Heatless loose curls

Hello!
I've been wanting get wavy/loose curly hair with heatless curls for a while, but being busy this semester and being worried that it would turn out horrible, I never got around to doing it. When I did get around to doing it the other day, it actually turned out alright, so I thought I'd share. I used a method called 'bantu knots'. This method creates tighter curls, which I think would work better on my medium hair length. For long hair, I recommend the two bun method, which I used last year for a few months. I used Annalee's  tutorial from annaleeandjesse's youtube channel, which worked out pretty well for me.

Generally, I just keep my hair in the knots until its fully dry; you can either sleep on it and take it out in the morning, or just keep in all day. I chose to keep it in all day so when I removed it before bed, the the curls would drop slightly overnight, resulting in looser curls.

First off, let's start off with towel dried hair. Your hair needs to be damp for the curls to set; if you're starting with dry hair, just dampen your hair by spraying some water onto it. I procrastinated a bit so my hair is close to being dry here, but it was still damp enough to work with. 

Hey there, good lookin'

 Now grab a section of your hair, I started with my fringe, and twist. So generally, when curling hair, you want to twist the front parts away from your face, but twisting my hair away from my face seems to have the inverse effect here. So, my theory is, if you want the hair to twist away from your face, twist it towards your face.

 

 Twist it so that the knot wraps into a spiral and secure it with a hair tie. Scrunchies are the most comfortable to use and leave less of a kink, but all of mine have disappeared. The tighter the bun, the tighter the curl.

 

Tada! One down, four more to go. 

 

I decided to do 5 knots: one for my fringe and two on either side of my head (front and back)

And now we wait, looking a bit like Crazy Eyes from Orange is the New Black.

When your hair is sufficiently dry it, let it out and gently separate the curls. 

Just after removing the hair ties.

I flipped my head upside down and roughly shook out the curls with my fingers to separate them. 

I now discovered that because of the inverse twisting effect I mentioned earlier, I had a fringe was twisting towards my face, which looked a bit weird, but too late now.

So, the next morning, the curls had settled down a bit. 

I pinned the front sections back to hide the awkward strands in front.

And you're done. Yay! 

Messy waves/curls for everyone.

Transitioning to cold weather: one dress, six ways.

As promised, an outfit post! Even though its nearing the end of Autumn in Australia and it has gone progressively colder, the past week has been quite warm. Normally, it starts getting quite cold by now, but this year has just been unusually warm, not that I'm complaining.

So here's the dress I'll be dressing up/down today. Here's an idea of how I would wear it in summer.

Dress: Ally Fashion, Shoes: Rivers

Now for cooler weather:

The jacket.

Jacket: Hand-me-down, Shoes: Tony Bianco

 I've been yearning for more form fitting denim jacket for a while, but all the ones I've come across were just too expensive in my opinion, so I dug this jacket out from the back of my closet to soothe my longing. It's not really the same thing, but it'll have to do for now. For now.

The grunge.

Jacket: Jay Jays, Shoes: New Look

So I do have a denim jacket which I picked up for $25 on sale last year, but I deliberately got it oversized so some days, depending on the outfit, it just looks too big on me. The acid wash also makes it quite grungey and most days, I don't feel like being too grungey because it's not really my style. I also feel like if I do dress too grungey, I feel like a poser since I'm not really a 'true grunge' or possess those values; I just admire their style.

The blazer.

Blazer: Mum's, Shoes: Asos Spring Break heels

The dressy option. I thought I'd spruce it up with some heels, but this look can easily be kept casual if you swapped the heels for some boots/flats/oxfords/loafers/the list goes on.

The sweatshirt.

Top: Bought it overseas, Shoes: New Look

It's simple, grab any loose long sleeved shirt that's long enough to be knotted around the waist and you're done!

The sweater.

Sweater: Hand-me-down, Shoes: New Look

This way is as simple as the previous method, just find yourself a sweater. Here, I just used an ordinary sweater, but cropped sweaters would look even better.

The flannel.
Unfortunately, as I was getting the photos off my SD card, I accidentally deleted this photo :(, but its just the same old dress, with a flannel thrown over the top for warmth as a sort of jacket.


Hope you enjoyed this post! I'm trying to film more OOTDs, particularly when I'm heading off to uni, but  I'm normally always rushing out the door and don't have to time to set up my camera and a tripod/stack boxes on a chair. :o)

May Bellabox

Hello there! It is Bellabox time and this month I'm pretty impressed. Yes, I skipped last months one because I was too lazy to write about it, there was nothing really that great about it other than the Burt's Bees cuticle cream. So now for this months products:

(Sorry about the lighting in these photos, normally I take photos during the day, but I'm always busy doing something during the day, so I never actually have the time to take pictures)

 

 

This month, I thought I'd show you a few closeups of the products.

This soap smells very strongly of lemon myrtle, not really my type of scent, but I'm willing to give it a try.

 This tin was sent to me in this dodgy state, and its just a small empty tin, I don't really know what to do with it.

 I was really excited to see this product as I'm a follower of Annalee and Jesse on Youtube and Anna's always talking about Wen products.

 I haven't used Chapstick for years now; I, like everyone else, owned the strawberry Chapstick that had a weird taste to it. Currently, I use the Cherry Culture lip balm I got for free with my order and that works quite well.

 I don't know if you guys recall, but I got a mask from this company in a Bellabox a few months ago, and it was really nice and actually cleared up most of my acne for a week. I don't know if its this mask or just masks in general though, since I don't normally use face masks at all. The mask I got in the past was a different type of mask though, sea minerals instead of orchid extract, but the effect should be similiar.

This is a matte nail polish that contains tiny, miniscule beads that give the polish a textured effect that kind of feels like sandpaper. I wish I got a different colour though, I usually avoid black polish (its a bit too intense for me) and instead opt for very dark blues or purples, but the concept is so interesting maybe I will give it a try.

And that's a wrap! I'm currently trying to organize more outfit posts, which should be up in a couple of days. Also I dyed my hair brown, which you guys will see soon enough :)

Adventure 4 - ARCTIC MONKEYS

So the Arctic Monkeys concert happened.
AND IT WAS AMAZING.

First of all, I found out quite late that Arctic Monkeys tickets were on sale, for some reason I had accepted that they weren't going to come to Australia anytime soon even though they had just released a new album. It also took me a week to find someone to go with me, so bye bye moshpit and nice seats and I ending sitting near the back :(.

Their supporting act was a psychedelic rock band called Pond, which shares some of its members with Tame Impala which is pretty cool. They were pretty good, but the vocals were a bit hard to hear. Also, we got there a bit late cause we took too long mucking around, having dinner, walking back to my friends house, playing with my friends dog and deciding if I should get merchandise, so we only caught the second half of their performance.

wow such a good photo

Then Arctic Monkeys came out, yay! They were amazeballs. I was just gushing the whole time. They started off with Do I Wanna Know and played mostly songs from AM, but they had some classics like Brianstorm, Fluorescent Adolescent and I BET YOU LOOK GOOD ON THE DANCE FLOOR. They ended with R U Mine, in which the sound cut out near the end of the song, so with a "Let's try that again", they played it again.  I think my favourite line was Alex saying, "It's time for a fucking nap," before they began No. 1 Party Anthem. The line summed up my life really.
Cue blurry pictures.

My attempt to get a discernible picture of the band by zooming in as much as my camera would allow.

 I actually took few more photos than this, but they were all blurry since I didn't bother checking the quality of them when I could've been watching the band. These were the clearest ones of the bunch. It was such an amazing experience, I hope I'll be able to see them live in the UK when I visit the UK in the future. 

Garnier Micellar Cleansing Water Review

Hello my wonderful little cherubs - my philosophy lecturer called us that the other day and I found it quaint. I'm here to gush about the Garnier Micellar Cleansing Water. I've never tried Bioderma, or even considered buying it since its so overpriced; A 250ml bottle of Bioderma at Priceline is $30. I've just used waterproof makeup remover in the past, namely the L'oreal and Garnier ones which have worked pretty well, and occasionally grapeseed oil which I bought on a whim after hearing it removed waterproof mascara instantly. Grapeseed oil did remove waterproof mascara more easily, but still not as easily as I had wanted, plus the oil did get in my eye a bit which wasn't pleasant.

The Garnier Micellar Cleansing Water does what the grapeseed oil does minus the irritation. It doesn't irritate to my eyes at all. It removes makeup with one swipe, waterproof mascara takes a bit longer, but it's a few less swipes than the waterproof makeup removers I've used in the past.

It's on offer at Priceline at the moment, if you haven't tried it already, go get some :)

Easy natural makeup

For Easter, I went out for a buffet dinner with my family and family friends. By the way, the seafood buffet at Conrad Jupiters is divine. Basically, any buffet that offers oysters is divine in my opinion. Anyway, I thought I'd do a natural makeup look since I didn't want to look too overdone and I thought I'd share how I achieved it.

 So here's the look:

And here's what I did.

I always do mascara first because this happens whenever I put on mascara. Such an attractive look.

I added a champagne eye shadow all over my eyelids and in the inner corners of my eyes.

Using a light hand, I added a dark brown colour to the outer two thirds of my eye to create some definition.

Add a thin line of eye liner. Not going to wing it out, just continued on from my eye shape.

I ran out of time to finish recording each step, but I added foundation, blush, filled in my brows and chucked on a lip stain.
Badabingbadabum. Done. :)

Products used:
L'oreal false lash telescopic mascara (waterproof on top lashes, non waterproof on bottom)
Maybelline Color Tattoo in Barely Branded
Rimmel eyeshadow quad in Brixton Brown (the medium brown colour)
Maybelline Master Precise liquid eyeliner
Bourjois Healthy Mix Foundation (53)
Guerlain blush (its me mam's)
Rimmel eyebrow pencil in Black
Revlon balm stain in Vivacious

New Look Haul

Last year, I was internet window shopping, as you do, and I ended up ordering a package from River Island full of great discounts. I've been trying to find the same success since then, but I couldn't really find enough great priced clothes at River Island to justify the shipping charge. Last month, it occurred to me that maybe I should try New Look. From the title of this post, I'm assuming you already know what followed.

Light blue jumper - really fluffy, but I worry about how it'll wash. (Size 12 for an oversized fit)

From the men's section, but fits me quite well. (Size XS)

  Because everyone needs a striped top in their wardrobe. (Size 10)

 

Denim skirt that's a bit too tight around my hips but loose around my hips. Still love it though.

(Size 10)

The colour of these boots are a bit lighter than how they appear, so I look a photo with flash to show the true colour.  (UK size 5)

When I saw these boots on the website I nearly died. They're supposed to be real leather, and it is, but after seeing it in person, its just reconstituted leather which probably wouldn't last that long and it came with a dent in the leather near the toe. But they were so beautiful on the site and they are so beautiful in real life, I had to get them. They satisfy my longing for a a pair cherry red docs which I've wanted for forever. I refer to them as my Arctic Monkey boots as I've decided that these are the boots I'll definitely be wearing to their concert. (UK size 8)

My order came in two packages, the first package arrived after 10 days and I was ecstatic as I expected it to take 2 weeks, but it was only half my order. So after a few days of waiting and no package, I emailed customer service if there were two packages or if I had only been sent half my order and they replied quite promptly saying that there were in fact two packages. The next package came a week later. Can't wait for the weather to cool down so I can wear my new boots everywhere. And I mean everywhere.