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?

                                   

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?