Welcome, 2015

Hello Everyone!

I hope everyone's having a great new year! This is officially my first post to welcome the new year so I'm pretty excited to welcome 2015! I'm pretty sick right now and I'm cooping myself up at home for today but other than that, I've been having a decent start to 2015. In December 2014, I purchased quite a few things that I figured would be awesome for 2015 and I thought I should share them with you guys. 

I don't know about doing new year resolutions and stuff because I never really stick to them? At the very most I stick to them for like half a year and conveniently forget that I even made them in January so none of that this year!

Also, this will be my last post before the semester starts. I'm having mixed feelings about school starting again but I'll just go along with it and do what I have to do. I don't have that many products  as compared to the ones I shared with everyone in my 2014 Favourites so I'm presuming this would be a shorter post~

Running Shoes from New Balance

I needed a new pair of running shoes because the previous pair I had was definitely getting overused. I think I got those almost 2-3 years ago and the bottom was getting pretty worn out. I cleaned that pair up and use them indoors when I'm doing my workouts at home. 

The previous pair were also from New Balance. I've been sticking to New Balance for a while now because I've flat feet and I have a bunion on my left foot so that requires shoes that provide more cushion and have a bit more width. I also find New Balance to last longer, but that could just be me, I'm not sure.

This pair are basically trainers, if I remember right. They give awesome support and are a little more bulky and probably heavier than the racing shoes. I've only used them twice since I bought them in December, so that shows how rarely I go out for a jog, but these are really comfortable! Plus, you can't expect me to not love the pastel details going on at the soles of the shoes right?

Happy Plugs 

Let's face it, I needed new earpieces for some time. I used these the day after I bought them and I'm not sure if I regret getting these instead of the in-ear version. They're pretty inexpensive in my opinion, less than $40 if I remember right! Then again, I'm not sure if it's just me but these fall out of my ears quite easily. I struggle with in-ears as well sometimes, like I would have to use the smallest rubber cushion thingy and still sort of struggle to squish the earpiece in to my ear. 

I got used to these though. I'd say the acoustics aren't the best I've had but these are definitely the prettiest pair of earpieces that I've owned. They do have a truckload of different patterns and designs so you'll be spoilt for choice. I picked the rose-gold ones because they aren't as bright as the gold ones. These are gorgeous so I hope these last really long, although I've 1 year warranty for these but yeah, I hope these last!

Mia 2 by Clarisonic

I've a pretty sad but funny story behind this. Just to put it out there, I didn't get two brushes. One was pretty expensive by itself, just slightly over $200? I bought one for my mum for her birthday last year and she loves it. I got her the Mia2 in white!

Anyway, the story began when I actually bought the brush near Christmas. I bought one of the limited edition colours which were hot pink, dark blue and a pretty bright green. Of course, I chose the hot pink one and it happened to be the very last one on the shelf! 

I thought I was hella lucky, but I was so wrong...

I got home and charged it for the initial 24hrs and by the time it hit the 12th hr, the light bits near the buttons weren't on, but I charged it until it hit the 24hr mark to be safe. Once I I took it off the power it wouldn't work at all, it wouldn't charge or anything either. My charger worked with my mum's clarisonic but not with mine. I was pretty sad..

Since this came with a warranty, I brought it back to Sephora the next day and asked if anything could be done. I literally had to wait for 3 working days for them to get back to me which was pretty silly because they could have just exchanged it since I didn't even get to use it? By the time they got back to me, they did give me a 1-for-1 exchange because it literally wasn't working. But, they didn't have anymore of the hot pink ones, let alone the limited colours except for the blue ones I think. So I ended up getting the usual pink one (quite reluctantly) but I got to keep the travel case from the limited edition one. 

That's basically the story cut short but with that being said, I still love this product. It does clean up my face gently, though I'm not too fond of how the clarisonic cleanser smells so I may just get my own. I'll do a full review on this another time because I've only been using this for a week or so?

Marble Skin from Uniqfind

I think this would be the highlight of the post. I love my laptop so much right now because it's so  darn pretty. If you've seen my previous laptop cover which was one of my DIY projects, you'll be able to tell it's pretty bulky but I loved that one nonetheless. Sad to say I got pretty tired of it and it was really thick so it made bringing my laptop to school a real burden.

If you wanna buy this, click on the link here.

The shipping was really quick and they featured my post on their instagram as well. Love the lovely people from Uniqfind! Before I forget, these skins only cater to Macbooks! I think they're based in Canada so I was pretty excited when my laptop skin came in the mail within a week (or maybe a day or two over a week) because that was really fast! They processed the order really fast too plus I felt like it was worth my money because the product really is what they've said it would be. It may be expensive to some but I'm willing to spend my money on these kind of things so.. it was really worth it!

The application of the skin isn't difficult either so that's definitely a plus! The quality is amazing so the sticker doesn't get deformed or anything if you pull on it and it won't tear if you need to take it out to realign it. They also have the cut-out of the apple logo so you can opt if you wanna put that on or not. I chose to take the apple logo off and I pasted that somewhere else.

The only thing I was slightly disappointed about was that this only came for the top of your laptop? Then again, it doesn't exactly matter because who's gonna look at the bottom of your laptop anyway right?

Laptop sleeve from MBMJ

So I decided to give myself yet another treat. I figured that my old laptop sleeve/outercase was really bulky and I should just use that when I go overseas. It was one of those book book cases and because I use a 13-inch macbook pro, it gets really thick. I must say I loved this case and used it to death so it was time for a (relectant) change. I've had the case since poly so that almost 4ish years and it's still in pretty good condition though the details on the sides have kinda worn off and the zip has gone wonky. But it'll be a good travel case because it's so hardy.

I saw this case a month or two back but kept it in mind because I wasn't sure if I'd find better options. But I definitely didn't find anything that caught my eye like this one did so I got this just last week. This is made of leather so hopefully I won't ruin it so soon and it'll last as long as my book book (or at least through uni). Apparently it was sold out at the ION outlet so I reserved the one at Raffles and rushed down to get it. It's a little on the expensive side, but I didn't mind paying that amount for Marc by Marc Jacobs. Plus it was difficult for me to find something that I really liked.

Instax Printer by Fujifilm

This was on my wishlist for a while now and my parents got this for me for christmas! *Screams* I used it the next day and just kept printing photo after photo and even bought 5 double pack boxes of plain film from Lazada, which is pretty awesome btw. I own the piano black instax camera and I'm going to keep that just for the fun of it.

For this to work with your phone, you have to download the instax share app and then set a password (I think that parts optional). You can edit the photos on your phone before printing them on the app too. Not much options are available on the app so I suggest that you edit them in another photo-editing app before using it on the instax share app. 

This is pretty straight forward and easy to use and loads up the same way as your instax camera does and also uses the same batteries. The only thing is that it takes quite a while to print. Other than that, this is so awesome!

Waffle Maker from Severin

This was another Christmas present from my parents and if I remember right, I kept hugging this when I unwrapped it and realised what it was. I've used it quite a bit and the best thing about this is the non-stick surface. Though I'm sure most waffle makers would be non-stick. 

I made Banana Oatmeal waffles today and these didn't have any butter or oil in them so the non-stick feature really helped! Plus it's easy to clean as well because nothing ever sticks! I've done little quesadillas with this as well and they turn out pretty cool! It's literally the best kitchen cheat that I've come across!

That's all for products that have kickstarted my new year! I hope you've enjoyed them and maybe even give them a go if you're interested! I definitely recommend checking them out!

xx

Shayne