Travel Shop Live

Saving the best to last, here is the list of skincare products used in the year and my favorites among them: Face wash/face scrubs : I used Lush Fresh Pharmacy, La  Roche Posey duo effaclar and Burt's Bees clary sage face washes and Clinique 7 day scrub and Lacto calamine oil balance face scrub. My favorites are Lush & Burts Bees cleansers and Clinique scrub. I would like to re-purchase all 3, however, Lush is not available and other 2 are quite expensive😔. Face masks : Masks used are Lush Cup O' Coffee, Origins charcoal and Out of trouble masks, Montagne Jeunesse, anatomicals and L'Action sachets, Biore charcoal nose strips and currently using L'oreal clay mask. Additionally I tried lots of sheet masks too. I liked MJ, Origins and L'Action masks. MJ masks are no longer available in India and I saw L'action masks in Amazon few months ago, but they are not there now 😒. I still got one more Origins Mask and will be getting a Lush mask (thanks to my l...

My hair care products definitely increased this year and deserves a separate post. I already posted pics of the products I am using in my Hair care post . So adding only the pics of emptied products in this post. Hair oil : I became quite irregular in oiling my strands and didn't finished up even one bottle this year. The ones I am currently using are cold-pressed coconut oil, Biotique flame of the forest, and an ayurvedic oil from Kerala called Malatyadi which is my favorite. It is going to take quite some time to finish up the 3 bottles, but once done, I would like to try more oils from Kerala. Hair Mask : The masks I used this year are Roots from Lush, some sachets from Montagne Jeunesse and Superdrug. Needless to say, my favorite is Roots. Even though I don't have access to the brand, I will pester every friend of mine travelling from abroad for a tub😈. Shampoo : I went through loads of them, understandably as no one could be irregular with washing hair. Used ones...

I have the habit of saving the emptied containers mostly the ones I could re-use and some not re-used but too pretty to throw away. I recently saw a video in YouTube where emptied containers are used to decide what to re-purchase and I thought it is a good idea. I am going to list the products used/being used, my favorites and which ones I would be re-purchasing. I got like huge bag of them and thought of dividing them to make-up, skin care and hair care 😁. Starting with make-up, Face products : Primers : I am not into primers much - mostly got them as freebies or part of kits. I used 3 primers this year - Clinique, Benefit porefessional, Bare Minerals Prime Time and Maybelline baby skin one (last 2 are still in use). My favorite of those is Clinique - it made my skin feel quite smooth even when washing it at the end of day. I am not planning on re-purchasing any of them, I will try some product which could multi-task as primer. Concealer : I used Benefit fake-up, Maybelline ag...

Most of the products I went through are skin/hair care products and I wish I could get through some makeup products 😂. Clinique 7 day scrub : this one of the products I like from the brand. My skin have the tendency to get dry and flaky next to the nose and below lips which apparently is result of oily skin but surprisingly feels very dry and stretchy. I need gentle exfoliation daily. Herbalism cleanser is best suited for me but, since Lush isn't available😥, this scrub became my second favorite. Despite being travel size, the pack lasted quite a few months. I wanted to try Kama Ayurveda kumkumadi scrub next, but bought Lacto calamine scrub instead. I'm hoping my friend would get me Avene scrub from Brussels before it gets over. Olay light weight day fluid : I have oily skin but, when I travel to places with colder climate, it tends to get drier. It doesn't mean I could use heavy moisturizer - underlying oiliness can't wait to break my skin out. When I first move...

I quite enjoy taking my mom to historically significant places. When I was in school, she taught me about Mohenjo-Daro and Harappan civilization along valley of river Indus and ancient Egyptian Civilization on the banks of Nile river. I hoped to visit those places with her, however, I am not quite sure when and if that is going to be happen 😔. Being in Bangalore for almost 10 years, I always felt bad I never visited Bangalore fort and Tippu's summer palace 🙄. So, on long weekend of Karnataka's formation day, I went to these places with my parents. Tippu's Summer palace seemed too modest for a palace. It is surrounded by gardens in two sides. The ground floor is like a veranda held by pillars on front and back. Top floor could be accessed through four staircases and mostly comprises of a corridor with small balconies at the end of stairs. On one side there are rooms and we wondered how such great rulers could stay in such small rooms😯. Bangalore fort is few mins by w...

I was never a careful spender, however, I used to prefer getting more products than spending more on single product. Then I noticed I am not really using up the products and most of them ended up in garbage, often with more than half of the content left in the containers. I started calculating the amount of time taken to finish up a product and purchased accordingly. Soon, I realized I could actually afford one or two luxury items with same planning. Initially I bought only one high-end product per year. However, on-site assignment made more brands accessable (in terms of availability and affordability) and high end products​ increased in my stash. Chanel : 1. Mat Lumiere compact powder: few years ago, when I finished my Revlon compact, I realized it is a product I use for more than 2 years and worth splurging on. My first choice was Mac - my new found interest and even tried few of them (not big on window shopping, for me trying is one step behind buying). Then I came across Ch...

Being bought up in a town near the border of 2 states, with subtle mix of cultures, I always find myself at home in places which are high on diversity. Having said that, when I want to visit a place, I used to prefer those which focus on retaining and reflecting local cultures i.e., until I went to Indo-portugese part of Cochin and realized the beauty in blending. Recently, I got invited to a teammate's wedding reception in Pondicherry (well arranged​ on Saturday evening😘) and my two co-travelers immediately came on board. We started on Friday evening and reached early Saturday morning. We easily got to the hotel in an auto rickshaw - they are were easily available and the drivers are well aware of hotel locations. We found the hotel prices to be higher compared to our recent travels (where we got resorts with pools for same price as regular hotel room in Pondicherry) and early check-in was charged extra. After resting till noon, we went out to explore the place. The plan was ...

I seem to go through more products this month and, from feeling glad, I am starting to miss few of them😪. 1. The Body Shop lip & cheek stain: sometimes I feel that a product gets half empty quite faster and then drags on to get completely over - this product was exactly like that 😋. I don’t use blush but I got this as a freebie with one of my purchases in TBS and, since I already had too many lip products, I was using it as cheek stain. I didn’t have any plans to replace it, but halfway through, I realised that I started to like it. I had few more similar products in same category, like primer & mascara, and Benefit came up with these festive packs last Christmas which seemed to be tailor made for me. As I got eager to try the famous cha cha tint, this one seemed to be in no hurry to leave me. It finally got over (mixed reactions 🤓) and I got to open the cha cha tint. 2. Clinique clarifying toner: Clinique products were kind of hit and miss for me and, for that reason...

Bachelorette/bachelor parties, blowing off steam post exams, much needed break from hectic work schedules or any situation when we want to go little (or a lot) crazy - Goa is the place that comes to mind. In the last four years, I went to Goa three times and each time it was completely different experience. First visit is just to relax and we went during off-season. We stayed at a resort in vagator beach located on a cliff overlooking the Sea. We couldn't do any typical to-do things in Goa - no water sports, no shacks, no markets. Even though it wasn't raining, it was start of monsoon and every place is closed completely (with covers to protect from heavy rains). We rented scooters first day and Jeep next two days and almost every place we went is closed, however, we came across some good places - mostly eateries. We managed to do some kayaking in one of the resorts and jet ski in Vasco. Ironically, it didn't rain even once during our stay. The main activity of the trip ...

I became aware of sample boxes few years ago and was both intrigued and sceptical. The reviews were quite mixed too - while few are delighted to try out luxury products before purchasing them and avoid disappointments, some wondered why spend money on samples when they were given in many outlets to promote the products. I kind of fall in latter category but still wanted to give them a try and I got my envy box in 2014, I believe that’s the year they were launched. I didn’t use to buy luxury brands often at that time and I was just curious to try them out. So, even though I felt the price was justified, I decided to buy only one box (I got another almost 6 months later because I got a discount coupon 🤑). I also bought few nature’s co boxes around same time and I liked them more as they are cheaper and give deluxe and travel size products, plus their packaging is different every time and I got few good pouches which I still use. Then I stopped them too as I was not able to keep track ...