I don't know about you guys, but whenever it's that time of the month, I'm always too tired to put much effort into my makeup. Hence, last week has been more about skincare more than anything. Never thought I'd say that. 

[Clarins Lotus Face Treatment Oil | Rimmel Lasting Finish By Kate Lipstick | Indeed Labs Pepta-Bright]

Happy Turkey Day! Or as traditionally known as, Happy Thanksgiving! Truth be told, I haven't celebrated this holiday since moving away from America more than a decade ago. This year, although based in London, I was invited to a couple Turkey dinners, but chances are, this time tomorrow, I'll still be weeping over not finishing the essay that's due on Friday. (Oh yeah, I'm typing this up on a Wednesday afternoon, when I'm supposed to be tackling that essay) 

Although I'm not celebrating this holiday, I wanted to take this opportunity to count off the things I'm thankful for in the past year. 

Eyebrows. I never understood the whole "they frame your face" idea over brows, I mean as long as I don't have an unibrow, what difference could it possibly make? And then I went through blogs and had a couple (figurative) clobberings by makeup artists before I finally started to learn my lesson. 

[Bobbi Brown Brow Brush | MAC Mystery | Top Shop Brow Pencil | Spoolie]

Here it is guys. You guys have been asking me for a review of this since I first premiered this on the blog a couple months(!) back (see the haul here). I have to admit, I kept putting it off because it's a skincare product and I just don't feel like I'm familiar with skincare in any way. But I absolutely LOVE this product and just had to try and share my love with you guys. Plus, you guys kept reminding me that I was due of a review....

My lip balm collection has grown drastically from none to a handful. And yet. I still manage to be outside, find my lips ridiculously chapped, but somehow manage to not even have a single lip balm on me. It's happened multiple times already and it happened today. Normally I'd just wait it out, but I needed a study break from the library before my next class and there was a Superdrug around the corner. Oops. 

It's that time of the week again. As temperature drops, uni works starts caging me at home. Still, in the midst of essay preparation and procrastination, I still managed to sneak some time outside and take quite a few photos to share with you guys. 

I think I'm pretty diligent when it comes to washing my makeup brushes. It's usually an excuse to step away from my studies (or the illusion of studying), do a little bit of experimental makeup before washing away all the evidence. Both from the face and the brushes. I have a small collection of brushes and I never really noticed how many I use on a weekly basis until I took the photos for this post. 

Oh spots. Why? Currently, my jaw line looks like a frat party of blemishes. A lot of them are the small dark ones, with a couple of huge under-the-skin-please-stop-hurting spots. I've been amping up my skincare routine in hopes to end this fiesta, but in the meantime, I'm striving to aim for a base that'll let me look less like a red dalmatian. 

Scarves. They're probably my favorite accessory in the world. You have the lightweight ones that you're able to add a touch of something in the spring/summer, and then you have the huge chunky ones that are able to keep you warm whilst looking cute in the colder months.

You know that tousled, I just rolled out of bed looking this fantastic look? Back in the old days, I was convinced that not brushing my hair in the morning would result in that look. Little did I know, I was closer to looking like a bird's nest than that chic undone 'do. My hair was always on the coarse side, I never thought that I could ever have ridiculously soft hair. but after chopping off near 20 cm a couple months back (read about it here) and getting my nubby fingers on my current hair loves (here), my hair has elevated to a whole new state that actually requires a styling product to have it hold. Trust me when I say this was never required before. So enter Bumble and Bumble Billiantine. 

Ahh - it's that time of the week again. Me panicking and wondering if I took enough photos to do the weekly London Update for you guys. Also hating myself for procrastinating the reading I have for classes tomorrow. Unfortunately, this week, I've been forgetting my phone at home a lot more and/or forgetting that I should've been a good blogger and taken more photos. So this week's update is going to be a lot less graphic-y compared to earlier weeks. 

I've fallen in love with Rimmel polishes ever since I got my paws on my first bottle several months back (read about it here). Is it just me, but I can never justify spending more than several pounds on a bottle of nail polish that I know I'll never be able to finish. So even when I was back in Taiwan, my extensive nail polish collection very rarely contained bottles of OPI, Butter London and such. Don't get me wrong, I love to be gifted them, I just hesitate a lot when it comes to buying them for myself. Anyway, back to Rimmel, they make amazing quality nail polish at a ridiculously inexpensive price point, plus I'm starting to realize they're more often on sale than not. 

I'm a neutral shadows kinda gal, despite owning gorgeous colored shadows. The most use I get out of them is taking them out of the storage, looking fondly at them, swatching on the back of my hand, before sorrowfully shaking my head and tucking them back into my drawer. Despite all this, I can't bring myself to stop buying colored shadows. So this year, I have my mind set on attempting more looks with colored shadows.

I need to take pictures of things other than food. I'm starting to realize that all my updates have contained some kind of food. 

I have to say, October was good to me. Blogwise, I've been managing to update a couple times a week. School-wise, I'm slightly falling behind on the piles of reading that's slowly piling up on the side of my desk. And lifewise, one word. Amazing. I've been having weekly The London Update posts that you can check out here if you want to have a nosey into my life.