Opening a New Chapter

Amsterdam
Happy new week and I hope your weekend was good. Mine was spent exploring and getting lost in my new neighbourhood - but I always make it home safe so no worries. Last week I made my big move and relocated to The Netherlands, particularly Amsterdam. Last year [in this post] I mentioned how I had been trying to move abroad for University but things did not work out as planned because I ended up not scoring high enough on my TOEFL Test.

This year I started preparing earlier than before, I got my TOEFL results in beginning of April after applying to three Universities in Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Utrecht. To my surprise I was accepted to all three and was left with having to make one of the hardest decisions ever and something I know will highly impact my life; hopefully for the better. As you now obviously know, I decided upon Amsterdam because it is the place where I have always wanted to study and now here I am.

Clicking the 'complete purchase' button for my one-way ticket was frightening seeing as I have always bought round-trip flight tickets. Packing was a nightmare and I had been preparing everything two weeks prior to flying out only to somehow end up doing everything the very night before my morning flight. I crammed my entire life for the coming few years into two suitcases, I have no idea how that happened but I managed. In this post I brushed on the fact that I want to live on less materialistic things and so far, so good. And soon I will be sharing with you glimpses of how I have organised everything.

I have now been here for a little more than a week, my father joined me here for a couple of days to help me settle and we had a great time. As of now, everything is almost sorted out but getting Internet was by far the most problematic, it's as if the odds were working against me. I stayed here four whole days without being able to communicate with my family whenever I desired and my only option was to take a 10 minute walk to the campus... Eventually I managed to get it up and running and I am back to abusing my Netflix account.

Friday the 19th and the 26th the Erasmus Student Network board at my Uni held welcome drinks for all International and Exchange students, aside from that myself and other students have met a couple of times in-between for drinks and exploring the nightlife in the city and to be honest it has been quite hectic and my body needs refuelling, so for now I plan on letting myself sleep till noon and overall enjoying the little free time I have got remaining till my programme commences.

Till next time.x

HWYW | African Printz

H/M
Hey ladies, it's been a while but I'm back. I've been sorting out a few things and so far it's been a heck of a busy month for me. But I'm keeping myself positive and just overall appreciating the tough times and taking them in as a lesson. I will share with you what's been going on once I'm settled and actually have the time to sit down and write away, for now here's an outfit for this month's 'How Would You Wear' challenge. Our theme is African Print and seeing as this dashiki piece's the only thing in my wardrobe I just have to show it again. This time I paired it with my vintage Levis shorts and a pair of chucks.

Dining at Argentína Steikhús

H/M
Happy Sunday! Last Friday mum took me to a restaurant called Argentína Steikhús seeing as I'd just completed my last shift at work for the summer and also it had been long since the two of us went out for dinner. It was my first time eating there and I had such a great experience, I'll definitely be going back for their white chocolate mousse dessert. We were there for almost 4 hours just chatting and indulging in scrumptious dishes.

ASOS Wishlist #2

Asos
ASOS Wishlist #3


Hi everyone! Your girl's got only one more nightshift of work remaining for the summer, my 'summer' vacation wasn't as productive as I'd hoped... but whatever, only good vibes over here (insert pink nails emoji). Most of my time was spent sleeping and browsing ASOS as per usual and today I decided to show you a bit of what's currently on my wish list. For me summer's already, it's been raining for 4 days straight over here and I'm just over it, the nights are dark as if it were already winter and honestly I'm looking forward to A/W because the two are my favourite seasons especially style wise - layering is my thang! In honour of the colder months quickly approaching, I'm ready to restock my wardrobe with some cosy pieces as showcased in the image above, that dress is among the other pieces just because it's so pretty and I couldn't resist.

What is your favourite time of the year?

Esther. x

4 Summer Nail Polishes

Beauty
Happy new week! Can you believe there are approximately 4 months?! That being said, I want to share with you all my current favourite nail polishes, having naturally strong and long nails has always been a perk of mine, and because of that I really love collecting nail polishes although I don't do as much of it as I used to when I was younger (i.e. when began blogging).

01. Trend it up double volume & shine nail polish #320: I bought this gorgeous plum colour at a drugstore in Berlin, it's very thick and only needs max 2 coats, unless you're partaking in the 100 layers of ... challenge that everyone's going crazy over. Application has to be one coat at a time and make sure to let it completely dry.

02. O.P.I Need sunglasses: this bright yellow has been in my collection for the longest time but I just recently started using it and I regret not having done it earlier on, it looks very good against tan skin and 2 coats is enough to get the true colour.

03. O.P.I Too hot pink to hold 'em: I wear a lot of pink hues along with dark tones and this one's the one I usually gravitate towards whenever I'm not able to decide on a colour to wear. It's a rich pink colour that's very light and the true colour - at least to my liking, only appears after approx. 3 coats.

04. Chanel #579 Paparazzi: a gorgeous cross between burgundy and pink and looks very good year round, it has copper hues to it and looks great with any outfit. It's a very safe colour to go with if you're not one for overly bright or dark nail polishes. You can find more in this post.
Those are my top 4 nail polishes of the moment. Have you tried any of them and also let em know what you think.

Esther. x

July Favourites

Beauty
July is past us and it's time for my beauty favourites. Some of these products you might've already seen on here and I've provided links to the previous posts regarding some items in case you'll be interested in seeing that. It's going to be quite a long post so let's dive into it.

01. Maybelline Eyestudio 24h gel eyeliner: BEST. EYELINER. EVER! Seriously, last weekend I went out and had wings that could cut somebody along with my smokey eye, as the night came to an end, I couldn't be bothered to take of my make-up (bad girl...), the next morning my eyeshadows had moved around but my eyeliner stayed put, no smudges or anything and I could've continued wearing the same eyeliner all day.

02. Make Up Store face mist: I haven't tried too many face sprays aside from the LA Girl one so I wanted to try something new and I had to make a choice between the MAC prep + prime fix+ and the one pictures, I decided to go wit it as it's more affordable and feels fresh on the skin. It can be used before/after make up application or to simply rehydrate your face during the day.

Sneak Peek

Lifestyle
Happy Friday everybody! I'm here to share with you a few snipets from my bedroom, specifically my wardrobe and how I store some of my items such as shoes and jewellery. I will be showing you in a more in-depth post later one as I'm currently searching for my camera charger, it seems there's a ghost in this house because I feel as though each time I desperately need something, it mysteriously vanishes from my eyes. Anyway, once I get hold of it, I shall make sure to share with you more photos, but these photos will have to do for now.
Also I'm working on clearing out my wardrobe so the pictures you'll see later will be after the whole 'cleanse'.

Esther. x

GET THE LOOK | Rihanna at OVO Fest

Inspiration
Rihanna's OVO Tour 2016 Outfit

August's finally here which means it's time to say goodbye to summer clothes and start preparing for Autumn/Winter. I'm excited for this winter, let's see how my style will evolve.
Now, I'm sure that most of you have seen the above picture of Riri floating around the web the past couple of days. I've always adored her style but at times the outfits she steps out in always seem too overwhelming for the average girl - that's the deal with this orange ensemble. Rihanna's wearing a Fengchen Wang coat and boots from Vetements; both items are from the Spring 2017 men's wear collections.

I decided on gathering inspiration from her outfit and making it more wearable, I would finish the look off with either a statement necklace or a  pair of earrings. I love the fact that she wore men's wear because I tend to do that a lot, I love my oversized sweaters and shirts especially, whenever I go shopping, I always make sure to check out the men's sections in stores.

Would you wear an almost all-orange outfit?

Esther. x
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6 OUTFITS FROM JANUARY - JUNE

Outfits
Often as bloggers we tend to spend a great amount of time working on a blog post whether it be a beauty- or fashion related one only to hit that publish button and completely forgetting about the blog post in a few weeks to come, which is very saddening if you think about it. That is one of my many reasons for writing this post today because I am sharing with you my 6 favourite long forgotten outfits through the January - June period so let us get straight down to business.