Trial: Gold Collagen 50ml shots

I am experiencing an all-time bad time with my skin these days. I've always had blemishes here and there but never as frequent and constant as now. It really bugs me - of course it does! Which beauty-lover wouldn't be?

Trying out supplements, is me willing to try whatever there is to offer- of course along with trying to encourage myself to drink more fluids, improve diet, and sleeping whenever I can. 

This is my first time trying out a supplement that claims to improve your skin. This product in particular is mostly aimed at the anti-ageing market, but it does provide other affects- the one I'm looking forward to is improving skin's hydration levels, which ultimately could improve my congested skin.

These 50ml shot bottles reminds me of those health-kick shots you see in the Asian market, no surprise to me that this product is made in Japan. These can be seen in Boots with the single shots retailing at £3.69 and the 10day pack at £35.99 (and at the moment they are on a 3for2 offer), which to me is "alright" for a short term use, but if you were to continue for longer, of course it will become expensive.

They recommend you to consume one bottle per day for 4weeks to see some results but "preferably 8 weeks or longer to see greater benefits". Here I have 12 bottles for 12days, I may purchase some more if I see a slight improvement. I have read some reviews, but I don't want to judge my experience base on those reviews, even though the reviews have been pretty good so far. 

I will start consuming this from tomorrow, either after breakfast or lunch (depending when I wake up haha) and will keep an update perhaps every 3days?

I also want to note that my skin-care has changed yet again, and I am avoiding salicylic acid as much as I can, seeing as, it has made no affect on improving my congested skin and I somehow suspect, it may even have irritated my skin even more. 

To briefly outline the products used as of now:

• Eau Thermale Avene Cleansing Water (also used as a toner)
• Freederm Facial Cleanser
• Freederm Treatment gel
• Aveeno Moisturising Cream 
• Laniege Water Sleeping Pack

[LookBook] Oct'13... Studio

I know, I know. We're well into November and  we've only JUST posted October's LookBook's content. Our excuse? I could assure you though, we both have legit reasons; we're both equally busy as heck with uni/college work! Fortunately, we found an opportunity last month when one of Matthew's assignments was to produce two low-key and two hi-key studio images. 

The outfits I have choosen were simple, but mostly because I wasn't entirely sure what my photographer wanted because he changed his ideas a lot- men! In the end, I just took whatever the heck I felt that would meet the middle. Basically, I picked items that would contrast the background. 

We were especially impressed with how well the butterfly camisole dress showed up in the white background- the colours on the butterfly print played as a good accent to the photo as a whole.

For the black background, the idea was to give a ghost-like mood, with a lot of desaturation to the original photo- this is a very Matt-thing, rather different from how I would approach my own photos when editing. 

The outfit for this background coincidently reminded me of the painting "The Black Mirror" by William Nicholson, that I have been studying for my project in uni.... but all the same really, its all about contrast for us. We also played with my new hat and using it to create some shadowed effect. 

I did indeed retouched my skin in all these photos because I can get quite self-concious about how my skin looks, especially when I haven't been having any good-skin-days lately due to lack of sleep, a very poor diet and lots of stress (and mental breakdowns- har har). More on that later in another post of my new skin-care routine. Regardless, the original photos are (always) on Matt's page.

Look 1:

 

Camisole dress- Topshop

Cut-Out boots- New Look

Look 2:

Dress- H&M

Hat - H&M

Necklace- Dior

Bracelet- Tiffany&Co

Haul: Some hair products...

Went out for another crazy-out-of-the-blue haul at Boots and bought some hair products. 

I saw a few easy "effortless" looking hair styling videos lately and really wanted to try them out...and then I entered the hair products aisle...dun dun duuuunnn ! 

Products: 

Organix Moroccan Argan Oil

Kent round brush

Umberto Giannini Glam Hair Mousse

Umberto Giannini Glam Hair Hot Styler Spray

If you haven't HYPE'd already on my Lookbook.nu.............

LOTD: Hello October!

October is here already. Today, I felt like the absolute worst! Perhaps it's the weather or perhaps its my busy schedule lately that took me down. Nevertheless, I went ahead and got ready even though I wasn't stepping out of the house.
I haven't been using eyeshadows lately. I'm always running late these days, that I don't even bother. So I decided to play around with my Too Faced Romantic Eye Palette that I bought a while ago. I have to say, the brow-bone colours/highlighting shadows in this palette seems to be a bit chalky....I ended up using colours from my Naked 1 palette instead. However, the rest of the shadows seem to go on fine, but I wouldn't say they are amazing shadows.
Since it's October, I thought I would do a look that resembles the fall using a green-gold shadow from the romantic eye palette in Honeymoon and a dark copper brown in Ever After, applying this at the outer eye in a horizontal V motion and blending this a lot with Honeymoon.
I evened out my lids with double-eye lid tape. These aren't the best tape in the world because I know you can get ones that are almost invisible, whereas the ones I am using just now, you could see the tape.
I've also fixed my brows (I'm ALWAYS trying to perfect my brows) by following the brow-bone that frames my face.
Lips I've been falling back in love with Revlon's lip butters and today I picked out my all-time favourite: Tutti Frutti. On the face and cheeks, I've use Revlon's Colourstay foundation, Vivo bronzer in Baked Bronze and Sleek blush in from their contour and blush palette in Light.

Now all that would make me feel even better is a bar of Twirl chocolate...sadly there's isn't any near me. 

If you haven't HYPE'd already on my Lookbook.nu.......

[LookBook] Sept'13...Portobello Beach

The idea of lookbooks nowadays isn't just because of the "look" or style of clothing people pay attention to; it is also about the photography. With this concept in mind, I teamed up with friend and photographer-to-be, Matthew Chan to create a lookbook that is not only for me to "show off" my personal style tastes, but also create images that emphasises the look from a photographer's point of view. Of course, with the both of us still at the learning stages in the areas we want to specialise in our careers, we also look at this lookbook concept as a sort of shared learning journal or log-book... 

Thus, I now welcome you to the first monthly instalment of our lookbook! (haha!)

For September, Matthew chose the location, Portobello beach which is at our hometown, Edinburgh. I believe the idea of the first few images was to show a "depth of field" (photography terms, in which I am almost as clueless as he is in sewing). I do want to note that the photos here have been edited by me to show how I see the photos should be on my own blog but the directioning etc was all Matthew's. 

My look in September can be described as grungy (if you must), but lately, my wardrobe has been a bit grey and monochromatic... I can't really justify most of the time why I have picked out the outfits I wear. Sometimes, they have a functional purpose, sometimes it's for comfort and other times it is purely because I wake up with this outfit in my mind. Nevertheless, I wear what I feel, and yes, sometimes they follow trends, sometimes they don't, but what does it matter when it is a lookbook that has no specific constraints other than it being my personal preferences at the time? Perhaps over a period of time, and after several more looks, I will begin to find the identity of my style, but at the moment, the freedom to explore still remains... 

Ankle Boots from H&M
Bag from Chronic Pinkoholic

Scarf belongs to Matthew, from a random shop (that sells incense apparently...!)

Hat, Coat and Knee-high socks from H&M
Dress from Forever 21

Loafers from H&M

Bracelets from New Look

Be sure to check out Matthew's own page of his work at:  https://www.facebook.com/MatthewChanPhotography

And if you like the look, please HYPE it on:

http://www.lookbook.nu/soapytofu

What's in my travel pack?

So I'm not always home. And over the years, especially ever since I started uni and I was staying on-campus, I travelled between campus and home (for work at the weekends) a lot(!) thus, I have been trying to solve the problem of HOW to pack my beauty products whilst travelling, or staying over at friends etc etc. 

I'm pretty happy with how my "pack" is these days. It's all very compact, it fits in my handbag neatly (obviously not the dinky wee bags, but one of decent size) and it isn't heavy to walk around with. So if you go between places a lot, you are staying over at your boyfriend's/friends or you're going on holiday- whatever the reason!- I hope this would be helpful.  

As I have mentioned, it is all very compact. Nothing too oversized. Essentially, I have two make-up bags: one is an Estee Lauder snake-skin, thats probably just a little bit bigger than an A5 sheet of paper and the other is a pencil case-like bag that I got from one of my Glossybox a while ago. 

If you wear contacts like me, you should purchase a travel-size bottle of solution, and it's also re-usable, so you can refill when you've finished.

Make-up wipes are the best for when you want to travel light! The Simple Oil-balancing wipes are my favourite as it cleanses my make-up without leaving that sticky residue other wipes do, instead it leaves my skin feeling matte and fresh.  

Here is what's inside the bags!...Surprised?

In the purple zip-bag I normally pack a toothbrush and hoping that other people will have toothpaste, then I have these Muji stack containers where I store my moisturisers, face primer and face wash -I told you it was compact didn't I? Then I shove all my make-up brushes, brow palette, foundation, powder and a blush in it.

In the pencil-case bag, I put in all my pen-like make-up inside. So concealers, mascaras, gel/kohl/liquid liners, tweezers, Carmex and there's space for my Shu Uemura lash curler! Normally I would put in my favourite lipstick of the week in there too.
If I remember, I try to bring my own face cloth because I somehow feel silly asking for a face-cloth, so I'd rather bring my own.

Unless I knew I was going to somewhere special or if it was to some special occassion, this is generally what I take with me. I hardly wear eye-shadows or false lashes these days as I feel there isn't an actual need especially when I'm always in a rush.

Happy 1st September folks! Can't believe the year has gone by so quickly!

Favourite Product of the Week: Refresh!

FPOW!

This week's favourite is Shu Uemura's Depsea Rose mist. I've had this for a while now, but neglected it until recently. I started using it again because lately my skin is acting up again and is looking rather dull due to too many late nights which has caused me to be even more lazy with my skin care routine. 

I use this with and without make-up on and it basically helps re-moist my skin and it gives a refreshing feeling after (probably because of it's lovely scent).
.Now, if I am honest, I wouldn't say this product is totally amazing or it has made a huge difference to my skin, but I feel that it's very handy to have when you are on the go and you need a refresher and re-moist. What is also good is that you could use it for your hair and body too. 

Shu Uemura offers other scents too, for example: mint, lavender, chamomile... and one that is unscented for those who do not like anything scented or are sensitive.