So this is a post about a bunch of perfume-related topics I’ve been meaning to share…

First up a review of Stitch deodorants. These are body sprays that smell like popular perfumes (like Red Door, Chanel No.5, etc) but cost only a few dollars ($3.90 from Radius Pharmacy and the like).

Me and my friend bought one each – I chose Angel and she chose Ralf. Both of us own the real fragrance too, so we were able to compare Stitch to the original fragrance.

In the picture, we blind-tested Ralf, the Stitch version, and a ‘control’ fragrance on a few of colleagues. Most of our colleagues (4 out 6) could confidently match Ralf with Stitch. Personally, I thought they do smell very much alike, with the Stitch version being much weaker.

And the Stitch version of Angel is fairly close too.

Even though I hate referring you guys to The NZ Herald, I have read a couple of interesting articles about perfumes recently. First up is this article about perfume regulation, preferences, World Beauty stores, and more.

And second, this article about ‘the language of perfume’. I think I’m a floral/oceanic kind of gal. How about you?

You know I chose this picture of Anna for the leopard print. SMASH MALICE!

Jezebel has a piece today on avatars which reminded me of a post that I’ve been wanting to write for ages but hadn’t figured out how to screencap. For those of you who play video games where you get to create your look, do you make yourself look as real as possible or go with the fantasy? For me, I’ve always tried to make my video character as much like me as possible – which meant choosing the sole female character in Streets of Rage back on the old Sega Master System, or playing Anna or Jun in Tekken. My mii on my wii is as round and tall as I can make her, and although I have friends whose miis are absolute copies of their faces, mine is the best I can make it. When I play Rockband with Amy, my avatar is as fat as she can get (not very) and I choose clothes that I’d probably wear. Admittedly, my avatar’s hair is a fiercer red than I can normally manage with my own, but still. And my Guitar Hero avatar has her curves bumped all the way up, which means I get mesmerised by her juicy round ass, even though my own butt is pretty flat. I’m sure there’s some psychology at play here about escapism versus umm oh I don’t know, some other concept, and there’s a lot to be said about the total lack of reality in video games (was anyone else incredibly disturbed by how the news about the shootings on the American army base yesterday featured a totally unnecessary 3D animation clip of the shooter bursting into a room and opening fire that looked just like a video game?) but for now, I’d just like to hear about how you play the games you play…

engadget.com found this gadget that detects the condition and mood of your skin. It’s made by Japanese company Bandai (of Tamagochi fame). I don’t know what it how it works, or even what it does…which makes it so intriguing…

(The comments on the engadget.com post are pretty funny too.)





And then there’s this….

A woman has invented a bra which promises to rid women of unsightly cleavage wrinkles.

The bra, called ‘La Decollette’ was invented by former air hostess Rachel De Boer after she noticed folds in her cleavage at the age of 30.

The bra works by keeping the breasts apart during sleep reducing the amount the skin wrinkles around the chest.

And now for  a fitting musical interlude…

You’re all probably well aware of the benefits of exfoliating. And these little exfoliating gloves are real handy for exfoliating in the shower. I get pretty itchy legs in the days following shaving my legs, but not when I use the gloves to exfoliate. I’m guessing it’s because the exfoliation stops in-growing hairs.

These gloves are also really good for removing dead skin from feet and cleaning the cuticles around toe nails.

I got my pair of exfoliating gloves from a pharmacy, and they are pretty common in department stores and The Body Shop.

I also need some advice, my friend who is pregnant is bursting to have a day of pampering, massage, facial etc for a day. As neither of us are from here, I really could do with a recommendation. the one place i got when googling was eastday spa, really expensive. She is having her baby shower in a few weeks and think a days treat that weekend would be fab.

I haven’t been to any day spas in Wellington, so maybe you pretties could help us out?

I visited Mecca recently and swatched Ellis Faas’ range of Milky and Creamy lip colours. The Milky range is subtle, with just more than a hint of pretty colour that you can tone up or down with more or less product.

But the real stand-out is the Creamy range. These are highly pigmented colours that just look stunning. If you’re serious about lip stick then you should definitely check these out (and the serious price tag $65 to go with it).

All of the Ellis Faas products are liquid, including the eye colours and blushes. They all come in the same pen-like packaging, which I think may be a bit annoying because if I were rummaging through my makeup bag I couldn’t easily tell all the products apart. But then, I think I’d be quite happy owning even just one of these beautiful cosmetics.

Shirley is soaking in it

I have been terribly remiss in not posting this earlier, but you know what? Our Pretty Pretty Party was AWESOME. Thank you so much to all who came along, especially to Meg from the delicious Durvillea Wines, who provided us with lush Sauvignon Blanc and spicy Pinot Gringo that went down a real treat with all the girls.

So, in case you missed it, here’s what we did. While stuffing our faces with all the amazing treats everyone brought along, and quaffing the wine, we had foot spas. I used milk powder and peppermint essential oil in the warm water to leave feet soft, and then everyone used lemon sugar scrub to slough off the dead skin, before the delightful Anna Jane provided foot massages with coconut & lime moisturiser.

Once again, the Mary Kay Satin Hands set was very popular with everyone raving about how amazing their hands felt afterwards. Some girls went with peel-off facial masques, while others used Shirley’s Rotorua Mud. My highlight of the day was getting to meet tons of our readers and make new friends with very cool girls.

Girls just wanna have fun.

Then it was time to dive into the massive piles of clothes in the hall! After everyone had a good dig through by themselves, it turned out that Sandra works with Dress for Success, so we decided to go through the mountains of leftovers in order to sort out appropriate work-wear to donate to them. We also decided to give every item a once-over and it was through that process that pretty much everyone ended up with extra items that suited them perfectly:

Julie braces herself for the compliments

One person's old pants make another girl's ass look amazing

And naturally, the night finished with some Singstar goodness. We had a blast, and we look forward to doing it all over again in another six months! Thanks for helping us have such a lovely community. And thanks for the fantastic jewellery I ended up with on the day!

The new collection  includes 3 styles: Multi-Teese, Spot-Teese and Satin-Teese. I know it’s available at all the UK department stores but I haven’t seen these in NZ yet and I can’t find any info on the web about an NZ release…in fact, do they even sell Wonderbra in NZ??

Dita’s not new to lingerie design having already released a collection with Wonderbra and Agent Provocateur. Did I tell you guys I visited the Agent Provocateur store in London a couple of years back and bought the least expensive undies I could find there. They were still expensive by my standards but worth it for the packaging alone. I still have the pink box and black ribbon the undies came in.