Rave review: Benefit Gimme Brow

Brows are such a pain in the arse. I specifically grew my fringe so I wouldn’t have to deal with them. That’s a lie, actually – it’s also because I have a freakishly large forehead, but the brows were a big factor too. And after years of hearing my beauty-obsessed friends talk about how brows are the most important facial …

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My Regular Makeup Brushes – Real Techniques, Ecotools, Crown and Lust Have It!

I’m pretty new to brushes, since I’m usually an advocate of the always-hygienic, super convenient smoosh-it-with-clean-fingers technique, but some products just really, really need a brush. I’ve been buying lots of brushes lately and thought I’d show you what I’ve been using in my daily routine, especially since I washed them recently and had a chance to photograph them while …

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Project 100 Pan: Empties 41-50

I’m halfway through getting 100 products in my attempt to get rid of all the half-used stuff in my life. Here are my latest 10 empties: Sportsgirl Butter Dream Body Butter – I’ve had this forever, and it’s really good for an under-$10 body cream, though not really rich enough for me to class it as a “body butter”. The …

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Concealer creasing comparison for oily skin

I’ve always wanted to do controlled comparisons of the eye makeup longevity, but there are lots of issues with actually conducting them on the eyes from a scientific perspective. First off, notice how one eye is usually harder to do than the other? That’s because most people only use their dominant hand, and therefore applying makeup differently from one eye …

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Home teeth whitening – a basic guide

In the beauty world, hydrogen peroxide is the bleaching agent par excellence. It whitens hair, nails and teeth as well as having a host of household uses. I’ll expand more on the chemistry behind how it works in a later post, but it’s the practical use of hydrogen peroxide in teeth whitening that will be the focus of this post. …

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Messy Mansion MM21, MM22 and MM13 review

Have you heard of Messy Mansion? It’s an Australia-based nail art and stamping plate store that’s particularly well known for their own in-house designed plates, some of which I have to show you today. Julia, the owner, gave these to me to review at the National (well, East Coast) Aussie Nails Meetup last week, and all the girls got grabby …

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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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