Melissa in Kiwi Land

How to be an amazing magical kitchen princess!

2010-07-31T14:19:00.002+12:00

Just a casual Friday at my place...

Melissa,

xx.

Well hello!

2010-07-26T13:56:00.003+12:00

I think I might come back to this...I miss posting.

Heading into a crazy last semester at uni...forever.

Hope everyone is having a good year - can't believe we are past halfway. It's damn near freezing here in New Zealand. Summer, come to me! I am enjoying getting some skiing in though!

Melissa

New OPI's and NOTD

2009-12-12T18:45:00.005+13:00

It was 3 for 2 OPI today at my Chemist, yay!

I picked up Dulce de Leche (pinky nude), Rosy Future (pale pink with blue shimmer) and My Chihuahua Bites (had this years ago, its actually a bright pinky-red but I couldn't get the photos to upload right).

Of course as soon as I got home I was trying them out, now I am wearing Dulce de Leche! I dunno if I love it or if I look like a grandma lmao. Meh!

OPI Dulce de Leche

ANNNNDDD OMGGGGG I got my camera! Not even joking I woke up, saw it on sale and bought it. I got the Nikon D90 with the 18-105mm lens, loving it so far even though I am clueless on how to use it! Haha. So now I can resume posting and I am Happy Happy Happy Mel. Def take some pics of my eye makeup tonight!

Hope everyone is about to have as crazy a night as I am, love holidays!

Melissa,

xx.

It had been a while since I bought some Mac

2009-11-27T12:43:00.006+13:00

...so, naturally, I went a tad overboard! Some of it is for Mum for Christmas though, I swear.

I've had my eyes on those brushes for a while - the 239, 266 and another (!) 217. (Yes they are dirty, I couldn't resist!) Now I can finally get into that fluidline that has been sitting in my draw forever. I'm gonna have to get used to using the 239 to apply eyeshadow, as I have been relying on my 217 to do everything previously, hence why I bought another. Plus I thought I would try it out for concealer. I'm slowly building up my Mac brush collection, but they are very expensive in New Zealand. Hopefully next will be some more face brushes.

I also got a couple more eyeshadows for myself - Satin Taupe and Shale. Satin Taupe seems to be one of the most talked about shadows! Thought it was about time I added it to my pile, and Shale is a gorgeous Satin colour, perfect for some colour during the day. I wore it last night and again today, I love having new shadows.

Shale

Satin Taupe

I got my Mum a paint pot (Soft Ochre) and a couple of eyeshadows as part of her christmas present. She loves getting me to do her makeup before a hot date haha! So I thought I would treat her to a few nice colours, instead of the normal bits and pieces she seems to have. OK ok I admit it, I originally got Shale for her but decided to keep it for myself. Bad daughter! I swear Mums have the oddest collections of makeup, it concerns me slightly...

Shroom

Handwritten

Now I better go earn some money to pay for this! Holidays sound sweeter than they actually are.

By the way, on my nails is OPI Do You Lilac It? This was one of my favourite shades for ages, but then I couldn't get the lid off. Disaster struck. Somehow on Wednesday I managed to get it off after running the lid under hot water for a while.

Melissa,

xx.

All nighters

2009-10-29T01:07:00.009+13:00

I'm at uni for the second overnighter in a row ... hurting here! I've given up on my assignment, now I'm going for the power finish! Anyway, naturally I need to do the important things first, like update my blog! Yayyyah! Sorry if this post does not make any sense ... I'm sleep deprived.

Anyway, got my photos printed this morning for my photography assignment so I thought I would post the 4 that I picked for my finals. If you guys don't wanna see these sort of posts please tell me!

Click for bigger versions!

Anyway, thanks to all my lovely subscribers - people actually wanna read the smack I have to say? WOW. Every time I get a comment it fully makes my day brighter.

Melissa,

xx.

Mac-attack!

2009-10-24T12:12:00.004+13:00

Oops I did it again - spent more than I should have. I feel a bit sick about this because it's labour weekend and no doubt going to be a big one - I am gonna be flat broke by Tuesday!

Anyway I went yesterday and got a few things...didn't really need any of them but HEY! That's how we do right? I got Brule eyeshadow, V Greasepaint stick (the purple one) and Feline eye kohl. I'm sorry I'm too lazy to post pics of these, I'm sure you have all seen them, and it was a hard night last night!

Brule is lovely, I need more neutrals like this! Good for highlighting or an all over wash colour - as I wore it last night.

I haven't tried out the Greasepaint stick yet but it looks gorgeous on my hand - a sparkly royal purple!

Feline eye kohl - Amazing! I love this. I have no problems with panda eyes, they show that it was a mean night out! I wore this last night to line right around my eyes, I reckon it looked pretty mean. It's super soft and pigmented, I set it with eyeshadow and didn't notice any problems with smudging.

The weather today is stunning, the sky is the brightest blue and I can't see a single cloud! This is the view from my deck right this minute. So sunbathing is the perfect way to get through my hangover I think. Had such a fun night last night with one of my uni friends, we went to a pub/bar and what started off as a classy night ended up full of drunken dancing, awesome dj's wearing bow ties, and far too old men! My bad!

I'm trying out some new skincare products from Lush so hopefully can put up a review of that in the next week - just want to make full sure what it is doing to my skin before I broadcast. Sorry for not posting very much lately, no excuse really - I'm a lazy shit?

Melissa,

xx.

PS. I tried out Kandee's Michael Jackson tutorial yesterday, dunno if I have the guts to post pics, I look ridiculous.

The 90's

2009-10-18T20:43:00.004+13:00

Sorry for the lack of posts, I am in the last 3 weeks of uni for the year, 5 assignments still to go. I hardly have time to sleep. Just thought I would post up another photo from the studio shoot the other day, one of my friends was doing a 90's themed shoot so after we had finished we decided to get all dressed up in the goofy clothes and take some fun pictures of ourselves.

I like this one:

I can't wait for the holidays, I feel exhausted. That might be something to do with the fact I had a massive night out last night though. Ha!

By the way, I didn't end up buying anything from Style Black! I was looking forward to it for ages and then all the excitement seems to have seeped away. I'm not sure why. I did get a few things from Lush though which I am trying out and will review soon!

Melissa,

xx.

Shooting

2009-10-08T12:39:00.003+13:00

I spent last night in the black studio shooting for photography. We were there very late as we did 3 seperate shoots, I have only had a couple of hours sleep. But it was so much fun, I just wanted to show you guys a sneak peek of what we were doing! After editing I will post up more photos but here is one that I took:

I am messing with self portraiture at the moment, so I was using the self timer and continuous shooting to get these images. This is the first time I have ever used a studio or even done any sort of photography! I am by no means a photographer or a model haha! It took us 2 hours to figure out how to set up the lights properly!

Melissa,

xx.

Awwww me?

2009-10-05T15:25:00.006+13:00

Wow I can't believe someone linked to me for a blog award. People actually read and like my blog? Cool!

Sophie is another blogger from New Zealand, I love reading her updates because she has the same shops, makeup and weather to me! She is gorgeous and very sweet!

As part of the award I have to list 10 little known facts about myself, eeek.

Here goes:

1. I never thought I would study a creative subject at university until my last year at school - I wasn't a very arty child! Now I can't imagine doing anything else.

2. I have a gorgeous little sister with fiery red hair - I missed out on that one but my dad does too!

3. I hate confrontation and fighting, I avoid this at all costs.

4. I hate spending Saturday nights at home, I have been out drinking wayyy too many times considering the short time I have been legal. I partied all through my last year of high school and most of first year uni. Now the hard work is kicking in...

5. I seem to be allergic to dairy products...which is very upsetting because blue cheese is my favourite food in the whole world.

6. Greek yoghurt from Greece is my second favourite food in the world - it's so thick its like sour cream, when you scoop it it stays in the same shape. I had this in Greece when I was 16 and will never forget it - all I wanna do is get back to Greece to have more more more! Screw you, non-dairy diet!

7. I get super excited every time I get a new comment from you guys - it makes my day!

8. I could have a lot more $$ in my savings account if I didn't spend it all on makeup! My mother would be appalled.

9. Even though I live in the city, I have chickens in my backyard. Fresh eggs all the time is so worth it, although I am terrified of chickens.

10. I have only told one person about this blog, and I was drunk. And I wonder if she ever reads it. Heehee.

And also choose some other blogs that I love for this award:

Nail Juice - Steph mostly does nail swatches, and occasional makeup posts but I have been reading her blog for sooo long and she is a Kiwi too! Yayyy.

Big Hair Bigger Lashes - Tiff does amazing eye makeup and I love seeing her posts. She is stunning! I also enjoy her easy-to-follow youtube tutorials.

The Yummy Mummy's Beauty Blog - Another blog I have been reading for ages. Holly is such a sweet girl and I blame her for my addiction to St Moriz because she sent some over for me. Seriously, thanks so much!

All Things Beautiful - I just discovered this blog through a link, and am really enjoying it. I'm lying here reading through it now, even though I have a billion assignments to do. And she is having a really nice blog giveaway at the moment - check it out!

Now I'm off to try and do some more uni work! I'm the worst procrastinator ever.

Melissa,

xx.

Faking it photography

2009-09-23T22:21:00.007+12:00

At the moment I am working on a photography assignment and I am looking at the idea of Miniature Faking - making your photograph seem as though it is of a miniature reproduction. You can buy lenses called Tilt-Shift lenses which have a similar effect to this, but you can also fake it using Photoshop.

I thought I would play around with a couple of photos I took in January, from the first floor of the Eiffel Tower.

Click onto them to enlarge them - you really can't see anything when they are this small!

What do you think?

Obviously for the assignment I will be putting A LOT more work in - I have a few ideas of what I might use as subject matter, but these photos were all I could find with the right angle.

Melissa,

xx.

Lucas PaPaw Ointment

2009-09-23T13:01:00.004+12:00

This is one of my favourite products ever. I have been using it for so long now.

The packaging describes this as "a local topical application for boils, burns, chafing, cuts, cracked skin, gravel rash, splinters, open wounds, insect bites and nappy rash. The ointment helps to relieve and cleanse."

Honestly, that all sounds a bit gory to me, I mean open wounds = eeek! I mostly use this as a lip balm and it is fantastic. The texture is thick enough that you can actually feel something on your lips which I like, and when you wake up in the morning your lips still feel very well moisturised. It is clear which is great - I often put this over lipstick if they are too dry. It is not sticky at all which is definitely another plus in my opinion, I'm not really a fan of having hair stuck to my mouth haha!

I also use this on my cuticles and around my nails whenever they look a bit dry, which is often. It is also great for helping to soften scabs ... ew. I use it on any patches of dry skin, elbows, rashes - basically this stuff is good for anything. It works like a dream and does not irritate my sensitive skin at all. I have multiple tubes throughout my house and car!

Unfortunately I am not sure how available this is outside of New Zealand and Australia - but if you can get your hands on it, don't hold back! It is available in tubes and tubs of different sizes. Maybe one day I will have a giveaway and send some of this out to someone lucky!

I posted this as my holy grail product in MissMercuryLady's blog competition. Go check it out! If you read through the comments you can see everyone else's HG products, so it is a really good idea!

Melissa,

xx.

Holy Guacamole!

2009-09-11T21:29:00.008+12:00

I just depotted! Talk about a spur of the moment decision. I just picked up a palette this afternoon and spent tonight doing it. I followed a fabulous video by dustbunnies77.

It took me a few hours maybe, along with chatting on facebook, having dinner and selecting a soundtrack. I didn't break any, I'm super happy with how it turned out. Only I need a couple more shadows to fill my palette! Not sure what I want yet though. Does anyone have any suggestions - a favourite that I am missing perhaps? I have a couple of other shadows, but one is shattered and one is in the Neo-Sci-Fi packaging so I think I want to keep that.

These are my shadows in the order they appear:

Pollinator, Era, Smoke & Diamonds, empty, Alum

Soft Brown, Woodwinked, empty, Parfait Amour, Moon's Reflection

Star Violet, Mystery, Typographic, Poison Pen, Contrast

Of the bunch, my favourites and most used would have to be:

Era (everyday shadow, all over the lid, adore this)

Typographic (easy to blend, appears black, I mostly use this to set my liner)

Contrast (great crease colour, or sometimes I use this to set my liner, this is stunning)

I'm definitely of the lazy eyeshadow type - often I will just put one colour all over the lid and up into the crease, line and mascara and I'm done! Bad bad bad, with all these gorgeous eye shadows being neglected.

Hope everyone had a nice weekend! Mine was not so great - why must men be so nasty and hurtful? I really don't understand.

Melissa,

xx.

I'm spring cleaning my bedroom

2009-09-08T13:32:00.006+12:00

Ugh worst job ever! But it needs to be done, I have so much junk in my room. I stupidly painted my nails yesterday and obviously they are all chipped now, so I will have to redo them. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted. Here are some photos, with and without flash.

The polish is OPI's In my back pocket. It has no glitter, and is just a beautiful creamy shade that I love. I usually do 2 or 3 coats. Orange is not a colour I would normally pick up, but I saw a friend wearing it and it looked gorgeous - so summery!

Back to cleaning now!

Melissa,

xx.

Rebel Lipstick

2009-08-24T09:53:00.005+12:00

I bought Rebel lipstick from Mac a few weeks ago. On Saturday night I actually wore it out in public, after two weeks of wandering around home in trackies and dark lips haha.

I LOVE IT! I have never really worn dark lipstick before - only red for dress up parties and the like. But I absolutely love this and am now looking into some other dark colours to try. Sorry for the goofy angles of the photos - a friend took them for me! My lips were actually a lot darker, and a bit more berry coloured than these photos show.

Rebel lipstick is quite a bright pink, but paired with Vino lipliner = my new fave lips ever! I can't believe how many complements I got on it - yay! I had talked about it with my friend and we'd decided that men hate lipstick, but that definitely didn't seem to be the case! Woohoo!

In terms of clothes, I wore a black tube skirt, black tights, black chucks, a black and white tassle top (which you can kind of see in the photos - I love this, but it is high maintenance to wear because it can get a bit tangled) and a black blazer. My hair was super messy waves, which is natural for me. I used a bit of the Garnier Fructis Surf Hair Texturising Wax to make it even knottier!

Here is what I wore on my face:

Foundation - Revlon Colorstay

Powder - Mac MSF Natural

Contour - Mac Blunt Blush

Bronzer - Mac MSF in Sunny by Nature

And my eyes:

Primer - Mac Paintpot in Soft Ochre

Shadows - Mac Era, Woodwinked, Soft Brown

Eyeliner - Revlon Colorstay Black eyeliner, with Mac Typographic eyeshadow to set

Mascara - Mac Plushlash

And lips:

I filled my lips in with Mac Vino lipliner, this is beautiful. If you put it on quite heavily it really darkens up the lipstick, which is what I wanted.

Then Mac Rebel lipstick over the top. I was very worried about my lipstick wearing off, getting it on my teeth etc. I blotted after applying the lipstick, and then applied again before we left the house and again throughout the night. Honestly the lipliner kept the colour from budging at all. I wasn't even able to brand any men haha! The next morning my lips were stained hot pink - this is how well it lasted.

Do you reckon I can wear this everyday? I am tempted! This has made me even more excited for the Style Black collection.

Melissa,

xx.

LUSH face masks

2009-08-09T14:29:00.004+12:00

I worship these! If you haven't tried them you must! Plus they make for great photo taking opportunities haha.

Cosmetic Catastrophe: I got this one after a day where I had considered wearing a mask to uni! My skin was going crazy - I think it was a reaction to Mac Studio Sculpt foundation which I love the finish of but I think I am allergic to. I picked this one up on the reccomendation of the lady there, the name is pretty much self explanatory. This smells soo good and is a wicked purple colour as it contains blueberries. When you have it on, your skin looks like a dinosaur.

Unfortunately I don't think this one is particularly effective for me - although obviously it was up to a pretty big challenge. I also tried it over the next few weeks and its not my fave of the four, but not terrible either. All the face masks leave your skin feeling extremely smooth but other than that, meh. However it did a fantastic job of covering my gross skin so I kept it on all night! It's the best way I'm sure!

Love Lettuce: Just wanted to try something else I guess. I really need to stick to what works but it's a hard lesson to learn I guess. This one is a bit different to the others - it's designed to exfoliate as well. This is nice but seeing as I always use my St Ives scrub, its not really what I am looking for in a mask. I'm looking for the miracle worker that is going to make my skin clear and glowing, duh!

It's quite a strange texture and the exfoliation means that the technique is slightly different. Most of the other masks I just leave on until the literally begin to crumble and then wash off over the sink. This one says to only leave for about 5 minutes. I want it to actually do something so I usually leave it for longer but then to properly exfoliate with it, I have found it works best to jump in the shower, run the water over your face to soften it and then gently exfoliate until it's all washed off. Ta da! This does a good job at reducing oiliness but still not as good as my favourite one.

CUPCAKE: This one is amazing. My favourite. I don't know why I keep buying other ones, after I finish Love Lettuce I am gonna get this one and stick with it. It's brown, it looks gross, when I did it with a friend there were countless jokes from her family. And this one smells soooo good, like mint chocolate.

But wow. If you have oily skin, spotty skin, tired skin - anything - this is great. Using this can get me wearing a tinted moisturiser if that. My skin cleared up amazingly, I had nothing to hide. Please, try this. They aren't too expensive because one pot will do many more masks than they suggest. You don't need to cover your face extremely thickly, it just needs to be an opaque covering. Regardless, it's a low price to pay for something that really helps your skin.

Melissa,

xx.

The Nail Buff

2009-08-05T19:32:00.000+12:00

I have more recently been getting into beauty blogs, I am somewhat beginning to enjoy these more than youtube videos! For whatever reason, these seem to be more popular in the UK. Two which I follow are Hele and Holly and recently they have both set up second blogs.

Makeup Merchant is such a lovely and generous idea - you can purchase UK beauty products online! I'll post my haul from there later on - Holly is such a sweet girl and I can't imagine the effort she is putting in to run that blog.

The Nail Buff is running a giveaway about your 3 favourite nailpolishes ever so here goes:

I admit I am a bit of a brand snob when it comes to nail polish - most of the colours I seem to buy are OPI. We don't really have China Glaze or any of these other cool brands you guys have in the US and UK - but I make do! Ha ha. I also find that OPI stays on pretty well - minimal chipping, I mostly end up taking it off because of tip wear. I tend to buy only one or two colours at once and wear these for a season - sad I know!

My 3 favourites of all time would have to be:

OPI: Heart Throb - this is a gorgeous soft barbie pink (not sure that I'm very good at describing colours but oh well), but it is VERY sheer. I don't like being able to see my nail line through polish so to be honest it takes me about 4 thin coats to get a really opaque layer. But I still love it - maybe I am being sucked in by the name!

OPI: Do You Lilac It? - I think every girl in the world is in a lavender phase at the moment and I admit I am of the crowd! This colour is gorgeous - a little bit different and eye-catching but not too strange for a nail colour!

And the final one is

Nfu-Oh: #51 - shock horror not an OPI! This is the most amazing nail polish I have ever seen in my entire life, I can't imagine anything more stunning. This polish is a sheer jelly-type formula with huge pieces of coloured glitter in it, honestly google for images and you will see what I mean. It's quite hard to capture it in a photo, my photos are hardly up to scratch. It has a purple base but the glitter flashes red, yellow, green and blue NO JOKE. I usually wear it over a darker purple, navy or black to help build up the colour underneath, then just one or two coats of this. And how cute is the bottle!

WOW

Thanks Hele for this sweet giveaway.

Melissa,

xx.