In My Secret Life

Apparently I used to post more lifestyle-ish content and things that aren't 100% beauty related and I wanted to bring some of that back, so I thought I'd just do a roundup style post of things I've been up to and into lately.

Life

Going way back to the distant past, in December I flew to Melbourne to stay with my best friend Giselle who now lives with Tenneil and I had the best time catching up with them both and it makes me so happy that they live together and I get to hang out with them at the same time. The other reason for my trip was to see my one true love Nick Cave because I'm obsessive and went to 7 shows on the tour (4 in Sydney and 3 in Melbourne) and it was completely incredible and I love him and he is a flawless human being, the end. I'm actually visiting Melbourne again at the end of this month and staying with them again so I'm really looking forward to that! Also another close friend who I travelled around parts of the US with came back to Sydney to visit before she moves to North America for good, and she brought back a few special lil things for me, because I guess I didn't buy enough makeup while I was there myself (jk I definitely did.) I have a current beauty favourites post in the works so I'll go into more detail in that one.

If you follow me over on instagram you may have seen a few photos of my bedroom lately because I finally changed everything on my walls and put up a bunch of the cool things I collected while travelling. So now my walls are covered in a giant Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady poster from City Lights (words cannot express my love), a map of Paris, a poster from The Weeknd's King of the Fall tour, a 20,0000 Days on Earth poster signed by my boo Nick Cave, postcards and pictures of Versailles, City Lights, Shakespeare & Company, CERN, the Kennedy Space Centre, Big Sur (etc etc), papyrus from Egypt and two Rifle Paper Co calendars because they are both so beautiful I couldn't decide. It makes such a difference when you have beautiful, stimulating surroundings so although it took me several days to finish I'm reminded of so many wonderful memories every time I look around my room. Minimalism is beautiful and all, but I'm clearly too much of a hoarder/collector to ever really take that approach in my own life.

Music

I've been to quite a few gigs already this year, including FKA twigs, the Gaslight Anthem, Nas (who has been my favourite rapper since I was 13) and a bunch of local shows. I'm also seeing Chet Faker and Drake (love u Drizzy) later this month which will be awesome. Music I've been listening to on repeat for the last few weeks includes FKA twigs, Drake (always), The Weeknd (ALWAYS), and an amazing record that I found for $10 in San Francisco which is Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and Bo Diddley all hanging out and playing each other's songs together and I cannot even explain how good it is. One of my greatest sadnesses is that no-one comes to my house to hang out so I never have anyone to listen to records with. :(

Beauty

After picking up the Urban Decay Naked Basics 2 palette I realised how completely invaluable neutral matte palettes are and I had my heart set on a few more, which is why I was so thrilled when my friend brought back the new Tarte Tartelette and the Sonia Kashuk Eye on Neutrals palettes from the States for me, both of which aren't available in Australia or online. The Tarte palette may come to the Sydney Sephora store but I haven't seen it there yet and I couldn't wait so I'm super grateful to my friend for being such a babe and enabling me. I've also suddenly become obsessed with lip liners after not caring about them my whole life until now. I don't really believe in paying as much as a lipstick for a lip liner but I do have a handful of MAC ones which are amazing and I've been trying a few more affordable brands too to see what kind of formulas work for me.

I may have mentioned it before but I never wear nail polish on my fingers because it makes them really weak and flaky, but I seem to have just remembered that toes are a thing and I've gotten really into painting my toenails. Let's be real, I don't have my life together enough to remove and repaint my fingernails every week, so painting my toes is perfect because it lasts pretty much until I decide I'm over the colour and want a change. Also never fear, I certainly did not spend whatever the hell it costs to buy a Tom Ford nail polish, I actually picked this up at the Estee Lauder Corporate store for $10 and it's in the shade Viper which I like even more because it reminds me of the Bad Seeds' song Jack The Ripper. I also found these beautiful Illamasqua nail polishes (Peruzzi and Fire Rose) on sale in Myer and they're so densely packed they're almost opaque with glitter and it is glorious to behold.

Things

Lately I have been really into buying candles from Urban Outfitters. They're maybe the only place that I know of online where you can buy good candles without having to pay ridiculous shipping costs (it's free when you spend over $50 which is really easy to do between their homewares, vinyl and beauty sections, I don't even really look at their clothes) plus they stock independent brands with really interesting scents. When it comes to room fragrances, I'm really into scents that are a) deep/spicy/masculine b) warm, creamy & vanilla-based or c) herbally/floral and not so much fruity, citrus or clean/fresh scents. So if you're with me on option a) I love the Paddywax tobacco & patchouli and the PF Candle Co. teakwood & tobacco candles, and I am also in love with this Paddywax one I picked up in San Francisco while hanging with Chelsea. They have a whole collection with fragrances inspired by the libraries of famous authors and obviously I had to buy the Steinbeck one, which is the scent of smoked birch and amber and it smells exactly like the attractive, heavily bearded man of my dreams and his library should smell like.

There probably isn't a girl alive who isn't into delicate jewellery and stack rings and I did go through a bit of a phase with them a couple of years ago but I just don't really wear jewellery except for my Grandmother's ring, but lately I've picked up a few pairs of cute stud earrings and a super cool crescent moon ring so I have been back into wearing a bit of jewellery, at least for the time being. And finally, before Christmas I decided to start practising some modern calligraphy just using a regular pen and I'm happy to say I've stuck with it. I'm not exactly amazing but my journalling has definitely been looking prettier because of it.