New Mac Lipsticks | Twig & Blankety

Less than a year ago, I purchased my first Mac lipstick. I've quickly become obsessed. I've been slowly growing my collection over the year, so of course I was ecstatic when my Aunt got me two new lippies (chosen with my guidance, of course) as an early Christmas present while I was staying with her in London last month.

I'm one of those people who are crazy about lists and checking things off of lists, and these two were up near the top of my 'lipstick wishlist'. 

Twig

I wanted a deep pinky-brown, and Twig was the ideal lipstick to fill that void. The colour is described as a 'soft muted borwnish-pink' which is totally accurate and falls perfectly into the brown lips 90's trend that's big right now (and I personally love). Twig is a Satin finish, which is my favourite as you still get the look of a Matte lipstick but it's more comfortable and seems to look nicer throughout the day. The colour is really flattering on my pale skin and brown eyes, it's not too dark but dark enough to stand out.

Blankety

Blankety was one I wasn't too sure about as I loved the colour but a) wasn't sure if it was too much of a light nude-pink for me, and b) didn't know if I'd like the Amplified Creme finish. Nevertheless, it remained on my wishlist and I've ended up really liking it! Blankety is described as a soft pink beige, which is about as good of a description I could come up with although nude may be a better descriptive than beige. Still, it's lovely. The colour shows up a bit more nude on my lips than it does in the swatch, which I feel is fine however I think it looks better over a deeper nude/pink/mauve lipliner. The Amplified finish is actually really nice, and the colour is just as opaque as it is with a Matte or Satin finish, so A+ for that! Blankety is really just a lovely everyday wear kinda colour, which I'm happy to have in my collection.

Which of these lipsticks do you like the best? Let me know your thoughts below!

x Chontelle

What I Got for My 20th Birthday!

Well, I'm no longer a teenager! Yesterday I turned twenty years old! I celebrated in small doses over the past week - a week ago mum and I had a sweet treat at Max Brenner (instead of cake, whichI actually don't like that much), and then Thursday night we had a birthday dinner at the Groove Train - which was delish! We grabbed coffee yesterday morning and I got some lovely presents, and then to finish off the night I grabbed dinner with a friend before heading out to the Valley (aka. club & bar central here in Brisbane)! 

But enough about that - the point of this post is to share with you all some of the exciting gifts I received today! I'll add the inevitable disclaimer in here and let you know that I'm honestly not trying to brag, but I'm just super excited about these gifts and wanted to share them with you guys! 

So without further adue, let's see what I got!

The two 'big' things I received for my birthday were the Too Faced Original Chocolate Bar Palette and the Rosefield Silver Bowery Watch with a Grey Leather Strap. Both of these items have been on my wishlist for a pretty long time now, but because of the heftier price tags ($72 and $115 respectively), I hadn't gotten them yet. However, if a Birthday isn't an excuse to get something special, then what is?

The Chocolate Bar palette has seriously exceeded my expectations. I almost regret purchasing Urban Decay's Original Naked Palette as my first 'high-end' palette, because this one is honestly the best beauty product I own! The shadows are super pigmented and it smells absolutely amazing! The colour selection contains a lot of cooler to medium neutrals which is perfect for me, but it has some lovely shades like 'Cherry Cordial', 'Amaretto' and 'Candied Violet' that give a bit of a 'pop' of colour to enhance any eye look! I'm super excited to play around some more with this palette!

I first saw Rosefield watches on instagram (I follow a lot of European bloggers) and fell in love with the minimal, classic styles they had on offer. Rosefield is a Dutch brand, with a gorgeous selection of watches that are super affordable compared to similar brands here in Australia like 'The Horse' and 'The Fifth' (anywhere from $35 to $85 cheaper per watch). To be fair, the discount is mainly because if you live outside of Europe you don't pay VAT taxes so we basically get to skip out on GST because of an international loophole - I'm certainly not complaining, though! I chose the grey leather strap because grey is one of my favourite colours, but also because though I wanted to go with the black strap and buy a grey one later, the grey only comes with silver hardware when it's with the watch itself, whereas the black strap by itself can have either rose gold or silver hardware.

These silver pieces of jewelery from Colette were a great bargain, I think they were around 50-75% off each and came to about $13 all up! I basically only wear silver jewellery and I've gotten rid of a lot of old junk so it's nice to have some new, on-trend pieces to dress up my outfits!

How to Be Parisian was another item I got to check off of my wishlist, as I've been wanting this one for ages! With my obsession with all things Paris and dream of one day living in Paris, this book kind of had to be mine! It's a great read, full of helpful and humorous life, beauty and style tips, and looks perfect displayed on my desk ;)

Again, another wishlist item, Mac's Diva lipstick is everything I'd hoped it would be, and more! It's the most gorgeous deep red, something of a wine/blood/vampire red shade, and looks seriously stunning on! It's also my first proper red lipstick - ever! I know, I know! Still, it's the perfect start to my inevitable collection of red lipsticks!

I also got a few bits and pieces of clothing and accessory items! The grey cropped cross-over front top was only $30 from Bardot after using my $20 birthday voucher, which was a great deal! Both the clear/gold patterned iPhone cover and the striped phone case/wallet were sale buys from Forever New, as was the Playboy bra & undies set from Bras 'n' Things.

My friend Meg also got me a present, a seriously lovely scented candle, which I unfortunately don't have a picture of as I had to leave it at her place (but I'll be sure to add a picture a.s.a.p)!

All in all, I had a great birthday and got some amazing presents that I'm seriously grateful for! I hope you guys enjoyed this post and feel free to leave a comment down below! 

Have a great weekend!

xx Chontelle

BEAUTY | What I Got for Christmas 2015

Hey lovelies, I hope you've had an amazing Christmas! Today's post comes with much excitement as I begin to unbox and play around with the beauty bits I got this Christmas. I'm really happy with the mix of products I received this year, which included a few surprises I didn't expect! I'll just point out in here that this post is not intended to be 'bragging', I simply wanted to share my little haul with you guys. 

This year things were kept to a minimum, both in quantity and price.

Smith Street Market Musk Stick Scented Body Lotion;

It doesn't really have much of a musky scent to it, or any scent at all really, but I absolutely adore the cute packaging and will probably keep it like this in the bathroom as more of a decoration.

Maybelline Baby Lips Lip Balm in Lychee Addict;

Everyone knows about baby lips lip balm by now, and I'm sure I'm not the only one with a small stash of them lying around in my room or handbag. This is a new scent/flavour (well, here anyway, who knows how long it's been available overseas before it arrived in little old Oz!), and it truly does smell like lychee's - which is perfect for me because I love lychee's! As usual, the balm is super moisturising on the lips and I'll definitely be getting a lot of use out of this one!

Essie Nail Polish in Wrap Me Up (Cashmere Matte);

My first ever Essie Nail Polish (I know, took me long enough)! I was really excited when I found this colour at my local Priceline - it's the perfect nude nail! It only took two coats to get this gorgeous opaque coverage you see above, however my only qualm with this exact polish is that as it is matte, it is absolutely essential to add a top clear coat if you want this one to last all day (which sucks for me right now as I've recently misplaced my only clear polish, boo). But regardless, it is lovely and I will definitely be wearing it more often when I have a clear top coat at hand!

Covergirl All Day Lip Colour Set (Moisturising Top Coat & All Day Colourant) in 598 Forever Fawn;

This is a pretty interesting pair. The set comes with a moisturising lip balm (supposedly a top coat but I feel it is better used underneath the colour, maybe that's just me), and an all day lip colour in the form of a creamy gloss/lipstick hybrid in a gorgeous pinky-brown 'fawn' colour. To be honest, I probably won't be bothered to use these two together, but it's nice to have a clear, unscented balm that I could potentially throw under matte and drying lipsticks in the future.

L'Occitane en Provence Cherry Blossom Hand Cream;

According to L'Occitane, their hand cream is an international best seller (I don't know much at all about this brand, this is my first product from them), but after some quick google research it seems to have a pretty good reputation. I'm actually not a big fan of hand creams as I feel so icky and uncomfortable about thick, creamy substances being on my hands (it's just one of those personal things), but I'm going to give this one a go because well, I didn't have to pay for it and I may as well try it once or I'll never know, right? It has a soft hint of a floral scent which is quite nice but not at all overpowering.

Creation Lamis Diable Bleu Eau de Parfum Spray 100mL;

This is the perfect drugstore perfume, and one I've been meaning to pick up for a while now. Honestly, if it wasn't for mum I probably never would have considered this perfume. It's pretty much her go-to everyday perfume which she uses in place of her YSL Paris (special occasions mostly), and it is somewhat similar in scent. It's really hard to describe this perfume in any other way though, so you may just have to test it out for yourself, but I will say it's absolutely gorgeous and for only $12.99aud, it's a steal!

Nutrimetics Lipstick in Sparkling Bordeux (discontinued);

This lipstick is really a gorgeous colour, and coupled with a creamy application and no sickly scents (you know, that awful cheaper-lipstick scent that is almost akin to rubber?), it really is a lovely product. This was a hand me down of sorts, unused but not 'brand new', this colour has been discontinued since 2011 which shows how old the lippy is - but that doesn't seem to have affected its quality, and if it has, then I can only imagine how nice it would have been brand new! That said, like most drugstore lipsticks or Avon/Nutrimetics pamphlet beauty products, it doesn't have the best lasting power and does transfer a fair bit. But it's still gorgeous for short spurts of use!

I really hope you've enjoyed reading this post, I certainly enjoyed writing it up and playing around with my new beauty goodies! I'd love to know what you got for Christmas this year, be it beauty, fashion, or other items! 

xx Chontelle Louise

Summer Factorie Try On Haul

There's (finally) a new video up on my channel! Enjoy x