skin care

My Dressing Table Declutter

/ Srishty / 1 Comment

I did not do a dressing table purge in a long, long time. As such, I don’t think I would have needed it if it was regular programming since I don’t hoard a lot and I would have run out of stuff if these things were getting a lot of use. However, COVID happened and the usage of color cosmetics reduced drastically and I realized, as much as I would hate it, I do have to let some of these go. Most of the stuff you see here is bought after 2019 as I got married then and I kind of took stock of what I already had and what do I need to buy, as I go on the journey of trying full face of makeup more often.

A bit about the way this dressing table is organized:

  • the top shelf in the closed cupboard section is the one you see in the first picture. It is basically skin care that’s opened but probably not used daily. 90% of the bottles & jars visible here are actually empty and I was collecting them for a recycling program or reuse, but since its been years and I didn’t manage to do it, I finally just got rid of them from this space and put them in a box.
  • The second shelf is all my nail paints on display. That’s the only makeup item I use very regularly even if I am not going out, so I like to have them on easy access and display. There are also some miscellaneous items here like my supplements and lenses.
  • The third shelf has a bangle hanging stand, even though I don’t make a lot of use of bangles, since I have some from my wedding, I just keep them here on display to use the stand.
  • There is one last shelf right in the closed cupboard and that has daily use stuff like combs, office ID cards, sunglasses etc.
  • Let’s come out of the closed cupboard now. The open shelfs right next to it contain 3 things – lipsticks, fragrances and daily use skincare like sunscreen. Out of these 3, only the skincare actually needs to be in open for easy access but I like to have lipsticks and fragrances on display, even though they only get used when I step out and sometimes not even then. Also, apart from sunscreen, other more important daily skin care is on my bedside table and not on the dressing table.
  • Below all of this, there are two sections. The right ones actually contain two makeup organizers, one bought by my mom and one by MIL during my wedding. Both the makeup organizers contain things that I use for special occasions only, like highlighter, makeup brushes, foundation etc. This, I would say, is the most under utilized section due to COVID as this only gets used during weddings and all. Apart from these two organizers, this contains some empty but too-pretty-to-throw boxes and a hair straightener.
  • The left ones are two deep drawers. First one is used for keeping any yet to be opened stuff, primarily skincare, and the black Nykaa box contains makeup that is somewhere between most used and special occasions. I’ll give some examples – basically I don’t wear base when I am stepping out usually, but I might use concealer on some points and sometimes might spritz a makeup fixer spray even without any base. So, this black Nykaa box doesn’t contain stuff for full base but contains makeup fixer, hair serum, mascara etc, things that I may use if they were placed closer rather than the special occasion box. 😀 In my view, using this black Nykaa box for this purpose is one of my most brilliant ideas as this made me reach out for these products more often. 😀
  • The bottom drawer just contains medical supplies.

Now let’s come to what all I decluttered.

The first things to go were the empty jars and bottles but they are not out of my house yet 😦 just in a small box now kept separately.

Then, I got rid of the most obvious, super-expired kind of products that you see below. Two of the three lipsticks you see below are pre 2019 and I loved both of them to death. I am glad that I used them almost to completion. The nude peach one is from Flormar and not available in India, I bought this same lipstick in different shades for my relatives too and everybody had such good things to say about it. The second Wet n Wild Catsuit is quite well known anyway and totally lives up to the hype, it is the only liquid lipstick I have used till date that does not feel heavy on the lips. Also, both were amazingly cheap, less than 6 USD!! The eye pencils you see have also been bought, in some cases, before 2019 and I know its horrendous that I still had them. To give some relief, let me tell you I only used the Lakme Absolute kajal in the last few years. The green one was a random local brand that I bought in one of those big beauty stores in Mumbai that I forced my husband, then boyfriend, to take me to. This green one was quite good at just almost a dollar! The Lakme Absolute Kajal, Sugar Kajal in blue and this green one – all three were very good to use. I especially love it when colored Kajal come with amazing color payoff and no eye irritation. I don’t know why i bought the white eyeliner from Essence, maybe to try some edgy look but the only time I have used it is to fill inner corners while feeling fancy. The grey eyeliner is from Catrice, both these products were bought in Europe and didn’t have good color payoff at all. The grey one was pretty irritating actually and I just used it as an eyebrow filler mostly. The red Earth Rhythm lip tint is not actually very old, but it really doesn’t do anything or I got a defective product and I was happy to let it go!

Then, comes the empties. There are two mascaras which are not empty, but you know, mascaras need to go out every 3 to 6 months. I still kept these for years. 😛 While both these mascaras work well, I am not ready to pay for mascaras as they are supposed to be tossed out quickly and, in my books, the L’Oreal million lashes one works the same as the yellow Maybelline one while its 3x the price. So, I am not buying it again. The ColourPop eye shadow was quite amazing with the color payoff and such a soft, buttery texture, but it fell off and broke and it was remaining only little, so I let it go. The tiny jar you see with ‘be good’ tag is the very popular cleansing balm in India – Plum Cleansing balm, but I am not a fan at all. Its too fragrant for a cleansing balm and I will go for better alternatives by trying. The Organic Harvest strawberry lipbalm was good but nothing out of the ordinary.

What you see below are some almost expired or soon to expire lipsticks and I didn’t have the heart to let them go. I am trying to use them up for few more months and then, its definitely bye bye. I’ll make a separate post on all the stashed out, yet to be stashed out and current lipsticks. 🙂

Aside this, I know that my the Balm highlighter has expired but seriously, it gets used like 4 times a year and is not even 1/3rd used. I am not going to let it go right now but next time, I’ll buy its mini version.

This is it for the declutter. I know this post has got way longer than one would anticipate, but do share your thoughts if you happen to read. 🙂

My 2022 Sunscreen Round-Up

/ Srishty / 2 Comments

I think I can keep doing Sunscreen round-ups all the time because I don’t have a holy grail as such and I keep trying new ones. I have actually tried some new ones since I clicked this picture of my 2022 sunscreens and I’ll just share my views on all of them.

If you have a holy grail, do let me know in the comments so that I can try that next. 😀

Just a disclaimer – I don’t do a lot of ingredient-based research for my sunscreens, although that would have helped for sure. I basically try new ones basis hear-say and my skin type. If you do ingredient-based research, then this post may not be actually for you. However, let me try to do some research now, while writing this post.

Aroma Magic Cucumber Sunscreen Lotion: I loved this one quite a lot for quite a lot of reasons: 1) Soothing fragrance, 2) texture suited me, 3) so cheap (its like 3 dollars!), 4) I support an Indian brand. The only reason I didn’t repurchase is because of the low SPF 30, but I just read that its a physical, mineral sunscreen, and I am trying to avoid chemical sunscreens at the moment, so I’ll probably repurchase this if I don’t come across a better, higher SPF option. Read up more about chemical vs mineral sunscreen here.

Earth Rhythm Ultra Defence Mineral Sunscreen (Glass Bottle with Pump): This particular variant is discontinued by Earth Rhythm now but I feel about this sunscreen exactly what I feel about Earth Rhythm as a brand. I wrote about it in detail here. It definitely had a feel good factor but I wouldn’t have bought it simply for that at a high price.

Earth Rhythm Ultra Defence SPF 50 (Tube): This is again one of my top favorites for the feel, but purely due to the texture. Same Earth Rhythm story – their products seem so good and soothing on my skin but seem to do nothing. Hence, I am wary of buying it again, even though I have repurchased this one many times. I can’t seem to find its ingredient list also on Earth Rhythm’s site. 😦

La Shield Mineral Sunscreen Gel: This is a weird one. I didn’t love, love it. However, this is fairly cheap and being a dry skin person, its overtly creamy consistency works fine for me in winters at least. The problem is – it is from a brand whose sunscreens many dermats also recommend in India, but those are the brand’s higher priced sunscreens. Now, it makes me wonder that why is this one not in that list of recommendations. Ingredient list is principally similar for both the sunscreens, hence, I am not able to figure out the logic behind the other one getting more accolades and being priced significantly higher.

Minimalist SPF 50: In case you didn’t know, Minimalist is an Indian brand who copied the brand ethos of the OG – The Ordinary. In the initial days, this brand got a lot of flak for being a copy. However, lately, people have been impressed with their products. This one came highly recommended from my friend and I was excited to try it too. However, I felt this one made my skin look super dull. I didn’t hate the texture but also didn’t love it. I am especially wary of trying this again due to the dullness it imparted my face.

Re’equil Oxybenzone & OMC Free Sunscreen: Not featured in the picture, but I also tried this one and I faced the same dullness issue with this one as Minimalist. I really wished to like this one because its soothing baby-type fragrance was really lovely and I wanted to use it.

Suncoat: Tell me, where have you seen this one? Its pretty commonly available in tourist places like Goa randomly. I bought it because having seen it so many times, I thought why not. Let me tell you – its the worst possible sunscreen out there. It doesn’t spread at all! Like, I have to wring my skin like an industrial tool and it still won’t spread, would leave a ghastly white cast. Also, I despise the smell. I know fragrance is subjective, but I hate it so much that I struggle with using it on my body too. I guess I would have to throw it.

That’s about it. I also want to try all the premium Biore, Isdin etc kind of sunscreens but I am stingy to shell out money for sunscreens, although its the only skincare I religiously follow, so, ideally I should.

More suggestions on sunscreens are welcome! 🙂

If you liked this, check out more of my latest posts:

My Skin Care & Makeup Hits of 2022 | Diwablog 1

/ Srishty / 2 Comments

Sounds like an year end post, but let’s take it as a mid-year taking stock, shall we? I am going to dive right into it, please tell me your skin care & makeup hits in the comments! I would love to know yours.

Also, go till the end to see the star of this post!

Shesha Ayurveda Rose Water: Admittedly, I haven’t used a wide variety of rose waters, but this is a way purer upgrade than the widely popular Dabur Gulabari. Now, to be honest, I consider this also expensive for something as frivolous as rose water, but considering people are into buying rose water from way more expensive brands in India, I would consider this a sweet spot – pure as well as not super expensive. I wholeheartedly recommend.

Jo Malone English Pear & Freesia: I have already talked about it in my favorites here. Jo Malone fragrances are love. Nothing more to be said. As I am exploring more fragrances by them, its becoming increasingly difficult to choose just one as the most favorite.

Earth Rhythm Sunscreen: Its difficult to explain my love for this one. I basically started using this brand for supporting a cause. Have written about it here. I have lately started to feel that it doesn’t stand for that anymore. However, like I have mentioned in the post as well, I use some of their products for the feel good factor and that’s where this sunscreen comes in. I’ll stop using this the moment I find a better alternative but here’s why I love it – extremely comfortable on skin, no white cast, some people say it makes my face glow. As for helping with tanning, I don’t know. I have never felt with any sunscreen that they help me with strong sun rays.

Aroma Magic Sunscreen Cucumber: This was a fun product to use – what I mean is this brand has been in our lives since a long time, probably when our parents were kids but it has evolved over time to suit the customer demands, be it in terms of products or packaging. I admire them for it, their jazzy packaging is always appreciable and for this one, I loved both the fragrance and feel of the sunscreen on my face. Not to mention this product is extremely cheap!

Disguise Cosmetics Eyeshadow Palette: This is one of those eco-conscious, new-age, hipster cosmetics brands in India and I just happened to try it randomly. To be honest, the eyeshadows are very basic, nothing amazing and nothing bad but they still feature on my favorites purely and purely for the packaging. I mean look at it!

indian makeup products
My holographic makeup box is pretty (and entirely the reason for buying it 😦 )

Fashion Color Makeup Spray: The star of this post. Here’s the story on how I ended up using and loving this completely local, unknown makeup spray that I seem to love more than the Benefit Super Setter. There, I said it. I basically was at a local cosmetics shop near my home a couple of days before my wedding to get a few jewelry pieces rented that we didn’t get made as part of my customized gold and diamond polki set (examples) (those were things like headpieces which don’t get used later on). In India, its pretty common for some local cosmetics shops to have these things as well. So, I was there for that and my mom and I just happened to discuss that I am going to buy a makeup setting spray. This woman at the counter overheard us and she literally forced me to buy this particular makeup setting spray. I was not keen as it was an unheard of brand but I went along since there was no reason why she would force as buying another brand would have meant more money for her. Its one of the best makeup products I have used over the years in terms of ‘getting the job done’. I don’t know if its available outside India, but I have linked it so that you can see how it looks and purchase it whenever you see it!

That’s it from my side, now its your turn! 🙂

Posts I worked hard for but didn’t get the love | Blogmas 3

/ Srishty / 2 Comments

I have been meaning to do this post since a long time because there are some old posts on this blog which have a common theme – they are long and very word heavy, took me a long time to write but they barely got any love. Now I understand that I haven’t been getting any traction since the recent past because I post very inconsistently and, in such scenarios, not getting any traction is sort of anticipated. However, the posts I am mentioning are from the time when I expected traction.

I have decided to link them here today in the hope that you would be considerate enough to read them. 🙂

The Tale of the most ornate blouse: you know what, I would love to write more posts like this as I love restyling clothes. Loved the concept of reuse and reduce before it became cool.

Blogmas Day 5 | My 2020 Favorites! The year that was!: Why did this post not get the love it deserves? Who doesn’t want to know other people’s favorites? 😀

My 2 year long relationship with Earth Rhythm: A recent post which is detailed on a skin care brand My Hair Story & the entry of a recent miracle

My Hair Story & the entry of a recent miracle: this is a very, very old post and my hair care routine (or the lack of one – it’s just oil and shampoo) has seen many new things since then. Recent addition – a blue hair color. Seems like a good idea to document that. 😀 That aside though, this post may still be relevant for someone with similar hair, so, go read maybe?

My 2 year long relationship with Earth Rhythm

/ Srishty / 4 Comments

Earth Rhythm is a skincare brand in India (previously known as Soapworks India). Their brand ethos is to create non-toxic skin care products that can be used by anyone who is sensitive to OTC skincare. I think it launched because the founder’s son had a syndrome due to which he couldn’t use OTC skincare.

I have been using Earth Rhythm for more than 2 years and I remember that because I started using their products right after my wedding. It was when this brand was known as “Soapworks India”, in case anyone knows. Just for the record, I loved the older name more.

I started using them simply because I loved their eco-friendly packaging at that time and not just because it was sustainable but also because the packaging was hell cute while being at it. I decided to write this post essentially for two reasons –

  • I have used a lot of products from their product lines. Something that would be true for very few cosmetic brands as I use very few products in general and they are usually picked with a purpose in mind, so they may or may not be from a single brand.
  • At the time Earth Rhythm launched, it was a fairly new concept in India – Indian skin care brands that are standalone and Indie and running their own production for whatever reason (Sustainability, clean beauty – a term I am not aligned to btw)

As I mentioned, I wanted to buy their first product because of their beautiful packaging but I ended up picking a basic looking moisturizer as I needed one at the time. I ended up enjoying it. I have several empty jars of the same stashed at my home even now (they were running a recycling campaign at that time so I saved them but they shut that campaign due to COVID).

Since then, I have used their cleansing balms, lip tint, a propolis serum, their solid shampoo bar (one of their cult products) and one sunscreen. I have also recommended their shampoo bars to curly haired friends because I see rave reviews online by curly haired people and my friends loved the bars. I think I am in a good position now to say what I feel about their products –

1. I love using most of their products. Almost all of the products have a soothing feeling to them. You know, like instant feel good on application.

2. What baffles and disappoints me as a customer is that almost none of the products have stood out for me as a solution to a problem. Not even the lip tint. The lip tint gave very basic tint which was barely visible after few minutes and because their products are formulated in a ‘natural’ way, the lip tint formulation in the pot also changed pretty quickly. I loved using the moisturizer, sunscreen, the cleansing balm and propolis serum because of the way they felt on my skin, so soothing and loving, but they didn’t do anything as a problem solution. For example, one of the cleansing balms mentions black head removal on usage which I don’t think I was even counting on and, of course, it didn’t happen. Essentially, I would not go for these products if I was looking for a solution to acne, wrinkles etc.

3. This brings me to my third and most important point. What do you feel about the term ‘clean beauty’ or non-toxic skincare? There are a lot of beauty brands these days who are marketing their products as ‘clean beauty’. This means a product formulated on the principle of “you only put on your skin what you can eat”. I don’t see a very relevant point here and I sort of agree with those beauty gurus who believe in solution based formulations. Just because something is a ‘chemical’ and is not edible, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be put on your skin. In fact, everything is a chemical composition. So why not put something on your skin that’s coming from an expert and is proven to provide a solution to your skin worries? Earth Rhythm is not a brand who harps on the concept of ‘clean beauty’ so it’s not like they are doing any deceptive marketing. But what they do is that they have tried to create a plant based or some other alternative of a proven chemical, something I am not able to appreciate (as i didn’t see a lot of results).

4. Their topmost cult products are their shampoo bars which seem to be working great for a lot of people, including me. I’ll be honest – it’s a pain to use a solid shampoo bar compared to the conventional liquid shampoos that we are used to. Comment below if you would want me to explain how to use solid shampoo bars. Nevertheless, you notice the good effects of a solid bar from the first use itself. Solid shampoo bars in general are less harsh for your scalp and hair, and these Earth Rhythm solid shampoo bars are just gold standard. If you are planning to start your journey with solid shampoo bars, you should definitely try Earth Rhythm’s solid shampoo bars.

In conclusion, I would like to mention that this is a brand I truly enjoy using for the feel good factor and I may continue buying from them, especially things that fit very well into my routine like cleansing balms for makeup removal, reusable cleansing pads, solid shampoo bars etc, but if I was looking for a solution to a skin problem, I would go for solution-based product or, better still, go for dermatologist recommended products.

Don’t miss the no-plastic packaging

Blogmas Day 3| Bedtime Tales

/ Srishty / Leave a comment

Wanted to acknowledge the privilege and the boon of having a calming, fulfilling and happy bed time. Reading my book, browsing through Instagram and two of my most favorite things remain – slowly and mindfully doing my skin care routine and cuddling with the husband. Now the skin care routine can just mean applying coconut oil on my arms on some days and 2-3 step face care on others but what matters is how soothing this process is and just how happy being able to do it makes me. Also, nothing can beat midnight (and right after waking up) hugs.