Things I want vs things I should be doing with my money...

Things I want:

• Hourglass Opaque Rouge Liquid Lipstick. Ideally two, in Raven (red) and Icon (purple-red)
• 4 dresses from Oasis. I don't want to buy all 4 (yet), but I at least want to try on all 4. And knowing my luck I won't buy any. I tried on 2 that had been on my wishlist for a long time at the weekend and they both looked really bad on me. Wrong tailoring for my shape.
• Clinique Chubby Stick Intense. Yes! Shortly after saying I wanted to get a red (and maybe more) in the normal, the intense shades came out! I really want the red. It's a lovely red. I only need a few more Boots points to get one for free... I think Mightiest Marachino is the shade I want.
• Clinique Almost Lipstick in Black Honey. Black Honey is probably my favourite Clinique colour ever. Ever. I almost cried when I broke my Black Honey gradient blush palette on the bathroom floor (it shattered) because I waited too long to buy a replacement (trying to be a "good girl" and saving money) and couldn't find it anymore
• Karl Lagerfeld for Shu Uemura painting liner

Things I should be doing with my money:

• Replacing the money I took out of my savings when money was a bit tight last week.
• Adding more money to my savings
• Gradually buying things I need for Japan e.g. suits, smart tights, shirts, shoes, shoe polishing kit...

As you can see, with the purchase of 4 different MAC eye products over the last couple of months, I now want to indulge in beautiful autumn/winter lip colours. For me, autumn/winter make up colours are reds and purples. And now I want purple/red lips. Granted, I do already have some red and purple lipsticks, I guess I should make more of an effort to wear them. My Voluptuous Violet Chubby Stick is getting a lot of use these days - I feel like proper lipstick might be a bit too much for work...

Hair dye

I've been slacking off again, with everything. Well, everything not work-related.

So I've not been studying, I've not been blogging...

I just about made time to pamper myself a little, and tonight I'm finally going to dye my hair again!

My natural hair colour is - of course, since I'm of South Asian descent - very dark brown, bordering on black if not seen in natural or bright light. When I was still at school, I always wanted to dye my hair different colours, which is something my sister actually did instead of dreaming it. For almost any bright colour to show, I would have had to bleach my hair, like she did, so I ended up not doing it. It was too much hassle, I was scared of ruining my hair with super strong bleach, and the school got incredibly pissed off when my sister dyed her hair.

(at our school we had to wear uniform until we were 16, and then the rules about hair were a bit more relaxed as well. My sister started dying her hair green, blue, red etc when she was still in uniform, so there were a lot of senior staff complaints)

Then in my second year of uni (19 years old) I decided to finally dye it red. Not a firetruck red, mind, but something red that would show. My mum first suggested using henna, which is what she did when she started to go grey (a very traditional South Asian thing to do). I tried it, but it just made my hair dark brown and it smelt like henna (which I associate with mud) for ages. So I asked some friends for advice, and they recommended I try Schwarzkopf.

Anyone who knows a teeny tiny bit of German might see why someone with my natural hair colour was recommended a brand called "black head". The dyes come in different shades depending on your natural hair colour, so if you're anything from light blonde to dark brown to black, you should be able to find a shade which will show up on your hair.

Perfect for me!

And ever since I've continued dying my hair with 43, Red Passion. And gotten many compliments about it.

Sadly, it's now a very popular shade - yesterday I had to go to 3 different Boots to find it. And then a new type of their hair dye caught my eye, next to the other reds. (My one has a different picture on the box...)

A red hair dye with natural lightening in it, no need for an extra bleach step (which I don't do anyway). So I thought, why not! Although, since my hair is already mostly dyed - except for the inch of roots which is driving me mental, though since my hair is naturally dark anyway and the red isn't bright, it's not as bad as it could be - this could go horribly wrong.

If it goes wrong, I'm dying my entire head a nice light shade of brown.

We'll see.

Complexion Woes

I've not been making the time to write lately, which is a bit bad. It's good for me to have a routine, but right now my routine is work, laze around at home, sleep, go to work. And then the weekends are sleep and be lazy.

Not good!

So I joined the gym this week and am hoping to go for my first session tomorrow daytime.

At the moment, my skin is really irking me. I have deep lines under my eyes, as well as seriously dark circles, and my acne has come back under my jaw. But only on the right side...

I've been looking at some face-maps and most of them say that acne under the jaw is hormonal, though it can sometimes be kidney problems. I doubt I'm having any kidney issues, so it might be hormones. Again.

Though my sis did say she used to get a lot of acne in the same area when she was drinking coffee everyday. I don't drink coffee, but have been drinking a lot of tea lately to keep me perky at work. So, starting today, I'm going to cut tea out of my diet. I used to have the occasional cup of Assam, so will stick to that and caffeine free drinks.

Seeing my doctor in about 10 days so will ask her about it. If I can wait that long without going crazy! I'm worried it means my actual face-acne is going to come back, because it all started under the jaw...

Small update

Just got back from a weekend in Manchester. I went back to see my brother since it'd been a few months since I'd seen him and if I didn't see him this weekend, I probably wouldn't have had the chance to see him until next year.

Although it didn't really feel like a whole weekend - I slept a lot. And when we weren't sleeping we played Borderlands 2 - absolutely loved the first one and even though I'm incredibly rusty with shooter games I'm enjoying this one too. Will have to wait a while to finish it off though.

Sent off the signed contracts to the recruitment company on Friday, so will wait for confirmation they've received it~

I've also not been spending as much time on me and things I want/need to do. Not worn contact lenses or make up for a week now, need to do some preening, and need to study for an upcoming Japanese exam...

I caved!

I was supposed to be being good and not buying anything superfluous until December - my recent shoe escapade ended in me buying two pairs of ankle boots - one I am kind of kicking myself over. More on that another day...

For work, I've only been wearing my tinted moisturiser, unless my skin is incredibly blotchy or troublesome, which, thankfully, hasn't been that often recently. So I use my Illamasqua peach pigment to cover discolouration from acne and then top with tinted moisturiser all over my face.

cream pigment in "emerge". It's actually a tad brighter than in this photo

This hasn't been working as well as it used to. Originally I used an egg-shaped sponge to apply the pigment - it's a cream pigment - but found I was tugging the skin under my eyes too much, so switched to a concealer brush. The concealer brush irritated my eyes a little because it was prickly when I used it and would make my eyes water. So I've been using my finger.

Using the middle or index finger to cover the blemishes on my cheeks and chin is fine - there's not enough coverage for the under-eye though.

And, to be blunt, on its own it's just not enough to cover the dark patches. I'd gotten to the point where I would feel glum every time I saw myself in the mirror - I would instantly focus on my chin and the dark bags under my eyes which my eye cream is doing nothing to fix.

After being intrigued by a concealer from NARS yesterday, I decided that on my lunch break I would pop out to my local Space.NK to try it out.

And decided to buy it.

stick concealer in "caramel"

The plan is to use the peach pigment first, then layer the caramel-coloured NARS concealer on top, and finish with my tinted moisturiser.

I'm a bit concerned that the concealer may lack when it comes to applying it under the eyes - the woman in the shop said make sure to warm up the concealer before applying it under the eyes, so I might have to rub it on my hands and then use a brush to apply it. Which feels a bit time-consuming and potentially wasteful...

I'm hoping to have the time/energy to do a photo-entry of the process, but for now, it's just the shop photos...

• Emerge - peach cream pigment from Illamasqua, £17
• Caramel - concealer from NARS (bought at Space.NK), £17.50

Cooking with sis

Yesterday both my sister and I were quite ill. I've been having my energy issues and let myself get a bit too under the weather with girly problems, and she's been struggling with something she may have picked up in Africa. Luckily she's gotten medication for it and should be back to her energetic, spirited self soon.

Anyway, yesterday both of us ended up sleeping off our various ailments until 4pm. Then after chatting together in her room and me taking a shower to wash off the day's fatigue, we went to the supermarket. Tomorrow is a family get-together with our mum's side of the family so my sister wanted to the opportunity to bake some things for them.

She also decided we should have quiche for dinner, and since I had no dinner plans either, we decided to pick up the ingredients and make everything from scratch. This was a first for me! I've never made pastry before, let alone an entire quiche!

Since she's vegetarian we ended up making our own quiches, and this actually worked out for the best since it's easier (in my opinion) to learn to make something by making it simultaneously with the teacher.

And here is my result! Salmon, leek and parsley quiche:

Now that I know how to make pastry, I'm looking forward to making some sweet tarts soon!

Sleepy...

...but need to update my CV.

The contracts for my new job (starting in March) arrived today and I read through them word for word. Tiring, especially after a day where I kept nodding off at my desk.

Which is a little annoying - I thought at first I was nodding off cause I was skipping breakfast, but I had breakfast today and I still nodded off. Oh well...

Anyway. The contracts need an updated CV. Updating my CV is one of these little things I always put off because I don't like writing CVs :/

Also need to put more money into my savings...

This was basically a little post to say I'm still here :P

It's become essential!

Today I really have to buy a new pair of everyday shoes - the right one of my current pair has a hole in and the hole goes all the way through to the inside of the shoe...

My insole sticks out of the hole and when it rains, I end up with a wet foot :(

Like now, because I went out for lunch just as it started raining.

Camper, here I come! (after work)