Do aromatherapy and essential oils actually work?

As a scientist whose PhD involved natural product synthesis and pharmacology (that’s where you get chemicals out of nature (plants, bacteria, marine sponges etc.) in the hopes that they’ll become, or lead to the development, of a useful drug one day), I find alternative medicine very interesting. While a LOT of it is hokum, designed to trap innocent people into …

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OPI Holiday Collection review and swatches

Today I’ve got some of the Mariah Carey Holiday OPI collection to show you – I Snow You Love Me, All Sparkly and Gold, and Emotions, a black liquid sand. It’s a very glittery, shiny collection, as you’d expect! I Snow You Love Me is a unique glitter polish. It’s hard for big brands to compete with indies for unique …

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Mckfresh – The Sunnydale Collection swatches and review

Australian indie polish brand Mckfresh Nail Attire is releasing a new collection this Thursday, the Sunnydale collection. Yes, it’s Buffy themed! There are 7 polishes in the collection, named after the main characters, and I have to say, I’m in love with the whole collection! They’re all deep, rich, complex colours with interesting particles, and frankly, they’re downright sexy. Are …

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What’s wrong with my face? (according to Dermalogica)

I’ve always assumed that my skin is combination oily/normal, with large pores and blackheads occasional breakouts (stress and hormonal) and some hyperpigmentation (freckles). But I’ve never gone to get it checked out until recently, when I decided to take advantage of Dermalogica’s free Face Mapping analysis. Dermalogica focuses on skin health, and the Face Mapping involves is 5 minutes of …

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Damn You Stained Nails! Pt 2: How to remove stains

After Part 1, where I stained my nails (For Science!) to work out how best to prevent staining, the obvious next step was to figure out stain removal! I worked out in Part 1 that the teal colour is CI 77288, which is chromium(III) oxide. Here are my nails again – argh! I had to live with this for two …

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Damn You Stained Nails! Pt 1: How to prevent staining

I’ve always heard that teal polishes stain nails really bad, but I never really appreciated it until I wore the gorgeous Orly Teal Unreal and ended up with weird patchy stains on my nails, which you may have seen me post on Instagram: Naturally this weird observation made me want to investigate further! First up, here’s the breakdown of what …

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Mary Kay lipstick swatches and review

I’ve been trying out some more Mary Kay products recently. The latest are their lipsticks. I was sent lippies from two different ranges, the new True Dimensions lipsticks in Firecracker and Pink Chérie, and the classic Creme lipsticks in Really Red, Sunny Citrus and Whisper. I really like the True Dimensions lipsticks, which were launched in Australia in August. They’re …

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Essence Me & My Ice Cream collection: swatches and review

Essence’s newest trend collection is Me & My Ice Cream, a pastel themed collection, perfect for Spring! It’s supposed to be out October, but stands have been popping up in Priceline stores already. First off, this collection contains a cream blush, Ice Bomb ($4.95). It’s a shimmery peachy coral colour – very pretty and flattering on me. The dome of …

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