Where To Eat: London

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Where To Eat: London

Spring travel season approaches, and London is a great destination to consider. It's shoulder season still for one, meaning it can be a more affordable time of year to visit, and secondly, it's quite a pretty time as well with flowers and trees in bloom. I imagine Kew Gardens is lovely in springtime.

If this grand city is calling to you, you can check out my post covering my London vacation last autumn that includes a bit of an overview, where I stayed and why it was a convenient home base, getting around the city, and places worth visiting.

But let's talk about food. 

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Could This Too Faced Palette Be The Summer 2016 Go To?

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Could This Too Faced Palette Be The Summer 2016 Go To?

 In a sea of contouring and strobing comes a shiny, fruity beacon with pops of color for this summer that could very likely become a top loved palette depending on texture and application. Considering this is Too Faced, I'm very optimistic about these prospects.

 While there still isn't a release date yet, the Too Faced Sweet Peach Palette, part of their upcoming Summer 2016 collection, could be the go-to palette for me this summer. 

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For Backpacking, The Doctor Is In

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For Backpacking, The Doctor Is In

Doctor Bronner's can be used as shower gel, bath soak, washing hair and face in a pinch, as laundry soap, etc. etc. It claims to have 18 uses, but as travel goes I care about it as shower gel, face wash, and laundry soap. I have tried it on my hair, without Doctor Bronner's follow up Hair Rinse, and found I didn't like it. But then again, apparently you're supposed to use the slightly acidic hair rinse to counteract the alkali in the soap. Without it, it makes the hair feel a bit dry and off. 

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Sunday Riley Blue Moon Tranquility Cleansing Balm

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Sunday Riley Blue Moon Tranquility Cleansing Balm

I've recently gotten into cleansing balms, because quite frankly I think they're amazing. A good one removes makeup gently, cleanses, and leaves the skin baby soft. When Sunday Riley launched Blue Moon Tranquility Balm, featuring the blue tansy oil popularly in their night oil Luna, I figured it was a good time to test!

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Ch-ch-changes! Tot later, Amsterdam. Ciao, Italia!

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Ch-ch-changes! Tot later, Amsterdam. Ciao, Italia!

Sometimes the best laid plans change, and that's never more true than when it comes to traveling. The Amsterdam trip I was planning for May is now postponed tentatively for 2017. It happens, but luckily it's early enough in the year for me to cancel my Cocomama reservation. While I was looking forward to seeing the canals and tulips, I'm repurposing that travel bug energy into trying to work out a mid-June trip to Italy instead. I figure, hey, it's better than being bummed and there's still some time to see if it can happen.

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Losing Your Faves

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This one isn't about makeup or travel. And a post should have gone up yesterday but some work related things went FUBAR and truthfully I've been out of it a bit this week. 

Last Friday I went to sleep reveling in a new David Bowie album. Monday I woke up and saw the news he passed away and I suppose I've been mourning this since then. I've been going through his albums on spotify while at work. I'm up to Outside right now. 

Then today, I wake up and check facebook. I see Alan Rickman's photo first before the words but my heart sank because I knew. Trending- Alan Rickman. Alan Rickman Dies, Age 69.

And I just can't. I loved both their bodies of work and I'm thankful that in all the history of humanity I could live in the same time they did, but I cant help thinking this is part of what sucks about growing up- your heroes die.

There are much more eloquent articles out there now about Rickman, so I'll say this much:

Fuck cancer. Fuck it hard. 

A Drugstore Anastasia Brow Whiz Dupe?

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A Drugstore Anastasia Brow Whiz Dupe?

As someone with dark brunette hair, finding the perfect eyebrow pencil can be Sisyphean to say the least. So many pencils, even listed as dark brown, lean reddish brown and end up looking a bit rubbish on my brows. I've had luck with Tarte Emphas-Eyes and Anastasia Brow Whiz pencils, but they aren't cheap at $19 and $18 respectively.

And then L'Oreal said, "hey, let's dupe that!" Probably. 

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City Pharma/French Pharmacy Haul

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City Pharma/French Pharmacy Haul

Much belatedly, considering I was in Paris in October, here is my French pharmacy/City Pharma haul. Given than it's been over two months now, I've had time to test these products pretty thoroughly so consider this a haul and a review after months of trial.

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New Year, More Me In-Progess

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New Year, More Me In-Progess

New Year's always seems to bring the idea of "New Year, New You" and resolutions, and while I'll be waist-deep in this concept for work over the next few weeks (yay, content marketing for e-commerce!), instead of making "new me" as a goal for 2016, I've decided to look at it more as me, in-progress, and continue working on existing and newer goals as opposed to the idea I need to become a new person.

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Winter Destinations- Honolulu

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Winter Destinations- Honolulu

Vacation is usually synonymous with summer time, but there's something to be said about traveling in winter. It's usually the cheapest time of year for many destinations worldwide, and traveling in a shoulder season means places are less crowded. Why not spend some time next December strolling through Christmas markets in London or Germany? Or, if you're wanting to get away from the cold there's always Hawaii.

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Colds, Tea, and Flash Gordon

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Currently, I'm parked on my sofa taking a nasty hit from a cold that was going around the office. I managed to feel well enough last night to see Postmodern Jukebox, but woke up feeling incredibly worse for wear on day 5 of Coldmas. 

I have my tea in my Han Solo mug, lotion coated tissues, and Flash Gordon on TV. I've spent most of today asleep or watching various Vlogmas blogs when I should have written more of a fiction draft I'm writing, but I can barely sit up for long. Hurray for the Blog app!  

How is everyone's holiday season going so far? It feels like December is going by so fast! I'm trying to be good at posting on Monday and Wednesdays every week, although tomorrow will likely not happen now as I normally try to prep those posts on Sunday and today has been a total wash.

But I digress. Hopefully we carry on as usual for Wednesday.  

Winter Skincare Favorites

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Winter Skincare Favorites

With the weather outside growing cooler and already living in a dry climate, winter becomes the time for careful consideration in the skincare department. I normally have a bit of combination skin, but it does get drier in winter. I've found the best routine that works for me is cleanse-acid tone-spritz tone-serums-treatment-moisturizer. With that in mind, I've broken down my winter skincare favorites by where they sit in my routine. I prioritize gentle exfoliating to combat any flakiness, brightness, and moisturizing overall during winter as my desired results. Most of what I recommend should work for all skin types, but your skin mileage may vary and ultimately what works for you will work for you. :)

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Virgin America Upper Class SFO-LHR/LHR-SFO

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Virgin America Upper Class SFO-LHR/LHR-SFO

On our vacation to London, we chose to fly Virgin Atlantic Upper Class for the 10.5 hours there and 12 back because we had amassed the required 50,000 Elevate points each to redeem the Virgin Atlantic Upper Class award, through just flying a lot on Virgin America, both having Virgin Visa Credit Cards (we get 8 points per $1 base airfare using our cards to book Virgin America flights), some Amex Memberships Reward point transferring, and a good points buying sale around last winter time. Virgin America and Virgin Atlantic, despite being both Virgin, are separate brands and airlines, but they do partner together. This means if you are a Virgin Elevate member and have enough points, you can redeem them for award seats on Virgin Atlantic, also Virgin Australia, Hawaiian Airlines, Singapore Airlines, and more. 

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