Wish list: Eyeshadow

Eyeshadows are one product where it seems you can never have enough of. I mean, putting the same shades on every day gets a bit repetitive. Currently I only have 1 decent palette - Australis paparazzi perfect HD in Snap Attack, which I think is pretty fantastic (especially when it came with a free eyeshadow primer), along with 2 essence stay all day creams (both neutrals and great) and a couple of shadows I got with my october bellabox. So it would be nice to be able to choose what colours I wear.

1. Urban Decay Naked 2 Palette   2. MAC pro pan refill in Cranberry   3. MAC pro pan refill in Shroom 
4. MAC pro pan refill in Sketch   5. MUA pretty pastels palette
 6. Revlon ColorStay 12-hour eyeshadow in precious metals.

Ok, so maybe my wishlist is staying towards the neutral side of things. I don't really mind. Of course I have a naked palette on my wishlist, although it's probably something I will never get around to purchasing. The MAC shadows are just 3 that caught my eye, and I think they'd work well together. I would love to pick some up when I travel next year and getting a pro palette seems like the way to go. I know when I do it's going to be tough to decide which shades to buy! The MUA pretty pastels palette is full of really lovely soft colours. They look lovely, but I've heard mixed reviews about how good they actually are. I'm planning on getting this one when they have their 35% off sale (read about that here). This Revlon palette caught my eye when OzSale had a sale on Revlon products. It was only $8, but I decided against getting it because I didn't really need it. I am kicking myself a little bit because they also had lip butters for I think $14? Maybe next time.

Smoque

Smoque is a new restaurant that opened up in the city recently. It's a Southern American style bbq restaurant and as far as I'm aware, the only one of it's kind in Canberra. And it's amazing!!!!
As soon as you walk in you're hit with the smokey bbq smell, and the decor is very Southern American, with wood and antlers hanging on the wall.
The place has only been open a few weeks and I've already been for lunch there twice, which says something about how great it is because I rarely go to the city. The menu has things like pulled pork, buffalo wings, sandwiches (burgers) and all kinds of slow cooked melt-in-your-mouth delicious meats on a protein platter. They have a whole lot of salads, and fries, nachos, mac and cheese, mexican street corn, and possibly the greatest thing I've ever eaten: blue cheese aioli. They've got a whole bunch of American soft drinks too, including my favourite A&W creamy soda. For after lunch/dinner they have  pies and ice cream. I've had their pumpkin pie (which was really great) but I've seen apple and pecan (really keen to try this one) as well as New York cheesecake and some really really great looking brownies. I've been lurking their facebook page and saw they have peanut butter and bacon chunk ice cream. Yep.
It's just a really great place to eat and I could seriously gush about it forever. I love food, and I've never been to anything like this before. Sure, there's hogsbreath, but it aint got nothing on Smoque.

Here's some pictures from when I went for lunch.

The first time I was with Dad and it was packed so we had to sit up on the bar (they had the NFL on the tv in front of us which was pretty cool). I got an original sandwich (pulled pork, coleslaw and bbq sauce) and we had fries with the blue cheese aioli to share. I got ginger beer served with a cute striped straw.

We shared a piece of pumpkin pie for desert with icecream.

The second time I went with the boy and we got there super early so we got a table. I had the smoque signature (brisket with cream cheese, jalapenos and smoked capsicum). He had 12 hot buffalo wings with blue cheese aioli, and we got fries and mac and cheese to share. The mac and cheese was pretty average, but everything else was amazing. We didn't have enough time for desert, but I almost walked out with a brownie to go.

Lust Have it! October

I wasn't impressed with this months box. I've come to the realisation that I probably only need to get one subscription box (I don't use that much skincare other than moisturisers, and skincare I can't use seems to be what both brands boxes are filled with) and I've been far more happy with Bellabox than Lust Have It!, so this month is my last LHI (unless they really get it together and start giving great boxes).

Here's what I got. I wanted to use all of the products before I did this post, but I just didn't want to use them, which is surely a bad sign.

Mask in a Cup facial mask for sensitive skin. I'm not really a mask person, but I have dry sensitive skin so I will use this.

NYX nail polish in clear. This would have made me like the box, but I never use clear nail polish. Unless it's a top or base coat. And I already have a great top coat. I did use this as a top coat though and it's pretty thick and fast drying.

Avéne cleanance skin. I'm not quite sure what cleanance is supposed to mean... but this stuff is for oily skin, so it's going to dry out my already dry skin. I might use the gel, but I already have a good cleanser.

Caron Waxaway ready to use sensitive wax strips. I don't wax, so I probably wont end up using these.

Star & Rose white bath fizzer. I have a bath bomb from lush I haven't used, so I doubt this one will be used any time soon. Especially since we're heading into summer.

As you can see, a pretty disappointing box. Can't win 'em all.

Halloween nails

Ok, I should really move to the northern hemisphere. We don't celebrate halloween in Australia. Well, we do, but it's mainly just an excuse to have a party, dress up and get drunk. For some reason, even though we're getting to spring/summer and bright colours and pastels, I've decided to paint my nails black and orange. I've been eating a lot of pumpkin deserts lately, made some pumpkin cupcakes and ate some pumpkin pie. Totally in the autumn mindset (and yep, I almost said fall. I watch too many american vlogs/tv shows).
I used Essie Fear or Desire, which is from one of their summer collections, so that counts as ok, right?
I also used Rimmel 60 seconds black out, glam nails nail art pen in vibrant orange (which I got in a gift bag from Priceline) and a toothpick.

Wishlist: Lipstick

I  have a tiny collection of lipsticks. Currently most of my lipsticks are reds - and mostly really cheap ones (except for one Chanel one, which is not even my favourite!). I own 3 other colours, 1 is Australis lick the icing, and the other 2 are bright pink shades that I won (and are pretty much exactly the same).

I feel it's about time to branch out and try something different.

1. Face of Australia lip quench in lychee crush  2. Australis colour inject mineral lipstick in honky tonk  3. MAC lipstick in venus  4. MAC lipstick in vegas volt  5. Lime Crime lipstick in retrofuturist.

I've been really digging nudes and corals lately, and I'm planning to get my hands on lychee crush and honkey tonk in the near future (yep, the staples for Aussie girls. I've been looking for lychee crush everywhere recently and haven't been able to find it). I have a friend who bought her first MAC lipstick recently and raved about it. Right now I'm not willing to spend $36 on a lipstick (yeah what?! $36!? ps I got my Chanel one duty free in Hong Kong). However, when the time comes (ok, when I next travel overseas and can get it duty free/in a cheaper country) these are the two shades I'd love to try, they're not all that different so either would do. They're both lovely corally colours.  Ok, so the last one on the list is another red. But it's such a nice red, and I've heard so many great reviews about it that I could justify adding it to my collection of other reds.

Zombies!

I have a thing for stories with zombies in them. Well, really all movies about the appocolypse. I have no idea why but I just love them. Jericho, 28 Days ( /weeks) later, Dawn of the Dead, Zombieland and my absolute favourite right now, The Walking Dead. I love the whole the world has been turned upside down and you have to sneak around to just find something to eat. It probably started from my love for the Tomorrow series by John Marsden when I was in primary school.

However, I always think they do things wrong, and I always find myself thinking about what I would do if I was in the same situation. The same thing goes for viral outbreaks (think Contagion). I've done a few semesters of microbiology, including one unit called biosecurity and microbial forensics so along with everything I've learnt from movies I think I'm a bit of an expert. I'd love to write a book about a zombie apocalypse. So far no one seems to have written the perfect zombie story (If you think there is one, dear god, let me know!!!). The Walking Dead comes close, but there's still a lot of annoying bits. I guess they're there to make the story interesting, but somehow I think I could do better.

Now, I'm not a writer. I was terrible at English, so much so that I googled synopsis of books I had to read so I didn't have to read them (like The Tempest. I just couldn't read it.). And then I crapped on about what little I knew and somehow managed to pass. I think I could give a story a good crack anyway. I mean, if 50 shades became a best seller, surely anyone could pull anything out of their arse and have people read it?
At the moment I'm way too busy to be writing anything, but in my winter break I wrote a page and a half and got the basic idea of where I wanted the story to go. I think the most important part is the zombie. My idea of a zombie is they move kind of like humans, not too fast but not slow walkers. It's (not sure what it is yet, virus perhaps) spread by being bitten and people turn within 24 hours but not straight away. Do they die first? I'm not sure. And killing the zombie is the classic beheading or destroying the brain. I also know that I want my main characters to be prepared, having some sort of medical and/or military background, and to involve the Australian bush (best place to go when there's a zombie outbreak imo!).
That's where I'm at now but it will be interesting to see if I ever get around to writing more.

Cute as a Button.

I've been hunting for some coral toned nail polishes lately, after using an amazing OPI shade at a body shop party and finding out it was discontinued. I looked at Essie's collection and found a few shades that were kind of close. The other day I was strolling through Myer and found they had a sale on Essie (Ok, I hadn't been in Myer in so long I didn't even know they sold Essie!). Cute as a Button was on my list to I bought that.
It's not as dark as I would have liked, but it's still a nice colour. Very summery.

Cute as a button in natural lighting.

It's one of those colours that changes depending on the light. Sometimes you look down and it's barbie pink, sometimes it's more coral than red. But it always looks pretty.

The Essie polishes that I own aren't my favourite formulas. Most take more than 2 coats to go on evenly and opaque, and they don't last very long. Also, their brushes are quite small. However, all the colours are beautiful, so I'm willing to put up with having to put a little bit more effort into them.