Toddler SSG has retired to his bed for an afternoon nap after initially falling asleep over his lunch.  So I’m here at my computer with some liquid lunch (it’s too hot and humid to eat at the moment) and the Minion toys I bought from the plane trips and have now had to rescue from little hands who can’t resist pulling them apart every time I put them together.  It’s amazing how far and wide the individual pieces can scatter on the kitchen floor and how much they hurt when you tread on them.

Low grade first world whining aside, it is so very good to be home.  There’s nothing like washing away 24 hours of travelling whilst standing under your own shower head in own your bath tub.  None of it’s terribly fancy but it’s home and it’s reassuring and it’s grounding.  Just as a side note, I’ve just found a new brand of Argan Oil shampoo and conditioner at Chemist Warehouse.  It’s the My Organics range and though the packaging looks incredibly ritzy, each item is actually suprisingly nicely priced at RRP $14.99 but currently down to $12.99.  The range is made in Italy and has a lovely, subtle scent and a very easy to work with consistency.  Definitely a step up from the cheap and cheerful Aldi interpretation I was previously using.

While we’re looking at my shower caddy – Kiehl’s.  Long time, hard core fan.  The Vanilla and Cedarwood  ($42 AUD) shower gel is just gorgeous.  Very subtle scent and manages to be effective without being harsh on my skin.  Rinses off easily too.

In other Kiehl’s news, the Hydro-Plumping Re-Texturizing Serum Concentrate ($84 AUD) I bought duty free on my way out of Sydney last week is another winner for me.

www.kiehls.com

It contains glycerin and Shiso Leaf extract which has noticeable improved the moisture levels in my skin over the  last week.   I think it’s time to make the switch from whitening serums which I can now safely say don’t seem to do much for my skin texture or appearance wise.

I managed to score a cold in amongst all the shopping I did in Singapore.  Then I didn’t sleep at all on the seven hour flight home which then gave me sleep deprivation plus jet lag on top of the lurgy.  So I practically had to go out for breakfast with Toddler SSG because making my own toast was a bit beyond me.  It was also lovely to be back paying less than five dollars for a large skinny cap….

Breakfast brought me back to life and I’ve just put a batch of nourishing chicken soup on the stove for dinner tonight.  There’s nothing to my recipe, really.  Whatever vegetables appeal, shredded barbecue chicken, a litre of chicken stock, a can of tomatoes, herbs and seasoning to taste and top ups of water as needed.  I usually cook on a low flame for around 2 hours.

Here’s a visual of The Haul.  It’s been a while since I’ve hauled to this degree (the blog tells me it was New York, May 2015) and while it’s all terribly exciting to me, I’ll spare you the play by play today but will hopefully be able to blog about things as I wear them.  I’ve been a bit short on outfit photos recently mainly because it’s all been things on repeat…

I’m jumping about all over the place today, I’m afraid.  But I have another holiday beauty product update.  Unfortunately, the verdict’s not great.  Trilogy’s Make-Up Be Gone Cleansing Balm ($36 AUD) has had rave reviews all over the net so I’m in the minority in saying that it was a huge disappointment for me.  The texture failed to improve from a chunky butter for me, despite the heat in the countries where I tested it.  It was really difficult to work into my eye make up and didn’t remove much of it at all.  Even the scent didn’t live up to the promised rosehip, mango and coconut notes of the label.

What did work was my relatively cheaper tub of organic coconut oil that I decanted from this glass jar.  It removed all my makeup without much difficulty though it does sit on my skin.  No biggie, I just used a heavier cleanser than normal (remind me to review this in the next post…).  It also served triple duty as a hair treatment and body moisturiser which made it the best beauty product I packed for this trip.

Long haul flights mean movie binge watching for me and I was lucky enough to be able to fit in two films last night.  Both are adaptations from novels.  Win, win for me then – more novels to load onto my Kindle.  It wasn’t until I got of the plane that I realised how bleakly beautiful both films were.  And that they had a common theme of protagonists with sexual identities outside the accepted norms of their day.

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‘The Danish Girl’ rightly won Alicia Vikander the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Gerda, the artist wife of Lili Ebe (Eddie Redmayne) who was the first known man to undergo sex change surgery.  ‘The Danish Girl’ is a novel by Thomas Ebershoff and is a fictional exploration of the changing dynamics in the marriage of Gerda and Lili as Lili first acknowledges his true gender and then as he fights to live in harmony with this.  It’s set in Denmark and the austere beauty of the city and its contrast to the bohemian, artistic world of Gerda and Lili is so beautifully presented in the cinematography of the film that I got a little lost in it all at the expense of Vikander and Redmayne’s acting.

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‘Carol’ stars Cate Blanchett as the Carol of the title, a beautiful and privileged Manhattanite who is undergoing a painful divorce from her husband and escalating custody battles with him over their only daughter.  One day, Carol stops off at the toy store where Therese (Rooney Mara) works to look for a Christmas gift for her daughter and a kind of slow burning, intriguing chemistry begins between Carol and Therese.  This is 1950s Manhattan and both divorce and being a lesbian are scandalous for women.  The original title for Patricia Highsmith’s novel was actually ‘The Price of Salt’ and the work is a semi-autobiographical piece of fiction.

As the friendship changes, Therese loses the trust of her nearly fiance and Carol’s involvement with Therese sees her lose all custody of her daughter in the most degrading and intrusive manner.  The pair break off all contact for a period before a ‘chance’ meeting at the film’s end potentially rekindles the relationship.

I got lost in Carol and Therese’s world as well.  I’m just surprised at its omission from any category at the recent Academy Awards.

Have you seen ‘Carol’ or ‘The Danish Girl’?  Have you read the novels on which either were based?