Caudalie Beauty Elixir: Ridiculously Magical

Hello fellow interweb friends!

It has definitely been a long time since I've posted something for you guys and I apologize! I feel like from now until December, I won't be able to post as much as I used to just because of my school scheduling and workload and what not. In other words, I won't be able to post as much of the fun and random stuff, but I will for sure pop in every once in a while to share something cool with you guys!

Lately, ever since I started school, I have been super stressed out to the max and it definitely showed up on my skin because I started breaking out like nobody's business! Literally, I think my skin went on a purge and zits were just popping up all over the place. Anyways, so to deal with that, I washed my face and exfoliated more than I usually did just to get all the dirty and dead stuff out of my skin. However, the one major thing that I've changed is I sprayed my face with Caudalie's Beauty Elixir as a toner afterwards everyday for the past two weeks and definitely saw an improvement in my skin. 

Ingredients: Water, Alcohol Denat, Glycerin, Rosa Damascena Flower Oil, Rosemary leaf Oil, Potassium Alum, Bitter Orange Flower Water, Orange Flower Oil, Peppermint Oil, Commiphora Myrrha Extract, Styrax Benzoin Resin Extract, Balm Mint Leaf Oil, Grape Fruit Extract, Citral, Citronellol, Farnesol, Geraniol, Limonen, Linalool

So why use a toner? And why this one?

Well, first off, I'd like to emphasize the importance of using a toner after we wash our face. Toner is important to neutralize your skin's pH and bring it back to equilibrium after we wash our face, which means we've demolished the top layer of our skin, especially when we exfoliate. When we wash our face, we clean the upper most layer. The point of using a toner after is to bring the cleansing components deeper into our skin. And if you're like me and you also use a moisturizer after, toners actually act as a helping agent to bring the moisturizer deep into your skin. Just imagine, when you put on lotions or hand creams, after you wash it, the moisture goes away, but if you were to put a toner on it first, the moisture will remain even after washing it. 

Now, why this specific one? Well, the main reason why I am ridiculously in love with this is because of the smell! Yes, I know that doesn't sound super professional, but for some reason, this little thing smells like the spa and just totally relaxes me on top of its skin-healing ingredients. As you can see on the ingredients list I posted under the picture, this elixir is really just made up of a lot of natural oils, from fruits to plants. Now, glycerine is one of the main ingredients and its purpose is to bring moisture into the skin. As for the rose oils, that helps clarify the pores. The mint oils are used as an aromatherapy ingredient to help calm your senses as well as your skin. When sprayed on, you feel a cooling feeling and a tingly sensation on your skin. I am totally in love with the feeling and scent that the elixir gives off. I can honestly say that my skin condition and acne scarring has improved within the past two weeks that I've started to use the elixir religiously again. 

I really think this can be used for all skin tones, minus the sensitive one because of all the natural ingredients. I'm not saying you cannot experience the magical effects of it, but maybe you can try using it every once in a while. It won't do much harm to your skin since the ingredients are all natural oils that our skin can adapt to. 

So pretty much, I've been spoiling my skin and my senses with this. It is a perfect spray to use before bed to calm yourself as well as treat your skin. The elixir comes in 2 sizes, the small travel sized one goes for $18 and the large one goes for $49. I've been using the travel sized one just because that's the one that I've had since I went to Vietnam, so obviously it lasts you for quite some time. I will definitely be purchasing the large one soon because I think skin care is a long-term investment and it's always better to have long-lasting healthy skin since I'm super lazy when it comes to make-up.

What kinds of toners do you use? And what are your thoughts on tea tree oil and rose water because that's the next thing that I'll be posting about soon!

Until next time,

Uyen

Airplane Faux-Facial

Hello fellow interweb friends!

As you all may know or have already experience, being on a plane can really irritate your skin. On top of that, being on a plane is not the most comfortable thing, so I thought maybe I'd share with you a little bit of what I do when I'm on the plane!

Based on my previous posts, you already know that I went to Vietnam. The flight there, with layover and all,was about 18-20 hours long, depending on whether or not there are delays. To keep my skin from being dried out and my body from feeling groddy, I brought along some essentials, here's a look into it, so hope you guys enjoy!

Before I do anything to my skin, I have to make sure it is clean first, so I use Simple's facial wipes. The Simple wipes are very easy on the skin, not too much perfume or anything that other wipes have, so I love it. Then, to combat my irritation of dried out skin and lips, my go-to product is the Caudalie Beauty Elixir and my Origins GinZing moisturizer. Even though my skin is naturally oily skin, it still becomes very dried out on the plane, so first, I'd spray my face with the elixir and then apply a little bit of the moisturizer. The elixir gives off a spa-like aroma and the citrusy feel of the moisturizer just makes you feel super relaxed! The Caudalie Beauty Elixir smell may take a little while to adapt to, but once you're used to it, you'll fall in love! 

Once I've sprayed the elixir and put some moisturizer on my skin, I smacked on my Dior's Creme de Rose lip balm since my lips are easily dried up. As you all know, I love my Creme de Rose and it smells amazing, so I glooped on a whole bunch and just leave it there as I watch movies or listen to music during the ever so long flight.

Besides the things to keep my face from feeling icky, I also make sure I have some Tylenol with me. I have a lot of issues...my back and brain give me the most problem, so I always need some kind of pain killer. Tylenol is just my preferred medicine just because it's what I had at home, but you can pretty much use anything that you want. It's always nice to carry a little bit of it around with you to make sure you have some medicine when you need it. 

That's my little tips and tricks for plane rides,if you have any other ones, please do share!

Until next time,

Uyen

Weekly Wrap-Up #5: Birthday Shenanigans

Hello fellow interweb friends!

So for this week, the Weekly Wrap-Up will be a little longer and a tad bit more exciting just because it was my birthday week! It has been such an amazing week and I am so grateful to all of my friends and family that took their time out of their busy lives to celebrate it with me. I am now officially 22, which means I can blame all my bad decisions onto Taylor Swift since she has a song about doing weird things during your 22nd year of life! My birthday was on Wednesday, but since it was smack dabbed in the middle of the week and we all have things to do like work and school, so the celebration ended up being extended all the way to the weekend, which I'm totally not complaining at all because that's just a lot more food and fun with the most amazing people in the world!

Ok, so first thing's first, you cannot have an amazing birthday without an amazing cake! So this here is a cake from Final Touch Bakery, which is a Vietnamese-French "fusion" kind of place. It is vanilla cake with strawberry filling and custard-like spread between the cake layers. It is definitely my favorite kind of cake and so I was super stoked when I found out I got the strawberry cake. The decorations are definitely super amazing! It is just very simple but still detailed and elegant. The decor around the cake is a minty-green color and the flowers were a blushy-nude color. My cousin got the cake for me and she said that she felt it was perfect for me, which I feel like is the theme for my birthday this year!

On the actual night of my birthday, I went to Incahoots, a country club/bar in Fullerton! This was my first time so I felt a little out of place when I couldn't do any of the line dancing moves, but I was ok with that! I had so much fun trying to catch up to everyone's moves that I think I started tripping over myself at one point too. A lot of my friends couldn't come because it was kind of last minute and they all had plans, but these two beauties, Laura and Megan came with me! SO the cool thing about these two is that we met each other at Build-a-Bear, were we work, and got to be pretty darn good friends. Laura and I haven't seen each other in about a year, but we picked up as if we've seen each other almost everyday; I appreciate friendships like that very much just because you know they'll be there for you whenever you need them. Anyways, Incahoots was an interesting experience since it was my first time. I didn't know any of the moves, so I didn't really dance, but since I did know most of the songs, I just sang karaoke all night long. I'd definitely go back again, even if I can't dance whatsoever just because it is such a fun/up-beat place that just makes me feel happy.

Friday was pretty much when the festivities commenced. All my friends came out to Downtown Brea - Birch Street and we had dinner at YardHouse. YardHouse is pretty much one of my favorite restaurants to go to and they have pretty darn good happy hour, so we made it a point to come there before happy hour ended so we can have a little bit of adulthood fun because another one of my friends, Jenna, just turned 21 as well. Side note, this dinner was not just for my birthday; it was a joint birthday bash for me, Jenna, and another one of my friend CC who also turned 22 just like me! SO back to the dinner, we went to YardHouse, and as you can see, Laura was there again! I love this girl; she lives pretty far from where we were, so for her to drive out just to spend a little time with me is super special. Anyways, Friday night was so much fun! We ate, drank, walked around, sniffed candles, and ate some more. We had macaroons and then went to Rite Aid to get some Thrifty ice cream - the best $2 that I've spent in a long time. All I have to say is I have some super amazing and special friends who are always there for me and I am so grateful to have them in my life, and the best party is, I met some of the bestest friends from work and then one of them, I've known since the sixth grade!

Then comes all of the gifts that I got! Let me tell you, I got super spoiled this year because all these gifts are so fricken nice! So first off, it's the Dior Creme de Rose lip balm, which I've already told you about a few posts ago. Then I got a few jewelry pieces and a super cute dress. So here's the thing, when I got my presents, all my friends told me that they felt like these items were just screaming out my name, so they had to get it for me. I was quite flattered and surprised when they said that just because I thought I'm a very confusing person and like pretty much anything, which can make it a little hard to shop for, but apparently, my likes and style is pretty darn distinctive! I was definitely a very spoiled little girl when it comes to gifts this year and I have already used pretty much all of them because I just couldn't help myself! I am one of those super bad people who just wants to open their gifts right away and go crazy over all my gifts; I guess you can say I am very easily excited, but it's fun being excited when you open gifts though. 

So of course, I also splurged on myself a little bit this year and got my self 2 pieces from Baublebar! I got a super good deal on them because I had a $10 coupon from joining and then another $25 off for something else that I can't remember. So I used both of those and got myself these two necklaces and only paid $23 for them! The cool thing about Baublebar is shipping is free and it's tax free, which is a treat just because everything is so highly taxed in California! So I already used the ivory/gold sun-ray necklace because it matches so flippen well with my pink dress that I wore on my birthday! I felt like a super cool princess and super pretty too! I will definitely splurge on Baublebar jewelry once in a while because they are fairly priced and really good quality. Not to mention, the packaging is amazig because you get a velvet pouch to keep it in, making sure it's nicely cushioned and nothing bad, like scratches, happen to it. Then, over the weekend, I bought myself a travel sized Caudalie beauty elixir. It is a setting spray for your make-up, but I also like to use it just to keep my skin nice and moisturized. I mainly got it to use it on the 18-hour plane ride to Vietnam this summer, which I am super excited for - I will definitely be blogging about my trip so you guys get to enjoy the beachy/summery scenery that is there too! 

If you guys like these necklaces, there are even more pretty ones on Baublebar's website too! I will leave you with the link and an invite code if you want to go check them out: https://www.baublebar.com/rewardsref/index/refer/id/239903/! Go get yourself something beautiful and there are always amazing deals on Mondays and Fridays!

Until next time,

With love,

Uyen