Shop shop shopping

I've not done much shopping lately, but I did take a recent trip to Myer to stock up on some everyday useful goodies :)

I love Trilogy Rosehip oil and when they had a Trilogy deal recently I snapped up 3 bottles since I use a few drops of the stuff everyday. It wasn't the best deal I've seen (ages ago they were buy one get one free) but good enough to stock up. Do you use Rosehip oil and if so, which brand? I've heard good things about another brand (escapes my mind for now) but I first used Trilogy so have continued despite them not being the cheapest on the market.

When I was in the US I was on the lookout for a portable retractable or lidded foundation brush. Can you believe they're pretty difficult to find! I did know Ecotools make it, but they're hard to find stockists unless I ordered online (which I wasn't willing to pay postage for) but then I came back to Oz and found this el cheapo Manicare version! It's flat and skinny and not too long so perfect makeup bag size and great for travel. I hate when you travel and makeup brushes get all over everything else.

I finally got my hands on a round brush for blow drying (I know, a bit behind the times!) This was from one of my favourite shops, SA Health & Beauty which is a treasure trove of beauty steals and deals. Not only that, they have available professional products in bulk which are difficult to find elsewhere.

What are your latest beauty buys?

Millinery Madness

One thing my sister and I like to collect is millinery - exquisite headwear is just so beautiful and absolutely like pieces of art in their design, craftmanship and fashionability! We're always on the look out for amazing pieces at bargain prices and so when I came across these pieces I just had to have them.

Richard Nylon Netting Fascinator
So this is very Richard Nylon esque, being completely theatrical and almost Lady Gaga-esque. It is quite delicately constructed though and has great height and drama. I would have preferred the netting to be slightly more centred on the velvet headband but it's still potentially perfect for a Derby Day carnival meet.

Peter Bentley
So this piece is a little more traditional, but the plastic shard hot pink flower adds a touch of girly fun, especially with the light 'feathers' dramatically popping outwards. This would be cute with an all-white outfit I think!

Fiona Powell winter headpiece
This is definitely more traditional and unfortunately the picture doesn't do it justice because it looks absolutely fabulous when worn because of the angle at which all the pieces are draped. This would look great with a Roland Mouret inspired shift dress, don't you think?

And because I couldn't help myself, I had to put pics of my storing them in my NAP boxes! I love re-using them because they're so sturdy.

And do you know what's the best bit? All 3 pieces were reduced from $1200+ to just $150 :)

Fashion Editorials

So I might be a little behind the times on this, but I recently came across this website which is an awesome portal of a whole host of fashion editorials from around the world!

OK so a lot of the pics are linked from the awesomeness that is tpf (the purse forum), but I love that it has done all the archiving for me. Even years old editorials are searchable there and link you to the full picture galleries.

What are your favourite fashion editorial websites?

40,000 views!

I noticed last night I was creeping close to the 40,000 views mark being at around 39,900 but I didn't think that overnight I would hit over that mark to now be sitting at 40,014 views! =o

So just a little celebratory post for my little blog :)

Dumpling Crawl!

I love to eat dumplings and a few weeks ago my friends and I went on a dumpling crawl, as inspired by the infamous Sydney blog Not Quite Nigella.

So we had a long list of places to go starting in the City, going through to Ashfield and as a 'maybe' following it up with dinner in Kingsford. So of course we got greedy and overordered, so even though there are 3 places in the same strip of shops in Ashfield, we ended our food fest at the first. We have vowed to go again though, perhaps starting at Ashfield this time?

These are the places we visited and the matching photos:

Din Tai Fung (top left)
This is practically a must, right? I've always loved Din Tai Fung for the quality, great service and just generally top notch food. Besides the obligatory order of xiao long bao, we also ordered some noodles and the beans because we were hungry!

Chef's Gallery (middle)
So this was a bit of a side trip because they don't really do dumplings like the Shanghainese restaurants do. But we ordered the infamous piggy black sesame buns and some cute bunny coconut treats! How cute are they?

New Shanghai (bottom)
So this is the original premises of the now expanded chain of New Shanghais. They just recently renovated and it's looking mighty spiffy. Of course the benefit of going to Ashfield is the cheap as chips prices, giant serving sizes and the authenticity factor. The food of course didn't disappoint and we came out stuffing ourselves full! We ordered xiao long bao, the fried equivalent of soup dumplings, wontons and a few other things in between!

After our whole day, we came out only spending $40 each! And we couldn't help ourselves but stop by Noggi at Strathfield either (you can see the rogue froyo picture in the collage above!). Four of us ended up sharing the giant pyrex glass serving which was awesome!

Since doing it, I've had suggestions from friends of their favourite dumplings places in Sydney. For the sydneysiders out there, where do you swear by?

#17: Louboutin + Milly!

This is a bit delayed, but a few weeks ago I finally got my hands on a pair of my holy grail Louboutins and I'm hugely excited!!

This was the only order I made during the net-a-porter.com half-yearly sale and of course the Louboutins weren't on sale but it didn't matter seeing as I've been waiting for a pair of black everyday pumps to come back in stock in my size!

And here they are... Pigalle 100s in black patent!

And you can see again this pair has the elasticised heel grip <3 Perfect for me! So I got these in my true to size because I went half a size down for the 120s and I've previously tried 85s and it was a perfect fit. Turns out 100s are a little squishy in the toe box (compared to even 120s) so these are slightly pinching but they didn't have any left in one size up so I had to settle for these. Plus I figured they would stretch after a while (which my decolletes have already started doing and will soon be too big for me!)

I did also order some swimwear which was heavily reduced. I ended up returning two items - a J Crew bikini top and Calvin Klein bottoms but they were hardly worth posting about. I did keep this bright fun Milly bikini - I absolutely love the colour and the style is very resort wear.

So its not exactly for swimming laps of the pool in, but I can just imagine wearing this on a beachside resort holiday! And Milly is usually quite expensive, so I thought 50GBP for the set was pretty good!

Anyway, because I like my photos, here's a few shots of my Pigalle collection :) 100s and 120s together for some Pigalle loving.

Holiday Dreaming - Memories

I'm always dreaming of holidays - some might say "You only just got back from holiday!" but it has already been 2 months since I returned and I feel like I'm already in need of another!

I was reliving my holiday memories this weekend, particularly of the Greek Islands because it was absolutely breathtakingly beautiful and an amazing few weeks of bliss.

These photos are from Santorini - the view of Oia at night and the Black Beach <3

Take me back!

Where to next?

Bronte to Bondi

I've lived in Sydney for practically my whole life and it is quite disgraceful that until the weekend I'd never once done the Bronte to Bondi coastal walk! The weather on Saturday was absolutely divine so my mum and I decided to do the walk (she does it regularly) to enjoy the balmy weather and sun.

It was absolutely beautiful! It was so nice to be walking outside and enjoying the warm winter weather - it felt like it was practically Spring! I hope that means the cold weather is almost over but I have a feeling we will get a cold spot in a few weeks time...

View over Icebergs

Bondi!

Anyway, a few quick pics below! It was nice to get some exercise in too - my life has just been all about work lately so I haven't had the chance to do the exercise I've been itching to do. I did go to pilates last week though which was a nice break from the stress of life.

Missing life in the US...Sephora!

I'm not a huge make-up person - I wear concealer, blush and eyeliner as an absolute max for everyday wear (and usually its just concealer). But that doesn't mean I don't love Sephora! And that's one of the things I miss the most about being in the US - all the online shopping and being able to just walk into Sephora and buy exactly what I want at reasonable prices.

I still am a 'beauty insider' with them and so still get their emails seeing as they're trying to get me to use all my reward points. Everytime I see something awesome, I wish I could just fly myself there to take a look!

These are on my wishlist at the moment:

Dior Addict Lip Glow
I love the packaging of this and the idea that it's a glossy hint of colour while being a moisturising lip balm. I haven't tried this but I really want to!

NARS 'Foreplay' cheek palette

This is a new Limited Edition NARS palette. I love the range of NARS at Sephora and of course I love love love NARS! This has Orgasm and what looks to be a candy pink dupe of Gaiety (one of my faves!) plus a few more highlight colours. If this also had Laguna I would be buying this in an instant as my travel companion palette (though I have heard bad reviews about how small this palette is).

Who else thinks Australia is hugely deprived of affordable international make up brands? I know Mecca is really paving the way and doing their best to give us access to at least a decent range, but by golly the prices are extortionist!