Hi everyone.
Welcome back to Lavendaire.
It's time for April Favorites
and I cannot believe how fast this month passed by because I feel like it just started,
and then boom, boom, boom, week after week.
And now we're in the last week of April,
and I don't know where the time went.
It's probably because I was very busy socially.
I had a lot of fun this month, a lot of things going on.
I started off the month traveling.
I was in London and then I went to Coachella the next weekend.
And then the past weekend was my friend's surprise birthday party
with a huge get-together.
We spent a night in Venice Beach, which was really nice.
And then I went to Knott's, the theme park, with my cousin.
So I just had a lot of social events
this month and it was really fun.
I decided not to vlog my recent trips to London and Amsterdam
because I felt like vlogs didn't do too well on my channel, and I was focusing more
on taking photos for Instagram.
So if you want to catch up with my travels,
what I've been up to, definitely check out my Instagram.
I've been posting
at least a photo a day and basically everything that's happened is on there.
Alright, so onto the favorites.
First favorite is, when I was in London, honestly,
one of the highlights of my trip was going to the Harry Potter Studio Tour
at Warner Brothers in London.
And that is just such a cool place.
You don't know how excited me and my friend were to go to this tour.
I don't know,
we were just so giddy and everything felt so magical when we were there.
We spent hours there because over ten or more years of filming all those Harry Potter movies,
they have collected a lot of props and sets and costumes, makeup, drawings of the architecture
and design.
It's really, really cool.
I feel like, even if you're not super into Harry Potter,
you'll still enjoy this tour because it just shows how much goes in into making a fantasy
film.
And I think it's like a dream job to be a part of something like that, something so
huge and magical.
You could be as creative as you want.
And I just love seeing the behind the scenes
of creative works.
I love looking at the set designs and looking at the sketches of things,
seeing it from how it went from A to B, because we see the movie on-screen but we don't realize
how it was made and all the little details.
So I was fascinated.
I loved it so, so much.
And if you're ever in London, definitely, definitely make a stop at the Harry Potter
tour.
My next favorite are these press-on nails from Empress Tips.
I discovered press-on nails
and Empress Tips at the same time when I was listening to The Beauty and the Vlog podcast
where she was interviewing the founder of Empress Tips.
I never even realized
that press-on nails are a thing.
For me, I've tried gel nails, acrylic nails,
and also just regular nail polish, but all of them have their cons that I just don't
enjoy.
I don't like when gel and acrylic nails ruin your natural nails.
And then with normal nail polish,
I don't like how it chips within five days or even less.
I'm a kinda girl that I'm kind of lazy.
I want to do it once and then not have to do it for two or more weeks.
Honestly, the ideal is never having to think about my nails and just having them
look good all the time, but I guess every two weeks is good.
Press-on nails,
basically they're just nails that you glue onto your nail.
And the glue does not damage your nail,
so taking it off, I think you soak it in hot water and then it just comes off.
This is my first time putting on press-on nails.
And the first time I did it,
I don't think I used enough glue, so immediately after that day, they started popping off
one-by-one.
So the second time, I put them back on and I added more glue,
and after I did that, they lasted … It's been a week and a half now.
So I think they would last a week and a half to two weeks tops if you take good care of
them
and if you put enough glue.
But even if they pop off, I don't mind.
I'll just put more glue
and pop it back on.
Plus: the set comes with a lot of extra nails so if you lose a nail,
you can always put one back on.
That was me at Coachella.
I would lose a nail during the day
and at night, I would just put on a new one.
I don't know, I just really like them.
I especially like that it's iridescent.
You can't really tell in this video that I took.
But in this photo, you can see how it's so many colors and just looks so pretty.
So I'm super excited that I discovered press-on nails.
I think I'm going to be
wearing these indefinitely, for as long as I can, just keep trying new designs.
My next favorite has actually been a favorite for, I would say, three months-ish,
since I got this in January.
It's the Jouer highlighter in "Citrine".
This is a powder highlighter.
Ooh!
Oopsies.
Just spilled it on my bed.
Anyway, I'm just super into highlighting.
I think it's so fun just to have a shiny face.
Normally I have dry skin,
so I'm not even the oily skin type.
So I don't care if I look shiny and oily.
I like that look.
I like the dewy look.
I've been enjoying this highlighter, wearing it every single day
for like three months.
And I'm so sad that literally today, I opened it and I noticed
that it was broken.
So I did my best to tap the powder back in, but as you can see
it's not very pretty.
But I love it and it's definitely something I would repurchase,
which is pretty rare for me for makeup items.
My next favorite is my favorite sunscreen that I'm so happy to have discovered
from my friend Jean.
I've been using this for a few months too.
I don't know
if I ever brought it up, so since summer's around the corner, I thought I'd bring it
up.
This is the Biore Aqua Rich Watery Essence, and it’s SPF 50.
And it's a Japanese product
that you can get on Amazon.
So I ordered this on Amazon, but it basically took a month
to ship because it had to come from Japan.
But I mean, it was free shipping, I think.
Anyway, this is the best SPF for your face because it's so silky.
It's watery that it goes on
really smoothly.
It is so light that you don't notice it.
The thing with SPFs with for me is that
they're so thick.
And I feel like, after I put the SPF on, it's either really oily,
like my makeup just doesn't go well on top of it.
So this is very lightweight, but it's SPF 50
that you put on your face and it feels like you have nothing on.
That's like the best part.
I even wonder if it's really on my face because it's so light.
I wonder if it just disappears
or I don't know.
Do you ever wonder if SPF is actually working or if it's already washed off?
Like you sweated it off, but you don't even know?
Anyway, definitely worth a try
if you're looking for a lightweight, watery SPF for your face.
My last favorite of the month is a photographer that I discovered named Joey L.
and you have to check out his Instagram account, joeyldotcom.
I'll link it down below.
I discovered this through my friend Ed.
He has a channel called "Photos in Color"
and he had a video about top 15 or something inspiring photographers of our time.
He listed all these different photographers and their Instagram accounts,
and I checked out all of them.
I'll definitely link that video below if you want to watch it
because you'll get so inspired but all those different photographers.
I literally spent a whole hour or two in the morning going through everyone's Instagram.
Just, I don't know, fueling my creative soul.
But my favorite out of these photographers
was Joey L. I spent like thirty minutes or even longer on his account
because each photo is one you have to sit on and his captions are just so good.
It just tells a story behind the photo.
It just adds so much more to the photo.
I especially love his photo series when he was in Syria, documenting the Syrian War
because it brings you to that place and the photos that he chooses just look beautiful,
yet it's so powerful at the same time.
There's a lot of emotion in each of his work.
For example: this is my favorite photo, the one with the kids playing on a destroyed ISIS
tank.
And that is just such paradox, right?
It's just so interesting to put those two subjects together
but it makes that story so powerful.
And to me, it shows human resilience and human joy,
the childlike innocence and joy, intermixed with the devastation of war
and destruction and fear.
And it's crazy.
I thought that was so fascinating and so beautiful.
And here's another one of my favorites where he had a photo of this guy
and then–Just read the caption.
Just read it.
So I'll definitely link joeyldotcom's Instagram plus his website because you can spend
a lot of time just sitting with his work and really getting a lot from it.
Getting a lot of inspiration, emotion, or thoughtfulness, whatever it is,
it will give you something because that's what good art can do.
It's so powerful that it moves you in a way that you can't explain with words.
Alright, that's it for my favorites this month.
Let me know what your favorites were
and especially if you have music recommendations.
I am in dire need of new music
so send them my way if you have good tunes.
Any genre is cool.
Alright, see you next time.
Love you all.
Bye!