It's time for a reboot

I am not fit anymore, dear readers. While I did lots of sports last year and, hence, was healthy and fit end of 2012, now all these great achievements are gone again. Since December last year, I had to downgrade my sports routine more and more until I didn't do any sports at all anymore since end of January, first due to an operation and then because I moved to the UK.

Recently, I observed that I started to feel quite weak and physically incapable. I don't like this kind of feeling. I suffered of it for many years, but last year I have experienced that this kind of feeling can be overcome with steady and regular physical exercise. It is very empowering to feel strong and physically capable for doing anything. So, I really want to start doing more exercise this month again. Also, summer is coming and it would be nice to be able to wear shorts and short skirts again.

Another thing I don't like that much at the moment is that I also don't eat that healthy anymore. When I am spending time abroad in other countries, I love to experiment with different kinds of foods from that country and at the moment - as I have moved to the UK - I am indulging myself in all kinds of unhealthy foods with far too many calories. Furthermore, I was living in a shared house until recently where I didn't feel comfortable to cook. So, I ate a lot of ready and instant meals. Fortunately, I still fit into the trousers I brought with me but I'm sure that I gained a bit of weight as they started to feel a bit tight lately. Unfortunately, I have not found any scales to check my weight.

All in all I urgently need and want to push life's reset button at the moment! 

found @millenialleader

Beauty Empties January

Dear readers, as some of you might have heard via Twitter, I have moved to the UK beginning of this month. Before that, I power decluttered my belongings and tried to get rid of as much stuff as possible which was quite successful. Furthermore, I put a lot of effort into making my office paper-free which was quite successful as well although I haven't completely finished this endeavor (have a look at a picture showing a part of my scanning efforts). Hence, I did not have any time for blogging and sharing news on beauty or life style with you, unfortunately. Beauty and life style just were not so important for me in the last months, except for minimalism and decluttering. I'd like to promise that I will blog more often in the future but - to be honest - I cannot promise that. I am very busy and try to get a lot of stuff done at the moment. However, you should get at least some regular updates on my beauty empties.

Have a look below at my beauty empties of January. In February and March, I did not empty that many products due to too much stress. In March, besides living in a rather uncomfortable shared house, I also didn't take many products with me and my skin and I, we both miss body lotions a lot! ;-) So, I am looking very much forward to using body lotions again in April. The cold, british weather has dried my skin very much and I probably should also do more sports to encourage blood and lymph flow as this helps against dry skin as well. Will start to do more sports again in April as well.

In January, I did not empty and declutter that much beauty wise. Altogether only 22 products have left me and of these only 6 were decluttered. This is not much indeed - especially considered my usual mass exodus. ;-) But it still is more than I managed to empty in February and March. Have a look at the group picture of the products that left me in January:

Beauty Favourites December

In December, I started to use a new face care. More specifically, I started to use the Caudalie Vinosource series: the S.O.S. thirst quenching serum and the moisture recovery cream. I love both, especially the serum because it is light. The face cream is rather for dry skin and as I somehow got some spots, I am wondering whether it is too rich for my skin in this warm winter. My eye care still consists of the same products like in November and I still do love the products a lot. Here is a picture of my skin care in December:

Beauty inventory 2012: a beauty year in review (Tag)

Recently, I stumbled upon an interesting tag on reviewing the past beauty year: the beauty inventory tag created by Paddy, Jettie and Valerie. Spontaneously, I decided to do this tag as well, because I enjoyed cosmetics and beauty a lot last year. Another name for 2012 would certainly be the beauty year of my life, because I never ever purchased so many cosmetics items (and also not that expensive ones) like last year.

In 2012, I bought a lot of cosmetics items, experimented a lot with colours, my eyebrow shape and anything related to beauty. Amongst others, nearly my whole makeup brush collection has been bought in 2012. In 2011 I only owned very few travel makeup brushes by MAC which I never used. In 2012 I bought a lot of high end brushes - I ended up with quite some collection of MAC brushes. However, I also bought a lot of other brushes. See my favorite new brushes below - this is just a small fraction of the amount of brushes I bought. Furthermore, I used skin care nearly every day (eye care, face care, body care, everything :-)) and discovered that skin care can do wonders to dry skin. I also wore makeup nearly every day (a complete set of products including several eye shadows) and discovered looks that made me look great. I was able to use up a lot of products (see my empties posts) and I also was able to use and experiment with all of my decorative cosmetics items during the course of the last year. However, due to the large amount, some items have been used quite seldomly, unfortunately.

Of course I still do enjoy beauty and cosmetics and I won't stop experimenting in 2013. Nevertheless, I also try to cut down a bit the fraction of time, space and attention that I invest into beauty and cosmetics. Maybe I have got a bit tired of the huge amount of items I tried and used up. As I also found a lot of favorite products, I don't feel like missing out anything when I stick to them for the most part. In addition, I feel the need to shrink the amount of beauty products I own in order to be able to keep enjoying them. More specifically, I need to use up, declutter and to not buy that much cosmetics anymore.

But let's take a look at my review of the beauty year 2012 that just passed. Here are my answers to the beauty inventory tag (Amongst others, I removed a couple of questions that don't fit (e.g. the question about the craziest PR message and the question about the favorite event don't fit because I am not a professional beauty blogger and don't get any PR messages or invitations to events.):

Which new experiences and insights have you been able to acquire in 2012? (concerning cosmetics and concerning the blog)

• Cosmetics: I read about the season colour theory and realized that I am a summer in this colour theory and that this theory is particularly helpful and inspiring when aiming at shrinking a wardrobe and a beauty and makeup collection and it also helps to prevent mispurchases in these areas. Of course, it is just a theory and not each rule has to be followed religiously. Actually, none of the rules have to be followed. But in case you aim for an elegant and decent style that fits any occasion and a very small wardrobe and cosmetics collection, you should have a look at it because the principles are pretty convincing. They made me realize what I subconsciously knew before anyway. Most of my belongings did match my season colour theory type but I also had a couple of mispurchases. So, knowing what I should take care of is a great guideline for any decluttering endeavor and also helps to avoid mispurchases. Before that, I just had kind of a feeling and feelings sometimes are blurred or not trusted. ;-)
• Blog: I started my blog in 2012 and when I started blogging I blogged a lot about beauty. However, I soon realized that I don't want to be a typical beauty blogger. This would cause me to hoard products and to purchase a huge amount of cosmetics items on a regular basis while already owning a ton of them. I realized that I feel too much attracted to minimalism and for me a beauty blogger cannot be a minimalist - each new product has to be swatched and compared to other products and hence, they all have to be kept and organized. Afterwards I was in a bit of a dilemma because I don't want to skip beauty on my blog altogether either as I still do enjoy experimenting with cosmetics. It still is a nice and beloved hobby even though I don't want to spend to much time with it anymore. So, I might try to blog about minimalistic beauty in 2013. Let's see. :-)
  Another great insight I got with blogging is that I enjoy writing and sharing my thoughts with the online world very much. And I'm asking myself why I didn't start to blog years ago.

Beauty Empties December

In December, 40 products left me. I decluttered 18 of these 40 products, the other 22 have indeed been used up. Have a look at the group picture (only the decluttered eye shadows are missing, but you can see them below - I gave them away already in the middle of December and hence, they were already gone when I took the group picture):

A short summary and my thoughts about the emptied or decluttered products:

• Shower gels
• Loodus Cosmetics Spruce Shower Gel, tiny sample: smells very strong like fir. I didn't like it. The scent was too strong and the sample was too tiny to be able to judge the product - I was only able to use it for 1 leg. ;-) Hence, I won't purchase this product. 
• Loodus Cosmetics Lemongrass Shower Gel, tiny sample: smells very strong like lemon grass. Not bad, I might purchase this one. It is not cheap but also not too expensive (10 CHF). However, again the sample was too tiny to be able to judge the product - I was only able to use it for 1 leg. ;-) Hence, I won't purchase this product that soon - maybe some day but rather not in the next months.