Issue one: glt magazine

style & beauty

Quick fixes What it's really like to be female in the construction industry.

you didn't know you had

Habitat

Editor's Letter

Hello there

GORGEOUS lovely treasure!

Oh what to do when you have to find a decent photo for your editor's letter, but literally don't have a single suitable one!

Take an impromptu photo with the printed sample copy of course! All well and good until you realise, the stunning cover star, used to be a professional model, and you're in T-Shirt, un photo-shopped, hoping for the best.

As much as I adore dressing up to the nines, I also have full appreciation that the perfection pervading the internet through social media just isn't healthy. So, to counter-act that, my contribution is my mini showreel, from my five minute panic of not having a good enough headshot.

Welcome to GLT Magazine's launch issue. As I write this, I'm reminded of my own experiences of truly great women, who have shaped, inspired and encouraged me.

This magazine is a celebration of these special ladies, and all of us. When we as women are confident, when our potential is unleashed into the world around us, we can make a real and lasting difference.

All my adult life, I have wanted to make a positive difference to the world around me, which is why I am so thrilled to bring some incredible women, doing amazing things.

Be prepared to be inspired by these gorgeous ladies, as you read how they're making their own valuable changes to this world. Whether its uplifting other ladies and helping them to achieve their dreams, or creating real solutions to everyday problems we all face.

As promised, this is the challenge issue, so it wouldn't be complete without our guide to overcoming life's challenges on the way to fulfilling your dreams.

Rachel Catlin EDITOR, GLT MAGAZINE

contents

Insight 06 10 12

Wellbeing 16 20

Habitat 26 32 36 38

Beauty 42 46 48 50 52

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Million Dollar confidence

Behind the scenes.

Construction Industry Insider

Insight & Interview

Melanie Rose McDowall INTERVIEW Million Dollar Lady Mel shares her secrets to living a more fulfilling and confident life.

Million Dollar Lady Melanie Rose McDowall

A confidence coach is like your best, straight-talking friend on steroids. They do it everyday so they know what they're doing.

Introducing Mel, the stunning online confidence coach with a vast experience in modelling, styling with an impressive and loyal Instagram following, and town planning to boot. No stranger to life's ups and downs, she dusts herself off and comes back more gorgeous, and stronger than ever. Then she uses her experience to help move other ladies forward. I know because we chatted right around the time this magazine was being conceived. I'm no stranger to good sense, having soaked up plenty of sound advice over the years, having a few knocks and comebacks myself, but this million dollar lady even managed to teach me a thing or two, or twenty.

W

e are so excited to have you interview because like us, you believe in making an impact.

What is the most important motivator for you and where does your passion come from?

Thank you for your support I’m so happy to be part of this and helping to raise the energy of other ambitious women. I never knew exactly what I wanted to do specifically. I just always knew what I didn’t want to do, so that lead me to try various things that I might like.

When I try something new I listen to my intuition and if I don’t like it I pivot. I’m so flexible in finding what deeply resonates with me. This approach led me to finding things I love, one of which is supporting people from the ground up to live healthier, wealthier, more fulfilling lives.

If you could give one piece of advice to a budding entrepreneur, what would it be?

Goals make take longer than you first calculated but it doesn’t mean you won’t hit them. Keep going. Remain calm so you stay focused and be mindful in your approach to hitting them sooner than later.

The right attitude and mindset is important to achieve success, what advice would you give to make sure ours is at it's best?

Your mind is a tool you can control. You need to train it often to do exactly what you want when you want.

Thoughts spark your emotions and the meaning you uniquely match to those emotions sparks your attitude. Mind development is simple and something you can enjoy when you find what ignites positive thoughts and feelings within you and make that a daily practice.

You are a vegan and believe in the vegan lifestyle. How important do you think it is to link your beliefs to your activities, and really live them authentically? Is it possible that we can hold ourselves back if we aren’t acknowledging what is truly important to us?

If happiness and honest relationships are important to you then yes 100% we need to find ways to move ourselves into our authenticity.

If we don’t face the courage to live and share our truths, we consequently live in fear and it drains us emotionally, mentally and physically.

It’s empowering to know we always have choice.

Whether we act congruent to those is another thing. When you find yourself not being honest with your expectations there is an underlying reason so let go of getting angry at yourselves or others for “making you”.

Everyone is always doing the best they can.

Over my life I've made an effort to try my best to be true to myself despite what the people around me might find comfort in. You know what's good for you. I don’t think we need to “acknowledge” our authenticity.

I think most people are obsessed with *people pleasing* and are afraid to honour what they know or desire in fear of rejection so it's easier to live in a facade of "I'm lost" because this is the only way they currently know how to get love and attention they crave.

It takes massive courage to stand up and share your truth with the possibility of standing alone. So the problem then shifts from being “held back” in life to being “able to communicate” our authenticity to the people we love so they can resonate and understand us and we don’t lose connection.

If you can move through your fear of conflict and communication in a loving approach your authenticity will simultaneously rise because it was within you all along.

Behind

THE SCENES

What's it really like to be a fly-in, fly-out female in the construction industry?

W

e’re talking with Lauren about her experience as a fly-in, fly-out worker in the construction industry, which is a traditionally male dominated environment.

Rachel. "There are procedures in place for helping get the job done, as well as legal requirements for things to be done in a way that meets health and safety, for all workers. For example, the machinery you have mentioned, or weight restrictions, such as those you find at an airport regarding luggage.

Lauren. “ It’s a different demographic to a lot of other workplaces in this industry, I work with guys that are mostly 45+ with families so everyone is really friendly and nice. People ask if I get cracked onto all the time, but that’s not the case. I don’t know if it’s just my experience, but I think it has a lot to do with being professional and responsible for yourself. I treat people with respect, and I expect the same back.”

It will always be acceptable to ask for help at work. For instance, you may not know how to use Excel, and ask Sharon from IT to show you. It's not necessary that something like needing help with some things should hold us back. Obviously, if your job is solely lifting heavy things all day and you are tiny, regardless of gender, you should know your limitations as you say."

Some people would say that women can’t do the job, what is your response to that?

We can sometimes stand in our own way and listen too much to society’s ideas about our own limitations. What was your experience growing up?

“ I do rigging, so I do struggle sometimes, but I just ask ‘Can you please help me?' Because we’re doing a job for them, and they want that job done, they don’t mind helping.

Most things aren’t hard to rig up, and we have lifting planes, so it doesn’t disadvantage me. Why would you want to do a job you know you can’t do? The generalisation isn’t right, plenty of women are big and strong, and plenty of guys aren’t.

You know what your limitations are, so you wouldn’t apply for a job you couldn’t do."

"My mum didn’t have too much to say about my choice of industry, she was just pleased I had a job I wanted, I think her response was ‘Fantastic, good on you!’. She didn’t directly influence my choice of career, but how she brought me up showed me I could do anything as she does everything, DIY, gardening, takes care of the house, works, everything, no gender specific roles. We are on the cusp of something, we’ve come a long way since the 1950’s where a women’s role was to stay at home, and a man went out to work."

Introducing

Luxe Digital

By Kristin McDonnell

#Luxifyyourmarketing Ever have days when you feel like you’re alone in business? Like you’re tapping away at your computer, trying to work on new angles for your marketing, testing out new offers, attempting to make sense of your social media stats and wishing you had some other people who ‘get it and you’ to bounce everything off?

Marketing, in particular marketing yourself online, can feel overwhelmingly hard. It can be scary to put yourself out there.

It can be confusing to know exactly what technology to use or what exactly you should do with all your online marketing funnels. We totally get it. We know exactly what it’s like to be working on your business and feeling disconnected.

Feeling disconnected is such a common ailment – weird, when you think we live in a world that is more connected than ever before.

Women need community. They really do, women need friendship!

Luxe Digital has a mission to support and positively impact 10,000 women globally in the next 5 years. And it all starts with community.

That’s why we really wanted to focus on creating a great community; a community where women feel like they can celebrate their successes, share their frustrations, ask questions and really feel like they are growing as part of the group. We know how important it is to feel like you’re surrounded by other likeminded women; women who get what it’s like to be in business for yourself.

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Social media switch off

Toxic free, silky skin

Overwhelm? No problem.

Wellbeing & Leisure

Challenge?

SOLUTION.

Jess Lee breaks down how to face challenges and win.

Challenge?

Solution.

Do you approach your challenges with optimism and creativity or do you become overwhelmed and stuck in your problems?

Choosing A SolutionFocused Mindset So what can you do to shift into a solution-focused mindset when you face your own challenges?

The first step is to understand what is happening in your brain when you are faced with challenges. When we get stuck in our problems, our stress levels rise. Neuroscientist, Dr Sarah McKay says when our stress is high, our prefrontal cortex goes “offline”. This part of our brain helps us to think critically and calmly about our challenges. Our pre-frontal cortex allows us to more effectively solve our problems, but it is compromised when we become highly stressed or anxious.

Y

ou can begin to develop more resilience, mastery and happiness in your life by shifting how your brain conceptualises and responds to challenges.

By focusing on solutions and not problems you will discover how you can keep moving forward to achieve the things that truly matter to you.

At the same time, the emotional part of our brain, our amygdala, has “fired up” and is keeping us in survival mode. The hyper-activation of this part of our brain focuses our attention on the risks and worst-case scenarios.

This stops us from seeing the solutions and opportunities that exist in our challenges. Our amygdala can definitely keep us stuck and overwhelmed.

To shift from a problem-focused mindset to a solution-focused mindset we need to re-activate our pre-frontal cortex and calm down our amygdala. One way we can do that is by asking ourselves a series of questions that activate a more critical way of thinking which focuses our mind on solutions and not emotions.

These questions allow us to look at our challenges from a new perspective and can remind us of our own internal agency: 1. What can I do in this situation? - What skills, abilities and connections can I use to move forward?

2. What are the hidden opportunities in this challenge? Amidst this challenge, what are the possible best-case scenarios?

3. How can I re-frame this situation? - What can be gained from this challenge?

Knowing how to shift your mindset when faced with life’s inevitable challenges will allow you to stay in control even when you are faced with change and uncertainty. I love the quote from tennis legend and author, Arthur Ashe, which says, “To achieve greatness, start where you are, use what you have, do what you can.”

To overcome your challenges, begin by focusing on what you can do, not on what you can’t. Challenge your brain to look for the hidden opportunities, keep moving forward and consciously choose a new way to “frame” your situation.

Bio Jessica Lee is the owner of The Spark Effect and is a healthy brain advocate. She is a keynote speaker, trainer, writer and business consultant. She is passionate about teaching neuroscience-based strategies to equip businesses to better use their brains to reduce overwhelm and stress while boosting productivity, creative problem solving and wellbeing. Jessica is a keynote speaker in this area and also runs workplace training.

Get in touch with Jessica at jessica@thesparkeffect.com.au +61 424 358 334 or via http://www.thesparkeffect.com.au

Social

MEDIA

With the advent of so many things to make our lives better, we look into the downside, and what you can do to stop its negative effects .

It is amazing to have such a productive outlook and mindset‌ most of the time. But what about when you just need to relax? Too much excitement, too much connectivity, too much achievement isn’t good for your body, leading to, shock horror, a lack of excitement, connectivity and achievement.

Too much connection?

Social media has a lot to answer for.

We are more connected, more informed than ever before, but there is a downside. We have to learn to say no to an huge volume of content, offers and time/energy/resource-stealing content, in our personal and professional lives.

E

ntrepreneurs especially will know how hard it is to switch off, brain going at a hundred miles an hour, constantly.

Even more so when you are excited about something, or have a new project you are desperate to perfect. It’s simply that the entrepreneur brain seems to be wired that way.

This means a lot of self-control. It is an epidemic of people taking their phone to bed, waking up to their phone, idolising their little tech buddy.

Sometimes, at the cost of our family and friends.

There is a cost even greater than this.

A cost to our inner peace, to our being able to connect to ourselves and understand what we need.

What can you do?

Set boundaries and learn to take care of yourself. When you have a break from work, actually have one!

This might mean not checking social networks. Learn how to be in tune with yourself and what you need. It simply takes a moment of stillness and you'll learn a lot. Mindfulness is so successful because it allows our bodies a chance to let us know what they need.

Think about it another way. You wouldn’t neglect an important relationship with a spouse or best friend, you wouldn’t let it go months without even bothering to say ‘hey, how are you going?’. So why should the relationship you have with yourself be any different? One of the most famous quotes about our relationship with others even includes detailed instructions about how we need to love ourselves.

Love your neighbour, as you LOVE YOURSELF First we need to have a healthy relationship with ourselves before we can even consider a healthy relationship with anyone else.

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Ultimate Guides

Elegant dinner party

Pair wine & spices

Habitat Culture & Food

New build beauty Coastal Homes Gladstone

The Ultimate Guide

FURNISH YOUR FIRST HOME ON A TIGHT BUDGET

Habitat

Furnish

YOUR FIRST HOME on the tightest of budgets

GET IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME

Purchasing furniture for your new home

Moving into your first home can be daunting with all to be done, bought and decorated. We help you navigate your way with our three tried and tested rules.

Habitat

RULE 1. Never pay full price.

Moving into a new home can be expensive, especially if you have recently purchased you own, or are moving out for the first time.

Essentially, you are purchasing absolutely everything you need for an entire house so it's understandable that things might start adding up! Not paying full retail price is a great way to start managing costs, and there are some great options available to help you do this.

There are two options here, the first is a sale, there seems to be one every 3-6 months, so patience can pay off in dividends here, or, secondhand. Check out Gumtree, Facebook ads and local classifieds for good quality pieces in hard wearing, easy to clean materials. I wouldn't recommend buying a secondhand mattress or sofa. Stick to solid pieces that can cope well with a bit of detergent and water!

RULE 2. Choose pieces that age well.

Chances are, you will still have them in ten years time, so choose something that will fit in with your lifestyle then. While it may seem like a good idea to splash out on something that defines your identity now, you might be a little different then. Remember to also choose good quality for the things you want to last well too. It's worth splashing out on a good sofa and mattress. By splash out, we mean patiently hunt down the best sale.

For style longevity, you can always trust the period furniture. Think tradition period style such as the classic Louis VI chairs, these won't date. The Philippe Starck ghost chairs are a great example of this.

Mid century is also a beautiful example that transcends time, just think of the show Mad Men

RULE 3. Know what you want before you even step foot into a store.

Do your research to find out what options are available to you, and create a list of what your requirements. Do you have pets? This is something so important to bear in mind. Love our furry family, but best not to purchase more fabric furniture than is strictly necessary, sofas are excluded here.

When you do venture into the stores, beware of pushy sales staff, they will sense you're green and may try to take advantage. Your list will help you to politely decline the things they suggest you should go for. That said, sometimes paying attention to what they are saying is helpful, so don't discount any advice they may have. And don't be put off shopping in the sales stuff, I always head straight there, this is definitely a time in your life that bargain hunting is actively encouraged.

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Habitat

Gorgeous Display Homes

Designed and built by Coastal Homes Gladstone

Located on the Central Queensland coast are the award winning Coastal Homes Gladstone, specialising in the personalised approach to building your dream home. Our beautiful feature house is The Isabella.

For the busy, a new build is an enticing option for a first home. Not only can you customise pretty much every detail, there aren't the maintenance issues you might come across with an existing building.

Yes, you have to wait for your dream home to be built, and it won't necessarily come with the 'character' of an older home, but you can choose where to build, such as tropical Queensland, home of our feature property. As real estate agents are fond of saying, location location, location and where better to live than one of the best tourist destinations in the world.

A new build home isn't always in the sights of a new home owner, as they can be more expensive for the initial purchase, but over time, these costs can be recouped compared to a pre-existing building which will need plumbing, heating and electrical maintenance. Not to mention a new owner will likely want to carry out renovations to make it their own.

It's worth visiting display homes to get ideas for your own decor, and to compare what's available. Don't be shy, talk to the sales consultant and find out what the builders could do in your price range, you might be pleasantly surprised.

Designed and built by Coastal Homes Gladstone

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Megna Murali

Kitchen Expert Spice Expert and founder of Spice Quater

The reason it's important to pair the right wine with the right dish is that wine is as complex as any food and the right pairing can enhance the flavour of both wine and food.

If you recall your early science classes you will remember that there are four basic tastes; bitter, sour, sweet and salty.

Culinary experts have now added umami to the list.

Umami is a strong, yet pleasant savoury taste. Think parmesan, marmite and wasabi.

Every glass of wine is different.

Indeed, two bottles of the same vintage may have different tastes and this adds to the beauty and complexity of wine.

They key to balancing spices with wine is pairing complementary and contrasting flavours. There are 3 key rules to follow to choose the best wine for spices .

Pair wine with spices Think about the dominant flavours of the spices you are cooking with. If you are using our Nawabi Spice Blend then the dominant flavours are earthy and aromatic coming from the Cumin and Cardamom in the blend. A dish made with this blend, whether meat based or vegetarian, will go well with a light white wine like a riesling or a sparkling variety of white wine. Choose something with light floral notes to accentuate the flavours in this blend.

1

Pair flavours, not ingredients

2 3

Forget the rules you know Use your instincts

As a cook, you are the expert of your cuisine so think about the dominant flavours in your dish when choosing the right wine to pair it with. Have fun with it and don't worry too much about getting it perfect! If the dry spice mix used is red, then it has large amounts of carotenoids, which are organic pigments that give some spices a natural orange or red colour. Food made with red or orange spices and spice mixes need to be paired with a refreshing type of wine. A chilled sav blanc or a sparkling chardonnay are perfect. Think indian curries, african stews and thai stir frys. Food made with sweeter, more aromatic spices like cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg go well with a full bodied red wine like a shiraz or a merlot. Think apple pies and sweet puddings.

We have all heard that red wine is for red meat and white wine is for seafood. That is not true at all. If you make a satay sauce it will have sweet undertones. You can use satay with red meat, seafood or vegetables. No matter what you add the satay sauce to, balancing the sweetness is essential. In this case a lovely cabernet or a dry chardonnay will balance the spicysweet flavours of satay sauce.

How to

Host an

ELEGANT & INFORMAL dinner party

Create a theme.

This will help you decide which food to serve, how to decorate the table and what games to play. It doesn't have to be complicated or fancy, but keeping a consistent theme will make it elegant, light and enjoyable.

Keep it relaxed The easiest way to ruin an evening, is to be rushed and stressed. You are the host, so it follows that you set the tone for the evening. Start as you mean to go on and offering your guests drinks and nibbles on arrival to break the ice, and offer a taste of what's to come.

Stock up.

Plenty of food, drinks and light entertainment will ensure your guests enjoy their evening. Running out of goodies is the worst, and a trip to the local 24 hour shop to stock up could ruin an evening.

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Beauty

Silk Perfecton

Nourishing Makeup

Quick Fixes

& Style

Nourishing Makeup FAST MAKEUP HOW TO

Creator of Leesa Barr Makeup shares her time saving morning beauty routine

Do I really need all that stuff?

Leesa Barr Nourishing, radiance refining make up 100% Toxic Free

Leesa Barr lives and breathes beauty.

She strongly believes that how we look affects how we feel and that it’s important to dedicate time to taking care of ourselves. Leesa knows how difficult it is to find the time. And with so many beauty products testing on animals and including nasty ingredients, it’s getting harder to know which products to use. This is what led her to the creation of LEESA BARR Cosmetics. Saving time, nourishing skin, and being 100% safe and socially responsible, Leesa has poured her heart, soul and – of course – all of her beauty knowledge into these gorgeous products.

She’s so proud to share them with you now and is certain you’ll fall in love with them the way she has. In the following article, she shares some of her considerable wisdom.

How many times have you asked yourself that question? Are you confused by the amount of information available to you. Instagram, Facebook YouTube, Bloggers, the constant deluge of e-mails that pop into your inbox. Aaarrggh!

Sometimes, all this is confusing! What do you do, go back to what you know, or worse do nothing at all?

I often hear flattering comments from kind hearted souls, "Your makeup is always beautiful. You must spend a lot of time on your makeup. How on earth do you get out the door in the mornings?

I wish I had the time!" This last one always amuses me as I have three young children, run my business and help in my husband's business. I help out at school when I can, children's sports and the odd charity event.

Leading such a full life has meant I have needed to perfect the simplest make up routine.

I wear makeup everyday. Trust me when I say you do have time. There are more benefits to wearing makeup than the way you look. For starters, skin protection from the sun and free radicals in city pollution. You can future proof your skin from premature ageing. To answer the first question do I really need all that stuff? The short answer is no.

There are products you can skip and still achieve radiant looking makeup.

playing

FAVOURITES products we love

Holiday $35.00

Blue Blood $39.99

www.leesabarr.com.au

Mardi-Gras $39.99

Start with a cleansed skin.

I do this in the shower to save time.

Apply your Moisturiser or Primer. You don’t need both! Layering too much product takes precious time and can make your skin to shiny and cause your product to separate and crease. I recommend a good quality primer as this will be moisturising and help to fill in fine lines and pores. Primer also helps your foundation to adhere to your skin for longer lasting wear. I like to let my primer dry before I apply foundation.

Eyes, Step two is to powder your eyelids.

Did you know your eyelids are actually oily! I use our Luxe Powder Brush for this along with our Multi-tasking Pressed Powder Foundation in Number 3. You could use what ever foundation you prefer.

Next is to attend to your eyebrows!

Your eyebrows really do frame your face. If you have no time to do anything at all at least do your eyebrows! This is the one step I spend time on.

Followed by Mascara.

Choose a water resistant mascara as they are the best to fight humidity, (don’t be confused by waterproof mascara they are entirely different). At this point I leave my bathroom mirror to attend to the morning rush (three young children).

I keep my Multi-Tasking Pressed Powder Compact with me. I wear Number 4.5, it’s our new colour! As well as my choice of Lipstick or Lipgloss that I intend to wear that day. These generally get applied in the rear vision mirror in my car! Or using the mirror that is in our Compact.

I quickly apply Foundation to the rest of my face using Luxe Powder Brush along with my lipstick or lipgloss. I also use a very small amount of lipstick as blush before I step out of the car ready to face to world. I prefer to use powder foundation on a daily basis as it is quick and easy to apply, versatile with fantastic coverage, it also provides me with protection against the sun. You need to reapply sunscreen every four hours for it to work.

Simplify Your Morning Makeup Routine I find sunscreen in tinted moisturisers, liquid foundations and are not as effective as they do not get reapplied every four hours. Unlike Multi-tasking Pressed Powder Foundation Compact that is easy to pull out and use to touch up your Makeup and your sunscreen regularly.

It’s that simple! A grand total of four products and a quick five minute plan.

We want to simplify your beauty routine so you have more time to focus on the things you love. Because we know that if you look and feel your best, you’ll be more likely to design your best life.

Style

silk WASHABLE

dreams really do come true

washable adjective (especially of fabric or clothes) able to be washed without shrinkage or other damage.

Silk is a timeless staple to any woman's waredrobe effortlessly elegant, it holds a certain appeal like no other fabric can. Breathable in even the hottest Summer it's a miraculous, luxe fabric that makes work dressing a breeze.

The challenge is always how to take care of it. After a brief stint attempting to source beautiful, washable fabrics and coming up with only unnatural fibres that didn't breathe, I ended up buying bulk Reiss silk tops. And washing them.

Heaven forbid. Silk is not a plant fibre in the way cotton is. It's actually a protein, much like skin or hair, and needs particular attention and care.

Washing silk can ruin it. Which is why I jumped for joy when I discovered The Fable. Washable silk. I'll let that sink in for a moment.

The genius doesn't end there. This silk is ethically sourced, making sure both the environment, and the tailors producing it are well looked after.

Working no more than 8 hours a day, and the silk is manufactured in Jaipur, India employing a small family run factory.The tailors are paid nearly twice the living wage and work in only safe and comfortable conditions.

Behind this amazing business is a gorgeous woman named Sophie, who having worked with L'Oreal Luxury, and faced a problem we all have, and like the start of every brilliant business, set out to solve it.

Essential Guide to

SUITCASE PACKING. The only one you'll ever need.

Quick fixes

STYLE Do you ever wish life was just a little easier, maybe even in small ways?

Well wish no more. We guide you through three quick fixes to speed up and simplify your every day.

1.

Plan outfits ahead of time, if you don’t even have that time or headspace, stick to classic black and white combos. These two colours are the only true neutrals that will be more likely to go with everything. For interest, add in some texture, like faux fur, twill, or a print.

2.

3.

If you know there's a busy time coming up, create a streamlined five minute, go with everything make up look you can practice and perfect well in advance.

Think neutrals that go with your colouring for base, eyes, brows, cheeks and lips. Set your look with powder for extra hold throughout the day, and high stress times when you may have an extra ‘glow’ from running around.

Take time to plan what you are going to do.

Whether it’s a quick two minutes grabbed while you are brushing your teeth, planning saves time in the long run, essential when every minute and every mental square inch counts.

Sugar Scrub luxe, sans yuk.

Having just bought new beauty products, excited to play with them, I read the ingredients. That is one long list for something with two active ingredients.

It's been said if you can't pronounce an ingredient, you probably shouldn't be eating or using it!

This is partially why I like to blend my own products from natural and organic ingredients. And it's less expensive!

One of my favourite blends is a sugar scrub, switching up the essential oil, depending on what mood I am aiming for. If I want a bit of a pick me up, I'll choose orange oil, as orange is an instant mood lifter. It works with one sniff, even on the darkest of days.

Eucalyptus and peppermint oil work beautifully for a spa like, invigorating experience and lemon is so sweet smelling, it's like eating cake!

Nothing leaves my skin as soft or smooth as this and I have tried my fair share of scrubs and exfoliants! I wouldn't recommend using it on your face as the sugar can be quite abrasive, and you need products that are gentle for your delicate face.

Method Simply mix raw sugar, with equal parts olive oil so it covers the sugar. Add in the essential oils of your choice, and keep in an air-tight container.

You only need a few drops of essential oil, you'll know by the smell, and you can change it up to your personal preference.

*Please bear in mind to research all the ingredients, and patch test before you luxuriate in the sumptuous scrub!

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Transferable

Skills Do you have transferable skills you didn't even know you had?

Being a female is tough enough at times. Mostly we love it. Getting to play with make up and hair stuff, being amazing at most things because we are woman. But on occasion, it might be nice to see some of our hard work in a tangible way.

Like in writing. A beauty resume for all the great things we have perfected.

Whilst we don't recommend that you actually use this in your next job interview, here are a couple of transferrable skills you probably have.

Light hearted life skills MEDIA PERSONALITY AND MUM, BEC OFFERS HELP TO SELL YOUR OLD CAR.

Hey guys, got a slice of heaven for sale: 97 magna v6 - Runs like a dream, we just needed to upgrade - Custom faded paint job 'off champagne' colour - Custom hole in front bumper, handcrafted into the exact size of someone else's towbar, covered by wakeboarding bumperstickers which have been lovingly and carefully desintegrated over approx 5 years - Smells like victory. And cheap vanilla car freshener from the reject shop - Vintage cassette player - Enough fuel in the tank to get you from Bris to approx.

Childers - selling unregistered - 348000kms - she is well aged and she is glorious. A lot of good times and some slight road rage has gone in to those kms - $400 and she is yours.

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