A few months back I noticed that I might be developing a slight problem when it comes to purple eyeliners. It’s always the first colour liner I check out within a brand and I always seem to have at least one on my wishlist (currently its two from MAC - Permaplum and Prunela). I love pairing mauvy, plumy, smoky and taupy purples with my brown eyes and dark lashes so my purple liners get quite a workout, much more than any browns or black/greys I own. With the addition of my most recent eyeliners a few months ago (Stila Black Amethyst and Bobbi Brown Black Plum), I thought it was time to put them all together in a Swatch n Compare including how they performed over a typical day.

A few weeks ago I was digging into my Use It Or Lose It basket and found the Revlon Colorstay Moisture Stain I received in my last Marie Claire Parcel which I still hadn't tried. With nowhere important to go I put together a fairly neutral look (my standard MO) and gave it a whirl.

I bought my first NARS Radiant Concealer in Custard about 18 months ago and I love it for my undereye area as once its set, it doesn't move or fade. And I thought 18 months was pretty good mileage for a product so when it appeared to finally run out  a week ago I did what any overly curious person does and had at it with a pair of pliers and this is what I discovered...

Its been ages since my last update. I didn't do much in October or November other than try to eat healthier in general. Along with two of my sisters, we joined a Facebook fitness challenge for the 24 days of Christmas in December which was set out like an advent calendar - on the 1st with 24 days til Christmas we had to do 24 squats, on the 2nd we did 24 squats plus 23 sit ups, on the 3rd we did 24 squats, 23 sit ups plus 22 lunges, etc. By the 20th I was struggling and I think I gave up with 2 days to go because I was plain worn out. I loved the idea but there were no rest days which meant any strains I had accumulated went ignored until I couldn't ignore them anymore and I just had to stop.

 

The Christmas/New Year period was as expected - full of delicious food and drink in copious amounts and no exercise. I didn't do too much damage thankfully and January saw me get back on track diet wise. I was diligently using my MyFitnessPal app to track everything I was eating and with a few youtube videos of cardio workouts I saw a 2kg drop for the month which continued into February as I traded the cardio videos for walking with my sister a couple times a week and I lost a further 2kg.

 

So now the kids are 7 weeks into the school term and I've slacked off on tracking my eating but I've been so busy that its only resulted in a half kilo increase so I'm happy with that. I can definitely see it in the fit of my clothes and I've had to make extra holes in my belt which I'm also quite happy with. My back has been giving me problems so I haven't been exercising other than walking but I'd really like to get back into my cardio videos... once I sort out my back issues.

 

I don't know if I'll hit my target by my birthday (less than a month away!) but I think I'll be satisfied if I can lose a couple more kilos and more importantly KEEP THEM OFF!

Feb is a bad bill month for me and as luck would have it I ran out of a lot of my staples (plus I still haven’t replaced my night cream) so I dug into my samples box to get me through making it a big one for empties last month which I've divided into hair and body, skin care and makeup.

I completely forgot I had this sitting in my drafts waiting for me to finish labelling the photo. So without further ado...

OK, getting down to the nitty gritty. So I’ve got my Bamboo Beige samples – you can check out how my Swatch n Compare of some of the shades in the middle of the range went here. As I have normal skin the lovely sales assistant at Sephora Melbourne Central gave me a generous sample of both the Moisturizing and the Oil Free formulations since the foundation stand listed the Moisturizing as ‘Normal to Dry’ and the Oil Free as ‘Normal to Oily’. I road tested them over the space of a fairly warm week (still summer here) with a minimum of 10 hours wear time each day to see how it would hold up.