Saturday 23 August 2014

New Start.


I've been gone for way too long and i totally regret it! I've totally forgotten how much I really loved writing in my room thinking of something other people, and myself as well would be interested in to read. I missed all of the comments and the amount of people who would actually click on my blogs and check them out. The past 6 months I've been so busy with school, planning, drawing, failing, people around me, finding out who I am ( I absolutely still need to figure out myself), traveling etc., etc.. Often I didn't feel like I could write a blog properly because I thought it wasn't good enough, but I've learned that everyone starts from 0! Therefor I decided to not delete this Blogspot account, so I can reflect back from where I started from. *started from the bottom now we here*
So much stuff has been going on lately and I'm so excited to show you some of the little peeks in my life. I'm not going to be able to do beauty as much as I used to as much as I loved to do it but I will do more of the lifestyle kind of blogs and hopefully you will enjoy it as much as my previous blogs. There is no exact schedule for my blogposts yet, but it will definitely be weekly, let's see if I can keep it up right?

Here are some pointers that helped me to start over. :

1. Redecorate your room
 Change your bedsheets, DIY stuff to put in your room, give your walls a makeover. Little things will surely change the whole look of your room.
2. Get rid of negative energy
Friends who don't accept who you are or let you down? Ditch them.
An "unsaveable" bad relationship? Break it up.
Forget these people!
You deserve to be happier and it won't work with these people in your life. Instead, go meet new people. :)
3. Work out
Go the gym and work your negative thoughts off, working out might be a pain in the butt in the beginning but you will feel like you could almost rule the world afterwards. It could be gentle exercises in your own room as well or go biking, besides it gives you a much more healthy lifestyle!

There are so many pointers, if you know one please leave them in the comments below! 

Saturday 8 March 2014

Cara Delevingne



Last weekend I was scrolling through my Youtube feed when I stumbled upon a Cara Delevingne interview. Of course I knew who she was, everyone does. I clicked on the video and was amazed on how her personality is, on how she dares to express her true self and don't give a frick at all! She inspires so many teenagers over the whole world while she is just a model. Cara isn't just a model, she inspires people by being herself, simple as that. Open any magazine and you're bound to see her face.
 I've been drawing for a long time now but this time I didn't want to draw just anything. I wanted to draw a role model or an inspiration. Cara was hands down mine.  In my mind I had this crazy idea to draw the whole day rather dan hang out with my friends. I worked about at least 8 or 9 hours on this drawing, I'm quite fussy when it comes to drawing, I try to perfect every line I draw with my pencil. Sometimes I might even get a little nervous when I begin on another sense, I really just didn't want to "eff" a single thing up. (excuse my language haha). Her nose was definitely the hardest to draw, I might've changed it up over 20 times.  But all good, it turned out not exactly how I want it too, but I'm still so proud of it! Hope you guys liked reading this as much as I enjoyed drawing Miss Delevingne.


Embrace your weirdness.


Monday 3 March 2014

Monthly Memories : February



I had one of those days that I didn't know what to blog about. You might notice those days that when you're just sitting in front of your screen with a blank page opened. Decided to make a series 'Monthly Memories'. This is a great way for me to reflect on how each month went by. I'm just going to discuss and tell you guys about all my highlights of each month, most of the time with instagram pictures ( make sure to follow me by the way :) @imarianaly). 

So without further ado, let's start with February! This month has been quite rough for me but it also had a few very great moments and that's all what I really want to care about, ain't nobody got time for bad memories, right? 


So when February began I was thinking about doing a blog for days for in July or so but somehow I managed to make a blog in February anyway haha. I got a little too excited. I have had a great beginning of a 'blog journey' and I was immediately welcomed in this world. I never knew how many people there were with the same interests as me. Once I entered this community I loved it right away. Not much people that know me don't know I own a blog except for two best friends and a few family members, it's kind of a secret of mine haha.

A few weeks ago my aunt called me and asked if I wanted to got to Primark that week. She was literally my angel flying down from heaven for a moment. I've waited so long to go to Primark but never found an opportunity because there's only one Primark to find in Belgium and it is so far away. Not a good one either I've heard. The prices at Primark were freaking surreal!
As you guys may know I wrote a blog post about my huge Primark Haul click here if you want to see what I bought. 


I found myself doodling in class a lot this month, which is not so great for my grades, I finally realized that I actually just missed drawing. I haven't drawn in ages and forgot how much I actually loved it. When I went home and didn't have much homework I just sat myself down and began doodling. Somehow I felt a strong weight was lifted off of my shoulders. I could draw my worries and bad emotions away.


This next subject was quite a big deal for me but turned out to be a very great big deal. For months I've been imagining how I'd look with short hair. I chopped my hair off and I absolutely loved it! I still do. Being terrified was quite an issue when my hair was getting chopped off by my mom, she is not a professional hairdresser. I'm a very critical person on who can touch my hair (for cutting) and who can't. The last time I got my hair chopped off was a complete hell for me. Trusting my mom was a great risc I'd say!


I hope you guys enjoyed reading my first blogging series! What is one of your highlights of February? 

Lots of love



Thursday 27 February 2014

How I Clean My Brushes


As most people know, cleaning your brushes is very important for the health of your skin, it also prevents your face from getting plenty of breakouts. There are many ways to clean them, but most of the methods are very expensive. This is a very cheap way, including stuff that you probably already have laying somewhere in your kitchen. So I thought I'd show you guys how I clean my brushes while I really needed to clean them anyway.
This is a cleaning method that I learnt throughout YouTube, specifically by the beautiful Michelle Phan. So without further ado here are the stuff that I use to clean my brushes :








The reason why I don't use a regular Dreft dishwasher soap is because it dries out the bristles of my brushes more than the Clean & Soft one. Dreft Clean & Soft on the other hand makes them softer , kills all bacteria and makes it harder for the bristles to fall off. The second ingredient that I use is a normal extra virgin olive oil to make sure it doesn't damage the brushes with only Dreft. I use about 3 pumps of the soap and about 2 teaspoons of extra virgin olive oil. You can always add more or less depending on how many brushes you want to clean. I put these both in a small plate.


When all things are added I just take my dirty brush and rub it in my plate. Afterwards I like to clean it all out in the palm of my hand to make sure that they're absolutely clean.

  
When all the dirt is out , we can rince the soap out of course! Afterwards I simply squeeze the water out with some paper towel , when you see that your paper towel isn't white anymore then that probably means that there is still make-up in your brush. Just rince it out again and you're all set and done.


At last I just laid all of my brushes out to let them dry. I used to lay it on a room heater but I found out that the heat took the color of my brushes away, so I certainly do not recommend to put it on a heater if you do. I just let them dry on a kitchen towel throughout the night. My brushes are from Beauté Basics, they come in a make-up brush roll which comes in very handy when traveling or work.




 Hope this blog post helped any of you in any way! What's your method?


Sunday 23 February 2014

Primark Haul


Tee's

 I might've bought the last one because of the collar only...
Sweaters

Just imagine collars with these. I know right.
Jegging


              Random Stuff

Golden studs earrings - Blurry because my camera has a very hard time focusing small things up close.
 
Always wanted a 1Z. Finally found the most comfortable thing ever! (wearing it right now)

You know how much I love my caffeine.

A collared dress. Surprising? Nope, not really.

I've waited to go to Primark for such a long time now, but I couldn't go because it's too far from where I live, however yesterday I finally got the chance to go! We went to the Primark in the Netherlands in Eindhoven. I just can not describe my happiness at that moment. It seemed like I was in heaven when I went through the front-door of Primark. The prices always surprised me over and over again and they didn't hurt my wallet for once and besides,the quality is amazing for such low prices.  I hoped you enjoyed my little haul right here as much as I enjoyed buying these stuff!


Lots of love.

Wednesday 19 February 2014

#OOTD







Oversized Denim Jacket : Took it from my dad's wardrobe. Don't tell. Also can't tell what brand it is because the tag is ripped off. Sorry!
Homies Oversized Sweater : Originally €64 - Urban Outfitters
Metallic Chain Necklace : It was a gift 
Grey Washed-Out looking Pants : Originally €100 - Tommy Hilfiger
Ring : $2 or $3 - Forever 21
If you're interested in my socks, haha : Originally €3 or so - River Island


Decided to step my blogging game up by posting an OOTD blog! I'm fairly sorry that I don't have a full shot of my pants nor a full shot of my whole outfit , I do not own a tripod which makes taking pictures quite hard for me especially because I take them on my own. Also, the prices with 'originally' or not the prices I got them, I got them for a lower price, possibly because of the sales in Belgium last month. So here you go, I hope you guys enjoyed to taste a bit of my style.

Comment on what kind of style you have!

Sunday 16 February 2014

Liebster Award

  

Shocked because I'm nominated for the Liebster Award. I'm honored to be nominated because I just joined this whole blog community about a week ago, meeting new people and such. And now I'm here, writing a blog about the Liebster Award! Here are the rules :


1. The person nominated must acknowledge the person who nominated you.
2. You have to write 11 random facts about yourself.
3. Answer the 11 questions that the nominator asked.
4. Nominate 11 bloggers with less than 200 followers.
5. Create 11 questions which your nominated bloggers need to answer.
6. Let the 11 chosen bloggers know you've nominated them for the Liebster award.

Yesterday I got nominated by the lovely Anne from SickChick. I'm very thankful that she nominated me for the Liebster awards, never thought I'd fit in this whole blog community so quickly. Please check out her blog for me, she is one of my very first readers : http://sickchicksblog.blogspot.nl/

Last week I posted a blog '25 Facts About Me' . So writing another 11 random facts will be quite hard to think of, that's why I decided to only do 5 new facts.You can check out the blog I posted at http://arianaly.blogspot.be/2014/02/25-facts-about-me.html if you'd like to read 25 more facts.

1. I'd bake a whole bunch of cupcakes whenever I'm bored and home alone to keep me busy.
2. I listen too much Drake. Like literally 24/7. 'Nothing Was The Same' is by far his best album in my opinion.
3. I'm quite tall for a 15 years old, 1m73. It took me a while to learn how to appreciate my length.
4. My hair is naturally dark brown although whole my family has black hair. It's also very difficult to make a bun out of my very stiff and thick hair.
5. I'm very picky on who my best friends are, you'd have to earn that title and I never really have more than two best friends at a time.

These are the questions asked by Anne :

1. Who is your favourite Disney character?
I love this question ! It's either Mr. Potato Head or Woody from Toy Story.
2. Describe or post a picture of your worst outfit as a child.
No explanation needed...

3. Favourite online clothing shop?
My mother won't let me shop online until I'm 18, but if I did I'd shop at : 
http://shop.2020ave.com/
4. What is your favourite breakfast?
Pancakes or just simply cornflakes (Coco Pops or Lucky Charms).
5. What is your favourite flower?
Roses, I know cliché, cliché. I also love sunflowers.
6. If you could only wear one piece of jewellery for the rest of your life, what would it be? (Wedding rings excluded)
Hmm, probably a unique looking ring or an ear-cough.
7. Feel good food?
A banging healthy salad! Yum.
8. Favourite OTP? (TV shows and movies only)
I'd say Zalfie but that's from YouTube so... I'll go with Lola and Kyle from the movie LOL.
9. What do you appreciate most about your parents?
I appreciate that they try their best to get everything that I'd possibly need for a great future.
10. Do you have a boyfriend/girlfriend? If yes, what is his/her best quality?
Nope, I'm a happy single! Ain't nobody got time for a boyfriend.
11. What time do you usually go to bed?
When I need to go to school the next day I usually go to bed at 11 PM. Definitely need at least 8 hours of sleep. In the weekend I'd go to bed possibly at 1 or 2 am.

Here are my nominees for the Liebster Award ! 
I do not acknowledge 11 bloggers, I only nominated my followers who might not haven't been nominated yet for this award.

Jessica : http://beautykissesuk.blogspot.be/
Daniel : http://grapherdann.blogspot.com/
Sarah Rowe : http://lifeofsarahx.blogspot.co.uk/
Plearn : http://kissmesunday.blogspot.be/

Questions that the nominees need to answer :

1. What are your nicknames? What do you prefer to be called?
2. What do you do if you can’t sleep at night? Do you count sheep? Toss and Turn? Try to get up and do something productive?
3. What are your favorite sweets?
4. What is the strangest thing you believed as a child?
5. If you had to change your first name, what would you change it to?
6. What are the top three qualities that draw you to someone new?
7. What do you think about more than anything else?
8. What is the last message you received or sent?
9. Are you more likely to avoid conflict or engage it head-on?
10. If there was one place you had to stay forever , where would it be and why?
11. Something you absolutely can not live without.

That's it for this Liebster award! Whoever reads this I tag to do the Liebster award. 
Go and check out the blogs of the nominees, they're truly amazing.

Good Luck

Thursday 13 February 2014

New Random Essentials






It's that time again when you run out of products and you suddenly feel like you need much more than you already own. This past week I've been looking for new essentials of new brands that I really need or replacements for the products that I've used up. So I went on another drugstore trip the other day and I found these babies! This Sunday I decided to step out of my comfort zone with the result that I'm a shorty now! Yes, everyone is complaining about why I didn't keep my long hair ,but sometimes you got to do what you want to do in life. Long hair can be annoying also and I definitely do not regret chopping it off.  
Because my hair is short now , I have to keep it to stay in model. I like to have a kind of wavy , messy hairstyle, especially when my hair is short. For months I've been looking for a good salt spray. Too bad such things are very hard to find in Belgium. Anyway, I did happen to stumble upon this salt spray by Schwarzkopf from the Got2be collection : mermaid look texturizing salt spray. What a mouthful... It has been volumizing my hair very well and I love the look of it. The packaging did not catch my attention at all, but when I saw that it was the only salt spray in store I bought it anyway.I do think hairspray is still needed with this look to set your hair in place. Your hair might get out of shape throughout the day even though I don't use hairspray much, the wind does the work for me . :)




It's important to have a good bronzer. Overall, bronzing is my favorite part when applying my make-up. I've always been using the Elizabeth Arden bronzer but I kind of feel like it rubs off my face too quickly. I do love the look of a strong and sharp bronzed face and I could not achieve it with the Elizabeth Arden one which is a slightly more expensive bronzer (that I stole from my mom). So when I went looking for a good one I thought 'Sometimes you got to try out cheaper products, it might easily surprise you!'. Which is definitely the case with this bronzer by Catrice. I swear by Spongebob's pineapple-house that it stays on the whole day, even without an expensive primer! I've been having a hard time finding a bronzer that would match my skin because I'm actually very pale for an asian and this one does the work for me.

Sorry for the blurry images by the way.

  You guys do not know how important a good wing on my eyes is to me, it makes my eyes appear a bit bigger. (Do keep in mind that I'm asian.) As we all assume, putting eyeliner on every single morning is quite a big task and it's even harder when you don't have a decent liquid eyeliner / gel liner.The liquid eyeliners I use always dry out too fast which drives me MENTAL. Especially when I wake up and see there is absolutely nothing left, and when they're not pitch black anymore the way I like it. My mom came home from Hema with this DIP Liner. It is as black as SnowWhite's hair (having a Disney moment). The plastic applicator is  too hard for me too apply the liquid on my eyes so instead of that I prefer to use my eyeliner-brush. This totally gets my eyeliner on point and something very great : IT DOESN'T CRACK! The dip-liner stays on the whole day which I appreciate lots!


What new essential have you been using?
                                   













Saturday 8 February 2014

25 Facts About Me




           1. I have quite a lot of obsessions like cookies (specifically Oreo's) , perfume, make-up...

    2. When I first meet new people I can appear quite shy, especially when I have to talk to a whole group of people

3. I'd describe myself as independent because I always find myself enjoying doing things alone. (*Sigh*, that sounded so wrong.) I could spend weeks by myself and it wouldn't even bother me.

4. I sing all the time when I'm alone but would never properly sing in front of ANYONE. And if I do get caught then I would feel very very embarrassed

5. I have depth anxiety and a light form of social anxiety 

6. I would always come too late (Something I'm working on this year. So far so good!) at an appointment with my friends what probably drives them mental

7.I've been wearing glasses since third grade (8 or 9 years old) and I would never take them off except when it's really neseccary 

8.My favorite food are taco's! Hands down. *craving alert* Too bad they don't sell them in Belgium...

9. I could annoy the whole world by telling that I'm cold a thousand times

10. I'm slightly addicted to watching YouTube videos. My favorite YouTubers are Zoella, AndreasChoice and ClothesEncounters

11. My left thumb can make the weirdest movements ever. Which is an advantage because I love to scare people with my thumb. Haha

12. I have Vietnamese roots but was born in the US even though I live in Belgium, I've moved quite a lot


13. Yes, I'm quite a Belieber ;)

14. I once boarded a plane all on my own for the first time when I went to Florida last summer

15. I never scream in roller coasters

16. Forgetting things that I need to do  is definitely my speciality

17. I could wear anything that has a collar on it each and every day! It has even become my signature look

18. When you get to know me you'll notice that I'm quite a weirdo. But weird is good... Right?

19. I'm having a love-hate relationship with Flappy Bird right now...

20. The smell of peanuts makes me want to throw up, just can't stand it anymore. I do like almonds though!

21. Hate wearing earrings. I like ear-coughs a lot though,  even though I don't own any. *feeling slightly stupid*

22. I am the worse at making choices

23. You wouldn't think I'm an unhappy person at all

24. As much as I enjoy sunny days, I still love cosy rainy days too

25.Most of the time I'd say exactly my opinion on something, wether the person likes it or not. I'm not rude but when I have nothing nice to say I usually say nothing at all. :)

Hope you liked this slightly more personal blog post! I thought you guys might want to know me a little bit better since I just joined this blog world. Oh , excuse me for the "oh so high-quality" webcam pictures. 



                 I'd love to hear 25 facts about you as well! 




Thursday 6 February 2014

Ombré story and Haircare


Ever since I've colored my hair, I've been getting loads of questions and compliments about it. As you may or may not know, I've ombré'd my hair last July. If you don't know what ombré is, it is basically a lighter color at the lower part of your hair, it looks like your hair has been sun kissed. It was my very first time dying my hair. I thought it was time for a change.

The first attempt of bleaching my hair went wrong. The hairdresser I went to was a little bit too old to really understand what ombré actually is. I showed her a picture of Selena Gomez her hair, it was exactly the way I wanted my hair ( without the waves) to be but she thought I wanted a few highlights at the bottom part of my hair. It surprisingly did not look bad at all, it just wasn't what I wanted it to be.

A few days later my cousin attempted to bleach my hair for me. She used the L'Oréal Ombré kit (as long as I can remember). It actually looked great and honestly I wasn't complaining about it until my hair hit the sun outside. My hair was wayyy too blonde than I expected it to be. The line between my natural hair and the blonde was way too obvious.

Third try , good try right? This time my other cousin dyed my hair for me. She went through my hair with a color that was similar to my natural hair color (which is dark brown). You probably could imagine how terrified I was to do something with my hair again,just the thought of something going wrong again. I sat there, waiting for 20 minutes with my fingers crossed hoping for the best. And it worked! My hair turned out to have a few blonde highlights and a nice dark blonde-ish ombré, and I absolutely love it! This risk was so worth it.

                                           This is how it looks today:
                                         This picture has been taken by one of my best friends
                                        who is a very talented  photographer , Daniel De Kind.
                        Definitely check his works out at http://www.flickr.com/photos/danieldekind/

Of course the blonde has been fading so there isn't much blonde left as my hair had before. Because I've done a lot of bleaching and coloring on a short period of time, my hair was damaged. It became dry and the natural shine of my hair was gone. Most of the time it'd look a bit frizzy at the ends of my hair.

This is how I saved my hair!

First off, when I shower, I need  to shampoo my hair (of course). I use the Herbal Essences Beautiful Ends shampoo for split ends. It gives my hair a natural shine and it smells like raspberries which I totally dig!

It may somehow sound weird to you but I shampoo my hair twice and it totally works for me.No idea if it's bad or not... I use the L'Oréal Elséve Color-Vive shampoo for the second shampoo round. It contains silk extracts what really does define my hair color really well.



 The third product that I use is the amazing L'Oréal Elsève Color-Vive conditioner.This condionor helps my color stay much longer because it contains UVA / UVB filters. It feeds my hair well and it smells delicious. As you can sense , I use a lot of L'Oréal products here. Haha.



Even though these products do help my hair, it doesn't always look healthy all the time. And this is why this next product is my holy grail! It's the Herbal Essences split ends hair mask.  I use this mask every week. I put this on the lower half of my hair ( the ombré'd part) after I've showered and then I let it sink in for 5 minutes. Next off I just wash it out with cool water and I'm done! I do not use heating tools , just a blow dryer. You can find all these products at your local drugstore. I recommend this product for people with colored or damaged hair.


                                    What is your holy grail out of all your haircare products?