for fall/winter when my skin looks pale and dead. Gives a beautiful wash of color on the cheeks that reminds me of autumn leaves. It is composed of medium brown, peachy brown and golden brown bits, some of which are shimmery. Again, I'm sure these color bits could be used individually as eye shadow.

Here are the two blushes swatched. Autumn(left) and Romance(right).
As you can see they are really pigmented and of course you have to apply these with a light hand, especially Autumn. The colors look prettier in person and I didn't have the best lighting since it was already dark outside when I took this and my camera flash sort of washed out the colors. I definitely recommend trying out these blushes, they are absolutely adorable in appearance and fun to use. I would repurchase these simply because I love how they are carved into a rose, but the quality in my opinion is good too.

MAC viva glam gaga lipglass

I loved the Viva Glam Gaga lipstick so I had to get the lipglass as well. I purchased a few of them since they are limited edition and they arrived by post yesterday!! I almost planned to return this because I ordered them online then went to the MAC store and swatched it on my hand and thought whoa this is too hot pink, but luckily I decided to try it on before returning it and ended up loving it. Here is a pic of the gloss over the Viva Glam Gaga lipstick. Sorry lips are chapped from cold weather, but I wanted to put a picture up so here it is!

Sunday, November 14, 2010

OPI Lincoln Park After Park Dupe

I remember picking up this polish, Rimmel Lasting Finish Pro in Purple Rain, from a BOGO deal and just tested it out today on a finger and realized how similar it was to OPI Lincoln Park After Dark. Guess no need to purchase the OPI!

Friday, November 12, 2010

Mickey's ghastly haircut

Unfortunate news, Mickey's hair became matted beyond repair and so I had to cut off his hair. It will take 2-3 months to completely grow back which is a shame, but at least his hair is nice and untangled. It hurts me to see him with such an ugly haircut, but its just hair. Poor poor Mickey :(
I also had to take him to get his rabies shot. The vet weighed him and it turns out he only weighs 3.4 lb. I was kind of surprised because I thought he would weigh at least 5, but I guess I never checked. I was really sad I had to cut off his luscious thick hair, but he has been acting a lot more lively ever since I chopped off his hair so I guess it's not so bad.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

New purchases and new experiment

I was on the lookout for the perfect leather shoulder bag...and I found it!! I got it from asos.com for about $129 I believe. It's my new everyday bag and it matches my fall attire so I'm pleased with the purchase. I wear it across my shoulders which is so nice because now I have my hands free to hold my phone and coffee. I was so tired of purses slipping off my shoulder!!


New nail polish color! Butter London in Fash Pack. I got it because I wanted a Chanel Particuliere dupe that wasn't as pricey. I got this polish for $10, which is still kinda pricey in my opinion, but it was the closest match I could find. I like the color very much, but it seems to chip easily.


Got a new hairbrush because I heard natural bristle brushes are better and gentler on your hair and my hair has been very dry and brittle lately so I purchased this brush off of amazon.com for about $15 and I've been loving it ever since. The one I purchased below is the Denman large natural boar bristle cushion hairbrush.

The natural bristle brush is supposed to help hair look shiner, massage the scalp and reduce hair breakage.



Stella by Stella McCartney. Notes are rose oil, peony, mandarin, rose absolute and amber. This is my go-to fall scent. I absolutely love rose scents, I'm always spraying rose water on myself because I love love love rose and I wanted something that smelled sophisticated and rosey, but not powdery. This is my favorite rose scent!! well at least so far it is. I love YSL Parisienne, but it is a tad sweet so I like Stella more. After smelling it on me I instantly new, like Coco Mademoiselle, this perfume will be a staple.

Victoria's secret sweater purchase, the cotton cable dolman-sleeve sweater in blonde heather like in the picture below. I've also tried out some of victoria's secret's eyeshadows. I got the silky eyeshadows in champagne, between the sheets, and lose control. They are all various shades of brown and after trying them out I think I want to try more victoria's secrets eyeshadow.

I've been wanting the Urban Decay Naked palette, but I do not want to pay the money for it since I have so many neutral colors anyway so I got the NYX nude on nude palette instead. It costs much less and the colors are great, not too shimmery. It is a very small palette, but I think it's perfect for travel. I ignore the two lip gloss colors though, they look and feel waxy.



ALSO, I ordered some Babyliss hot rollers. I don't have a picture, but I'll put one up later when I receive them. I've been wanting a hot roller set and just gave in and bought one because I don't want to perm my hair again since i damaged my hair severely, but I still want to be able to have that natural wavy hair look. Hopefully I get the results I want from this hot roller set.






Now on to the new experiment...


I've always been a hygiene freak, so naturally I could never skip a daily full shower. Lately, however, my hair has been extremely dry with a serious split end problem. I have some hairs that are split four times in one hair!!! Another problem is that my hair just seems to be dull, lifeless, limp and flat.

So...

I've decided to go on the "no shampoo" hair method. Sounds gross I know, but I'm feeling brave and I don't know if it's just because I'm feeling restless, but I want to do something different. However, I will probably gradually transition into it instead of dropping shampoo cold turkey. I've heard that your hair looks pretty bad for about 6-8 weeks, but after that your hair's oil production stabilizes. The method is supposed to result in healthier, shinier, thicker hair.

Shampoos these days contain too many harsh ingredients that don't do much for hair. They strip your hair of it's natural oils and this whole "wash your hair everyday" might just be a marketing scheme for hair product companies to boost sales.

I've decided to do it...with a few adjustments. I heard you can wash your hair with baking soda and condition with apple cider vinegar to keep the hair looking less messy, so I will definitely do that. I think I'll also spritz my hair with rose water because I always want my hair to smell good :) I don't know if I'll give up shampoo completely, but I do know right now that I want to reduce shampooing my hair so much because it seems to be making my hair more dry and brittle. I'm kind of excited about this :)))

The colder season has also given my extremely dry skin so I've been moisturizing with coconut oil and it is super amazing. I definitely recommend it. I will probably talk more about this later.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

what an uneventful day...

Halloween 2010 - Vampire

This morning I woke up with an allergic reaction on my face, more specifically the area above my lip was covered in red splotchy spots! It was on my right elbow too. It's gotten better now, but I stayed at home today since I have no need to go to the office this week and I can just do my work at home. Our remodeling is all done and I was taking a bath in our new jacuzzi for the first time last and decided to throw in a bath bomb. I'm prety sure the bath bomb is what caused my allergic reaction because that was the only thing I did differently from my normal activities. I guess there's a lot of aromatic oils and such in the bath bomb and thats probably what set it off. Oh well, I'm so used to these allergic reactions since I've always had really sensitive skin.


With the remodeling done now, we're working on cleaning everything up and making everything homey again. It's been a very uncomfortable past one and a half moneths living in the basement while the house was being torn apart and put back together. Now that everything is done I feel so relieved and I'm so thankful for the final product.


I've been using rose hip oil on my face at night for the past two weeks and although I hate the feeling of putting oil on my face, the results have been pretty good. I feel like there's no dramatic change, but my face overall seems brighter and maybe more even in skintone. I'm pleased with the results so I'll keep using it. Hopefully it is not the cause of my allergic reaction today, but I doubt it since I've been using it for a while now. I've still been using my Thayer's rose water toner as well, I absolutely love that stuff.


I am looking forward to the holidays and eating lots of yummy sweet things!