REESE ATOMIC

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.

Hey everyone! I have a small but particularly exciting haul to share.

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.

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Dear life
I’m so glad I decided to have a selfish week this week. I got a lot of things accomplished on my terms, on my time, at my own pace. I think I need to have these more often. This week I also bought myself a lot of nice things. Lots of Prada, makeup and other miscellaneous girly stuff.

Dear boys
Once again, wrong week to start flirting with me. I really don’t care nor am I flattered that you’re paying me attention. Please, do yourself a favour and stop embarrassing yourself.

Dear hair
I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but you’re amazing this week. One wash and you’re straight, light and soft, easy to manage and just making me look and feel amazing. How sad that I’m chopping you all off early next week.

Dear LC
Seems like you’re having an off week. I don’t know why you thought it was a good idea to throw your litter all over the bathroom floor while I was out, but it was a pain in the butt to clean it up. Urgh. Other than that incident, you’ve been hilarious.

Dear Honey Birdette
Oh my goodness! I am IN LOVE with you this week. So many beautiful things to look at, play with and try on. I haven’t felt sexy in a while, but you’ve restored that confidence in me this week.

Dear Winter
I’m very excited for you this year. Although I’m yet to prepare for you, I’m looking forward to nights at home with some hot tea and snuggles in bed.

Happy FRIDAY!

So, when it comes with fashion and accessories, I’ve always been a bag lady. Like Carrie Bradshaw loves shoes, I LOVE a pretty new handbag. I don’t often change my bags but when I feel like I need a new handbag, I really like to go all out and do some research and find one that is fitting for me and my lifestyle because I know that I won’t be changing for a while.

I’d say I change it up every six months, so it gives me time to save and have a shop around for something I really like and can afford to splurge, especially if it’s designer.

Here are a few I’ve got my eye on at the moment…

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Dear Zoe
This week has been a perfect example as to why we’re best friends. Even at 3am, you will still pick my calls. Thank you for everything!

Dear weight goal
I’m catching up to you fast! It feels good to heading down the right path now.

Dear LC
I hope you realise one day that walking all over me at the first signs of me waking up does NOT mean I’m going to rush out and feed you straight away. You have to stop thinking with your tummy. Other than that, you smell wonderfully of honey.

Dear Andre
You’re freaking me out with all this feather shedding! Slow down.

Dear new chapter
It’s not as depressing or sad as you anticipated. Shock horror, you’re actually HAPPY about it. Do some good things next week: go to the Easter Show, buy something nice for yourself, get that haircut you’ve been putting off for the last six months and buy that new handbag because it is getting embarrassing how you’re carrying around something that held together with safety pins.

Dear Topher
Your girls (myself, not included) miss you.

Happy FRIDAY!

Today I caught up with Tea from The Ladida for High Tea, a chat and a bit of shopping.

I love catching up with friends, especially Beauty Bloggers because I love to know what product they use and recommend and what events they’re attending or going to.

Over the course of a few hours we had a look through Priceline, Myer and through Gloss Accessories.

Although there were discounts on all of my purchases today, here’s the damage from today…

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There aren’t many brands out there who impress me so much with more than one of their products and it’s even more impressive when they’re not those department store brands or even a well-known brand, but a small brand that often gets missed amongst the other brands.

The one thing I find annoying about Face of Australia products are that they’re always out of stock, so you can’t go to one Priceline to stock up on your favourites. You have to go to several stores to get everything. Having said that though, it just proves how amazing these products really are.

I am in love with all of the products in the Face of Australia range at the moment and I’m on a mission to get familiar with a lot of their other products, other than their nailpolishes and eyeshadows. Here are some things on my radar…

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So, I’ve have a $20 Myer Gift Card sitting in my wallet for about… a month, maybe a little longer and I’ve never been too sure what I should spend it on.

I already buy things at Aēsop. I don’t like much at Mecca Cosmetica (Yeah, so sue me!). Illamasqua… ehhh, I wasn’t running out of anything in a hurry and I didn’t want to blow $20 on something I already have. I did consider Benefit and Bobbi Brown, but in the end I just couldn’t go past Kit Cosmetics and always wanted to try out the new Soap & Glory products.

One thing I noticed was they didn’t have the Sugar Crush Body Wash and I’m really hoping that Kit get it in soon because it was the first product that got me interested in the brand in the first place.

I was really surprised what I got for $20 + an additional $3-something to make the difference.

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This came in the mail for me yesterday and I thought I’d do a quick post of it.

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Hey everyone! Here is a small beauty haul I did the other day…

I can do individual product reviews on any of these products; please let me know in the comments if you’re interested.

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