A Quick Update!

Throwback: Filthy Rich by Furless. Wowsers, I need to dig this polish out again! <3

Hi guys! You may have noticed fewer blog posts from me over the past couple of weeks, and I just wanted to quickly update you. Every year, around mid-August to the end of September, my life goes bat-shit crazy! It's my busiest time of the year and includes my Dad's Birthday, Father's Day, my Wedding Anniversary, my Birthday, my son's Birthday, a Birthday Party for my son to organise, the Royal Adelaide Show and this year also includes a medical appointment, a concert I won tickets to and a week away! No, the medical appointment is not for stress, but it should be!

I'll be very busy, but I still hope to post here and there, and of course will fulfill any arrangements with brands and PR by posting reviews when I'm supposed to, because I'm a professional. :D This is where some pre-written scheduled posts would have come in handy, but we all know I'm not that organised. I'm disappointed to have missed linking up to the Fabulous And Fun Life Monday Makeup Madness linky party for a few weeks, but I had no new beauty posts to boast! I know it will still be there when things settle back down for me in October, so not to worry.

If you only see a few posts from me for the next month and I don't get time to visit your blogs and comment, now you know it's not because I'm dead. And on that cheery note....

Have fun, lovers!
Di
x

Don't miss a post!

Like Max The Unicorn on Facebook

Follow on BlogLovin'

Follow me on Twitter @ShinyGlitterBug

Fart Eradication with Airwick Life Scents!

It's no secret that boys smell of farts. And when you're living with two award-winning male fart machines, it's double the stench. Which is where Airwick comes in. When I was offered the chance to review a few products from the new Airwick Life Scents* range I happily agreed (I think you know why). I was kindly sent the Home Signature Reed Diffuser in Vanilla Bean & White Truffle, Life Scents Multi-Layered Room Fragrance in Mystical Garden and a Life Scents Multi-Layered Fragrance Candle in Summer Delights.

The Airwick Reed Diffuser is super-stylish and comes with six natural rattan stems, three white and three black. I like this idea because you can change which colour stems to use based on your home decor! Or perhaps adopt the YOLO-approach, throw caution to the wind and go hardcore rebel by using all six at once. I've found a place for my chic reed diffuser, and it's on my front entrance table, right next to my perfume collection and a vase of fake flowers. Hopefully, this creates a welcoming atmosphere for visitors entering my home, as suggested by the back of the box this baby came in. In terms of fragrance, it does sit on the sweet side of the spectrum, and at times this does get a bit much. I'm thinking of dialling it back a notch and removing three of the rattan stems, which should make the wafting scent more subtle. Especially since it apparently lasts for up to 45 days!

My purple can of multi-layered fragranced room spray is really well-designed, with its tall, slender shape and narrow curves, perfect to grab and get trigger-happy on the vertical lever. I may even appreciate the clever design of this bottle a little too much. Seriously, the neck of the can is perfectly concave and small enough that it's extremely comfortable and easy to use. A good thing about spraying the house is that it's a chore your kids will actually enjoy doing (this may just be my weirdo - let me know in the comments below!). Of course every room will end up wearing 16 sprays instead of 2, but hey, it's one less job you had to do, right? (Also, for the love of God, ensure they have the can angled with the spray dispensing AWAY from their face, because parenting). The Mystical Garden fragrance comprises marshmallow, raspberry and rose, is fast-acting, eliminates odours and is supposed to constantly change fragrances, but I can't pick that up because my delicate nose palette has been ruined by the constant smell of boy farts.

I don't know about you, but I love scented candles. They calm me down, cheer me up and create a lovely ambience in my home. Not to mention the array of fragrances available these days! I received the Summer Delights candle, which is multi-layered with white flowers, melon and vanilla scents. I'm loving this more than the reed diffuser because the aroma is subtle and not as sweet. These candles come in a glass jar and the label on the back clearly states all the safety warnings, which is great for any product you have to set fire to light. It's quite hypnotic staring into a flame, and I could probably do it for a good 45 seconds before I got ridiculously bored. What's your record?

Don't miss a post!

Like Max The Unicorn on Facebook

Follow on BlogLovin'

Follow me on Twitter @ShinyGlitterBug

*Disclaimer: These products were provided for editorial consideration. This is a non-sponsored post and all opinions are my own.

What's your favourite candle fragrance?

A Beauty-Full Clinique Win!

Recently, I was very lucky to win a truly amazing prize from Clinique, which you may have seen on my Instagram. I'm so thrilled to have won these beautiful goodies worth over $1800! You'll notice there's a red theme and that's because it's the Passion Pop prize, based on the deep red Clinique Pop Lip Colour + Primer Lipstick of the same name. It's been ages since I've shared any of my competition wins on the blog, but I couldn't resist posting about this beautiful prize!

Clinique Pop Lip Colour + Primer in Passion Pop
Stylish packaging, a classic deep rich red colour with an inbuilt moisturising primer and a demi-matte finish, this lippie sounds fabulous. I haven't played with it yet, because I wanted to ensure my blog post was done first in case I needed more photos (fellow bloggers will understand this!).

$500 Flight Centre Gift Card
I don't know what we'll use this for yet, but I'm excited to discuss the options with my family!

The Big Book Of Chic
This huge and very heavy book is stunning! It features the quirky, artistic designs of Miles Redd, an internationally acclaimed Interior Decorator. Flicking through the pages is a real eye-opener! With every new page comes more opulence, luxury and beauty. Inspiring designs but perhaps a tad out of my budget! I can't wait to have a detailed look through this gorgeous book. I've included some photos from inside at the bottom of this post.

Adriano Zumbo Zumbarons
I have Adriano's book 'Zumbo' (thanks hubby), so we were able to look up what flavour the cult biscuits were, by matching them to the photos by the recipes. It was a toss-up between Chocolate, Peanut Butter & Jelly and Kalamata Olive. Of course they were the Olive ones which is hilarious because I hate olives! So I tried one and my husband got the other three.

Apple iPad Mini 2 (16GB) with Red Rotating iPad Mini Case
How awesome is it to win an iPad Mini! Hubby couldn't wait to set it up so he could play Clash of Clans on it instead of his phone. The pinky-red case is super-cute with a great design and it's really sturdy and well-made. Love!

Tamara Mellon Red Patent Leather Pumps
Jesus Christ, you guys. These shoes are worth a whopping $750! I'm pretty much in complete shock that I now own a designer pair of heels worth $750. These are the sexiest shoes I've ever seen. The colour is striking, the design's stunning and they just look amazing. It even says "I love you xx" on the inside. I'm too scared to try them on much less wear them. I need a solid month of just looking at them first.

Here's a peek at some random pages from Miles Redd's 'The Big Book Of Chic'...

Don't miss a post!

Like Max The Unicorn on Facebook

Follow on BlogLovin'

Follow me on Twitter @ShinyGlitterBug

Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with Clinique in any way. It was my decision to post about this win and I'm pretty sure Clinique don't even know I have a blog. lol. The last four photos depict the work of Miles Redd, taken from his book The Big Book Of Chic.

Wordless Wednesday: Cooking Up A Storm!

I mentioned in Five Fabulous Faves! that I've been enjoying cooking new recipes, so I decided to provide some photographic evidence. My August Goals post included the aim of making five new dishes and I've nearly achieved that, less than halfway through the month! I'm a bit proud of myself. These are all recipes I've ripped out of various magazines like Recipes+, Super Food Ideas and Coles Magazine and compiled into an A4 plastic pocket folder. So organised! In one small part of my life, at least. Baby steps.

Cashew Chicken with Honey and Soy Sauce

Shepherd's Pie with Sweet Potato Topping

Bacon, Sour Cream & Chive Jacket Potatoes

Baby Spinach and Sausage Pasta with Cracked Black Pepper

Don't miss a post!

Like Max The Unicorn on Facebook

Follow on BlogLovin'

Follow me on Twitter @ShinyGlitterBug

What have you been cooking lately?

Five Fabulous Faves!

Ready for a quickie? Here are Five Fabulous Faves, featuring things I've been loving lately!

FreezeFrame Revitaleyes
I've avoided this brand for the longest time, because honestly it just sounded too gimmicky. This product claims to solve three under eye problems at once: visibly reduce wrinkles by up to 63%, lift away under eye bags and puffiness and diminish under eye darkness and shadows. That's my kind of product! I am very pleased with the results this gives me. The fine lines under my eyes have greatly reduced and the whole area is looking smoother and firmer I love the light gel consistency too, and the fact that you can use it under makeup. I will definitely keep buying this, and recommend it to anyone with fine lines or wrinkles under their eyes.

Lush Ultrabland Facial Cleanser
I found this to be a strange, yet addictive product. I received a generous-sized sample which I got about five goes at; in this time I went from shock to confusion to acceptance to fondness to falling in love with this product! Ultrabland is rich, soft, thick and oily..... and it doesn't come off easily. After massaging it over your face you have to use a damp flannel to remove it. This takes some getting used to. But the results are amazing. My skin felt soft, smooth, plumped up and balanced. I loved this so much I returned to Lush and bought the full size product.

Wearing Different Earrings!
This might not seem like a big deal to most people, but I am not one to put much effort into changing my earrings from day to day. Ever since my splurge in Lovisa however, I've decided to make a special effort to don a different pair (nearly) every day, and I'm loving it. It only takes an extra minute to swap my earrings each morning, so I don't know why I haven't done this sooner (actually yes I do: it's called extreme laziness). I used to have two holes pierced in each ear plus one up the top of my left ear but I let them grow over. Now I 'm thinking of getting some more holes put in, just so I can wear more earrings!

Garnier Perfect Blur Smoothing Base Perfector
This is not the sort of product I usually love. I am not big on primers, bases and blurring creams. However, I decided to give this another whirl recently and lo and behold, was mightily impressed with the results. I don't know if I was just using it wrongly the first time or maybe I didn't give it a proper chance. I only use a very small amount of this on my inner cheeks and chin to cover up pores and under my eyes to blur any fine lines my eye cream has not managed to fully eradicate. The result is a smooth as silk base, and when I apply foundation, my complexion looks virtually flawless. Another huge advantage is that this makes my Bobbi Brown Corrector a dream to apply under my eyes. The Corrector is highly pigmented and amazing at covering dark circles, but the formula is slightly sticky - Perfect Blur makes it glide on effortlessly and skim over fine lines, since they are already filled in with the Perfect Blur Base Perfector. Winning!

Cooking New Recipes!
One of my August Goals was to cook five new recipes and I'm nearly there already. I'm really enjoying making new dishes (and so is my husband, I might add, as he's reaping the rewards. Not so much our fussy son - I'm still having to cook him a separate dinner every night). Unbelievably, I haven't had any disastrous results. Quite frankly, I am shocked that everything has tasted really nice. So far I have made Shepherd's Pie with Sweet Potato Topping; Sausage and Spinach Pasta; Cashew Chicken with Honey and Soy; and Bacon, Sour Cream and Chive Jacket Potatoes. I'm still deciding whether to blog these dishes so you can see how they all turned out!

Don't miss a post!

Like Max The Unicorn on Facebook

Follow on BlogLovin'

Follow me on Twitter @ShinyGlitterBug

What's your favourite dish to cook?

Wordless Wednesday: Unicorns For The Win!

Oh my! I haven't written a Unicorn-themed post in ages! Of course this is a Wordless Wednesday, so there will be minimal text, and maximum photos. Basically, here's a bunch of unicorn stuff I bought recently and a couple of things from my existing collection!

My gorgeous white unicorn from Typo!

Typo Unicorn magnets for my fridge!

Unicoin purse (LOL I made that up)

Unicoin purse flipped (and I'm sticking with it)

It's the Unicone on a Typo A4 spinout notebook

Years ago I won a print voucher - Of course I chose Unicorns!

And the close-up reveals the detail

Don't miss a post!

Like Max The Unicorn on Facebook

Follow on BlogLovin'

Follow me on Twitter @ShinyGlitterBug

Disclaimer: All Typo products were bought by me and the print I won (can't recall where from!). I'm not affiliated with Typo, I just love their products.

What's your favourite fantasy creature?

Mani: Bourjois Corail Magique!

I love these 1 Second Bourjois polishes for a few reasons. Firstly, the fan effect brush makes application super-fast and easy. Also, the silicon-enriched gel formula is crazy good, giving a salon-like finish that's smooth, glossy and professional-looking. The shade I chose for this manicure, Corail Magique, is flattering and pretty. There are tiny gold glittery particles that impart a subtle shimmer. I'm finding this peachy coral shade perfect for everyday wear. This manicure is two coats thick, with no top coat.

Don't miss a post!

Like Max The Unicorn on Facebook

Follow on BlogLovin'

Follow me on Twitter @ShinyGlitterBug

Disclaimer: I won this product. This isn't sponsored and all opinions are my own.

Have you tried the Bourjois 1 Second range?