Manic Panic Amplified Review

So I have had red hair for about 2 years now and have had my whole head red since July and let me tell you, up keeping it in the saloon is NOT cheap. I have touched up in a saloon once for $160 and cried over all the food I didn't get to eat that week. I usually dye my hair with Schwarzkopf Live or Brite Organix hair dye but my friend recommended me to try manic panic, and so I did. I purchased it in wild fire and the amplified one, because why not. Oh, I bought it from price attack for $26 but you can get it for waaaay cheaper online.

So a little bit about the dye:

- It is vegan and does not test on animals.

- Glows under black light (not that I'd ever test it haha).

- Does not have the chemical-ish smell.

- Stains some materials PERMANENTLY (Like my poor white hairpin R.I.P).

- To be used for 30 minutes.

So my hair is originally bleached, and like most bright hair dyes, this one doesn't show on black hair. Before dyeing it my hair was of an orange tone.

According to the instructions, you are supposed to apply on freshly washed dried hair but it was 12 am and I just ceebs to hop in the shower.

I used the whole bottle and cling wrapped my head. It says to leave on for 30 minutes but since I want a very bright colour I decided to sleep with my hair dye (so had it on for a total of 9 hours). I also used a hair dryer to heat up my cling wrapped head so that I could increase the intensity of the colour. 

Make sure you clear away an area because I got dye over some of my things and well, the dye didn't come off everything.

I showered with icy cold water and did not shampoo my hair. Once I hair dried my hair it was SO unbelievably soft and the colour was AMAZING. It was super bright red! I think I found my new favourite brand.

This is a before and after of my hair. Excuse the bad lighting of the first one, it was midnight. As you can see it became a lovely colour and I'm super duper satisfied with it.

OH something that's important to note: When I washed my hair afterwards the hair dye STAINED my hands like crazy. It doesn't matter since I'm only going to uni today but if you're going anywhere you might want to wash your hair with some gloves.

♥ Jess

Oven-baked Sweet Potato wedges recipe

So it's exam week right now and I'm feeling like a roller coaster full of emotions. During exams, I usually gain a good 2-3 kgs in two weeks because I like to snack while I stress study. This semester I'm trying to maintain my weight by opting for healthier versions of things I like to snack on.

Hope you enjoy these just as much as I did!

Ingredients:

• 2 large sweet potato 
• 2 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 tablespoon ground paprika
• 1 tablespoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon sea-salt (or more depending on your preference)

I only used 1 potato since I found this massive baby in IGA, Match stick for scale.

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and cut up the sweet potato into wedge-like shapes and dump them in a large mixing bowl.

2. Add the olive oil, salt, ground paprika and garlic powder.

3. Mix it up well.

4. Spread them out nicely then chuck it in the oven for 40 minutes, make sure to flip them after 20 minutes.

Taadaa~ you've got yourself a lovely snack throughout the day. I usually like to have it with garlic aioli sauce but it tastes amazing plain too. How easy was this to make? 

♥ Jess

Christmas tree lighting in Perth

It's starting to look a lot like Christmas here in Perth! Treesha and I went to Forest chase last Friday to watch the mayor light up the city. We were twinning to the event in our cute denims.

We came an hour after the event actually started so the place was CROWDED. We somehow managed to make our way to the front and watched the last 20 minutes of the Christmas show.

Treesha and I also managed to see Santa and probably were more excited then the kids there. So apparently there was more than 100,00+ lights and décor that were around the city. I was too excited so unfortunately I did not get a snap of when they actually switched the lights on. The city was lit beautifully, there was confetti everywhere and buildings were all Christmas-y.

Isn't it GORGEOUS? It really reminds me of Elsa from frozen.

This is the tree they lit up, it's quite a small tree (comparing to the ones in Dubai) but it's 13 metres tall and is supposedly the largest Christmas tree in Perth.

Speaking of Christmas holidays, since I'm going back to Dubai this break my wonderful boyfriend bought me an early birthday present from kikki.k.

He spoilt me with a planner, some pens and a matching pencil case. ♥♥♥
Hope everyone is enjoying the season~

♥ Jess

Mediterranean Shakshuka Recipe

I lived in the middle east my whole life before moving to Perth and I can't believe I never heard of this dish! I first tried it in Rabbit in the moon in Fremantle and it was SO delicious that I had it again in Typika in Claremont. Their portions were tiny for the price I paid (about $16 a tiny plate) so Treesha and I decided to whip up our own Shakshuka!

Ingredients:

• 1 Red bell pepper
• 1 large onion
• 4 garlic cloves
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne
• 4 medium tomatoes
• 1 red chili
• 4 eggs
• Feta cheese
• 1 Chorizo sausage
• Cilantro
• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Chop up the bell pepper, chorizo, onion, garlic, feta, tomatoes and cilantro.
   
    
   
   
   
2. Cook the bell pepper and onion together on low-medium heat for about 15-20 minutes until it is really soft, make sure to stir regularly so it does not burn.
   
3. Add in the garlic and the herbs and stir for another minute.
   
4. Add in the tomatoes and salt and pepper in. Simmer it for another 8-10 minutes until the sauce thickens up and then add the chorizo and chilli.
   
5. Make 4 dents in the thickened sauce to crack the 4 eggs in. After you put the eggs on sprinkle some feta cheese on top.
   
6. Cover the pan and let the egg whites cook. Once it is done, sprinkle some cilantro and you're done!
   

Hope you enjoy your shakshuka, it goes well with toast for brekkie. (:

 ♥ Jess

It's time to bake!

So I just finished my last day of the semester and man was I glad that's over! Treesha and I decided to bake some goodies for the people who helped us through the hectic semester and allowed us to pass our assessments.

We decided to have a bake session to make tiramisu, rainbow cupcakes and cookies for everyone. Of course we could not have started the day before having brunch and coffee.

Our mocha and matcha latte from 1982 expresso in Subiaco. J

Trying to tackle the triple choc milkshake from Babooskha in city (we failed horribly and end up leaving more than half of it). Treesha also took me to the Sikh temple in Canning Vale so I had a reason to dress up all Indian.

They gave this cool warm blob in the end of the service which I think is like the Holy Communion for Christians? Might be wrong.

I could not find my favourite tiramisu recipe so I kind of just looked at a few and mismatched the ingredients to my liking. Also, I don't like using coffee liqueur so I dumped in some rum instead. 

THESE COOKIES ARE REALLY GOOD GUYS. You know the M&M cookies you can get from Coles? Yeah, they taste like that. Click for recipe here.

 We used this recipe to make messy looking rainbow cupcakes. These were not so sweet but looked so pretty with each bite.

We spent literally the entire day baking and making these bad boys look pretty. Very happy with how they turned out and I hope everyone we give it to will feel our appreciation.

Have a happy Sunday!

♥ Jess

Superstar waffles | Northbridge, Perth

Hello lovelies,

Today, my friends and I decided to have some waffles while we were in Northbridge. I  felt super adventurous trying to find this place since it is tucked away in an alley and so it is quite easy to miss.

The decorations of this little gem of a dessert shop was very simple and super duper cute. I loved everything about the interior from the mugs hanging down to the cute vintage bottles we had on our tables.

The place was very simplistic and only has about 8 or so tables, so prepare to wait a bit during rush hour. As for pricing, all the waffles on the menu were under $10. Oh, apparently now they offer a take-away option for almost all the waffles so that's a good alternative if you don't want to wait. ;)

 Just look how good that looks! It tastes even better. We ordered the warm apple pie waffle ($9.5) which was generously topped with cinnamon and icing sugar. The apple is outrageously soft and it tasted sooooo good, I can't even. The added muesli crumble complimented the taste well with the super fluffy waffles. It comes with cream too, but we opted it out and had vanilla ice-cream instead. 

I'm not a big fan of vanilla ice-cream so I ordered an additional scoop of chocolate ice-cream for myself. Hehe.

Overall, I think this place is a good option if you're bored of geláre. Definitely coming back to try the other waffles on the menu! 

♥ Jess

Colour run 2015| Perth

So this morning, colour run was happening in Langely park. My usual volunteer crew and I obviously did not miss out on the opportunity to help out in this event. I’m sure most of you know what colour run is. It’s basically a 5km fun run where you get different colours thrown at you and you get to hear live entertainment and mess about. If you'd like to know more, click here.

We arrived at the venue at 6:30am, a good hour before our briefing (talk about keen!) and the only thing that didn’t stop me from crashing down was this big chocolate muffin.

We started off unpacking heaps of boxes, which I struggled with because I’m a weakling. This is my victory shot after I achieved opening a box by myself.

I was SO tempted to Zumba when I heard the songs but we couldn’t leave our stations. L

We were assigned to finish line so we handed out colour packets, shine packets, drinks and medals to everybody who completed the run. There was a large number of adorable kids I couldn’t even.

We volunteered for about 6 hours before we could sign off. The place was filled with music, laughter and joy. It was a lovely , super tiring experience and I got to bond with these lovelies more~

 

♥ Jess