Monday, February 29, 2016

Stay Lean Tea*


Three months have nearly passed and the New Years resolutions of becoming healthier has somewhat been a success yet a fail at the same time, I mean walking everyday and swapping junk food with fruits recently while also having Maccas for dinner a couple days ago?

Any who I was contacted by the lovely company, Stay Lean Tea to try out their 14 day tea detox program which has been a lil trend lately with all the teatoxes, except this tea is a lot different to the usual as it doesnt contain any laxatives, so a tea that is 100% natural and organic is definitely a winner in my books.




The teabags are stored in a brown resealable kraft paper-like pouch, with their company logo on it. And for an ex vis-com student, I honestly love the packaging, its simple and reminds me of something very 'tumblr' especially the tea as you'll see how colourful the 14 day lean cleanse looks!!

Something small to point out as well. The tea bag is made of a cheaper/easily-breakable material but I find these tea bags are made of a fine mesh material that feels really sturdy, so theres no worry that the leaves and what not will come out.

L: 14 day lean cleanse R: 14 day lean burner
For the 14 day detox you have to drink the Lean Burner tea everyday in the morning (pictured on the right) and the Lean Cleanse every second day, with a tea bag in a cup of boiling water for 2-4 minutes.

Starting with the Lean Burner tea, it contains Longjing green leaf, Pu'er Tea Leaf, Dandelion Leaf, Lotus leaf, Lemon Grass, Oolong leaf and Goji Berry. 

I personally found with this tea that taking it in the morning before eating confused the heck out of me. Every morning I usually eat a bowl of cereal which keeps me at bay for a while, yet drinking this tea I didnt feel the need to eat as my appetite was gone, but with the habit of eating cereal pretty much every day  I didnt know whether to drink the tea as my breakfast or have both?! 
I did end up having cereal along with the tea as breakfast is the best meal of the day, which kept me full and not hungry till around late afternoon. Which I thought was great!
Also a lil bonus with this tea is that it tasted a bit like green tea which is one of my favourites, so i had no trouble consuming this even though I was expecting a herbal tea taste.

With the Lean Cleanse it contains Longjing green leaf, Chamomile, Chrysanthemum, Rose flower, Lavender, Roselle and Lemon Grass

To be honest I wasn't a huge fan of this one but i didnt hate it as well. The taste of this was a little more herbal which is what I don't like when it comes to some teas. So I was relieved that I only had to take this every second day, but after a couple cups from this, I did get used to the taste and it just reminds me of the fruity teas you can get at T2.
I found with this tea that it didnt suppress my appetite as much as the other one as i did end up craving food after but you do get quite a shocker when waiting for the tea to steep as you just come back looking at the pinkish tone in your cup of tea. Even with all the leaves and flower in the tea bag the colour looks really pretty, and I have to admit that upon opening the Lean Cleanse I did admire the teabag a lot more than the other.

Day 1- Day 14
For someone like myself who tends to eat quite a lot, I am blessed that I have a high metabolism but sad to say that I do take advantage of that. 
I am someone who craves food 24/7 so Im constantly snacking junk food and having overly sized portioned meals, so you can see above in day 1 how bloated my stomach was.
I have to admit that I kind of made a deal with myself to 'try' and have a better diet plan e.g. not eating all the time etc, when I start the Tea detox, to see if it really did work if you had a balanced diet as well as trying to 'exercise' which in my defence wasn't running around the block and doing weights at the gym, but instead trying to get up and move and walk more rather than sitting infront of the screen, so I did keep up this routine for 14 days but did occasionally have a few cheats of eating unhealthily (keeping it real here!). And I found that the tea did help a lot with the bloating which you can see in the second picture above. 
I didnt record my weight before and after the detox so I'm not sure if i even lost or gained any weight, but Im pretty happy with how the detox worked out, especially with the Lean Burn as it helped with controlling my snacking cravings after breakfast.

I know there are pictures of women with 'bikini bodies' from drinking tea detoxes but Im pretty sure 99.9% that solely relying on a detox will not give you that result if thats what you're looking for
But for those looking for a tea to try that will help with your appetite as well as bloating I can say that it really helped with my little food addiction.

Had to include a picture of the personal touch :')

Stay Lean Tea did kindly give me a 10% off code with any purchase on their store (modelled by my lovely cat Piper), and lucky for you guys they're currently having a sale online so feel free to use the code THANKYOU22 on top of the sales going on now!

Stay Lean Tea


*Disclaimer: This product was sent to me to review

Monday, February 1, 2016

January Favs!


I had a feeling that 2016 is going to be the year for me and I rarely say that, but going into uni this year and with all the new things I've been doing lately, theres really no assuming that its going to be like any other year.
This month has been quite the busy month for me, going camping with a few of my friends, uni offers/enrolment and also finally seeing the amazing Andy Warhol/Ai Weiwei exhibition which had such great artworks fyi.


Near the start of January, I went to Mount Disappointment with two of my close friends along with my friends family. And it was my first time camping so I didnt really know what to expect but I knew not to bring makeup. My friend warned me to bring hand sanitiser and sunscreen as theres no running water and it gets hot in the afternoon, so without a doubt I brought those and my trusty Lucas Papaw Ointment, it has pretty much saved me when my lips were chapping it out in the sun and I also have to say it saved my flaky nose when I decided to get sick using countless tissues a day to blow my nose.
From bringing hand sanitiser, I somehow found a strange addiction during and after camping of using my Palmolive Hand Sanitiser during the day, I can also swear that this hand sanitiser was 90% full (as a rarely used it) and it went down 3/4 after camping.
I brought a few skincare products while camping but the Puretopia Facial Mist & Toner* won me over. On a hot day sunning in the heat, its just so satisfying spraying this on the face, its also vey citrusy so its quite refreshing, I did go to Priceline with my friend as she wanted to buy it only to find out that they discontinued this brand and sadly I'm nearly out but it was loved very much :(


For Christmas my brother got me the Marc Jacobs Daisy Perfume which I've been longing to try. I didnt get around to using it until January, and its right up my alley  with the type of scents I like, it smells fresh yet elegant and I find that anymore than 2 sprays on the neck will get me smelling like the perfume from a mile away, though in saying that, i find that it doesn't last that long which is a bummer but the scent really does win me over.
I have been using the Urban Decay Makeup Setting Spray for quite sometime now and it goes into my holy grail products since using it. I haven't done a monthly favourites recently so I thought it would be necessary to showcase this baby. I don't use face products that often but I do 2 sprays on the eyes + brows with this baby and boy this makes it last so damn long, I find that I haven't seen any of the usual smudging from my eye makeup ever since using this and it has been a long time since whinging about my eye makeup smudging, love it!!
Ive started to use the Skin B5 Skin Purifying Mask more often, about 3 times a week and my face always feels super smooth after using it, it also does wonders in preventing any pimples from getting any bigger!
One of my favourite things that happened in January was going to the Andy Warhol/Ai Wei Wei Art Exhibition at the NGV. Ever since my English tutor told me about Ai Wei Wei, I became in love with his art works ever since,  I pretty much wrote about his activism and view on Chinas communisim throughout my english pieces and my year 12 English exam cause he is just so damn amazing (seriously google his works). Anyways after I found out that his works were coming to Melbourne I had to go. His works didnt let me down and the Lego room that everyone was talking about was stunning in person. If you guys are in Melbourne, do check this exhibition out.


I purchased the Anastasia Beverly Hills Dipbrow Pomade in Granite last month due to my long black/brown regrowth happening, I did a review on this here. But long story short, its not too dramatic, does a great shaped brow that stays on my face (if untouched), Ive been using this pretty much everytime I go out.
From request my brother got me the Kat Von D Liner in Trooper on a Sydney trip last year and I didnt start using it until last month after using up my sample sized Stila Stay All Day Liner. I'll be doing a review on this one soon but spoiler alert, I think I may have found my holy grail liquid liner. It does an amazing job staying on my oily as lids and aside from the Stila liner, is that only liner that hasn't smudged on me.
If you haven't seen my review on the Fairydrops Mascara you won't know how good this makes my lashes look!! It holds a curl, lengthens a bit and separates my lashes (which is what I want).
I find on some occasions that I wake up with dull/lifeless lips, what I mean by that is waking up looking like a zombie where my lips don't look alive and the number one product I always use to fix that shiz right up is the Etude House Fresh Cherry Lip Tint. It comes out as a "my lips but better" in a orangey/pink shade on my lips which I absolutely love! It adds just the right amount of colour to my lips without being overly dramatic like a lipstick and it doesn't smudge as it tints the lips (best thing about lip tints fyi!) though it does fade throughout the day.
I didnt realise how long ago this was but 2 years ago I did a swapbox with Wengiful which you can check out here, and one of the products she sent me was the Hello Kitty Lipbalm. I find that this is such a on-again-off-again product for me as I hit pan quite quick with this so I save this for emergencies only now, but last month I did get a lip rash from my EOS lip balms which did leave my lips chapped up so I started to use the HK lip balm again and it fixed the chapiness within 3 days. I would say this is one of my favourite lip balms and has the perfect consistency and thickness without it feeling like theres nothing there.

Products marked with a * was sent to me for consideration, the rest were either gifted to me or purchased by myself.