Showing posts with label Beauty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Beauty. Show all posts

1 Jul 2013

Beauty Empties May and June

As promised, although I don't have much time, I still do share my - admittedly at the moment quite boring empties. During the last 2 months, I emptied/ decluttered 15 products - so, I am catching up. ;-)

Here is a picture of all products having left me in May and July:

Unfortunately, I don't have such a nice window sill anymore and have to take pictures on the carpet with worse light.

All the emptied or decluttered products are cleaning or soothing products. I didn't use up or declutter any makeup products this time. I don't have many products with me here, so I just have favourites and didn't get using them up yet. And as they are favourites, I won't declutter any of them either. 

19 Jun 2013

Beauty Empties March and April

A bit belated again but finally here it is: my beauty empties post for March and April. As I moved to the UK in March, I was very busy with becoming acquainted with my new work and finding a nice place to live and, hence, did not have much time to use (up) cosmetics products. Furthermore, I moved with a light luggage that did not allow me to bring too many beauty items with me. The only items I brought with me were an eye cream, a face cream, very few body care items (I think these were just the Alverde shower gel and body lotion shown below and they were even just both half full) and a couple of make up essentials. My skin certainly missed the extra care it got during the last months and dried out. So, I was really glad when I finally had a permanent location and a flat for myself in April and started to use more skin care again. So, have a look at what I emptied in March and April below. 

A side note: I've been in Germany in April as well and decluttered a lot of beauty items. Unfortunately, I didn't count them and also didn't take pictures because I was in a rush but I feel very releaved and it actually was nothing worth mentioning. It were products of cheap german drug store brands that didn't convince me anyway and as I am currently trying to shrink the amount of my makeup possessions to the gems I really use and adore, it was a necessary step towards a tiny beauty collection the goldilocks way. ;-)

This is an overview of everything I used up in March and April (note, however, that the Burt's Bees bodylotion was not useable as I got a really strong allergy against some of its ingredients):


2 Jun 2013

Beauty Empties February

Dear patient readers, I am really glad that you still stop by and have a look at my blog. Unfortunately, I am incredibly busy and just don't have enough time to blog much. Again, I am quite late with my beauty empties of February (and still need to prepare the one for March and April), but I still want to share. It is a very much overdue post as I even tend to forget about the products. Fortunately, I kept them in a bag ready for taking pirctures. 

In February, I prepared my move to the UK and was not that much into using up and decluttering beauty items (you'll see that it was even worse in March and April, however ;-)). So, let's immediately dive into the topic and have a look at what I emptied in February below.

Here is an overview of my empties and decluttered products in February. It is 20 items altogether and I also included 3 scented candle samples I got rid of in February as well.


28 Mar 2013

Beauty Empties January

Dear readers, as some of you might have heard via Twitter, I have moved to the UK beginning of this month. Before that, I power decluttered my belongings and tried to get rid of as much stuff as possible which was quite successful. Furthermore, I put a lot of effort into making my office paper-free which was quite successful as well although I haven't completely finished this endeavor (have a look at a picture showing a part of my scanning efforts). Hence, I did not have any time for blogging and sharing news on beauty or life style with you, unfortunately. Beauty and life style just were not so important for me in the last months, except for minimalism and decluttering. I'd like to promise that I will blog more often in the future but - to be honest - I cannot promise that. I am very busy and try to get a lot of stuff done at the moment. However, you should get at least some regular updates on my beauty empties.

Have a look below at my beauty empties of January. In February and March, I did not empty that many products due to too much stress. In March, besides living in a rather uncomfortable shared house, I also didn't take many products with me and my skin and I, we both miss body lotions a lot! ;-) So, I am looking very much forward to using body lotions again in April. The cold, british weather has dried my skin very much and I probably should also do more sports to encourage blood and lymph flow as this helps against dry skin as well. Will start to do more sports again in April as well.

In January, I did not empty and declutter that much beauty wise. Altogether only 22 products have left me and of these only 6 were decluttered. This is not much indeed - especially considered my usual mass exodus. ;-) But it still is more than I managed to empty in February and March. Have a look at the group picture of the products that left me in January:


20 Jan 2013

Beauty Favourites December

In December, I started to use a new face care. More specifically, I started to use the Caudalie Vinosource series: the S.O.S. thirst quenching serum and the moisture recovery cream. I love both, especially the serum because it is light. The face cream is rather for dry skin and as I somehow got some spots, I am wondering whether it is too rich for my skin in this warm winter. My eye care still consists of the same products like in November and I still do love the products a lot. Here is a picture of my skin care in December:

12 Jan 2013

Beauty inventory 2012: a beauty year in review (Tag)

Recently, I stumbled upon an interesting tag on reviewing the past beauty year: the beauty inventory tag created by Paddy, Jettie and Valerie. Spontaneously, I decided to do this tag as well, because I enjoyed cosmetics and beauty a lot last year. Another name for 2012 would certainly be the beauty year of my life, because I never ever purchased so many cosmetics items (and also not that expensive ones) like last year.

In 2012, I bought a lot of cosmetics items, experimented a lot with colours, my eyebrow shape and anything related to beauty. Amongst others, nearly my whole makeup brush collection has been bought in 2012. In 2011 I only owned very few travel makeup brushes by MAC which I never used. In 2012 I bought a lot of high end brushes - I ended up with quite some collection of MAC brushes. However, I also bought a lot of other brushes. See my favorite new brushes below - this is just a small fraction of the amount of brushes I bought. Furthermore, I used skin care nearly every day (eye care, face care, body care, everything :-)) and discovered that skin care can do wonders to dry skin. I also wore makeup nearly every day (a complete set of products including several eye shadows) and discovered looks that made me look great. I was able to use up a lot of products (see my empties posts) and I also was able to use and experiment with all of my decorative cosmetics items during the course of the last year. However, due to the large amount, some items have been used quite seldomly, unfortunately.

Of course I still do enjoy beauty and cosmetics and I won't stop experimenting in 2013. Nevertheless, I also try to cut down a bit the fraction of time, space and attention that I invest into beauty and cosmetics. Maybe I have got a bit tired of the huge amount of items I tried and used up. As I also found a lot of favorite products, I don't feel like missing out anything when I stick to them for the most part. In addition, I feel the need to shrink the amount of beauty products I own in order to be able to keep enjoying them. More specifically, I need to use up, declutter and to not buy that much cosmetics anymore.

But let's take a look at my review of the beauty year 2012 that just passed. Here are my answers to the beauty inventory tag (Amongst others, I removed a couple of questions that don't fit (e.g. the question about the craziest PR message and the question about the favorite event don't fit because I am not a professional beauty blogger and don't get any PR messages or invitations to events.):

Which new experiences and insights have you been able to acquire in 2012? (concerning cosmetics and concerning the blog)
  • Cosmetics: I read about the season colour theory and realized that I am a summer in this colour theory and that this theory is particularly helpful and inspiring when aiming at shrinking a wardrobe and a beauty and makeup collection and it also helps to prevent mispurchases in these areas. Of course, it is just a theory and not each rule has to be followed religiously. Actually, none of the rules have to be followed. But in case you aim for an elegant and decent style that fits any occasion and a very small wardrobe and cosmetics collection, you should have a look at it because the principles are pretty convincing. They made me realize what I subconsciously knew before anyway. Most of my belongings did match my season colour theory type but I also had a couple of mispurchases. So, knowing what I should take care of is a great guideline for any decluttering endeavor and also helps to avoid mispurchases. Before that, I just had kind of a feeling and feelings sometimes are blurred or not trusted. ;-)
  • Blog: I started my blog in 2012 and when I started blogging I blogged a lot about beauty. However, I soon realized that I don't want to be a typical beauty blogger. This would cause me to hoard products and to purchase a huge amount of cosmetics items on a regular basis while already owning a ton of them. I realized that I feel too much attracted to minimalism and for me a beauty blogger cannot be a minimalist - each new product has to be swatched and compared to other products and hence, they all have to be kept and organized. Afterwards I was in a bit of a dilemma because I don't want to skip beauty on my blog altogether either as I still do enjoy experimenting with cosmetics. It still is a nice and beloved hobby even though I don't want to spend to much time with it anymore. So, I might try to blog about minimalistic beauty in 2013. Let's see. :-)
    Another great insight I got with blogging is that I enjoy writing and sharing my thoughts with the online world very much. And I'm asking myself why I didn't start to blog years ago.

10 Jan 2013

Beauty Empties December

In December, 40 products left me. I decluttered 18 of these 40 products, the other 22 have indeed been used up. Have a look at the group picture (only the decluttered eye shadows are missing, but you can see them below - I gave them away already in the middle of December and hence, they were already gone when I took the group picture):

A short summary and my thoughts about the emptied or decluttered products:
  • Shower gels
    • Loodus Cosmetics Spruce Shower Gel, tiny sample: smells very strong like fir. I didn't like it. The scent was too strong and the sample was too tiny to be able to judge the product - I was only able to use it for 1 leg. ;-) Hence, I won't purchase this product. 
    • Loodus Cosmetics Lemongrass Shower Gel, tiny sample: smells very strong like lemon grass. Not bad, I might purchase this one. It is not cheap but also not too expensive (10 CHF). However, again the sample was too tiny to be able to judge the product - I was only able to use it for 1 leg. ;-) Hence, I won't purchase this product that soon - maybe some day but rather not in the next months.

16 Dec 2012

A closer look to my MAC order (& comparison of palettes)

Here are a couple of details on my MAC order of last week (I posted a summary of all hauls recently here). Besides showing my new MAC items, I'd like to show you the differences between the old 15 palette and the new 15 palette as the new one is available in Germany only since November (and in the US it was released in August or September). Hence, it is new and I have not found any comparison yet. 

In this post, you can see my MAC order in the right bottom of the picture. There, the palette is still in its packaging. Have a look here at my order completely unpacked (actually even more than unpacked as I already filled the palette with my bright base eye shadows :-)):

7 Dec 2012

I've been hauling again

It's a bit funny and maybe I should also feel a bit embarassed to show you my huge haul right after having published my post where I rave about minimalism and admit that I'm hooked on minimalism. But I am not embarassed at all. Life is as it is and you gotta make exceptions! ;-)

So, this week was an exception of my general path towards minimalism and sacrifice. (I'm just kidding ;-) - of course this is no sacrifice.) Here are my hauls of the first December days:
  1. As I was running out of hair dye I purchased hair dye by Khadi and a thermometer for mixing and applying it properly. The other things were just presents by the online shop I ordered with. (Thank you very much and huge compliments: the order arrived within 2 days.)
  2. I also had to try a batiste dry shampoo that everyone is raving about and while ordering two of them I also ended up buying another blush by NYX with Douglas (but hey, I just decluttered 5 of them and this colour is really great ;-)). Besides I also purchased an eyebrow liner by NYX and a newly released Lavera shower gel. 
  3. In my favourite DM I stumbled upon the newly released Alverde Perfect Basics Limited edition and had to purchase an eyeliner brush, a really impressive matte bronzer and a highlighter as well as 2 mascaras (black and dark blue), 2 amazing lip sticks and an eyeliner. 
  4. As I am constantly raving about the Sephora angled IT brush for eyeliners, I had to order a second one and - of course as I don't order that often with Sephora - I had to buy a couple of additional things. Amongst others I bought 2 other great brushes by Sephora and a couple of other really great Sephora products like a set of 3 bags, a micellar water and cotton pads. The other items were samples that I didn't order.
  5. In my favourite local book store, I bought a couple of Yankee candle samplers and a chai tea powder which I adore. This yields the best chai ever. 
  6. Also, as here in Germany the new MAC 15 palettes have been released - finally, everyone else seems to have them already -, I had to order one. And of course I also ordered 2 eye shadow refills: Copperplate and Charcoal Brown. Love them. And I also love the new 15-Palettes by MAC. They look sophisticated and beautiful. I'll dedicate a post to them soon. 


Love my new items. The remaining days of December will be ruled by minimalism and sacrifice. I swear. ;-)

3 Dec 2012

Beauty Favourites November

In November, I had a lot of beauty favourites. My face care consisted of only great products. And after having used up all those unloved Bodyshop body butters, I started to treat myself with a great body butter by Soap & Glory and there were also a lot of other great products I enjoyed using in November. Have a look for yourself: 

Below, I briefly discuss the products shown above.

1 Dec 2012

Beauty Empties November

It is time for an empties post again. Again, I successfully used up a lot of stuff. Altogether, 46 beauty items left me in November. And believe it or not: I was able to use up 860 ml of body butter and body lotion last month. Hence, I got rid of all my Bodyshop items (I kept the boxes of the body butters that are gone now, however, in order to use them as fancy storage boxes for other items - see them here being cleaned and here waiting to be filled). Finally my body lotion stash shrinks - at last! :-)

With decluttering, November might have been one of my best months ever. I was able to declutter 17 make up items, a couple of them were even quite expensive but I just don't like them or don't use them (and why should I keep them then even if I like them?) or they've gone bad, unfortunately, because they are really old. So, no guilt due to the waste, just gladness that these items are gone and my drawers are getting emptier and emptier! I'm nearly swimming in space and my stash continuously keeps to shrink and I enjoy the remaining products so much more! :-)

Here is a picture of all the beauty items that left me in November: 
A short summary and my thoughts about the emptied/decluttered products:

12 Nov 2012

Bodylotion love/Bodylotion Liebe (Tag)

Chrissi from forever in love with shopping has started a tag with questions around body lotion which I find quite interesting. I have a ton of body lotions and actually wanted to do an inventory anyway. Hence, this tag comes just at the right time and this is what today's post will be about: my body care products and Chrissi's tag on that topic.

Because of the huge amount of body lotions, I started to take care to not buy too many further items in general. But unfortunately, I get weak from time to time just like recently when I stumbled upon two new limited editions by Alverde. I try to use up my stuff but I guess that it will take me forever to use everything up and I won't be able to stay strong until the whole amount of bodylotions that I own is gone. After all, I love body lotions. Nevertheless, I think an inventory and a plan for using up all those products can help me to get rid of them. One day, I want to have only such a small amount of products that I can use up within one or at most two months. 

Have a look at my current collection of body lotions/body butters/body oils/body care products (the two pictures show the same collection from two perspectives):

Here are my answers to Chrissi's questions:  

1. How many body lotions & similar items do you own?  
(Wie viele Bodylotion & Co habt ihr?)

I just counted them and I am really embarrassed to admit that I own 45 items of body lotion, body butter, body oil and other kinds of body care products. Of these are: 3 body oils (2 full-size, 1 sample), 28 body lotions (18 full-size and 10 samples), 11 body butters (6 full-size, 5 samples), 3 multi-purpose creams (1 full-size, 2 samples). So, in this huge mess of body care products, I might even be a bit lucky that only 27 of these products are full-size and the remaining 18 are samples. ;-)

In summary, I have to keep up using that stuff in the pace that I currently already have when using up my beauty products. In the last 6 months (in May I started this blog and my first beauty empties post dates back to May/June this year), I was able to empty 32 items of  body care products (17 full-size, 15 samples) - have a look at my empties posts. So, for the amount of products shown above, I'll probably need around 9 to 10 months to use it up (note however, that I might be able to use more body care products during the winter - I really hope to be able to use more body care products in the next 6 months than I was able to use in the last 6 months).

3 Nov 2012

New Alverde Limited Edition Sets

Today I have been in the city center and discovered two new limited edition sets by Alverde. Each set consist of a shower gel and a body lotion. As I have made only good experiences with such kinds of Alverde limited edition sets, I wasn't able to hold myself back and bought them both. The sets don't cost that much. Each was available for only 4 Euro.

Here is a picture of my DM haul. I also bought winter chocolate by Alnatura which currently is my favourite choclate. Actually, this is exactly why I went to DM in the first place. :-)
(The magazine was available for free ;-))

1 Nov 2012

Beauty Favourites October

In October I had a lot of fun with a couple of products and I'd like to share that with you. (I know, I should be working on my thesis and will do so immediately again. ;-)). 

I loved these cleaning and caring products in October:
These are in more detail:
  • Blütezeit organic almond showergel: It smells like camomile and I love this scent. It's relaxing and soothing and I enjoyed it very much to start it as I haven't used it up yet.  Besides this shower gel, I also loved the Alverde Lemon Love shower gel which I emptied and therefore discussed it already in my October empties post.
  • Apothekers Lippenbalsam: This is a new discovery. I bought it because it was mentioned by Paddy from Innen und Aussen as her favourite soothing lip balm for the night. It is a pharmacy product and it is really great. I am using it now each evening and my lips look great in the morning. I also like the taste and the scent of this product. It is on its way to becoming a holy grail product for me too.
  • Lush Therapy massage bar: I love it. It smells great and nurtures the skin. It has to melt when put on the skin and therefore you need a lot of time for applying it by slowly massaging it onto the skin. But actually, this also contributes to the joy of using this product. I.e. being forced to do it slowly can be fun, too. But I admit that I prefer to use it on the weekend because only then I have the time. ;-)
  • Alverde Apricot nail and cuticle balm: Smells lovely like apricots and nurtures the nails and the cuticles. This one is also on its way to becoming a holy grail product. However, I think that Alverde stopped selling this product. I have to check but last time I had a look at Alverde products at the DM, it was not available. So terrible. I can't understand how this could have happened. I hope that I am wrong and the product is still available. 

Concerning makeup products, I enjoyed using these products in October (sorry, the soap is not a makeup product of course. I don't know how it got into the picture below - it is a favorite though and maybe I added it to this picture because I also like to clean my brushes with it ;-)): 

See below a discussion of these products.

29 Oct 2012

Beauty Empties October

This month I was able to get rid of 36 products. I went through my nail polish collection again (this is something I do quite often as you might have observed) and decluttered a lot of nail polishes again. However, don't worry, I still own a ton of them (around 30). Hence, I won't suffer of a lack of nail polishes after this huge decluttering action.

Here is a picture of all products that left me in october (my hair tint by Khadi is missing, sorry, I forgot to add it to the group picture - you can see it below though):

23 Oct 2012

Beauty Empties in September

I'm still very busy and don't have much spare time for blogging due to my thesis. I am very sorry guys. :-( However, as I still keep a journal on what I empty beauty wise for myself as a reference (besides of being a lot of fun, journaling such kinds of things also helps me a lot to discover what's best for me), I think it's not so much additional work for me to share my beauty empties with you. Some of you might also be interested in and benefit from my experiences with and my thoughts about the beauty products I try. 

Hence, I'll now show you my beauty empties of September: in September, I got rid of 52 products. It's crazy, I know. But I also decluttered a lot of stuff that I didn't want to empty anymore. At the moment, I try to shrink the amount of beauty stuff occupying my bathroom and to just keep those products I really like and enjoy using. I also used up a couple of samples that don't fit to my sex (i.e. some were for men) or my skin type (i.e. some were for combination skin) just in order to get rid of them but to not throw them away.

I also read a lot about color categories and skin color seasons in September and I also (re)discovered that I belong to the summer skin colour category. Actually, I stumbled upon the fact that I am a summer type in the skin color seasons system one or two years ago, but I somehow forgot about it. I personally found it very difficult to find out more about my skin undertone and my color type in the skin color seasons systems. I still don't know what kind of flow I belong to within the summer color category. A webpage that helped me a lot to find out that I am a summer type is the Beautyjunkies Farbtypen F.A.Q. I highly recommend to read this in case you speak german as, unfortunately, it is written in German. For english speakers, however, I recommend to read the book Colour me beautiful by Carole Jackson. As I rediscovered that I belong to the summer skin colour category and also observed that I didn't wear the colours that don't suit me anyway, I decided to declutter a couple of makeup colours that don't suit me at all and haven't been worn often anyway.

I also started to journal my teeth products again because I want to find out how fast I use these products up as well. It's just a journaling issue and shall help me to get more organized and to get a feeling for when something needs to be repurchased because it soon will be empty. In the future, I want to repurchase stuff at the right time and stop hoarding it. ;-) 

22 of these 52 products have been decluttered by me. Among those 30 products which I really emptied only 12 products were full size. The others were samples, each with a different amount of content.

Here is a picture of all products, I emptied or decluttered in September: 

2 Sept 2012

Depotting a MAC LE quad

This spring, I bought a MAC LE quad palette which I wanted to depot even before I had it in my hands. For me, the new quad palettes by MAC are too bulky and just not handy and manageable enough. The new design came out in 2010 (see a blog post comparing the new and the old design of the MAC quad palettes by MAC Karrie (in german)) - fortunately, the MAC 15 palette has remained unchanged. This is why I do use 4 of them (deconstructed) as shown in my first make up collection overview post.

Since I am lucky to own 3 MAC quad palettes of the old design (I wish I had bought more of them when they still were available ...) which I love for traveling, I am just boycotting the new design. For storing my eye shadows at home, I use 4 MAC 15 palettes which I have deconstructed in order to able to store eye shadows of different (see my make up collection post). For traveling my three 'old design' quads from MAC are more than enough - 12 well chosen eye shadows should be perfect for travelling. Below, you can see them with 4 MAC eye shadows (Shroom, Vanilla, Patina & Concrete)



The palette, I want to depot today is the Shop & Drop palette from the Shop, Shop, Shop, Cook, Cook, Cook collection (see the full LE at Temptalia). In LE quads, the eye shadows are glued into the palette and this makes the depotting pretty difficult. My first attempts to depot the eye shadows, were unsuccessfull. Heating the bottom of the palette did not help in softening the glue and I just did not find a way to get rid of this crappy packaging. 

1 Sept 2012

Beauty Empties August

Last month, I emptied or got rid of 35 products. However, it's a bit of cheating as 9 of the "products" were just samples and 3 of the products were makeup products that I have decluttered and not emptied (note that the lip stick is nearly empty, hence, I do count it as emptied ;-)). I also have not emptied but just decluttered 6 other products. But nevertheless, I do count them all as well. Having got rid of 35 products feels just too great! :-)

Here is a picture of all products I emptied/got rid of in August:

29 Aug 2012

FlorAyer Day Face Cream Review

In my Pink Box June, there was a 7ml sample of the FlorAyer face cream. I finally found the time and space in my skin care agenda to test it more extensively and here is my review. It is a pretty expensive face cream (around 30 Euro for 50ml) but it is a wonderful face cream with a divine scent that smells in a very soft and sophisticated way like flowers with a slight dominance of roses. It is very nurturing, but not greasy and it feels wonderful on the skin. It is quickly absorbed and it also strengthens the skin from within in a great way. It is a day cream and in the FlorAyer series, there also is a night cream. 

Here is a picture of it:


28 Aug 2012

Lavera Haul

This month was very expensive. I have bought a lot of beauty items and as if I didn't have enough body lotions, I also bought two more of them (actually, I could really roll myself from one side to the other in my body lotions - this is how many of them I already have at home).

I have done a small Lavera haul (see also their uk web site). Lavera is a german brand selling organic beauty products. I like the company a lot and have tried different products already. I don't remember any product by Lavera that I didn't like at all. E.g. I adore the wild rose face cream (see also my review of it in my May empties where I was raving about it) and I also liked the Apricot Summer body lotion (see my review of it in my July empties - it seems to not be sold anymore; maybe the scent was disturbing others as well; however, despite the scent this body lotion was great!).

Ok, let's have a look at my new Lavera products: