Discovery of Natural Beauty.

The discovery of Natural Beauty Australia.

(feel free to scroll down to see my first natural beauty recipe trial)

It all started I was skipping alongside my naturally gorgeous friends looking for formal dresses in Myer and David Jones outraged that any sale item is over $800. Quite frankly I believe there should be a new Australian law that sale items should have a price limit! If your an upcoming Australian designer and stumble onto my site, there is a huge gap in the market for cheap quality unique clothing! I would also like to make a note that if your looking at the new Sunsilk "Designer Shampoo + Conditioner" advertisements, that Bettina Liano and Wayne Cooper have nothing compared to Akira's designs! Also Ms. Ho (that is Lisa Ho)-why did you put dots in your designs? Dots are overused and completely unoriginal. I was quite insulted that you expect the unknowing Australian public to pay an inflated price for dots. No thankyou very much.

Back to the story. We ditched formal shopping, ate a very unhealthy meal most probably high in saturated fat. (I'm vegetarian so I ate 5 white dinner rolls with potato and gravy). After our guilty lunch, my friend, Jennifer, led me into a store called "Lush". Now I've always considered going in there, but it just seemed like a heap of smelly handmade soaps that were overpriced. I turned out to be partially right.

It may because of my compulsive overeating but as soon as I stepped in, I wanted to devour the whole store. Filled with delicious products such as soaps and massage bars in shapes and textures of cake, jelly, and of course chocolate! Yummo! Now they were smelly (but not in the overpowering, your mum's old talcum powder way) like in different fruity flavours to sweet candy to no scent at all! Not only this but they were jam-packed with natural goodness to tone, cleanse, moisturise, soothe...let's just say they had a very beautiful range. Unfortunately they were about $14.50 per 100g. Now I am a cheapskate and as much as my friends tell me 'a little goes a long way', $14.50 just seemed like a bit much for tiny bar of soap especially when their ingredients (avocado, honey, lemon...)remind me of those I have stored in my fridge. I decided as soon as I got home I would look up how to make these and do-it-myself! The recipes seemed a little more complicated than I hoped (It took me about 20 minutes to understand what lye is) and I started to regret not doing Chemistry as a subject. So I'm thinking hand-made natural soaps are a little further down the path. I would like to start with some facial masks and herbal oils.

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Now onto the exercise-I count shopping as exercise because at the end of the day, my feet were aching! I spent a whole 11 dollars on bus fare today, and as I was carrying my wine marble knitted dress made of delicate yarn, I thought, since I didn't act on my impulse to eat the Lush store-I ate some Cadbury Macadamia chocolate I split with a friend. I felt quite guilty afterwards because I had bought the chocolate from Priceline just after I put back a skipping rope and an exercise ball in exchage for the choccie block. Don't lecture me just yet! I have made a couple of very good exercise-wise choices. First was my purchase from DealsDirect-I saved approx. 300 dollars on an exercise bike which came with arm swingy things! And I put it in my study so I could listen to my entire music collection while working out in the privacy of my own home. My mum wouldn't let me wear my dirty Puma trainers into the carpet study so I had to go out and buy some Dunlop trainers for inside exercise. I haven't actually had a workout on it as of yet, but it's one of my main weight loss tools. I used to go to a gym but I felt really self-concsious and never really went. I also bought four Belly Dancing DVDS recently. To make it a little easier to follow my exercise regime, I will list the resources I have.
-Pair of 2.5kg Dumbells
-1x Yoga DVD
-4X Bellydancing DVDS (Beginner, Intermediate, Advances, Tribal Fusion)
-1X Exercise Bike
-5km walk to and from my house to school.
-Pedometer.
-Tension Bands.

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Back to the beauty. After I skimmed through a few websites with home-made beauty recipes-I decided to do my own. I raided my kitchen cupboards. I didn't have cornstarch (which seems to be a popular ingredient) so I used plain flour. What I did find was a brochure for kiwi fruit, turns out it's jam-packed with goodies like Vitamin C, Potassium, Fibre, Vitamin E, Anti-oxidants, Folate, Magnesium, Lutein and Zinc. I could tell immediately I could eat this fruit and feel happy I did something good for my body, but then I thought I should use this kiwi fruit in a custom-made beauty recipe! So I did. Here's my results.

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Natural Beauty Reciple 1#:

What you need:
-Ceramic Bowl
-Mixing Bowl
-Whisk
-Kiwi Fruit (Puree if possible)
-Plain Flour (Approx. 4 tablespoons)
-Face Towel
-Freshly Boiled water

1. Put the kiwi fruit puree into a boil with only a small amount of flour. Whisk away mashing the kiwi if it is not pureed beforehand. Add flour in small amounts until you feel the consistency is smooth and is not likely to fall off your face.
2. Fill the cermaic bowl up with freshly boiled water near the rim but not so it's too full or overflowing. Put the face towel on top of the bowl but make sure the water isn't touching it but the steam from the bowl can make the towel moist.
3. Place the face towel on your face to open your pores.
4. Go into a bathroom and put the mixture on.
5. Wash it off with tepid water.

Afterwards-
My initial reaction was my skin was a little itchy but after a while it subsided and my skin just felt smooth.


Exercise:
Shopping?