Product Review: Banila Hand Cream

On one of my trips to Korea, I ventured upon a cute cosmetics store called Banila Co. It was filled with the usual assortment of Asian cosmetics- bright blushes, an array of fruity smelling face creams, masks in sachets and an range of eye makeup in every colour of the rainbow.

One of my favourite finds was this hand cream, with the cute name of 'Give Me Your Hand'. I purchased the Redcurrant scent, but it also comes in two others which I can't recall at the moment.

Red-Currant Face Pack (Mask/Gel) & Hand Cream

The scent is amazing, and while the cream is slightly greasy feeling at first, if you control the amount used it sinks in very quickly and leaves hands quite soft. I would use this last, before trying to put on jewellery or other fiddly tasks. The scent is lovely but might be too sweet for some. It lasts awhile but not too long to be annoying. All in all I was very happy with this & would definitely buy it again. In fact, I bought the matching 'face pack' on my next visit.

How adorable is the packaging?

 

Sorry- ingredients are only listed in Korean

Currently listed for 8,000won (approx AUD$6.50 at current exchange rates) on the Banila Co website)

I'm not sure if they ship outside of Korea/Asia, but you could probably find this product in other online stores.

Mixing It Up

A week or two back. my friend Robyn came through Dubai on her way back to Australia for holidays with her family. Now Robyn actually is qualified as a raw chef and makes lots of yummy things that are also super-healthy for you. Me, well I'm a bit of a sweet tooth and have found it very hard in the past to stick to a healthy diet as I just love my sweets too much!

Lately though, I've been managing to get to the gym quite often (at least once every three if not every 2nd day or even oftener) and I wanted to have the right food to go with working out more.

Robyn & I went for lunch while she was here in Dubai, and afterwards we traweled the mall as all good Middle East-dwellers do ;) The fruit & veg section of Carrefour was duly visited (and raided!!!- I bought lemons, oranges, and some fresh mint) and then I decided that I was finally going to stop putting off getting a blender!!!

I settled on the Kenwood 3-in-1 Wizzard, as I wanted something that not only would blend but I also could chop with. It wasn't the fanciest model but at 129dhs instead of about 179, it was a good price.


Really glad I got it, have used it a few times already now, and it's very easy to use and the attachments it comes with are just what I wanted.

So, here's a recipe I thought I'd share with you, for a yummy cold juice.

1 orange
2 or 3 slices of pineapple
1 or 2 kiwi fruit
ice cubes
lemon or lime to taste

(I don't have a juicer yet but I used the old fashioned hand juicer. The Kenwood comes with a big measuring/smoothie cup so as I mixed things in the chopper part I'd put the blended fruit in the cup to mix more later...)

So:

1. Juice the orange and put juice in the cup
2. Trim the skin off the kiwi and blend it, add to cup
3. Blend the pineapple and add to the cup
4. Add a squeeze or two of lemon or lime juice if desired
5. Add a small amount of water to thin out the mixture
6. Use the hand mixer to blend the ingredients together in the cup



You could pour the juice over ice, but I was naughty and used the hand blender part to crush two small ice cubes into the mix (I shouldn't really as the manual says it won't do ice but it seemed okay, but I'll limit this as much as possible.)

This was so refereshing in the summer heat!! Next time I might try adding some strawberries or mint too if I have them on hand.

Down Time

The last few days I've been feeling sorry for myself, as somehow, somewhere in the potential bacterial breeding ground that is a giant aircraft, I managed to pick up some sort of bug and was now sniffling and snuffling through the day. As always, I began knocking back the echinacea, vitamin C and water in the hope that it might chase off whatever I'd caught in the minimum of time.

I'd felt fine the morning of my Hong Kong trip but by the time I got up the next morning I had a touch of a sore throat. Nothing to keep me from sightseeing though! But by the time we'd got back to the hotel at the end of (a very long) day, I was fast sounding like the penguin in Toy Story that lost it's squeaker.

Thankfully today I'm mostly back to normal so hopefully I'll be able to fly my next trip. Of course I'll call sick if required but unfortunately as I have leave after that I'll cop an 'absent from work' on my roster and I'd really rather not thanks very much... but, it can't be avoided if I'm sick. Ugh. I was doing so well, not getting sick with anything like this since just before I moved overseas!!

Today was spent in a somewhat frustrating and time consuming process of trying to fix a problem with the tickets for my leave. Getting home was no problem, but going elsewhere that I needed to go was fast becoming an issue. Normally, we just book tickets online but for some reason the system wasn't letting me. Online help wasn't, and trying to phone through to the call centre went unanswered for hours. Finally, I did what they told me to do last time and made the trip into the office to visit the ticketing desk.

Again, as last time, they refused to help me, until I had to plead my case and explain that as no one was answering the phone, and had been giving me the wrong info for weeks, that today was the last day I could possibly get the tickets. Normally, I could have requested them today and picked them up right before my leave, but with tomorrow being a public holiday here I didn't wat to risk missing the ticket collection. (I can't get these emailed to me like I can with everything else).

As with many things in this country, it took a lot of waiting around, a lot of re-explaining my story to several different people and a LOT of errors and wrong info before I finally had tickets in my hot little hand. It was an epic four and a half hours waiting until I got them, so needless to say I am glad to be back at home recovering and away from the freezing a/c of the office. I'm only a bit ashamed of getting a tad emotional with the supervisor but I think it was what finally convinced him to make them help me!! :P

Not much else was going on, as I was pretty much just resting and doing things around the house. I did go to the mall to pick up a few things, one of which was a scrapbook as some friends and I are planning on starting a 'craft n wine' night- bring whatever we're working on, have a few glasses of wine and watch some tv box sets. Yay!!!!

It's getting really hot in Dubai now, I felt the need to be outside for a little bit, so went to the pool with my book but I only lasted 40mins before the heat sent me scurrying back inside. It's sure going to be a change being in Oz during winter- family tells me there was a huge storm the last few days and it even hailed in my city!!!! I'd better pack warm clothes...

Gym Time...!

I admit it. I've been really slack in the gym department over the last few months. It's quite shameful really, considering that the apartment building I live in has a gym and pool on the premises. There's really no excuse!!

Back in October, I'd decided to get my act together and work out regularly. I'd go to the gym, even if for 40 minutes. Then after a particularly tiring trip, I spent the next three days sleeping during the day and awake all night, and any gym routine went out of the window.

Over the last two weeks, I've been pretty good. I've been going to the gym at least every second day and doing about 20 minutes on the cross trainer and 10-20 minutes on the rowing machine. I'd love to do some weights and I really need to get some toning in my abs but I have no idea how! Not being a gym bunny in any respect, I always feel like a total loser trying to use the exercise machines aside from what I already use.

I also have problems with motivation. I have my ipod and I work out to music or podcasts, but I'd love to find some other ways of keeping motivated in the gym. If you have any suggestions or advice to stop me falling off the wagon again, please leave a comment!!!