Beauty Essentials

Products I swear by:

Yummm. This Organix brand shampoo and conditioner combo always leave me smelling like a tropical island. They also contain no sulfates, which I am adamant about with my beauty products. 

5 minute wonder. Leaves my skin baby smooth and impurity free. Love that it uses ingredients from the sea. 

Scrubs away the driest of flesh and smells amazing while doing so. How I love you, raspberry-scented body scrub. 

The name speaks for itself, High Impact Mascara. Never have my lashes looked so long and full. If I had to choose just ONE makeup item, this would be it. 

The mango version of this classic Burt's Bees chap stick is my favorite. It smells the best and goes on the smoothest. A life saver, for sure. 

I put this on before bed every night, and the results are amazing, to say the least. What I like about this lotion is that it gets absorbed by your skin right away. Then, when you wake up after a night of insulating your lotioned body, your skin feels baby smooth! Always a plus in my book. 

Last, but not least, water. This is the most essential ingredient for healthy hair, skin, body, etc. I have a bottle of water in my purse at all times and drink at least 4 bottles a day. If you make one change to your daily beauty routines, make it to drink more water. You'll thank me later. :)

These are the little things I use that make up part of my daily routine. What products do you use? Which are your favorites? I'd love to know. <3

Lustworthy

I want these tights more than anything on the planet. They are from ASOS and they are beyond adorable. They are the perfect mix of sweet and sexy and can go with anything! Too bad they're not on the ASOS website anymore... :/ I'll have to find a different way to get them. 

I love tights. They change any outfit from drab to fab with very little effort. I'm particularly in love with the suspender look on tights and luckily there any many different ones besides the ASOS ones. 

Like these House of Holland tights which are almost equally as amazing. Besides the suspender tights, there are many different patterned and colored tights waiting to dress up your look! Perfect for winter time! :) 

Ah, so many tights to get and love! The great thing about tights is that you can get them pretty much anywhere (H&M, Target, Urban Outfitters, Gap, Topshop, ASOS, Forever 21, etc) and they are not very expensive for how versatile they are and how often they can be worn! What are your favorite looks? Where's your favorite place to get them? I hope you all start exploring the world of tights more! :) 

P.S. This is unrelated to this post, but starting tomorrow, I'm going to start wearing heels every day for a week! This is a challenge I've given myself to finally get over wearing them despite being a tall person, and so that I can learn to wear them casually! I'll post pictures as evidence. :) 

Style Spotlight: Lily Donaldson

Off-duty model looks are some of the best sources of inspiration for me. First of all, the looks are more relatable to street style than some haute couture fashion show. Secondly, since models are living in the world of fashion they normally have a very good sense of style and what looks good together.

Lily Donaldson is a famous, British fashion model. Known for her stunning, elfin-like looks, Lily is one of the most in demand models of the moment and has been for quite some time. She has done campaigns for fashion houses Burberry, Gucci, Dior, Lanvin, Dolce and Gabbana, etc.

Working with all those designers must have helped cultivate her look of today. A mix between casual and dressy, edgy and romantic, there is a little something for everyone!

Lily wears a lot of black and makes great use of shrunken leather jackets. She also rocks the little black dress like no other. Her look isn't too put together and is very easy to make your own. I love how effortlessly cool she looks. I'm excited to go make my own looks inspired by Lily's, I hope you all have gotten something from this too! :) 

Gorgeous

City Spotlight: Copenhagen

Copenhagen might seem random to most of you, but I have actually wanted to go there for a very long time. It doesn't hurt that my grandma has been living there for the past couple of years and that there is a slight possibility that I could be going there within a couple days (cross your fingers!). I will for sure be going there this summer though and I couldn't be happier! :)

Copenhagen is the capital and largest city in Denmark and a great example to the world of what a city should be like. It is often recognized as one of the cities with the best quality of life and is also one of the most environmentally friendly cities in the world. It's also a gorgeous city, to boot.

As you can see from these pictures, it is surrounded by water! This makes me indescribably happy since I grew up by the water and it's always something that I've treasured about my childhood.  

As I mentioned above, Copenhagen is also very environmentally friendly. 37% of the population ride their bikes every day, and there is a municipal policy working on getting this up to 40% by 2012 and to 50% by 2015! As a biking enthusiast I love that this city puts so much effort in getting it's citizens to forgo cars for this healthier alternative! It's better for the air and imagine how fit the people must be! 

Copenhagen is also at the top of several business and commerce rankings (2006 Global Earning Ranking, Location Ranking Survey, Innovation Nexus City, etc) and life quality ratings (Mercer's Quality of Living, Top 25 Most Livable Cities Monacle, FDi Magazine, etc.). And I can see why. Besides it's policies regarding bikes, it's also is the capital with the largest organic food market share, with 45% of all food consumption being organic! It's starting to appeal to me more and more as an ideal place to live...

All in all, Copenhagen looks like a fantastic city to visit or live in! I applaud all the efforts it has taken to make it one of the cleanest, most livable cities in the world. The whole look of the city in general is very quaint and picturesque. Seems like a magical place. :) Can't wait till I go! 

As an added bonus, the famed story writer Hans Christian Andersen (The Little Mermaid, Thumbelina, The Ugly Duckling) was from Denmark and they have a statue of the Little Mermaid there in his honor. A must see if you visit!

Golden Globes

I love awards season. This is when Hollywood really steps it up and beautiful stars and starlettes wear their most outrageous and gorgeous looks on the red carpet. Many of the dresses I see during this time I would actually consider works of art. I love seeing what my favorite actresses will wear next!

The Golden Globes did not disappoint with many colorful, sparkly and daring dresses. These are my favorite looks from the evening. Keep in mind that these are based on my own personal opinions, not what magazines are saying are good, or what my friends are saying, just what I personally loved. :) Here they are:

Angelina Jolie

If you didn't know, Angelina Jolie is one of my favorite actresses. She is stunning, picks great movie roles and is a big humanitarian to top it off. I thought this dress was perfect for her. The color is amazing and I think her hair color highlights it very well. Plus, which you can't see in most photos, the back had a small v to it which enhanced the look even more. She looked like an emerald goddess!

Eva Longoria

Eva Longoria is a smokin' hottie and this dress showcases it very well. I feel like it is a modern interpretation of a 40s/50s look and the fact that it's in black gives it just enough drama for the red carpet. 

Anne Hathaway

Wow! She has come a long way from Princess Diaries! This body hugging Giorgio Armani gown was utterly gorgeous and the cut out back only made it more so. Love the color too!

Claire Danes

I love the color and style of this dress. This is a hard color to pull off but she wore her hair in an elegant up do and kept the accessories to a minimum which made it just perfect. She looked great! 

January Jones

I think January Jones is the embodiment of old Hollywood glamour (though a slightly more risque version) with this look. I love the dramatic red coloring, the fringe and sexy cut outs, paired with classy hair and red lips. 

Sandra Bullock

I loved the pairing of this light, ethereal dress with the dark, blunt bangs. She looked amazing!

Emma Stone

I actually loved this look a lot. Unlike my good friend at Let It Reign, I love the minimalistic chic of Calvin Klein. My only complaint with this dress is that color of it is a little too similar to her skin, but besides that I think she looked amazing. I didn't think she would be able to pull off blonde this well but with her classy updo and simple makeup she looked surprisingly stylish. 

Megan Fox

I'm actually surprised that I liked something Megan wore. I don't normally like her red carpet choices, but this Armani dress was stunning. I love the pale pink with little accents of glittery silver. Very classy and demure for her. 

Unfortunately, bad fashion can happen to the best of us, and these are the looks that weren't my favorites from the night:

Michelle Williams

It is particularly upsetting that Michelle Williams is on this side of my list because I normally love her quirky fashion sense and think she has great looks, but this is just wrong. And I'm even more upset cause this is a Valentino. The name synonymous with glamour and elegance has somehow come up with this disaster. :( 

Helena Bonham Carter

As far as I'm concerned Helena Bonham Carter can wear whatever she wants, cause I'm pretty sure she doesn't give a f*** what other people think. And I admire that, a lot. I still, however, don't like her look in any way whatsoever. It looks like she's wearing a mixture of costumes from her Tim Burton movies. And the two different color shoes do not help matters at all...

Julianne Moore

I honestly don't know what happened here. I love Lanvin and I love Julianne Moore, but why is there a giant sleeve on her dress? I feel like someone should make a horror movie inspired by it. Just wrong. 

Christina Aguilera

I haven't liked Christina Aguilera since she went "dirrty" and this dress did not help matters much. It looks about two sizes too small and I don't like how her hair looks either. I think if someone else had worn it (in the right size) I might have liked it, but this is just bad. 

Can't wait for the SAG awards, the Grammys and the Oscars for some more red carpet looks to "ooo and aaa" over! What were your faves from the Golden Globes? :)