Healthy Breakfast Cake

I like healthy cakes that are not too sweet. In this way I can combine my (not too) sweet tooth with my interest to eat healthy. Hence, it's no wonder that I was immediately drawn to Zuzana's breakfast cake when I first discovered it about 2 years ago. I made this cake several times in the last 2 years and also experimented a bit with different ingredients.

Here is my current version:

• 120 grams of Couscous cooked (or doused with hot boiled water)
• 50 grams of Oat Flakes
• A little bit of milk
• 2 apples, 1 carrot and 1/2 of a chocolate bar crushed & mixed
• a hand full of crushed walnuts
• a tea spoon of cinnamon
• honey
• 2 whirled eggs

Sometimes, I mix the eggs with the rest of the cake. Sometimes, I add ground almonds instead of walnuts and mix them with the rest of the cake. There are plenty of possibilities ...

But now to the current version: at first take the couscous, heat water in a kettle and pour it over the couscous. Let it steep for around 10 minutes until the water has been absorbed by the couscous.

 

Clean 2 apples and 1 carrot and crush and mix them with 1/2 of a chocolate bar. Mix everything together and add also the Oat Flakes and the Milk:

 Add crushed walnuts on top and disperse cinnamon over them. Finally pour some honey on top:

Pour 2 whipped eggs on top:

Bake the cake for around 25 to 30 minutes at 220 degrees in the convection oven:

 Finished:

And this is how I enjoyed it this morning:

 

Yummie! :-)

Pharmacy haul

Inspired by Lisa Eldridge and Essiebutton (who has been inspired by Lisa Eldridge as well ;-)), I have done my very own pharmacy haul end of May and ordered a couple of things from a pharmacy. Since I unfortunately do not speak any french, I had to order from a german pharmacy. 3 of the products, however, are french pharmacy products recommended by Lisa Eldridge and I really hope that one day I'll be able to browse through french pharmacies in Paris myself like Lisa Eldridge does. :-) 

Here are the things I ordered: 

The products are:

• Shampoo and conditioner by Lavera (Rose Milk Repair Shampoo and Rose Milk Repairing Hair Conditioner)
• Logona daily care Body lotion
• Bioderma Hydrabio Riche face cream
• Bioderma H2O micelle solution (makeup remover for sensitive skin)
• Caudalie Eau de Beauté (also known as Caudalie beauty elixir)

As far as I know, Lavera and Logona are german companies. They are offering organic skin care and makeup and I usually like their products. Bioderma and Caudalie, however, are french.

Except of the Caudalie Eau de Beauté which I really love (I have taken it with me on my last short trip), I haven't tried the products yet. I am curious how I'll like them. If you'd like me to write a review of any of the products, just drop me a comment or a mail.  

Dear hard work ... (fitness motivational Video)

I need motivation ... and the video below is really cool. :-) It doesn't only work for sports.



How do you like the video? Does it motivate you to do sports or anything else that has to be done? :-)

Pink Box June

There are several beauty boxes available in Germany and for a very long time, I just registered that they are available but did not feel any need to try them. I don't like the idea to be surprised once a month with a couple of beauty products. I rather prefer to buy the stuff that interests me and try it in the order that I find convenient. Additionally, there are areas where I have already found holy grails I don't want to mess about with.

In Germany, there is the Glossybox, the Douglas Box of Beauty, the Pink Box and very recently also the german DM released a DM Box. I don't know whether there are more such boxes available in Germany. These are the ones, I came across before and especially after the DM Box was released since this was the time when an interest into these boxes aroused in me. When the DM box was released last month, I thought "so what?" at first. But then, when no DM box has been available anymore (apparently, they all sold out within 2.5 hours!), I regretted that I didn't register in time for one of them as well. I even have been so disappointed about not being able to try the DM box that I decided to give another box a try. So, I had a look at all the boxes mentioned above. The Douglas Box of Beauty is also limited to a certain amount of users and I was not able to get one. But I am not that interested in the Douglas Box anyway, so I was not too sad about not being able to try it. The boxes that are available for anyone at the moment are the Glossybox and the Pink Box. The Glossybox is not very appealing for me, however, because I have read that they recently increased the price of the monthly subscription and a lot of subscribers were not very happy with the content. So, I decided to give the Pink Box a try.

The Pink Box seems to be well known in Switzerland. In Germany, it is rather unknown and also has a rather limited amount of supporters. In Switzerland it is well established and has a lot of supporters, similarly to the Glossybox in Germany. Nevertheless, I liked it compared to the other boxes (I'd only prefer the DM box over it ;-)). It costs 12.95 Euro a month and subscribers praised the content since there often seem to be expensive full sized products in the pink box. Apparently, the competitors only provide small samples in their boxes and hence the content is not really worth the money paid.

The June box is my first Pink Box which I received yesterday:

As you can see, my box consists of a pink box, an antiperspirant by FA and a magazine. It might be the case that the antiperspirant and the magazine are one time additions for the very first box. I am not sure but I think that usually there are only 5 products in a pink box. The magazine and the antiperspirant have not been mentioned on the black flyer attached to the pink box either (see a large and readable picture of the flyer below). 

Opening the box reveals a cute inner packaging with a pink bow and black decoration:

Alltogether, my pink box of June consists of a magazine, 3 full-sized beauty products, 3 sample sized beauty products and 2 codes for reduced ordering of beauty products:

Full-sized beauty products (all three full-sized products might yield a price of around 12.95 Euro and this is the price of the box - so this is an acceptable deal):

Samples:

On the flyer which was enclosed in the parcel, the content is nicely described:

In summary, I am satisfied with the content of my pink box and I still think that this box is the nicest one on the german market at the moment (except for the DM box of course :-)). Although I would never have bought stuff by Fa myself, I will try the shower gel and the antiperspirant and I am sure that I will also empty both bottles nonetheless. The full-sized body butter by Bioturm is a very nice surprise and I am looking forward to using it. The samples will be used, too - for sure. I don't read magazines for women, so the magazine is kind of waste. But I am collecting pictures for scrapbooking and decorating stuff - so maybe I can find some nice pictures in the magazine. So, altogether I am not unsatisfied with my pink box.

Since I am not the typical beauty box subscriber and still prefer to try stuff I choose and not stuff that someone else chooses for me, I am not sure whether I'll keep my subscription. Currently, however, I think, I am not yet done neither with the beauty box experiment in general nor with the pink box experiment and I am curious about the content of the July pink box. I also appreciate that there are full-sized products in the pink box and the box itself is really cute and can be used as a means for decorative storage. So, I'll keep the subscription for now at least. 

Isn't this a really cute box? :-)

By the way, here is an interesting video giving an overview of the DM Box and showing the very first DM box. I am indeed very jealous. :-/ But the Pink Box has comforted me well and has provided a kind of consolation! ;-)

Beauty Empties in May

May was just crazy! I was able to get rid of 21 products!! Wow, imagine: I now own 21 beauty products less! Isn't that great? :-D I am pretty proud of myself. I started the endeavour to use up my huge amount of beauty stuff last year in August. Before that I just constantly bought new stuff and never used it. I just found it too labourious to pamper myself on a daily basis and apply cream and all kinds of products all the time. But I found it appealing and I knew that I should do it because my skin is very dehydrated and dry and needs a lot of moisture. At the beginning it was not easy to start using all the products I had accumulated over the years. A lot of them had gone bad and so, luckily, I was able to throw a lot away at first. But some of it was still usable and I started to somehow adjust to applying cream each day. The first effects of using skin care on my dry skin were pretty amazing though. This motivated me even more to use up my beauty stuff and this is why I just kept using that stuff and even bought more of it. Since then, I was able to increase the amount of products I used up each month until now I even hit a peak I never thought would be possible.

However, to be honest: I don't think I will be able to keep up that pace of using up products I was able to manage in May. 21 products ... that's really a lot and I am pretty sure that this is an extraordinary exception! I was constantly creaming every part of my body at least once a day in May ... Imagine: I used 830 ml of body oil & body lotion last month!!! Even I myself find it hard to believe - although I witnessed that I did! :-D

Here are the products I used up in May:

and

and

 and 

Since I started this blog in the middle of May, the products I have used up in the beginning of May unfortunately have been thrown away before I was able to take pictures. These products were:

• Balea Dark Glamour Shower Gel
• Alverde kleine Elfe Shower Gel & Shampoo (for kids)
• Alverde Amaranth Creme-Öl Shower Gel
• Alverde Fusspeeling Pinie & Lavasand (Foot peeling)
• Weleda Wildrose Eye Cream 

A short summary and my thoughts about the products, I emptied in May:

• Shower Gel & Shampoo
• Balea Dark Glamour Shower Gel: this was a limited edition by Balea. I didn't like the smell and won't buy it again.
• Alverde kleine Elfe Shower Gel & Shampoo (for kids): this is a nice product, especially for travelling. I used mine especially for showering after swimming in the local public pool. I might buy it again. Not sure yet.
• Alverde Amaranth Creme-Öl Shower Gel: This was a limited edition by Alverde. The smell was not so nice at the beginning, but I got used to it. And it was very moisturizing which I liked a lot. I will probably buy it again if it will available again. 
• Alterra Papaya & grüner Tee Shower Gel: This was a limited edition by Alterra. It was sold in a box with a body lotion (which I happened to also use up this month, see below) and a hand cream. Nothing special. Nice product, the smell was ok. It was not moisturzing. Don't know whether I would buy it again.
• Primavera Lebensbaum Shower Gel: I didn't like the smell. Won't buy it again.
• Body Oils and Body Lotions
• Weleda Granatapfel Regenerations-Öl: Nice product, very moisturizing, but I didn't like the smell. Won't buy it again.
• Weleda Birken Cellulite-Öl: Nice product, very moisturizing and nice smell. I might buy it again. Unfortunately, I don't like body oils that much. But this one was really nice.
• Weleda Sanddorn Pflegeöl: Nice product, very moisturizing and really nice smell like fruits and oranges. I really love the smell and I might buy it again. Unfortunately, I don't like body oils that much. But this one was the best one of all body oils I tried. 
• Weleda Citrus Erfrischungsöl: Really nice body oil. It smells fresh and the scent is very light. It moisturizes the skin but not as much as the other body oils by Weleda, I used up last month as well. Nevertheless, for summer, this oil is really great!
• Weleda Wildrose verwöhnende Pflegelotion (30ml Sample): Nice body lotion. Didn't like the smell though. Nevertheless, I might buy it again since it was pretty moisturizing and I liked how it felt on the skin. 
• Alterra Körperlotion Papaya & grüner Tee: Very moisturzing body lotion with a nice smell. I didn't like the packaging, it was really difficult to get access to all the product. I had to cut the packaging in two pieces as you see on the picture. I don't know whether I will buy it again because of the packaging.
• Balea Himbeer Bodymousse: I didn't like the smell and also found it a little bit drying. Don't think I'll buy it again. But who knows, I already repurchased it one time. Sometimes I am a little bit inconsistent concerning body lotions. :-D

• Face and Eye Creams & Make up remover
• Cadeavera pflegende Reinigungstücher (Make up removing wipes): I love them. Will repurchase!
• Cadeavera ölhaltige Augen Make-up Entferner Pads (eye make up remover pads): I like them and will probably repurchase them. 
• Weleda Wildrose eye cream: great eye cream. Love it and although I constantly try other eye creams, I also always come back to it. However in Winter it's not moisturzing enough over night. But it's a perfect eyecream for the day, also under make up.
• Lavera Wildrosen Feuchtigkeitscreme: great day cream. Might buy it again
• Weleda Wildrosen Nachtcreme: great night cream. Love it, used a lot of those up. Nevertheless, the scent is a little bit intrusive and this is why I keep trying other creams and don't stay with this one although it's moisturzing effect has a lot of holy grail potential.

• Foot products
• Alverde Fussbutter Pinie & Shoreabutter (50ml Sample): nice foot butter, nice smell, moisturzing, however I didn't like how the butter felt on my skin. I think I prefer more liquid foot creams. I don't think I will repurchase it again.
• Balea wärmende Fußcreme: nice smell, feels nice, moisturizes. But my very last application of this foot cream made my skin break out and hence, I won't repurchase this cream again! I am even wondering if the warming effect has always been some kind of skin breakout.
• Alverde Fusspeeling Pinie & Lavasand (Foot peeling): I won't repurchase it. I actually don't need such kinds of peeling products since I have a peeling glove I really like.
• Make up:
• Alterra Lash Definition Mascara: this mascara burned a bit in my eyes. Won't repurchase. I also didn't use it up. But it was definitely older than 6 months and this video about makeup expiration dates has convinced me to be a little bit more careful with mascaras.