Goals And Resolutions For 2017

Goals And Resolutions For 2017

Personal Cosmetopia Digest   Monday, January 02, 2017

Happy New Year! I hope you and your loved ones have had a great Holiday season, wherever you are around the world. I also wish each of you a very fruitful and prosperous 2017!
2016 was one of the three worst years of my life. I spent the first few months hiding at my parents' place, not even stepping out to sign for packages, with my face ravaged by a terrible breakout. Things began looking up from the mid-year, and I am due to start subcision for the scars from January 18.
For 2017, my goals are as follows:

iPhone Skins For Beauty Lovers

iPhone Skins For Beauty Lovers

Urban Decay Cosmetopia Digest   Sunday, April 10, 2016

My Dad gave me an iPhone 6S in rose gold for Christmas, thereby marking the end of a decade's association with Sony [Ericsson], which had started with the T610 and gone on through a couple of Xperias. In fairness, my Xperia was on its last legs after all the abuse it suffered at my rough hands.
It took me a while to warm to the iPhone. The Xperias, I felt, looked way cooler. "Get a skin," suggested Dad, showing me his Charles Bronson - in The Evil That Men Do - skin. I picked these up in the local mobile accessories mart.

A Roman Summer: Sights, Spaghetti and Sephora

A Roman Summer: Sights, Spaghetti and Sephora

Travel Cosmetopia Digest   Wednesday, July 29, 2015

I had the chance to spend a few days in Italy three weeks ago. This being a beauty blog, let me first tell you they have three fabulous Sephora outlets in Rome and some great regional brands, about which I will talk in a few days.
Why "fabulous" Sephora? Because they give more GWPs than the Dubai branches (who give more freebies than most other countries) and because they had a whopping 20% discount sale (off EVERYTHING) going on when I was there! The day I first hauled, I thought my bill would run up to a four-digit sum, but it only came up to three-digit figures after the discount.
And the soaps! There were so many varieties of Roman soaps! I bought a dozen or so and exceeded my baggage quota.
But Italy wasn't all about Sephora and makeup. I have some 30GB of (medium-sized) photographs from Italy alone. I'll show you a sample selection. Warning: Picture-heavy post!

Check out a few of my favourite sights, snacks and shops in Italy.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

Personal Cosmetopia Digest   Thursday, January 01, 2015

 

Happy New Year! I wish each of you and your families a great start to 2015. 

The annual New Year Carnival parade takes place here over the course of the next 24 hours, commencing with the burning of the "papanji" (pronounced pappa-nyi) on the beach at midnight, a custom derived from the Portuguese. A giant effigy of the "papanji" is erected each year - you are seeing this year's version in the photo above, taken an hour before midnight.
Each year, the Mayor or some other distinguished guest sets fire to the effigy of the "papanji", which comes the Portuguese word "pai". The "papanji" is different from Father Christmas, and stands for the old "Father Year", which has now become shabby and doddering, and must be extinguished so the New Year can be born.
What can I say, when you come from a place that was colonised and/or occupied by the Portuguese, the Dutch, the Jews and the British one after the other from 1498, you must expect to be part of a cultural melting pot.

A Beautiful Christmas amid an ugly war and sights from 2014

A Beautiful Christmas amid an ugly war and sights from 2014

Personal Cosmetopia Digest   Thursday, December 25, 2014

It is Christmas Eve! Merry Christmas to you and yours! Christmas is my favourite time of the year, followed by April (my birthday). I hope you are having the most beautiful Christmas of your life.
A hundred years ago, on this very day... it was Christmas. Christmas in a world at war. At war with itself.
Man killing man. The ugliest sight ever. And yet, in those killing fields, the brave men who were sent there merely to obey orders and kill each other without rhyme or reason created a beautiful Christmas on this very day in 1914, perhaps the most beautiful Christmas since the first one in Bethlehem more than 2,000 years ago. This post is about that beautiful Christmas, created amid some stark ugliness, and includes local sights from Christmas 2014. 

Hallowe'en Special: Seven Deadly Sins link party

Hallowe'en Special: Seven Deadly Sins link party

Tags Cosmetopia Digest   Saturday, October 26, 2013

No, not the Seven Deadly Beauty Sins post (here). This is a link-up for Hallowe'en that I found on Nina's Bargain Beauty - who in turn found it on Whispering Sweet Nothings. And since my NaNoWriMo 2013 project is titled (for now) "Seven Deadly Shimmers" (christened by one of the more creative people on their forum), I figured the timing was right for me to do this link-up.