Kawaii Kauaian

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The last stop on our trip was Rothenburg, Germany. This was the only place on the entire trip that wasn't rainy. The weather was a lot like Hawaii. It was very warm like Hawaii, but it wasn't very humid at all, which was nice.

Rothenburg ob der Tauber is located in Bavaria, Germany. It is well-known for its well preserved medieval old town. It's also part of the Romantic Road, which is a route of picturesque old town that were once a part of a trade route that connected central Germany to the south.

I don't remember what hotel we stayed at, but it was in the Old Town, because we were very close to the clock tower.

In fact, we performed right under the clock tower, which is right in the main square.

The town itself was one of those super picturesque European towns, with beautiful old buildings that reminded me of gingerbread houses and Grimm's fairytale towns. There was a Christmas store in this town, and I bought three ornaments there. Very delicate, celestial themed ornaments, made of wood and fluff. One looks like an angel made of one feather, holding a star and singing. Another looks like a baby on a star covered with a cloud blanket, and the last one is a small child on a crescent moon floating on a cloud. They are so dang cute, but they are definitely looking their age. The fluff has turned yellow, but other than that are in good shape. I put them on my tree every year (way out of the reach of my cats).

There was also a woodworking shop that sold boxes and pens and anything you could think of, all completely hand made. You could purchase things and get them personalized by woodburning a name or whatever you liked onto the item. I got my mom a pretty pen that looks like a flower. In hindsight, I should have put "Trudy" instead of "mom." lol

I wonder who took this picture of us? That's one of my BFF's, Vicky, to my left, and my friend Kris to my right. We are still friends to this day. The guy all the way on the right is Robin, and I couldn't tell you what his last name is. But he was from Oahu, and he was fun!

The rest of the pics are pictures of our performances. We would play as an orchestra, and then there was also a smaller ensemble that was a jazz band. There were hula dancers that performed while we played, which makes me wonder how I took this picture...

Maybe I gave my camera to my sister or something. No idea. which makes me also wonder who took this picture of me and my friend Brent dancing...

Here are some of the instructors and a tourist getting a hula lesson:

And more tourists having some hula fun!

Wow, I didn't realize how many people actually stopped to watch!

We left very early the next morning and drove on the bus to Amsterdam, where we departed from. Sadly, we didn't get to look at Amsterdam at all, but I can technically say that I went there. lol Overall, the tour took about two weeks, and it was utterly exhausting. There was a cold going around from the beginning of the trip, and I managed to avoid it until the very last day. So I was completely miserable on the plane ride home. We had a one-night layover in Seattle, but also didn't get to explore. Either way, we were all too tired to do so. And we were also really, really excited to eat meat. A bunch of us went to Jack in the Box and got huge burgers, and they were delicious.

I think, at my age now, I would not be able to do a tour like this again. I've learned, after a lot more traveling, that I rather do things on my own time, in my own way. We were really rushed through a lot of places that I would have liked to have spent more time, like the Louvre, Versailles, Venice...But as a teenager, I think any more time spent in these places would really try the attention span. Maybe, when we are older, Kevin and I can go back to Europe and really spend time there in the places we want, and also see some new places.

I made a lot of friends from this trip, dated two boys I met on this trip, lost some good friends on this trip, and made better friends on this trip. Friends that I still have to this day. The group from my school, I feel, didn't really make friends with any of the other students. Not all of them, of course, but I feel like that was a missed opportunity and defeated the purpose of this trip. I'm glad I was able to make connections, because a lot of them influenced my last year of high school, my college years, and my life, even now.

Clearly, this was a life changing experience for me, and one that I wish I had better memories of, and better pictures. But as corny as this may sound, I think the friendships I have now are the best souvenirs I could have ever gotten. I hope that other people that have gone this trip feel the same way.

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I don't own any Kylie Cosmetics products. Nothing has ever appealed to me; not the lip kits, not any of the palettes. And while I am sometimes a basic bitch, I've never jumped on any of the limited edition items. And I didn't plan on buying the Royal Peach palette at all, although I did think it was pretty. The reason I got it is because my TrendMood app alerted me that it was live, so I wanted to see if I could get it in my cart. If I was able to, I was going to take it as a sign that I should buy it. So guess what happened??

I got it at the six minute mark, and it sold out in nine minutes (according to Twitter). I paid $45, with free shipping to Hawaii. I ordered it on January 12, it shipped on January 17, and I received it on January 20. It was packed nicely with foam. I always like to point this out, especially for people who are from Hawaii, because we all know the struggles of receiving packages in a timely manner.

There are 12 shades, and each pan contains 1.4 grams of product, which seems to be the norm for all of her palettes. For comparison, MAC pressed eyeshadow singles contain 1.3 grams, and the Too Faced Sweet Peach shadows are .95 grams each. The palette itself is a rectangular, which is different from her other palettes which are all square.

The package came with a postcard of Kylie's trademark eyes, the same image that is on the packaging. On the other side, there is a note that looks handwritten, which is a nice touch.

The unit carton is a clean white with Kylie's eyes front and center. The sides are trimmed in a royal blue color.

The packaging on the palette itself is a clean white all the way around, with KYLIE in block lettering trimmed in a rose gold foil. The palette is a good weight in my hand, pretty standard feeling.

On the inside, there is a mirror! That was my gripe with all of the other palettes. There was no mirror, just a space with KYLIE on it, wasted real estate in my opinion. One thing that didn't change, though, is that the names of the shadows are on the back of the palette. That is really annoying when you want to know what color your looking at. It's not fun having to flip it over again and again.

Here are finger swatches of the first row, from left to right:

Top to bottom: Sorbet, Seashell, Peachy, Royal, Queen Bee, Duke

Finger swatches of the bottom row, from left to right:

Top to bottom: Duchess, Sandy, Mojito, North Star, Crush, Cinnamon

The palette also comes with a brush, which doesn't look too bad. But the bristles are a bit too stiff for my liking, and not dense enough. I think it would make a good blending brush, but not something you could use for a full look. Here's a comparison of the brush that comes with the palette (top swatch) compared to a swatch with my Spectrum Collections A06 brush (bottom swatch):

As you can see, the brush that comes with the kit spreads out the pigment more. If you're into that, though, then you'll like this brush.

Here are brush swatches using my A06 brush. In between colors I cleaned off my brush with my Color Switch (which you can purchase here from Sephora):

I'm not very impressed with the brush swatches. I had to go over quite a few times with the mattes, and forget about the shimmery ones. Those wouldn't swatch without a fight. The only shade that really went on well was the very last one, Cinnamon. That one was well pigmented, but there was a bit of fall out. Speaking of which, this is the fallout situation after I was done swatching:

And can we talk about that blue shade, Royal? What a disappointment! This is supposed to be the star of the palette (even though it's a peach-themed palette, lets be real. Everyone was hooked by the blue). Look how beautiful it looks in the palette, and then look at the brush swatch. It's almost a joke. But let's not write it off yet. Sometimes, things go on the lid better than they swatch. So I created a few looks:

I had to recreate the look on the box, of course. The only way I could get the blue to really stand out was to wet my brush.

Sorbet, Crush, Duchess, Mojito

Peachy, Crush, Duke, Seashell

This look used the lavender shimmer (North Star) and the pink peach shimmer (crush).

Sorbet, Peachy, Royal, and Mojito

I guess this is kind of a peacock theme?

Crush and Mojito

And this one I'm calling "watermelon chic."

First, lets talk about how the shadows worked on the lid. The mattes actually went on smoothly with little fall out, and they blended out well. The second, third and fourth looks primarily used shimmers. If you want them to stand out, you have to wet your brush. I had to do that with the last look to make the green (Mojito) stand out. I have such mixed feelings about them. There's a lot of inconsistency. For example, Duchess seems to have chunkier pigment than Duke, and Duke goes on more pigmented than North Star, which is less pigmented than Mojito. Does that make sense? I feel that the formula is very different for each shimmer, which makes it too inconsistent.

Now this is my biggest problem. Take a look at the palette again. There are nice transition colors. The peaches are very pretty. But...where are the darker colors? There's nothing I can use to deepen any of the looks, and I struggled with that. I tried using Royal as a color for my outer corners (see the peacock look above), but there's absolutely no way I can use that with every single look. The darkest colors are shimmers, and they are not sufficient for deepening the outer corners. The only way I could make a bolder look is to use other shadows that I have, which, for me, kind of defeats the purpose of having a palette.

Another little niggle that I had with this palette is that some of the colors are just...confusing. Like, I'm not sure what they're doing in this palette. For example, North Star and Mojito. They are very pretty colors, but I'm baffled as to how I can use them with the rest of the palette. I gave it it shot (see fourth pic and last pic), but I honestly don't know what else to do with. It's just confusing to me. I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on colors and how they work together, and I just can't see how they work in this palette. And I might say the same for Royal, too. But I do love how it looks with the peach colors...but other than that, I don't know how else I would use it, even though I tried.

This was a very good lesson for me. Even though a palette may have very pretty colors, it's important not to be sucked in by that. Think practically, and take notice of things that are important. Like, are there transition colors? Are these colors you could wear on an everyday basis? Are there dark colors too? After I used it a bunch of times, I've figured out what is important to me in a palette, and that is a good thing. All the palettes I've had before have transition colors as well as deeper, darker colors. It was a case of not knowing what you have until it's gone. I didn't realize how important those dark colors are for creating different looks, and if that is important to you, you might want to skip this palette. Or, if you're okay with using other shadows to get the look you want, then by all means, go for it!

As for the palette itself, there are good and bad things. Let's list the pros and cons so you don't have to listen to me ramble:

Pros:

Very pretty colors
Pretty shimmers
True peachy mattes
Good pigmentation in the mattes
Blendable
Nice sized mirror

Cons:

Color names listed on the back of the palette only (THIS. It was so annoying having to look in the palette, and then look on the back of the palette a million times when I was captioning those pictures)
Sub-par brush
Shimmer shadows formula is inconsistent
Shimmer shadows are less pigmented and require more work to use
Higher end price ($45)
Currently difficult to purchase (launched twice, sold out twice, currently sold out)

Do I like this palette? Yes and no. I'm kind of ambivalent about it. Would I recommend this palette? I say give it a pass.

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