NYX Stick Blush Swatches

I know I don't use this blog anymore (I'm over here if you're looking for me), but since all my other NYX swatches are here  and 99% of the hits on this blog are people looking for NYX swatches this is the logical place. 

I haven't done more than have a bit of a play with these so I can't really give a proper review as yet. First impressions are - highly pigmented, easy to blend, might need a powder over them to last the distance on oilier skin.

Orchid (the apparently compulsory Orgasm dupe), Tulip, Hibiscus

Orchid, Tulip, Hibiscus in outdoor light

Orchid, Tulip, Hibiscus under Tungsten light

I bought these on eBay from Joy's Cosmetics, but Aussies can also get them from Cherry Culture and Crush Cosmetics.

Goodbye and... Maybe Hello?

I've had this blog for a couple of years now, and the obsession with makeup, perfume and making my skin look as smooth as a baby's butt (still trying) for several decades before that, so I think I've said and done all there is to say and do about that stuff for the moment. I've made loads of new friends from it, found some awesome blogs to read, and learned a million new things.

I'm not going to delete this blog, but I won't be updating it anymore. Instead I'm moving on to new pastures, and if you feel so inclined, I would be delighted if you would join me. It's called Year of the Tight Arse (Australian for someone who doesn't like spending money), and I do intend to chronicle my adventures with frugality - not a natural state for me, I should add. However, it's also a sort of anything-goes blog, where I can feel free to write whatever I want without worrying about whether I'm annoying people who just want to look at lipstick swatches. And for those who care about such things (me!), there will still be some makeup mentions and things like monthly empties posts, for I am obsessed with emptying things of late and that shows no sign of abating any time soon.

Thank you to everyone who followed and/or read my ramblings here. It's been lovely. :-)

And as a final treat, here's 5 blogs you should be reading if you're not already. 

Beauty Reductionista: Liz is a Canadanian (that's how you say it, right?) who created a blog to chronicle her attempts at reducing a large stash of beauty products. Has she succeeded? It's been hit and miss. Regardless, she's interesting, funny and snarky without being mean. And she posts about some beautiful, beautiful things... even if I don't know what they are.

My Perfume Diaries: Su shares my love of perfume, but goes way beyond that since she actually makes the effort to learn about them, rather than just going, "This one's nice. This one's nice too. This one's nice. This one's nice too..." like me channelling that Melanie Griffith in The Simpsons. She can speak knowledgably without sounding like a wanker (no mean feat in the perfume blogging world, let me tell you), and if you have even the slightest interest in scent she will have you spending up big after you read her hauls and reviews. Hmm, maybe I should stop reading this one...

Dempeaux: Sarah is a whizz at making her own stuff from serums to hair growth products. Annoyingly she won't open a shop and sell it so I can buy it instead of getting off my butt and making my own. I'll keep nagging though. She also has a pet sheep called Lamington, which sounds just like the kind of name my mother (a sheep farmer) would call a sheep, and even a scarf made from his wool.You can learn about being healthy, or just look at pictures of pretty clothes. And both Noodle Arms and I think she looks like Alex from Law and Order: SVU, so we're kind of fans.

The Mustard Jumper: Natalie covers everything from fashion to football. I have little interest in either of those things, but her blog is one of my all time favourites, so I'm not kidding when I say she has something for everyone. Books, blogging, empties, it's all there. She is also responsible for me falling insanely in love with The Inbetweeners, a show I'm 25 years too old for (and probably the wrong gender).

Dresses & Snacks: Amy loves food and vintage/thrift shop fashion, and blogs lovingly about both. There are dresses and there are snacks, and there is also the world's cutest sausage dog (which takes some doing, because seriously - have you ever seen a non-cute sausage dog? I don't even like dogs and they turn me to mush). Oh, and there is also this. I kind of hate her for that one.

50 Book Challenge

A crushing failure. I have not read more than 10 pages of a book in the last 3 months.I just can't seem to get reading mojo on, and let's face it, it's not likely to hit hard enough in the next few weeks for me to suddenly devour 27 books and get to 50. I am declaring now that I failed at this challenge for 2011. However, in 2012, I'll be going around again, so watch this space. For now, these are the last dregs I've been carrying around in a hopefully pathetic little list on my phone...

November Empties

The other day I was chatting to Liz from Beauty Reductionista about my growing obsession with emptying things, and how there's probably a reality show in there somewhere - sort of the opposite of Hoarders. She does empties posts when she's used up 10 items, whereas I like to do mine monthly, so there's always a bit of tension towards the end of the month about whether the dregs of something will be gone by the time the month is over. I don't allow myself to cheat and use double the amount of something I normally would or anything like that, but I have to tell you - it's tempting. Yes, I know. It's weird.

This month was a concentrated effort to use up some samples - some I gathered myself, and some that were sent to me by various enablers like Jade and Su. Noodle Arms and I went through all of my samples one afternoon - she chose what she wanted (hair products and body lotions), I chose what I wanted (anti-ageing stuff, hand cream, foundations and primers), we threw out a bunch of things that were of indeterminate age, and sent a bunch of other things off to a couple of people to play with. I won't comment much on the samples as there are quite a few of them, and I've already spoken about the Silk Naturals ones here, but I will say I loved the Paula's Choice Resist Daily Smoothing Treatment, and if I wasn't currently obsessing over Silk Naturals I'd be all over a full bottle of that. It made my skin feel as smooth as a baby's. And Noodle Arms loved the Garnier Body Intensive body lotion - the samples were from Jacquie, who received them in one of those monthly boxes, I think. Noodles definitely has that on her wishlist for Christmas.

Awkward Social Encounters

The Oatmeal

I'm not a social person, really. I used to be, but I think many years of working in customer service and having to speak politely to many, many people all day long has turned me into something of a hermit. I have a really limited tolerance for people, even those I like enormously. At some point when I am spending time with them, it occurs to me that I am over this now and I would like them to just leave.

One of the things I really struggle with is awkward social encounters - those moments where you are forced to interact with someone you don't really know, don't really like, or don't really have anything in common with. These are torture to me, and I do everything I can to avoid them, including - if I have to and I can get away with it - hiding around corners until they have gone.The reason I was thinking about this is because I was telling Noodles the other day about how I constantly get approached for money in the street. The reasons for this are two-fold:

1. I look like the kind of person who will give someone money (and if I have it, I generally do). 
2. I've worked in welfare for years and a lot of the kind of people who ask for money kind of know me. 

Since it was beginning to get to ridiculous levels, I developed a strategy of pretending to talk on the phone whenever I spied someone in the distance I thought was likely to hit me up. I'm sure I'm not the only one who does this, and I'm sorry if it makes me a bad person, but I generally only have coffee money on me, and I need that coffee, man!

Silk Naturals Swatches

As promised in my Silk Naturals haul post, here are the swatches of the makeup I received. (I don't know what that dent is in Noodles' arm - she appears to have been leaning on something.) The samples of brow powder and the two freebie samples of eyeshadow came in bags and I just put them into plastic pots for ease. The eyeshadows are swatched over Detrivore primer, and the blushes and brow powders on bare skin.

Adventures in Muesli

As part of my healthifying thing at the moment, I am trying to make sure I eat a proper breakfast. I am a breakfast person, but I am also a struggling-to-get-up person at the moment, and it's too easy for me to let it slide until I get to work then grab a toasted sandwich with my coffee - white bread, lots of salt, lots of cheese, not much nutritional value, and not even very filling. And frankly, not even that good. Sorry Bean Bar, but it has to be said - you could do better.

Noodles has been slack with breakfast too - unlike me, she is not a breakfast person, but she doesn't have recess at her school until 11:15 (don't get me started), and it's too long a time to be going without food, so I make her have something at home, even if it's just a piece of toast and Vegemite. So we decided to make some muesli, and since we both like different things, we though we'd each make our own tailored version. I used to make muesli all the time, working from a recipe Harriet Archer devised. But as in all things, I got lazy and just stopped doing it. I have to admit, I'm a starter, not a finisher.