Animal Farm (The Animal Obsession Continues)

Well I am back with another post dedicated to my doggy and kitty. Since they have changed quite a bit since the last time you saw them (doggy got a haircut, kitty grew up) I thought that I would share some photos that I took just the other day.  The last two pictures aren't so recent but I found them today so I thought I would share those as well.

Enjoy:)

What? Someone is taking my picture? Let me stop eating and pose!

Ok now I can go back to my bone!

Bird? Is there a bird up there?

To jump or not to jump...that is the question!

Is this a good pose? Am I relaxed enough?

Must have products!

Well this is a new section that I might be adding here, I don't think I will be doing this every month but whenever I have new favorites then I will write a post about them.

Now here are some of the products that I have been loving not only this month but for some time now :)

I have searched high and low for a decent mascara and I believe I have finally found one!  This mascara will give you unbelievable volume but also a little bit of length, it separates the lashes beautifully and does not clump. Only downside? It takes A LOT to take it off!

For us ''not in our teen years'' ladies out there we have to not only treat our blemishes but also the newly emerging lines.  This face wash will first of all take all of your make up off but also has salicylic acid which is continued to be released even after you are done washing your face.  Retinol is an added ingredient to fight those lines!

Are you new to the bb cream world and not sure which one to get?  If you have oily or acne prone skin and are looking for a full coverage bb cream then this one is for you! It gives a matte finish and will literally cover any imperfection, including those large cysts.  Put a little bit of powder on top so that it lasts all day and you are good to go!

If you have tried everything out there on your blemishes and still see no results then give tea tree oil a go! It is a natural antibacterial and will kill those bacteria that cause blemishes to come to the surface.  It does so without over drying the skin but make sure that you get this specific one from the body shop as it only contains 15% tea tree since I have tried the ones that were 100% and have burnt my skin!

This is THE most amazing powder I have tried so far for keeping your skin looking matte.  I even had another powder at one time and was using that instead of this one and in two hours time I used to get so oily in my t-zone that I had to put this one on top to keep me matte! If you are looking for coverage then you will need to use some sort of concealer under your eye area or on any imperfections that you may have and then use this on top since on its own it doesn't give any coverage.  As far as the scent of it goes, it does have quite a strong scent which you cannot smell once it's on your face, and as far as I am concerned it hasn't broken me out and this says a lot since anything can break me out!

After hearing from the youtube beauty gurus about the Urban Decay makeup setting spray I thought that I would give it a go since I live in a very hot climate and could use something that will make my makeup last longer.  After seeing how much it costs, however, I decided to go for the one I saw at the Body Shop which with the sale was 4.50 Euros and it works perfectly fine.  My face feels instantly refreshed when I spray this on and I have noticed that when I forget to use it, my makeup does not last as long as it would if I had sprayed this on.

I cannot say enough good things about this lipstick from Bourjois, first of all the color (number 17) is amazing for the summer time, it's a soft coral peach with a glossy finish which makes it perfect for both day and night time:) It also stains your lips which I had no idea about and I only discovered it after I had it on for hours, had a meal, had a drink and there was still a hint of color when I looked in the mirror!

This has quickly become one of my favorite perfumes, and when I say quickly I mean as soon as I got it! It has such a sweet and feminine smell that you will instantly fall in love with this.  Since I cannot possibly do it justice in a blog post, if you ever encounter this at a store then give it a sniff and I don't think that you'll be able to walk away without buying it :)

If you would like more information on these items then click on this link and you'll find everything that you need :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6tymOHXGQY

Till next time x

A Midsummer Day's Dream

I have the pleasure of having one of my oldest and dearest friends staying with me for a few days.  She came all the way from Paphos (which is 1.5 hours away, oh the distance!) and thus I decided to go with her for a walk to one of our lovely parks here in Nicosia.  We mostly went there for old times sake since that was our hangout back in our uni days :)

While we were there I could not help it but take a few pictures of the park for your eyes only. It is a fairly big park with a lot of space for children to run around, ride their bikes, play football and in general have a relaxed and fun day with their parents.

This little guy came to greet us as soon as we entered the park so I couldn't help but take its picture

The grass area is an ideal place for children to ride their bikes and for those who wish to play a friendly game of football

A little girl with no worries with her little pink bike, this is the life!

taking a stroll in this kind of scenery actually makes it a pleasant one!

This is kind of a famous bridge since a lot of local tv series will employ it for their romantic scenes

Don't feel like riding your bike of playing football? You can spread your blanket on the grass and have a nice picnic :)

What would be better than chilling between 3 palm trees?

And of course what park would be complete without a "waterfall"?

Till next time:) x

A plethora of pictures :)

I know that my two last blog posts have consisted of unrelated topics when compared to my previous blog posts, but since this blog is a little bit of everything I thought that it would be ok :)

This time round I decided to include some more pictures that I have taken either in my back yard, at the beach or at a mexican restaurant! Admittedly they are a bit random but then again so am I! If you stick till the end you even might get to see a little cheeky picture of me ;)

As far as I can remember all but one of these pictures were taken with my compact so again excuse the picture quality.

Here we go!

At the beach, obviously...! In Larnaca specifically, that's the only place in Cyprus where you can see that many palm trees :) 

Little Mindy, when she wasn't even a month old, still cute and innocent at that age

Little Mindy again...still innocent...

Aaand now the wild beast is awaken! Literally! She will not even let me pet her anymore, all she wants to do is bite my hand until it falls off!

This is her little brother who is a year older, he was such a cutie when he was a fluffy kitten!

Even though the quality is horrible I had to include a picture of my little baby boy, this is when a first got him from the shelter :)

As promised a pic of my sis and I (I am the one on the right), again horrible quality since I didn't want to use flash but here you go :)

Till next time! x

Don't always trust ''beauty gurus''

Alright so like any other normal girl watching youtube beauty gurus, I also get sucked into the products they rave about from time to time.  The thing is that PR companies will send them those products for free and then they will go on and on about how fantastic and life changing they are and why you just need to run out and buy them, and of course we are only human, so we do run out and buy them.

To be fair there are a couple of products that I bought due to youtubers' recommendations that have worked wonders and I have repurchased them time and time again.  So in this post I am going to discuss the products that have been worth buying and the ones that I literally wasted my money on.

Here is an overview of the products I bought, the good and the bad!

Let us begin with the good shall we?  Due to the fact that I have super oily skin I am always on the lookout for products that will take the shine away.  There is one specific youtuber that always raves about the Rimmel Stay Matte powder (like seriously always), therefore after watching several videos of her saying how it's the only powder she ever uses I decided to go ahead and buy it, since it is extremely cheap as well.  And to my surprise it worked better than I had hoped for!

Just to give you an idea of how oily I am, after I have applied my foundation the oiliness will begin to come through within the hour!  After setting my bb cream with this powder, not only my bb cream will stay in place for 8-9 hours but I will be shine free for 5-6 hours!

And yes, it does wonders for us oily people out there!

Absolutely everybody in the youtube beauty community have been raving about the Collection 2000 lasting perfection concealer, and rightly so.  I have tried an unbelievable amount of concealers since I do have imperfections that need to be hidden, this is THE only one that provides full coverage, does not break me out and will stay on for hours.  On a good skin day I will only have this on any imperfections and I am good to go! 

Literally best concealer out there!

The next product was a recommendation by two youtubers and since I trust one of them more than the other I thought that it was worth a try.  It is a product that is for acne prone skin and it claims that it unclogs your pores, thus leaving you with less breakouts.  Now to be fair I don't know how well it works on its own since I do apply it at night but I will use another product over that just on my imperfections.  It is the infamous La Roche-Posay Effaclar Duo; now there are two versions of this product, one which contains benzoyl peroxide and one which doesn't.  I have the one which is without it since it was impossible to get it shipped to Cyprus without having to pay a ridiculous amount of money, but I have to say that I got on with it pretty well since it has not irritated my skin.  Therefore I will list this under my ''successful buy'' category!

La Roche-Posay seems to have gotten it right

Now on to the bad!  When Rimmel came out with the Scandal Eyes Kohl Liner they sent this product probably to every beauty guru out there, and of course they all featured them in their videos. They were seriously everywhere; in their everyday make up look, in their monthly favorites, in their tutorials and the list goes on and on.  I like to put liner on my waterline, and since they don't call it a waterline for nothing, the liner NEVER stays put, it will ALWAYS end up under my waterline.  After listening to them go and on about how fantastic this product is and how it stays in place I decided to give it a go.  If only I had known better!  It is THE worst liner that I have ever had!  I tried it on my waterline, didn't even stay on for 5 minutes, i tried it above the lash line, didn't stay on for over half an hour!  It is ridiculous how bad this liner is, not to mention that this ''waterproof'' eyeliner came off extremely easily when I was washing my face.

Big no no!

Every girl will always be on the hunt for a mascara that will give her that false lash effect without having to use fake eyelashes right? The beauty youtube community claims to have found this product in Maybelline's The Falsies.  After having it seen it in tutorials and in monthly favorites time and time again I got sucked into the whole fiasco and went out and bought it.  Again, big mistake.  This mascara does absolutely nothing for my lashes, it does not add any volume nor any length (which to be fair it only claims to add volume), it just makes them more black and that is about it.

Huge no no!

And last but not least a product that is quite recent in the youtube beauty community, the Tangle Teezer! This amazing brush that is supposed to untangle your hair without damaging it.  The problem is that the bristles of this brush are not long enough to actually go into my hair and only stays on the surface!  Or even worse, when it does manage to go through, it does absolutely nothing for my knots which results in me using my old trusty hair brush to untangle my hair!

That is it, my rant is over.  If you do read this at a time when you are considering buying one of the products that have not been in my successful buys list then seriously do not buy them, do not waste your money on them.  In an ideal world youtubers would not recommend products that are absolutely worthless and would not prompt their young viewers who have no money to go out and buy them, but alas, it is their job and at the end of the day and they do what they have to do.

Till next time!

Help! Acne!

I know that I primarily started this blog to post pictures that I take with my camera, but after reading a post on Lauren Conrad's blog about when you should visit the dermatologist and saw in the comment section how many women are suffering with cystic acne I decided to write this post.

This is a very difficult thing for me to write because I have people reading this blog who have obviously seen that I suffer with cystic acne but never discussed it openly with them, but if my tips help even one person out there then it's worth it :)

When my acne began

I began to get blemishes on my forehead when I was about 13-14 years old, back then I had absolutely no idea how to apply makeup or how to apply a concealer correctly so that I would hide my blemishes but also not look like I have a ton of makeup on.  So the end result was me going to school with literally a ton of makeup on my face and having the boys in my class make fun of me, as if having a face full of blemishes wasn't enough...

Thankfully the cystic acne that I got was mainly on my forehead and I would also get a few spots on my chin but that was about it, so I went to the hairdresser's and got bangs to hide the blemishes I had.  I now know that that could be the cause of more breakouts but at the time I didn't know any better, the bangs did the job of hiding my blemishes and making look like I have flawless skin and that was all I needed at the time.

Moving on to my uni years, I remember that at the time I would only wear makeup on my forehead since that was my problem area and I would not put anything on the rest of my face, lucky me right? Wrong, because little did I know that my acne would later on start moving downwards to my cheeks, chin and jaw line!

The current state of my acne

My cystic acne seems to be hormonal, and believe it or not I actually very recently learnt what kind of acne I have and what cystic acne means since none of the dermatologists I ever went to explained it to me!

Now unfortunately I have breakouts all over my face, on my forehead, cheeks, chin, and jaw line but it's mostly on my cheeks.

On a good day I might have just a couple of spots on my cheeks (big ones of course), or there have even been days when I would have no blemishes at all and I would only have some acne scarring.

My skin from time to time (usually at least ones a month) decides to have a freak out session and I get big, red, inflamed, angry looking blemishes which are either going to be all over my cheeks or concentrated on a specific area one next to the other.  What usually happens is that I will get what I call a ''line'' of huge blemishes starting from my dimples and going down to my jaw line, and that is always pretty much a straight line of big, cystic, red blemishes!

Granted that this will normally happen during that time of the month or when I get extremely stressed over something, since when I am calm and stress free I am mostly blemish free!

My miracle product

As many of other acne sufferers, I have also spent A LOT of money on acne products!  At this point I can say which products work for me and which don't.

The product that HAS NOT worked for me is benzoyl peroxide; whenever I decide to use it (usually when I am so desperate that I don't know what else to do), my face turns red and the next day it starts peeling like crazy!

The products that HAVE worked for me are salicylic acid and wait for it...SUDOCREM, yes the nappy cream! I got some really bad breakouts just a few days ago and I have been applying a product that contains salicylic acid all over my face and then I apply just a bit of sudocrem on the blemish itself and it has honestly worked wonders. It reduces the size of the blemish; it will either bring it to a whitehead or make it completely disappear!

I have just realized that this post is already getting too long, therefore I will end it here but if you guys want me to write a post about my full skincare routine or products that I use that haven't broken me out or what kind of pill I am now on then please let me know in the comment section below :)

P.S: English is my second language so please excuses any mistakes :)

Poised Ballerina :)

Aaah, ballet, such a beautiful thing to watch right? So elegant, so poised, so ethereal...these are my exact thoughts whenever I watch a ballet performance and I always think to myself ''If only I could have the balance required to stand one one leg while the other one is up high in the air and look as poised as they do'', and what better way to venture into that by start taking ballet lessons?! Yes I have done it, I have started taking ballet lessons, and no the pictures below are not pictures of me, that's one of my best friends who also happens to be a very talented ballet teacher and took on the (impossible in my opinion!) task of teaching me ballet.

Since I always look for new and interesting things to take a picture of I decided to photograph her right before our lesson and she was kind enough to accept to stand on one leg while the other one is in the air and have me telling her ''hold it, hold it!'' so that I could take the picture. So there you have it, a few pictures of her posing for my camera lens. There is actually going to be a part 2 to this since after this session we found many more poses that she can demonstrate for your eyes only so be on the lookout for that one! Enjoy :)

Our ballerina in preparation

The ''pipes'' of torture

This elegant position that our talented ballerina is demonstrating is called Attitude derriere

And this is a demonstration of a Port de bras

While the sun is beaming on our ballerina we can see a first arabesque

In this picture as well as in the next two pictures below we can see a successful demonstration of various poses of the body