Shall we gloss over the part where I failed to write a single post all through January? Okay, great, ‘cos I have some super important stuff to talk about this week. Like moisturisers and shoes. And biscuits! OMGZ!

For my birthday last year I treated myself to some very fancy French face cream. It was tres lovely but also totally expensive. However, it seemed worth it because it made my skin look and feel like angels had been kissing me all over my face. I was into it.

It also lasted AGES and so you can imagine my horror when I was in Auckland two weeks ago and ran out of my angel cream. Times were desperate, ladies. I needed angel skin in order to make an effective impression on the people I was working with! So, in the hope that the power of my face cream would last through a day or two of different, cheaper, more readily available face cream, I went to Farmers.

There were approximately 50 million different moisturisers that were aimed at me. What to choose? In the end, I followed my heart and chose a moisturiser by Natio (I am a HUGE Natio fan. Buy the handcream in the green tube and thank me later).

It’s now two weeks later, and my skin still looks like angels have been kissing it. This is what I bought:

The much cheaper Angel Cream

It cost less than $30. I also have the eye cream and moisturising face mask which are also both superb. My skin is hydrated and plump, I haven’t had a single break out, and it smells really nice. The packaging says it is a good base for make up and this is completely true – all of my make up has been going on smooth and delicious. I work in air-conditioning and am prone to dry patches – not with this stuff! I really cannot rave about it enough! It might not be an anti-aging as my fancy face cream, but I think we’ll just go with aging gracefully and call this one a win.

And now for shoes. I went to Sydney a coupla weeks ago (yes, I am soooooo jet-set) and bought some shoes. They’re super pretty, and I have been wearing them lots, but what I have realised is this – winter is nearly here in W-town. How much longer can I realisitically wear my tan platform sandals for? By April I’ll be in my heavy coat and boots again. So, I need some boots for winter that will fill the space in my heart that is currently filled with tan sandals.

There are two contenders (and by “two contenders”, assume I will buy either these boots or something similar but much, much cheaper, not that I will only buy one or the other):

1. The AWESOME short boots I saw at Shoe Connection. I believe they’re from the Jeffrey Campbell line and they’re a different colour on the front and the back. This is a terrible description. If I can sneak a photo I will edit the post, but what I love about them is the quirkiness, the heel height, and the texture. Delish.
2. The red knee-high boots I saw at Briarwood with the leaf pattern stamped into them. I lust for them (why aren’t the pictures on the damn website?) but they are $600, which I accept is ridiculous unless these boots are guaranteed to last me the next ten years and snag me a pony. I should probably avoid trying these on and instead buy plain black boots which will be suitable for a larger number of occasions.

Does anyone else have dreamy shoes they’re eyeing up at the moment? I promise I won’t buy them (there’s no room for any more shoes at my casa – except winter boots).

And finally, we come to biscuits. But not just any biscuits, no no no. Remember my introduction photo? Yeah, that was me chilling in Paris. Well, while in Paris I also went to Laduree, home of the most delicious food I have ever eaten. I had macaroons. They were so good that I felt bad for eating them.

When I came back to Wellington, I missed those macaroons a lot. I imagined myself in Paris, stripy tops and berets as far as the eye could see, scoffing Laduree macaroons every day (in my dream this was not unhealthy) (also, I suited berets which is not the case in real life). Imagine sad violin music and a montage of me eating other biscuits and either looking mournful or throwing the biscuit into a corner and then sobbing hysterically into my hands – that was my life without macaroons.

WELL, fear not for my mental health, because guess what? Moore Wilsons has macaroons! Not from France, vous comprenez, but from Wellington. I assume that at least one of the people making them is French because her name is Helene with acutes and graves over every “e”. I can’t do that kind of fancy typing on WordPress. Sorry.

Look at the box. That's a real wax seal right there.

They are super delicious. My favourites are the raspberry and the lemon, but you can also get vanilla or chocolate, or a mixed box:

This just makes me want to go and buy a box right now...

They’re less than $10 for a box. So if you’re feeling sad and lonely, there’s a service I can render…that is, a recommendation to get down to Moore Wilson’s. For macaroons.

That is all. Tell me about your shoe dreams/best ever cheap cosmetics/favourite treats so I can try them all!

(For future reference in the event I go missing, please refer to these super-fly blogs to tide you over:

• http://www.theglamourai.com/
• http://cupcakesandcashmere.com/
• http://www.saucyglossie.com/
• http://www.leblogdebetty.com/en/

And for some giggles such as I do not usually provide anyway:

• http://thebloggess.com/
• http://www.2birds1blog.com/ (although they are currently away writing their book).

Don’t hate me for being busy!)

In my intro post I asked for suggestions regarding what I should write about. Theresa, all the way from Koala-land, suggested I write about how I put an outfit together. Initially I was hesitant: I don’t know that I am qualified to tell people how to get dressed. However, since I am new here, I figured I should write for my existing audience, and obviously I know what I do to dress myself. So Theresa, this one’s for you.

First off, I usually choose one thing I feel like wearing. Often this is the shoes. Tonight it was a particular jacket. I think this works for me because it’s like a focal point and it stops me saying “I have nothing to wear”.

Then I guess I usually “theme” my outfit, which sounds weird but works. For example, on Friday my overall look was a wee bit Diane Keaton in Annie Hall (but obviously modernised). If you think about it, when you go into stores you will never see a  mannequin dressed in a t-shirt and jeans. That wouldn’t capture the imagination of the customer, so the store gives each outfit a “direction”, like “alpine princess” or “boho glam”. In fact, large chain stores like Glassons or Sportsgirl give their entire shop a direction, because it creates a cohesive look that is easy for the customer to get into. And that’s how you ended up buying into the “Navajo warrior queen” look.

When in doubt (or running late for work), I use a palette of colours. Three is a good number: one focal colour, such as red, and then two more neutral colours that can be repeated, like cream and dark grey. I learnt this at Glassons as a merchandising trick. The outfit looks neat and pulled together, but doesn’t look like you just gave up. This is also a good way to learn how to print-mix!

Accessorise the hell out of your outfit. Do I ever leave the house without some kind of accessory? Nope. Accessories are usually pretty cheap, and in my experience they are the thing most people will comment on.

Little tweaks make a big difference: sometimes rolling up my sleeves, pinning my hair up, or wearing a shirt tucked in instead of hanging out will make me love an outfit that I was just planning to throw in a heap.

Think about the last time someone complimented your outfit. I know exactly what I was wearing the last time someone stopped me in the street to tell me they liked my outfit…and now I know it’s a winner. A compliment means you have found a good look, so you can replicate this in different colours and patterns.

Buy things that have a point of difference. It takes a while to build up a good basic wardrobe, but once you have it’s time to get some conversation-starters in there. Use them as a building-block. For example, I have a full cotton skirt that features cream  silhouettes of ladies dancing around the hem. The skirt has a very definite 50s, ladylike look and so I carried that through the rest of the outfit.

Finally, make sure your clothes fit, they’re in good condition, and that you feel confident in them. 90% of a good outfit is the strut!

Okay, so I’m not technically a mother. But I have brainwashed my cat into thinking that I did indeed birth her from my very own loins. For guilt trip purposes only–nothing perverse.

And when it comes time to change her nappies I like to reach for Bepanthen Nappy Rash Ointment. It’s also the best product I’ve come across for healing and preventing dry lips.

It isn’t pretty, it doesn’t smell nice (the lanolin content makes you feel like you’ve been pashing a sheep), and the ingredients list* is pretty basic, but it works really well at keeping lips soft and smooth.

I tend to apply this at night and perhaps again in the morning. That’s it. It isn’t one of those lip products that has to be reapplied constantly throughout the day to keep your lips from shrivelling up. I’ve been using it for a few months now and after the first couple of days my lips were in really good condition and have remained so.

Bepanthen also has other uses. It makes a good cuticle cream, works well on small cuts and scrapes to prevent them from drying out as they heal, and–as I found after developing a rash from the dye in one of my scarves–helps to clear contact dermatitis**.

I bought my 30g tube for about $8 down at the local supermarket (if you’re interested in trying this make sure you get the nappy rash ointment and not the antiseptic cream in the blue box).

*Ingredients: purified water, lanolin, liquid paraffin, soft white paraffin, dexpanthenol (provitamin B5), almond oil, white beeswax, cetyl alcohol, stearyl alcohol, ceresin, glyceryl mono-oleate, lanolin alcohol.

**As always patch test on a small area first, and please see a medical professional rather than relying on information from some waffling idiot on the internet etc.

There are some nail colours that make my hands look neat and polished and unobtrusive (Revlon “Hot for Chocolate”). And there are some colours that make me want to stare at my fingers all day long. Enter Orly “Green with Envy”:

When my local Farmers started stocking full size Orly polishes (they had previously only had a fairly uninspiring, never-changing selection of minis) I was on to that like a woman obsessed with nail polish on to a new range of nail polishes–cf. “dog on a bone”.

The bluey-green “Green with Envy” was the first to catch my eye and after much um-ing and ah-ing (so many colours, so little cash), it ended up coming home with me.

I slightly lost some of my enthusiasm after applying the first coat. So sheer. Ridiculously sheer. Fortunately the second coat redeemed things a bit and would probably have been quite wearable if it weren’t for my horror of Visible Nail Line. So three it was:

My poor cold little hands. I had to warm them by the heater to remove some of the blue tone before taking these photos. The sun has finally made it far enough up to start melting the thick layer of frost on the ground, but it’s still so icy my hands have spent most of the morning wrapped around a endless parade of steaming hot cups of tea. But back to the polish.

It’s showing up slightly bluer in these pictures than it is in life. On my nails it is unmistakeably green. And of all the recent wave of greens this is the one that most suits my skin tone. Not that I have any objection to wearing colours that aren’t entirely flattering–as a complete colour slut I’ll wear anything–but it’s nice to find something that is.

Wear has been excellent, which on my uber-ridgey nails is nothing short of a miracle, and I can say without hesitation: next time the pennies align themselves just right, I’ll be back at the Orly stand um-ing and ah-ing over the next colour to come home with me.

Pretty much my favourite thing to do ever is lie down. And since everyone needs a hobby I like to combine lying down with smothering goop all over my face.

Enter the Ayur Sandal Face Pack. I found this at my local Indian grocer and the combination of sandalwood–one of my favourite fragrances–and mud proved irresistible.

This comes as a powder containing sandalwood, multani mitti (Fuller’s earth), calamine, and kaolin. They suggest you add rosewater to make up the mask, but I preferred to use plain water as I’m not that keen on the rosewater I have. You could also add in any extras you like. Milk and yoghurt seem popular in recipes I have seen for Indian face packs; other options include honey, green tea, or lemon juice (always patch test before using ingredients you haven’t tried before).

As you’re mixing this yourself you can make it up to your preferred consistency. For my first attempt I probably made it a bit too thick and will be adding more water next time.

For anyone who has changed a few nappies the colour of the mask may prove to be slightly disconcerting. My web-cam-under-fluorescent-lighting photo really doesn’t capture its full glory:

I recommended closing your eyes, lying back, and letting the gentle waft of sandalwood transport you to India. Also really low lighting.

This performed as is fairly standard for a mud-based mask: it slurped up the slightest trace of oil on my face and left it temporarily smooth and finer pored. It is sold as an “anti-dryness face pack”, but a thousand times no. Don’t even go near it unless your skin leans at least slightly towards the oily side.

As an added bonus this left my skin lightly fragranced with sandalwood–which I enjoyed as I undertook the rest of my evening’s lying down–and at $3.99 for 100g didn’t leave my wallet in to bad a condition either.

Recently I have become bored with my ‘style’ mostly because of a lack of effort on my part. Over the next couple of weeks I’ll be running a series of posts on my quest to revamp my look… Any one who has any great suggestions- or PPP ladies in Welly that want to come shopping or give me make-up tips or tricks just comment below!

(to the tune of “My Favorite Things”)

Pearly eyeshadows from ivory to graphite,

Waterproof liners that create huge cat eyes,

Glittery eyelashes shining like bling,

These are a few of my favorite things!

Yep, if you wore glasses for a decade, you’d be obsessed with eye makeup too.  I think half of it is that I neglected that section of the counter for so long — I didn’t get contacts until I was 17.  The other half is that I’m of Chinese descent and have the eyes to prove it; no matter how much eyeshadow is applied to my lids, the color disappears the second my eyes open.  Good thing I like challenges.

Hi, I’m Esther and I’m blogging from Chicago, Illinois, USA…so you’re probably wondering how I found my way here.  Well, I met Jo when I visited Wellington in November 2009, and heard about PPP. Then our mutual American friend gave me a heads up that PPP was looking for writers, saying it would be a “perfect marriage of your love of travel/writing/beauty.” She’s right, and I really don’t think any of those three could exist without the other two.  I like finding out what other people consider “pretty” and how they got to look that way.  Even something so simple as looking tan will draw strong proponents and opponents — is it a chic resort look or a farmworker’s look?  Depends on what you’re wearing, I guess!  Or maybe you’re using something in NZ that’s unavailable to me — why is that?  Is it the lack of a US distributor or some issue with an ingredient?  And finally, maybe I can show you a few cool products you might not have tried yet — like the aforementioned glitter mascara and the US version of manuka honey facecare stuff.

In short: I like buying/learning about cool beauty products that aren’t available in the US, and you should look for the mascara section of “Winningest Products” to expand quickly.

Photo: Me without makeup, which happens more often than I’ll admit.