Oh deer it's Halloween

Although Australia has started to rapidly heat up and I have almost forgotten about one of my favourite holidays all together, Halloween is just around the corner. I have done a few spooky make up looks over the last couple of years and have always really enjoyed them but this year I struggled. Between switching my makeup to being completely cruelty free and the fact that the weather is any thing but spooky I was lacking a little bit of inspiration...so I took to pinterest!

This look is by no means original, it has been done time and time again by the vast majority of  beauty bloggers but I still think it's very cute and a little bit more fitting to the Spring weather I'm experiencing! And I already had everything I needed to create it aaaand it's cruelty free! Winner! 
The base: -Nyx full coverage concealer -Bare minerals original in golden medium -Sleek contour kit (I used the darker shade all over my cheeks and temples)
The Eyes: -Elf brown stone palette  -Nyx eye brow cake powder -elf black mascara -elf black liquid liner
The nose: -Nyx brow cake powder -elf black liquid liner
Lips:  -Nyx butter gloss in fortune cookies 
So there we go....this was super easy to create and I think it looks quite cute! I haven't heard many people mention Halloween over here but if I get any amazing last minute plans this is what I will be doing. I will hopefully have more posts up for you soon as we're getting ready to move on soon so keep your eyes peeled. 

Fitness Friday: Back to it

I know,  I know, I'm as shocked as you are to see a Fitness Friday post. It has indeed been a while but after several months of eating whatever I like and spending far too much time sitting on my bum, I have started looking after myself again. 
I had planned on joining a gym in Melbourne but always found excuses not to so when we moved to Brisbane I knew that was something I needed to make happen. I was originally looking for yoga groups or dance classes but my boyfriend was told about Venus Women's gym from a friend so I had a little look on the site and got in touch with them. A week later I was in for my induction which just happened to be a pretty intense full body work out doing things my body had never done before. The next couple of days were painful to say the least but I knew I was definitely going to get results here. 
I've never been to an all women's gym before and whilst being in mixed gyms had never been an issue for me before, I think I do feel more comfortable this way. The actual exercise is very different too. There's not a treadmill in sight! Venus work in small group sessions in the morning and evening and they're all targeting different things. I've tried a few different ones so far and I always come away feeling like I've worked my arse off! I've been aiming for 3 sessions a week and a month after I'm already starting to feel stronger and more capable. I've never squatted so much in my life but  keep finding myself standing with my hands on my bum because it's feeling so toned haha!  
I definitely need to organise my week a little better as I've definitely been working some areas more than others but that just a case of planning which is what I am going to focus on this month. I've even been starting to look into obstacle races in Brisbane (eek) I'm not making any promises just yet but I think if I keep doing what I'm doing then I could be getting very muddy in the near future! 
The girls at Venus have been so supportive and encouraging and I already know I'm going to miss it when I move on from Brisbane. This experience has definitely taught me a lot about how I want to exercise from now on and I know that when we make the move to New Zealand in a few months that I will be looking for something very similar. 
That all being said look out for more Fitness Friday posts, I'm a women on a mission for a great bum! 

Current Cruelty Free Favourites

If you're a regular reader of TheRobynChristina then you may know that I recently made the decision to go cruelty free.  This means that I've had an excuse to try out some new products recently and thought I would share some of my new finds.  Yippee!

Original Source shower gels

I've loved these shower gels for ages and since discovering that they are vegan and don't test on animals I'm just working my way through the collection. The Pineapple and coconut one is definitely in the running to be my number one as it the perfect holiday smell but I know my boyfriend loves the mint one! They're really affordable and are really easy to find in the shops. 

Palmers Cocoa Butter Natural Bronze body lotion

I've used bits and bobs from Palmers before but since discovering that they're a cruelty free brand I've been trying a few more of there products. One that I have really been enjoying is the natural bronze body lotion which is basically a gradual tan. The scent is the classic cocoa butter which my boyfriend is definitely not a fan of, I quite like it and it stops the nasty fake tan smell so I'm happy. It leaves my skin feeling super soft and gives a nice natural tan than builds up quickly over a few days. This is definitely up there with my favourite gradual tans. 

OGX shampoo and conditioner 

I'd seen this range around before and had never really looked in to it but after running out of shampoo one day and having to quickly stock up I found these and turned out they're cruelty free so that was me sold! They have a lot of different versions and I have only tried a couple so far but I really liked the macadamia oil one a lot. I've been trying to get my hair in really good condition lately and felt that these really helped nourish it. 

Dermalogica skin perfect primer 

You may or may not know that I am a beauty therapist and I have recently been doing some training with dermalogica. Training usually involves trying out lots of products and I always end up wanting to buy everything. Some times if you're very lucky you get given some samples to try and I ended up with a few of these beauties and I'm a little bit in love. This is a tinted primer that creates the perfect base for you're makeup. If I want a lighter look I sometimes just wear this with a little bit of concealer. It has anti-ageing properties and spf 30 so is just an all round gem. I will definitely be getting a full size when my minis have ran out 

.Sleek Matte Me liquid lipstick in birthday suit

I've recently been looking for a cruelty free version of some of my favourite nude lipsticks. Luckily for me Sleek is a great brand that also happens to be cruelty free and whilst browsing there shelves I found this little beauty. Birthday suit is a gorgeous dark nude and dries completely matte. It doesn't budge once it's on. Like most liquid lipsticks it does tend to get a bit dry but popping a little bit of lip balm on top helps with that. 

Being cruelty free is still new to me and I am definitely still learning. Please let me know any recommendations you have on any other products you think I should try. I will be keeping you posted on any other great finds very soon. 

Going Cruelty Free

I've been a vegetarian for a long time now and a few years ago I decided to stop wearing leather so I don't know why it's taken me so long to realise that it's equally bad ( or worse) to use cosmetics that aren't cruelty free. I'm honestly a bit embarrassed that I didn't realise sooner. Looking on the brighter side, I am 25 years young and have the rest of my life to be cruelty free.

Making this decision hasn't been too easy for me. There's a lot more to consider than you might think and I am still in the transitional period. I had products that were already opened when I made the decision and I decided it made sense to finish those before buying animal friendly replacements. It also wasn't until I noticed cruelty free cleaning products in my house that I realised I would have to consider those as well. It's definitely a learning curve but I'm starting to get the hang of it now and for me it's definitely worth it. 

If you've read all this and are feeling frustrated because I haven't actually explained what being cruelty free means, then I apologise for my poor blogging skills, sorry. To me, being cruelty free  simply means using products that do not test on animals and that don't use animal derived products. I've started to find some good brands that match this criteria and I'll definitely be sharing some of my faves once I've found them.  All in all I'm happy with my decision and I now have an excuse to try out some new goodies! Yippee! 

A little update

Well my little blog it has been a while, I'm very so for neglecting you for so long, how are you? If you've been watching my youtube channel then you'll have some kind of idea of what I've been up to but I thought it was a good idea to put pen to paper (so to speak) and let you know where I am and what I've been up to... We decided to leave Melbourne around a month ago. It's one of the greatest cities I've ever visited and I loved my time there but we were getting a little too comfortable. You can only work for 6 months in one job while on a working holiday visa and as our 6 months were nearly up we decided to have a look into doing our regional work so we could apply for our second year visa (all sounds a bit complicated...and it is) We had some friends who had already moved to a town called Innisfail in Queensland where they were staying at a working hostel who found regional work for you, we made arrangements to do the same but couldn't get in straight away...this led us to Cairns.  We stayed in Cairns for around five days. We stayed just outside the city and I had my first Air bnb experience. We had a room in a really cool house where three guys lived, they were all really nice and they had two lovely dogs, Sally and Rocky, so I had a lovely time. Another couple were staying there as well, they were really friendly and it's always nice to meet fellow travellers.  If I'm honest I didn't love Cairns. I think staying in Melbourne for so long had spoilt me. It was sort of just a big sea side town. There's nothing wrong with that and parts of it were very pretty but I think I may have been bored if I'd stayed much longer. One place that was very special, however, was Palm Cove, this beautiful seaside town was around 30 minutes away from where we were staying and was a very pretty place. We had beautiful weather on this day too and I had a lovely time walking around in the sun! After our time was up in Cairns we made the move to Innisfail. I'm not gonna lie, I was very nervous about what life on a banana farm might be like but I was trying to keep positive. My positivity faded when we hopped off the grey hound and where greeted with a girl called Sam from one of the hostels who was a straight up bitch! She dropped us off at one hostel called Walkabout and told us to wait while she picked everyone up from work. It has such a horrible atmosphere  (very lads on tour) and I felt so over whelmed that I had a little cry. We ended up staying in a 'hotel' called Queens. It was definitely still a hostel, we had a shared room with another couple and a guy. It could have been much worse as they were all really nice and seemed to enjoy the work they'd found. We had friends staying at the third hostel (Retreat) that was owned by the same people  so we hung out there on the evenings, we were hoping to get moved into Retreat because it seemed like such a close group there. It cost $200 each a week to stay at the hostels, this was for accommodation as well as finding work and transport to and from work. It turned out that most girls were waiting 2-3 weeks and were only getting a couple of days work and the boys could only get humping jobs (yes if you picked bananas you were a banana humper, unfortunate I know). Steven did a couple of days humping and found it very hard, I've never seen a muddier person come through the door at the end of the day!  After a stressful few days we decided against farming. Financially it wasn't going to work out for us and as we had only ever intended to use a few months of our second year visa we didn't feel like it was going to be worth it for us. I hope this doesn't make it sound like we gave up. If we had both been able to find full time jobs straight away and were able to save money like we'd planned then I'm sure we'd still be there. As it turned out it was probably going to cost us money for a pretty miserable time that wasn't as essential to us as we first thought. I definitely take my hat off to any one that manages to stick it out and I'm sure I'll be jealous when you're all still loving life in Australia while I've moved on. This brings us to now. We are currently in Brisbane and this is where we are planning to be for the rest of our visa. We really landed on our feet coming here. After a couple of days in a hostel we managed to find ourselves a room in a house with some really lovely people. I managed to get a job at another franchise of the spa I'd worked at in Melbourne and Steven also started work straight away. Not gonna lie it was a good feeling and immediately felt happy with my decision to move here.  As for future plans, turns out you can get a three month tourist visa for Australia for absolutely free so anything we don't have time to do on our current visa we can do then. We also have plans to spend some time working and exploring New Zealand and I plan on having an amazing time in Asia before heading home. All in all a very exciting year ahead and I can't wait. I always knew we'd make some mistakes whilst travelling and I'm lucky that they've been small so far. It's all about bouncing back and making the most of this experience.  Bring it on!  

What I Should Have Packed - Part Two

When I left to travel the world I packed a big bag and as it turns out I packed it badly. In fact I packed so badly that I had to write two whole posts about it. If you would like to read the first part (which I suggest you do) then click right here. This time I'm talking more about the clothing items I wish I'd brought...

1. Warm things: Turns out, Australia isn't always hot...who knew! I came away with two very thin and very casual jumpers. I didn't bring any hoodies or nicer jumpers and I didn't bring any blazers or jackets for evenings out. Melbourne has very mixed weather and there have been times when I've just been plain cold! 
2.  Nice tops: I brought t-shirts and then last minute one nice topshop cami (and thank God I packed I did because I've barely taken it off) In general I'm not a t-shirt girl so I don't really know why that's all I brought. I think I thought I would forever be on the beach....I actually live in a city with mixed weather.
3. Shoes: I obviously fetched some shoes but it was minimal. The one pair I wish I had are my Topshop boots, unfortunately these are rather chunky and would have been too big to pack but there have been multiple times that I've wished I had them with me. 

4. Leggings:

I'm actually not a massive wearer of leggings usually but I keep thinking how much I wish I had a pair with me to go underneath things. I have a really nice pair of wet looks that I wish I had too. These would have been so easy to bring with me and would have been a little bit warmer than all the pairs of shorts I have with me. At least leggings are usually cheap to buy so I can always pick some up. 

So there we go...I have actually done a little bit of shopping recently and filmed a haul about it which you can watch here. There's still a few things that I'd like but I'd rather spend my money on more travelling and fun things so I don't know if I'll end up buying anything else. 

I hope you enjoyed today's post. Make sure to follow me to see more!