OOTD: Vivacious Venice

Lush Lucerne

Review: Lush Shower Scrub

I have been using this Rub Rub Shower Scrub for a long long time now and I thought it was about time I write a review!

Rub Rub Rub is a bit of a variation on the normal shower gel. Sea salt is gently exfoliating, extra cleansing and mineral-rich. After scrubbing, it dissolves in water, leaving your plughole free of blockages. This new blue scrub is startlingly refreshing, with a dash of lemon juice and the tropical scent of mimosa blossom. Just hop in the shower and rub, rub, rub!

I love the colour and the texture, I find so many Exfolating scrubs on the market are to afraid to be rought, but exfoliators need to be rough! This scrub is the perfect balance between hard and soft because it does disolve over time.

The smell is very zesty and fresh, I believe it is coming the salt and lemon mixture. It is because of these ingredients that makes this scrub so amazing for skin care. It really opens and cleans out your pores.  I use this on any problem areas I have and it works better than any blemish cream I have ever used! I had the mother of all pimples, it was under the skin but also on top of the skin and swollen and I had tried everything from Clearasil to toothpaste and it was so stubborn. The only thing I that worked for me was the Lush Rub Rub.

Ingredients
Fine Sea Salt (Fine Sea Salt), Sodium Laureth Sulfate (Sodium Laureth Sulfate),Fresh Organic Lemon Juice (Citrus limonum), Water (Aqua), Sodium Cocoamphoacetate (Sodium Cocoamphoacetate), Jasmine Flower Infusion (Jasminum officinale), Mimosa Absolute (Acacia decurrens), Orange Flower Absolute (Citrus aurantium amara), Jasmine Absolute (Jasminum grandiflorum),Lemon Oil (Citrus limonum), Lactic Acid (Lactic Acid), Lauryl Betaine (Lauryl Betaine), *Limonene (*Limonene), Perfume (Perfume), Colour 42090 (Colour 42090), Colour 45410 (Colour 45410)

Review: Lush Face Mask

Relaxing and reviving, mineral-rich mask to cleanse, soften and beautify all skins. This blend, inspired by the sea, contains fresh and nutritious seaweed and seaweed absolute. Cleansing kaolin, antiseptic honey, calming aloe vera and rose absolute make this a great mask for everyone. Apply to clean skin, avoiding the eye area. Leave for five to ten minutes, and then rinse with warm water. Keep chilled.

 Before                                                                                                            During

After

Overall, I was not impressed with it. I goes on very chunky and thick in parts which can flake off while it dries and create a bit of a mess. I bought this mask with the intention of minimising some redness from scarring on my face from bad skin. However, I do not think this was a miracle product at all, I saw no immediate results. The fact that it has to be refrigerated really doesn't work, it makes the mask super cold and uncomfortable to put on. It has a short dating so it doesn't last very long and considering the price, $16, I would of liked it to last a little longer. My skin did feel smooth but not cleansed like a mask usually does, I actually had to put a second one on after this to really make my skin feel clean. 

Overall, I would not recommend or repurchase. You tell me if you can see a difference. 

Ingredients:

Lime Tree Flower and Sweet Violet Leaf Decoction (Tilia europaea and Viola odorata), Kaolin (Kaolin), Honey (Honey), Glycerine (Glycerine), Ground Almonds (Prunus dulcis), Toothed Wrack Seaweed (Fucus serratus), Organic Aloe Vera Gel (Aloe barbadensis), Millet Flakes (Panicum miliaceum), Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil (Olea europea), Bentonite Gel (Bentonite Gel), Fresh Rose Petals (Rosa centifolia), Rose Absolute (Rosa damascena), Patchouli Oil (Pogostemon cablin),Rosemary Oil (Rosmarinus officinalis), Seaweed Absolute (Fucus vesiculosus),Citral (Citral), Geraniol (Geraniol), Benzyl Benzoate (Benzyl Benzoate), *Limonene (*Limonene), *Linalool (*Linalool), Perfume (Perfume)

Retro Rainbow Make up

So on Saturday night I attended an 80's themed party. However when it came to my make up, I knew it would have to be bright! But all the colours I was thinking of (Purple, blue and green) clashed with my black and red outfit. So, if I was gonna clash, go big or go home. Bring on all the colours!!!

I paired it with a candy pink lipstick to make the whole face pop and not to take away from the eye shadow.

For those of you who will say that my outfit is not 80's because it does not have enough colour, this outfit is actually my Mum's from the 80's, when she would hit up the gym. You cant get more 80's then that!

 ( This photo is more yellow because it was taken at sunset, not because it was edited) 

My Diet Will Start Tomorrow

So I thought I would mix up the posts today by talking about my diet. Firstly,  I am the biggest offender of the classic "My diet will start tomorrow" complex, so I am determined to break that habit. I will start off by going over my current diet, what a regular week is for me and my new goals and aspirations. Hopefully this can give you some inspiration or extra motivation so that you too can be thin for Sumer and if you like it, you can try it out.  Stick around till the end because I have some exciting announcements for you!

A normal week: 

I am gluten intolerant so that is a huge factor in my diet. I can have a certain amount of gluten in my diet but if I have too much, my body reacts badly, so a lot of the time you just have to guess! So this means that I can not eat pasta and cakes and cookies etc, otherwise known as 'The fun food'. My general rule of thumb is to not eat these foods at home, on a regular basis, so that when it is a party or I am out with friends, I can indulge. It is also important to note that I LOVE Pepsi. I have about 2 glasses a day, which I know is not good and I have actively tried to cut down. I originally thought I was addicted so I planned to go two weeks without it to break the addiction, but after a week I was going really strong, so strong and not even craving it that I decided that I was not actually addicted, I just really love Pepsi. But this was helpful for me to create a good diet plan I can stick with.

This week:

This week, has been probably the worest week I have had in a long time, diet wise. As of next week, i will have complete control over my diet because of some exciting news that will reveal in a minute. So that I decided that this week i would just throw all diet plans out the window and just love life and eat whatever my little heart desires. So far that has consisted of sushi 3 times, 2 pizzas, a jar of Nutella and two packets of chocolate biscuits.

The New Plan: 

So from my extensive research from above, that my biggest diet issue is that I have no control over what is in my kitchen because I live at home and I hate going up to the shop that I would rather eat something that will make have a gluten reaction. For example Mum will have at least 3/4 oven pizzas, so I would rather eat that then going up the shop. But the exciting news is that I am starting a new job and moving out so that I am completely in control of what is in the house. I am very excited. So I created a few rules for myself to stick to.

The Rules: 

• Carbs are only once a day at dinner time
• Since I will be on the road in my new job, I should have fruit for lunch
• Eat gluten free as much as possible
• I can only have Pepsi or Coke on weekends and it wont be in the house to tempt me during the week. 
• I get to pick one 'naughty' food that I can have on the weekend. I get all week to decide which one I want for that weekend. I think its important to indulge. 

I feel like this should be relatively easy to stick to because I am a pretty healthy person normally anyway, although I am saying that with a mouth full of Nutella, so who knows! I also just want state that I am not necessary looking to loose weight, I don't have a weight problem, I am just trying to be as healthy as possible. However, I may need to loose a little bit of weight after this week! For the sake of measurable objectives, I will state that I am a size 6-8 (0-2 US sizes)   

I'll just leave this here for some extra motivation

Life updates and things to come! 

I also came up with a exercise plan to accompany this new diet plan. Which I will do a blog post and perhaps a video demonstrating how to do them because I always struggle to understand exercise instructions when they are written. 

Also, I have planned heaps of youtube videos I will now will be able to film because I will just be living with Daniel. At the moment, I live in a house with 3 other people and I don't like filming when other people are around and I don't have professional lighting. So I have to wait till the sun is out, no one is home and it isn't a day I need to wash my hair. As you can see, these don't come about too often. But on a positive note, I have convinced Daniel to film the boyfriend tag, which will be exciting, along with many other videos. I was thinking of starting a weekly video that is more ' The girl behind the blog' something like 'Fun Fridays" or "Get to know me Fridays" or something. If you have any suggestions do let me know. I wont be posting every youtube video I do on here, so if you don't want to miss anything, make sure to subscribe to that channel.

That should be it for today, sorry i know this was a long blog post, but I just had so much I had to share! Exciting things are happening and I excited to share them with you!

Dove Colour Live (Nuffnang event)

Last week on Tuesday I was invited to attend a Nuffnang event called, 'Dove Colour Live'. A bunch of bloggers were invited by email to attend this lovely event hosted by Dove and their marketing team, to learn mostly about colour and which ones correspond to hues, and our personalities.


When I got there, i was greeted with some Champagnes, not a bad start, and we were directed to a dark room, with a flat screen TV at the front. Then the lights began to change colour, and a voiceover described what they represented. The lady on the screen then said that colour is a way to incorporate all the senses into life and enhance them, particularly focusing on how colours make her 'feel', at the end of the video it is revealed that she was blind, it made the message of the video a lot more impactful.



                                    


Then we went into this bright white room with a bright purple light, that looked a lot like a studio. We had some great speakers there who talked about colour and hair and little snacks and drinks were served around. They also served a Cucumber Vitality juice which was to promote healthy hair and if you like the nails on hand model, you can go see more fabulous designs on her blog here.

We then split off into little groups for mini consultations with a colour therapist. This was my favourite part of the night. She had us look in the mirror, then proceeded to identify our 'seasons' we corresponded with, and the colours that suit us to wear. According to her I was hard to identify, I'm a Cool Summer/Winter type, Summer are the quiet, highly organised and focused. Winter are the really outgoing types, Autumn people are passionate and Spring is light-hearted and just looking for a good time. Which one do you think you are?

She gave us a lot of information about colours we SHOULD and SHOULDN'T wear. For example, black clothes can be nice, but generally they close people off from you, so people are less likely to want to approach you. Whereas, red makes you more attractive to men and they are more likely to spend money on you. So if you are getting ready for a date and you can't choose between red and black, now you know which to choose!




Apparently I should wear bold bright colours and contrasts. Which is also true for the stunning model below who's blog you can find here.




Another plus is, when we left, we got given Goody Bags. It's a DOVE bag containing products to keep healthy and freshly-coloured hair.

                                                     

I just want to thank Nuffnang for inviting me, and the Dove team for not only providing an amazing and informative night, but also a bunch of great products for me to protect my hair with. Also, thanks to the other girls there that made the night so fun, and I had a great time meeting everyone.