Fashion Lookbook : Day 3 - Check this

Today I went through to Cape Town with my friends to meet my new boss and sign the contract etc. I wanted to look formal and well presented, but without trying too hard.

The first word that comes to mind when I hear the word formal is 'blazer'. I opted for the biggest blazer I own so that I could pile the jerseys on underneath. The blazer is a hand-me-down from a friend, and was probably boyfriend style on them but it's in between for me because I'm tall (awkward). If I had have bought it for myself I would most likely have got it three sizes smaller, but it is what it is.

To make the blazer more fitted, I woke up early to iron the collars. I pulled the collars further away from the middle of the blazer and ironed them into place. 

The checks make the blazer a lot less formal though, as do the 3/4 sleeves. I would've worn my black jeggings rather than the blue ones, because the blue jeggings are more casual, but I left them at a friend's house (woops). 

Even though I ended up looking very not-formal, I felt happy and colourful because everyone else out in the gross weather was wearing black and grey, such booooooring colours. 

I also felt happy and colourful, though, because we pit-stopped at Charly's Bakery.

Guess who you'll see at gym for the next 5 weeks...

Roxy X

All Hail Pretty Nails

In grade 11, us Rhenishers went to a drama festival at the Artscape Theater. One of the workshops was about going for castings and what to expect etc, and I remember the leader saying that as well as taking 'mugshots' and portrait shots of you to keep in their portfolio, they also sometimes ask to take a photo of your hands.

If you have clean, shaped, moisturised hands and nails, you look a whole lot more professional than someone with nails chewed to the bone. Unkempt-looking nails can range from chipped polish, to different lengths, to visible dirt. You know the saying that actions speak louder than words? Looking after your hands and nails gives the impression that you look after and care about yourself. There really is no excuse for having unkempt hands and nails. It takes under half an hour to do, and I promise you, 9 out of 10 people will notice and comment on your pretty nails. 

Here's what I do to get nourished, pretty hands and nails:

1. remove nail polish and cut or file nails
Personally, I hate filing my nails because it makes me gril real bad. I recommend filing and/or cutting before soaking your hands because then your nails are very soft.

2. soak hands in hot, soapy water
I fill a basin with nice hot water - as hot as I can handle. This makes my fingers swell and wrinkle and somehow makes the dirt under my nails disappear. My favourite handwash is vanilla scented, but just use anything that will make your hands and nails feel and smell fresh. I also use my right hand and gently scrape the soap off the palm of my left hand and vice versa. This ensures that the soap goes under your nails. Make sure that all the nail polish is completely off your nails, then dab your hands dry with a towel.

3. paint your right hand first
This is my secret to perfect nails. I am right handed, so using my left hand to paint is awkward. It's even more awkward when my left hand's nails are wet. Try get your head around this: if you paint your right hand first, your left hand's nails aren't wet yet so it's less awkward because you don't have to worry about messing up your nails. Once your right hand is painted, you can paint your left. This minimizes the amount of times you paint with your left hand's nails wet. 

4. minimum TWO coats
My favourite nail polish at the moment is 'Essence' sold at any Clicks store for R20. R20 is NOTHING for nail polish! But as you can imagine, because it's cheap it's not great quality. I recommend buying a decent, more expensive clear top coat to seal it down. By doing this, you can buy many more colours at the cheaper price instead of buying one bottle of 'Essie' for like R100 - or more!
As a rule, I always put on two layers of colour polish. This makes the polish on the nail look less see-through or streaky.


5. don't be scared to mix colours
I don't mean literally in bottles, I mean on your nails. Sometimes you spy a nice nail polish and buy it on impulse, and only realize when you get home that it's really watery. In such cases, I use a colour that's similar as a base coat, then put one or two layers of the watery one over that.

6. DON'T TOUCH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh, how I would LOVE to expose my HUNDREDS of friends who have this problem. The problem is not exactly ADHD, but it comes close! Once you have painted your nails, you need to allow them to dry PROPERLY! Go on the computer, watch TV, take a nap - anything that you don't need your hands for. And make sure you pee before you start painting, ladies!

6. moisturise, moisturise, moisturise
What guy wants to hold a gross dry and cracked hand? Moisturising your hands makes them soft and nourished. Clicks has stunning hand creams that are small enough to keep in your hand bag. While you're at Clicks, buy some hand sanitizer to pop in your bag as well!

If you are a weheartit.com regular, I'm sure you're aware of the trend of painting your ring finger nails a different colour. Here are two ways I did my nails recently. I prefer to use a similar colour on my ring finger nail. When I painted my nails turquoise, I used a pearly greenish yellow colour over my ring finger nails. When I painted my nails pearly white, I used glittery silver.

If you are unsure or looking for inspiration, don't hesitate to look to weheartit or your favourite celebs for ideas. Here are some pics I found of Jwoww and Snooki, as well as Adele (obviously):

Happy painting!
Roxy X

Fashion Lookbook : Day 2 - Granny ... (?)

This morning, Rijk and I went to Helgas in Somerset West for breakfast. I decided to wear the cute red jersey my Gran gave me a few days ago. I said to Rijk, "Look I match my car!" (the car is also bright red). He replied, "Ja, and the old age home"

I'm wearing a white sheer collared top underneath that I bought a while ago from Mr Price. This has become one of my staple pieces, and I think I'm going to buy another one. It matches with everything, and I'll be able to wear it in summer as well because it's short sleeved. 

My jeggings are probably my favourite pants I've ever owned. I bought them at Woolies, and the dark blue and black ones are only R150! I think this is a GREAT deal because anything from Woolies is good quality, and only R150 for jeggings that match with everything is a bargain. Normal jeans are around that price anyway, and I find that jeans tend to get baggy over time. Because these are from Woolies, they retain their shape - they're nice and stretchy. These jeggings are sure to flatter any figure. The waist band is elasticated so you can also pull them up high to 'shloep' in the hips! I recommend them a hundred times, and you can even roll them into thee-quarters in summer. They really are a worth-while buy, I promise. 

I asked my Gran to let me look through her jerseys so that I could borrow a few, and we came across this one that she said I could have because it's obviously way too small for her now. I especially like this jersey because it's fitted, and it has pretty detail on the front. Paired with black and white, it's definitely a statement piece. I love it! ...Sorry Rijk.

If I 'look like a Granny,' at least I have an excuse to drink tea all day! Yum.

Roxy X

Fashion LookBook : Day 1 - Lend From a Friend

The point of my blog is to show you how I make cool new outfits without having to go out and buy a new wardrobe. I actually wanted to wear a new jersey my Gran knitted for my first fashion post, but my dearest boyfriend and I had a sushi-date-day today and he told me very bluntly that "Granny jerseys make you look like a granny". So I compromised. Instead... I wore my Mom's top!

One day when Rijk and I were walking in the mall, he asked me if I ever bought clothes at Donna Claire. Highly offended, I cracked up laughing because I quickly realized that he had no idea Donna Claire is a shop for the 'fuller figure'. The top of my Mom's that I borrowed is plain white, from Donna Claire. I decided that it fitted the look I was going for because it's over sized and therefore long enough to cover my rear.

The scarf is certainly one of my favourite winter buys, and I definitely recommend it. It is a black knitted infinity scarf / snood that I bought from Cotton On about two weeks ago for R50. I was at Somerset Mall today and R50 is cheap for a scarf, believe me!

Underneath the white top I wore what I like to call a 'shloep-top'. This strappy, stretchy top from Edgars is really handy, all year round. It's great for layering because it can stretch to be long or short. I call it a 'shloep-top' because if you buy the smallest size, it literally 'shloeps' all your bits in and smooths them out, giving the illusion that you're skinnier! YES!

I just wore normal leggings, my now famous Gangsta Boots and black socks.

I enjoyed this look because it was pretty quick and easy to put together, and it wasn't uncomfortable at all. I spent all day walking around the mall (and eating too much sushi) and it worked well. And Rijk said that I looked pretty today (awwwwww).


Looking forward to tomorrow's outfit, hope you are too!
Roxy X

Fresh look = Fresh room

If you're reading my blog, I'm pretty sure you know me pretty well. If you know me pretty well, you'll know that I basically ALWAYS have a messy room. I think I contradict myself actually, because I'm a perfectionist and love everything to be and look perfect - but I'm lazy. So my room (as well as study, varsity bag, handbag, even computer desktop) gets messy quickly because I'm too lazy to put things back where they belong. 

I had already decided that I needed to have a fresh room to go with the fresh look, but through cleaning my room today I actually discovered some things that will help me keep up the fresh look. Okay fine Mom, I admit it, having things in order does actually help!

Here are a few pictures of how my room looked before

Of course McFlurry loves having a messy room - the more things to cuddle with the merrier! 

It took me just under an hour to pick everything up off the floor and my dressing table and put them in their rightful places. While I was hanging something in my cupboard, I came across a top I had completely forgotten I owned! It was hiding between two bulky long sleeved tops. This made me think of something my dear old Gran does: she puts her summer clothes away in winter. When the weather starts getting warmer, she then replaces her winter clothes with the ones she put away. 

I decided to take the things out my hanging cupboard that I don't wear anymore (such as my high school shirts and blazer, dresses I wore to dances throughout the years, summer dresses etc). 

I still didn't have enough space to be able to see each individual piece of clothing. I then decided to take the jeans out my hanging cupboard and put them in my non-hanging cupboard. To make space for the jeans, I moved a bunch of t-shirts into my 'summer' cupboard, a cupboard I had been using to store random old stuff. I also put all my hoodies in a smaller space because I don't really intend on wearing hoodies out anymore so it doesn't matter that much if they're wrinkled. In my non-hanging cupboard,  I re-organised my clothes from least favourite (back) to most favourite (front). By doing this I can now see what I want and be able to grab it quickly.

Cleaning my dressing table is chop-chop because of three nifty little gadgets. My best friend's mom, Aunty Carol, made me a dangly-earring stand / holder. It is an A4 photo frame with a piece of cardboard with chicken meshy wire stuff over it. The earrings are on display so you can easily spot the pair that best matches your outfit, and they're easy to just grab and go.



My studded earrings are in a jewelry box my cutie boyfriend gave me as a gift for our first Christmas as a couple. My family joked that he clearly didn't know me very well yet because all my jewelry pretty much tends to be any place BUT a jewelry box. The jewelry box is very pretty though, and I didn't have the heart to give it away. I cut out a piece of foam the same size as the inside of the box, and now all my studs just push into the foam. Having them face upwards is so much better because you can actually see the face of the stud, and they don't roll around at all. I love being able to see my studs in neat, accessible little rows, and Rijk is very happy that his present is finally being put to good use!

For some reason, I have an obsession with bangles; I have like a hundred of them! I used to keep them in a box, but I kept adding to my collection and then had to find a bigger box each time - not great when your dressing table is already tiny. When I went on netball tour overseas, I brought home the bottle of Starbucks that I bought. I had no idea how to display an empty bottle, so I put all the bangles around it. Talk about two birds with one stone! The only part of the Starbucks logo you can see now is on the lid, but that's okay, I know it's there!

So now that my room is tidy and my clothes and jewelry are organised, I'm ready to do my first outfit tomorrow! YAY ME! 

Here's to hoping it stays that way!
Roxy X

The Inspiration of the Gangsta Boots

"Have you ever experienced that feeling, that overwhelming feeling of passion and the need to do something, to change something and to be something so much bigger than what you are? I can personally say this is something I feel so often. But for some or other reason we don’t act on this passion and slowly it starts to simmer down; [a]fter days, weeks and even months of not acting on this feeling you are left with nothing but a mere memory of what of would've , could’ve and should’ve instead of what you did." 

This is a paragraph taken from one of my best friends' blog, the Inspiration Archive and that's exactly what it did - inspire me. 

It all started with a pair of what I like to call "gangsta boots". 

The only warm winter shoes I owned was a pair of black ugg boots. Which broke. So kieppie over here decided to wear her mom's boots (with heels) to campus. To make things clearer, my mom wears a size 7. And I'm a big 8 (most Mr Price 8s are too small). By 8:30am I had convinced my (male) friend to come with me to the Chinese shop in order to buy some new boots - from my savings of course, so that my parents could pay me back! (we all know the Maties motto: "studente sonder sente" [students without cents])

That's how we found ourselves in Lee Cooper last week on a chilly winter's morning. Lee Cooper is a cute but random little shop in Stellenbosch. If you're a student, you'll definitely know where Dudu's Fashions is - it's next door. (If you don't know where Dudu's is, both of these shops can be found by walking down the walkway next to McDonalds in Andringa street) I'm not quite sure if Lee Cooper is a Chinese store or not. The front half of the shop sells Lee Cooper legit looking stuff, but at the back it's a funny little shoe shop. They have HUNDREDS of boots of all shapes, sizes and colours.

In the end, I chose a pair of black lace-up boots with a buckle and a simple studded embellishment. I had a hard time choosing, but these seemed the most versatile. Little did I know...

The boots were R250 which is quite a lot for shoes, I think. I'm used to paying as little as possible for anything and everything. But I realized, if you want nice boots that are going to keep your feet warm and dry for the whole winter, R250 isn't bad at all.

The boots made it all the way to the car before I ripped them out the packet and popped them on my feet. I wore them all day and my feet were absolutely fine considering the boots were brand new and most definitely NOT leather.

When I got home, the reality of my situation hit me: I was the proud owner of new, snazzy, FASHIONABLE boots... and I had NO idea how to wear them! 

In a panic, I BBMed Zina for a list of her favourite fashion blogs (my favourites are She Wears Fashion and Baked the Blog / Tgether). I started browsing and looking for ideas, and I realized that I really do love dressing up and looking pretty. I saw a look that included boots similar to mine and a jersey that looked like the one my gran knitted me 500 years ago, and vuala! I suddenly looked fashionable! I had a few extra hours that particular morning (last week Friday) so I decided to even put on some powder base stuff (something I hardly EVER do) and wear my hair in a middle path for the first time since grade 2.


I really loved the outcome. For the first time in ages, people were telling me how nice I looked. When I walked around on campus, I felt confident. 

I made a vow to myself there and then, that I would always make an effort to look nice, even fashionable, before I walk out the door. 


While I was looking for blogs for inspiration, I was looking for one that:

1. is South African
I wanted a South African blog because then the seasons are the same. Whats the point of seeing great fashion ideas but you can't use them because it's 500 degrees colder here?
Also, then the clothes are bought at South African stores so it's more realistic. We all have the mindset that there are NO nice clothes in SA but we can prove that theory wrong.

2. posts photos
I'm looking for inspiration for fashion ideas! I need to be able to see things to be able to copy the idea.

3. posts every day
I want to see as much as possible in order to make the best decisions. Posting a photo every day, or at least every second day, allows the trends to be current. Who wants to see winter fashion from 2010? New things come into fashion literally every day. 

4. has an accessible site that's pretty and 
inspiring
Admit it, reading something that's lilac and mint green with pastel pink rose borders is way more appealing than black on white.
A well-structured site that allows you to find what you need when you want it can separate a good site from a great site. 

Because it was/is so difficult to find a site that has all of these in one, as well as great fashion photos and ideas, I have decided to created my own for aspiring fashionistas like myself. I am taking Zina's advice and not allowing my spark of passion and inspiration sizzle out.

Here's to the future, and I hope you enjoy my blog!
Roxy X