Today, I’ll be introducing to the skincare line and a couple of their products. Keep an eye out for the makeup products I’ve gotten to play around with in a later post.

I was introduced to two of the Nvey Eco skincare products recently and I am smitten with them. For those who have followed my blog from the beginning, I’ve always been in love with citrus scented skincare products and these products are already amazing just with it’s scent.

Nvey Eco have covered all bases in terms of skin types: Age Concerns, Dry Skin, Oily Skin, Sensitive and All Skin Types. They’ve even got a Whitening range that helps brightens and perfects skin. So, whatever the skin type or concern you have, Nvey Eco pretty much has everything covered that you can mix and match yourself.
Each skin concerns comes with moisturiser, mask, concentrate, toner and cleanser. They also have an exfoliator for all skin types, eye care and facial mists. So, in total there are over THIRTY products to choose.

On top of that… Nvey Eco products are Australian Made. Go Aussie!

I’ve been lucky enough to try out two of the products; the Evening Repair Moisturising Créme, $59.95 (50mL) and Skin Balancing Cleanser, $44.95 (118mL) for oily skin and I have to say these are very close competitors to my holy grail skincare products. Very close.

Please let me know if you’d like to see individual product reviews or on any of the other skincare products in the Nvey Eco range.

PS. Apolgies for the glare in the photo of products above. I tried so many times to fix it but I just couldn’t photograph them clearly.

Have YOU heard about Nvey Eco skincare? What would you be interested to try?

It’s the NEW Apple of My Eye Cream

I did a lot of research when it came to trying out this product because I had never heard of apple stem cell extracts. I’ve heard of embryonic stem cells. So I thought, What’s so special about the apple? Let alone a Swiss one?

In a remote part of Switzerland living quietly is a rare – almost extinct – apple tree called the Uttwiler Spätlauber. It’s dull, sour and isn’t overly tasty. It’s because of this remote climate the apple tree isn’t exposed to pollution, insecticides and other chemicals and able to flourish organically for hundreds of years. (Or so it is claimed.) Thus making it the most purest apple still grown on earth.

Thanks to PhytoCellTec (Apple Stem Cell Extract), plant stem cells can be obtained and incorporated into cosmetic products to ensure the longevity of skin cells. Added with other great ingredients such as White tea extracts (full of antioxidants and anti-ageing properties) and certified organic rosehip oil (rich with fatty acids, omega-3, 6 and 9 that aid against ageing, damage skin, scarring, skin pigmentation and help protect skin tissue) you’ve got something close to the holy grail of eye creams.

▪ No mineral oils ▪ No articifical colours ▪ No petrochemicals ▪ No artifical fragrances ▪ No SLS/ SLES (Sodium Laureth Sulfate or Sodium Lauryl Ether Sulfate – detergents) ▪ No animal ingredients ▪ Not tested on animals ▪ Recyclable packaging ▪ Made in Australia ▪ Certified organic ingredients	▪ NIL

I was extremely impressed with this product because, in general, I don’t expect much from eye creams at all. I’ve gone through several that promised all these things but rarely delivered.

This product has changed all that.

I love that it’s thick but isn’t greasy. Absorbs into the skin gently, smells natural, clean/fresh and doesn’t sting the delicate under-eye area like some serums and creams do.

From the moment I put this on for the first time I was smitten with it. I’ve now been using it for a month and I have noticed that my eyes dark circles aren’t too bad and it has improved the fine lines I have around my eyes (YES, I do have them!)

There is nothing I don’t like about this product because it does what it claims to and I think with ongoing and regular use you’ll be able to see a noticeable difference longer term too.

Extremely happy with this product and highly recommend it if you’re looking for an eye cream that also helps with anti-ageing without the hefty price tag.

Available from David Jones, selected pharmacies and health food stores, RRP $44.95.

Have you heard of apple stem cell extracts? Would you be keen to try out this product?

Dear LC Loving the cuddles when I’m on the computer and in bed. It reminds me of when you were a kitten and couldn’t get enough of mummy. (Sigh) Those were the days. PS. Please refrain from playing at 2am and choose a more suitable time, thank you.

Dear Andre
I am alarmed and perplexed by the amount of feathers you are shedding these days. While I know that you shed your feathers along with the seasons, the amount of feathers you’ve lost this week could cover another naked bird. I’m surprised you still even have feathers. In the meantime, I’m glad you’re not as grumpy as you were last week and every now and then sitting on my shoulder and cuddling.

Dear social life
SLOW DOWN PLEASE! I’m not as young as I used to be. I do enjoy the dice game at the local (roll a double, drinks are on the house) and the view from Kings Cross and Sydney at night.

Dear WAHHHbulance
Stop it. Just… STOP IT!

Dear breakfast
You have been – by far – my favourite meal of the day this week. So much so, I just might make you favourite next week too. Enjoying far too many soy lattes, porridge and Eggs Benedict. Yum!

Dear boys
(Sigh) You’re all hilarious. Good effort though.

Dear Troll
I know who you really are. Everyone in the beauty community knows it was you, too. You made myself and the beauty community have a good ol’ laugh. Props to your effort though.

Happy FRIDAY!

I have a terrible habit of taking hand-me-downs. Whether they be clothes, (unopened/never been used) beauty products, books or accessories. I love taking pieces off people, especially when you know I’ll get some use out of it.

But with all possessions, they do get old, you do tire of them and eventually you’re trying to get them off your own hands but you just can’t part yourself with it.

This practice then leads to hoarding and over cluttering, which I am very guilty of.

My thought process is this… people have paid good money for something and for whatever reason they’re over it and don’t want it anymore. Why throw it out? Especially if there’s nothing wrong with it.

But when I take ownership over something and it doesn’t really work out, it literally pains me to get rid of it. Again, my mind is telling me, “Someone has worked hard for that… and you’re just going to throw it out?”

A few months ago my mother gave me a cream cleanser she thought would be good for me. It ticked all the boxed. Cruelty-free, check. Organic, check. Australian made and owned, check. But when I gave it go, there was an ingredient in it that made my skin break out. I could never use it again. But for months that followed I held onto it because it was something my mother had bought for me in good faith that I would use it.

When you get to a certain age where you earn your own money, you feel that it’s extremely unnecessary for your parents to buy things for you. I believe the same thing goes with parents; at a certain age they don’t take any value in things you’ve spent money on for them. They would rather you keep your money and the only “spending” you do on them is your time. (Maybe that doesn’t go for everyone, but I know my parents would rather me spend a few hours a week with them rather than my money.) So, when my mother bought me this cleanser I was not only grateful but guilty that she did.

A friend once handed me down a loose powder which she had bought online that was too dark for her. Knowing that my skintone darker, she gave it to me but for whatever reason it didn’t work for me either and I simply never used it. But again, I held onto it because she had spent her money her hard earned money on it and I would feel absolutely awful throwing it out. I did eventually and for months that followed, I feared she’d ask me how the product worked for me and I’d tell her that I threw it out.
Several months later I eventually brought it up with her and confessed that I had thrown it out. Her response was, “What loose powder? …I forgot all about it.”

This mindset stems from the time when my father gave me a David Jones voucher worth a very large sum of money. He had received it from his work for his 20th year anniversary of service and without a second thought he gave it to me.

I couldn’t believe that my father worked for two decades and when receiving such a generous gift simply handed it over to me. While he could have easily spent it on a nice suit for the office, or a couple of nice shirts, ties or casual wear… nope, he decided it was better off in my hands.

When I was given such a gift I made sure that I wasn’t going to spend it on something I didn’t need. Although dad has said to me, “You can use that for your makeup stuff.” I decided that I was going to spend it on something worth while and show him that his twenty years of working didn’t go in vain.

Not only did this prove to me that my dad is the coolest and the most generous dude on earth, I promised that I was going to see the value in everything, especially if it was something I didn’t earn myself.

So, we all know that Urban Decay products are fairly hard to come by in Australia because the company doesn’t directly ship here (which, I should add, really grinds my gears – it should be MANDATORY that all online stores ship worldwide – just sayin’).

Anyway, for months I’ve had these items in my shopping cart and I didn’t buy any of them. But with a recent large pay I decided, stuff it… I’m getting them.

I decided to get three items: the NAKED Basics palette, that everyone in the beauty community raves about. A singular eyeshadow that is a staple in my everyday makeup look and the new NAKED Flushed palette. And YES, there is a general ‘naked’ them to this haul… definitely not on purpose.

PS. If anyone is interested in individual product reviews on this, please let me in the comments below.

NAKED Basics palette
I ended up buying two of these because I knew I would just become obsessed with it – and I did! I pretty much wear this palette everyday for work, using Walk of Shame (WOS) on the lid, Naked 2 in the crease, Foxy as a brow highlight with a touch of Venus for a bit of depth.
When I’m going out for an event or going out for the evening, I smoke up the day look using Faint in the outer crease and add a bit of Crave to the outer V. Works perfectly.

Single eyeshadow in ‘Naked’
I decided to buy this because it’s my most used shade from my NAKED palette and such a universal shade that will work well with every makeup look. And since I was running out of Naked in my NAKED palette (…did you get all that?), I thought I’d buy it on it’s own because I know it’ll get the most use.

Naked Flushed palette
This was something I’ve been looking forward to buying for a very long time and I’m so stoked I’ve finally got it.
Only til very recently I’ve gotten into contouring and highlighting my face. I thought I could start off with something like this and when I got more experience behind me I could go onto something a little more advanced. This is pretty much a fail proof palette and so easy to use that I’m sure anyone can use. It’s a little disappointing that it only comes in one variation but I’ve been lucky that the colours aren’t too bad for me.

Have you tried any of these products from Urban Decay? Let me know what you think.

For those who know me well, you’d know that I have always had a love/hate relationship with my mother. I’m half Filipino and apparently all Filipino daughters are best friends with their mothers and absolutely can’t live without them.

I am not one of those girls and I never will be.

I love my mother and will love her til the grave, but I am definitely the exception.

When I was in my early-twenties I craved to have that idyllic mother/daughter relationship and I was so envious of all my girlfriends who had it. My mother doesn’t even know my bra-size even though I’ve told her on several occasions what it was. She insists my cup-size is smaller and my strap size is bigger.
There aren’t many baby photos of my mother and I. Most of the photos that exist are of my father and I.
I wanted to be able to call my mother up and ask her to join me for coffee in Paddington or be able to talk about work, relationships and have cups of tea together. Dare to dream. It’s just one of those things that no matter how hard you try to out a square through a round window, you just couldn’t make it fit.
It took me years to realise this and although it made me extremely upset that I would never be on the same wavelength as my own mother, let alone have anything in common I had to except that this was the way it’s going to be forever. It was never going to mature with age, or change when one of us (most likely, me) changed or even if we went to family counselling. This was the relationship I had with my mother; estranged.

But even though my relationship with my mother isn’t perfect, I have to say I really do admire her a lot. I remember when I was a little girl, my mother would cut and squeeze fresh orange juice for me. I always had a thing about watching her do things with her hands and how she did things so effortlessly and elegantly. Even now, I still love watching her cook, garden, paint, comb here hair and write – so beautiful and feminine.

My mother is a real artist at heart. She studied interior design before she fell pregnant with me and so when it came to anything home related she made everything feel safe, comforting and tranquil.
She’s grows a beautiful little garden on her fourth floor apartment and it’s always luscious, bright, colourful and even during the night, she’s makes sure it’s well-lit with tea lights so everything sparkles. Again, my mother just has a thing about her home that is just so beautiful.

I’m grateful that I have a mother who has always tried her best and although we’re not the perfect mother/daughter duo, we’re not the worst. I’m thankful for the relationship we do have.

Thank you mumma, for being mine. I love you.

Love, your biological first born
Reese x

Mum & I (aged 18 months), Centennial Park.

Life is has been crazy busy lately and I’m very slowly burning out.

This busy life schedule is intentional. I’m trying to get myself out there as a Beauty Blogger, I’m trying to be social with people at work and spend as much time with my pets and family as possibly in between.

So you can imagine, life in the fast lane is taking it’s toll on me. Gone are the days when sleeping in on a weekend is something to look forward to because I’ve always made plans to meet friends of breakfast down Five Ways or catching up over High Tea. Which then follows with a catch up with family (usually with my dad and grandparents because they’re amazing!), which then leaves me with a late evening that I take up meeting the kids from work for a few ciders or glasses of red, sit on a balcony somewhere in the Eastern Suburbs under some nanna blankets, talking about the things that happen at work.

Ahhh, LIFE!

During a conversation with my best friend Zoe recently, she asked me what I had planned for the weekend. I had then punched out one event after another to which she said, “I don’t know how you do it!”

Well… neither do I.

The lack of sleep I’ve been getting is getting to me and I miss sleep so much and almost forgot what it feels like.

So! I’m now on a mission to catch up on sleep and to do some relaxing activities instead. I’m thinking things like, sitting in a book shop for a couple of hours – reading. A one hour relaxing massage. Walking around the Art Gallery for a day.

As far as everything else goes… health and eating is good. Could be a little better but I hardly have any food remorse anymore.

Til next month…

How do you like to rewind and relax when things in your life gets hectic?

Dear social life
Wow, you’re really taking off the last couple of weeks and it’s making me burn out. While I do enjoy a glass of red wine or a vodka sunrise every now and then, but three nights in a row – two of them during a school night – I haven’t done since I was twenty-one. I love that I’m making new friends… I love my sleep more.

Dear 3-day hangovers
I admit, I kept you around because I continuously drank. My bad. Just know, you and I will never be friends.

Dear LC
Miss Needy Megee. I don’t know what it is this week that you find the need to be at my feet or on my lap at every chance you get. Like, really?!
Also, you need to leave Andre alone. You don’t like it when she gets angry with you, so why provoke her? Animals huh.

Dear Andre
You’re a little better this week and not as grumpy with me (for no reason, I might add). You just need to stop thinking that my food is your food. I’m not too sure if that pigeon syndrome because you are from the same breed, but it needs to stop or you’ll make yourself sick. Human food isn’t always Andre food. I wasn’t particularly impressed that you ruined my first Filipino dish in sixteen years, but it’s funnier now than it was when it happened.

Dear work
You made me cry for the first time in a decade and that’s a huge deal! Don’t tell anyone I did, please. Not only will it ruin my reputation but I just don’t it to be repeated again.

Dear Seth MacFarlane
You are one HILARIOUS dude! Thank you for giving us TV shows like American Dad! and Family Guy. After a long day’s work, I love coming home and putting on an episode or two and just let myself laugh myself stupid! I’ve just finished American Dad! season 8 and getting through season 11 (it would be season 12 in Australia).

…As if this doesn’t look funny?

Happy FRIDAY!

Kiehl’s Ultimate Hand Salve
This took forever to use up but a product worth repurchasing. It’s thick, but light on the skin, non-greasy and keeps hand moisturised for hours. I’ve always found that it’s best suited for the colder seasons because it’s thicker, but that’s my own preference.

Swisspers Cucumber Refreshing Cleansing Wipes
Another month, another empty packet of makeup wipes. These have always been a favourite of mine. I love the cucumber scent over the others available.

Sportsgirl Remove It nailpolish remover wipes x2
Since I’ve been trying to grow my nails out I’m finding that I’m going through a lot more of these makeup pads than the average person (unless, you’re a nail blogger). I can’t stand the smell of ordinary nailpolish remover which is why I’ve opted for these instead.

Alchemy Light Jojoba Conditioner
I have mixed feelings about these conditioner lately. Initially when I started using it, it was perfect for my hair. It made it feel light, hydrated and shiny but over time it’s made my scalp flake (I know, gross!) and I’ve found that I’ve had to wash my hair more regularly than I did when I first started using it. I’ve now had to switch shampoo and conditioner to give my hair a bit of a break.
Hopefully I’ll start using it again because I love the way it made my hair feel and look.

Models Prefer Retractable Eyebrow Pencil in ‘Medium’
My go-to brow pencil and this is how I use it.
It’s affordable and does an amazing job. I can’t flaw this product except that it runs out too quickly. I’ve already repurchased this.

Lush’s ‘Honey I Washed the Kids’ soap
Again, another month… another bar of ‘Honey I Washed the Kids down the drain. Still obsessed with this scent and I love how it stays on the skin after I’ve showered. Also, still prefer the soap to the shower gel.
Already repurchased.

Lush’s Lemony Flutter
This is my holy grail cuticle cream and it also heavenly on dry elbows and cracked heels. A little goes a long way so this small tub will last you forever.

Dear Reese
Just when you think you are not strong enough, you are. Just when you think you’re not stubborn, you prove to be. Just when you think you’re not good enough for someone, someone else shows you that you are. Be good to yourself. You are far more stellar than you think.

Dear LC
You’ve been lovely this week. Lots of cuddles and affection. I think it’s mostly due to the weather getting colder, but I don’t mind. Repeat again next week.

Dear Andre
You grumpy angry little bird. I’ve let you have your freedom this week, spoiled you rotten with food and affection… and what do you do? Always attack me. Well then.

Dear Five Ways
Although we’re heading into Winter I love that you’re still shining on, not only with the weather but with coffee, Eggs Benedict and atmosphere.

Dear beauty blogging
I’m really enjoying this little “hobby” of mine. I am truly blessed and thankful for all the opportunities that are coming each day. Thank you everyone!

Dear sleep
I really miss you. I miss you more than I have ever missed anything before!

Dear Pops
Thank you for sending me that video of the lady in Ireland who couldn’t for the life of her parallel park. It was hiliarious, but what are you trying to say…? Also, thanks for the dad jokes during my weekly visit and during The Voice. They were epic!

Dear Autumn
I really dig the colder weather, so could you kindly switch it on more?

Happy FRIDAY!