I own quite a bit of jewellery, and I follow the below tips to add years to my junk jewellery. I still own pieces from 8 years back, which look spanking new even today. 

  

1. Suffocate: Avoid Oxidation

Oxidation is the process by which the metal comes in contact with air, thereby losing its sheen. In humid climate, metal also develops a green coating on top to prevent from further oxidation.

Store your jewellery in ziplock bags or plastic containers. It will add years to your jewellery and by not exposing your jewellery to air, your jewellery will look sparkling new.

 

2. Villainous Humidity

 Another villain that strips life from your jewellery is ‘Humidity’. Lot of people wear their jewellery to shower, and that should be avoided at all cost. In case of junk jewellery, most stones/rhinestones are attached to the base using Super glue/Fevicol and constant water exposure will weaken the glue, thereby leading to stone fall outs. Always make it a habit to remove your junk jewellery, especially earring before shower. You can always pat dry your jewellery with a tissue, in case its wet accidentally.

3. Tangled

 Have you ever faced this horror, most people dump all their delicate jewellery especially, neck chains in a bowl or somewhere, leading to one big tangled mess. Pulling or trying to remove the knot can lead to wear and tear.

As I have emphasized before, try storing your jewellery in separate ziplock bags or plastic containers. If you are constrained for storage space, another easy way is to wrap each delicate jewellery in a tissue and put it all together in a box. Sometimes, even if you are extra careful, the chain may get tangled by itself and gets knotted. One thing that you can to avoid this situation is to lay the chain straight. If you have pieces that you wouldn’t mind losing a bit of shine, but want to avoid tangles at all cost, hang them on a coat hanger like how I have done.

 

4. Bedazzled

 One advantage of wrapping up your be-jewelled pieces in tissue is that in case a rhinestone or two fall out, it will be safely held in the paper, and you can glue it right back.

 

5. Lost

 One major mommy habit is to store stuff in different places and this is true for earrings/studs. In the end, my mom runs around the house searching for one half of the earring. This step would require a little patience. Always store your earrings in pairs. Take a small piece of paper and store it as a couple as shown in the below image. In this case, you will never lose one of them ever again and the pair will be forever united.

These are some of the tips that have worked well for me over the years. Feel free to comment, and let me know what is your favorite tip to preserve your jewellery.

Review: Gia Bath and Body Works Pomegranate Facial Cleanser

Past week, we were in and out of the hospital. It started off with me, spraining my lower back, and towards the mid-week Mr. G was in hospital. Finally when the ordeal was over, I really couldn't find the time or the energy to post!
Days of  deprived sleep, and lo and behold!!! dramatic entry of an old foe: the much hated dark circles and on top of that, my face looked dead tired. The blogger in me found perfect opportunity to put the "Gia Bath and Body Pomegranate Cleanser" to good use. I had purchased few face-care items from Gia Bath and Body Works website few months back and have been using their products since.

Pomegranate is a great source of Ellagic acid, and antioxidant and Punicic acid, an omega 5 polyunsaturated fatty acid which is highly beneficial for cell regeneration and proliferation. The juice of this fruit is an exceptional source of vitamin A, C and E and minerals such as calcium, phosphorous, potassium, iron, folic acid, niacin, thiamin, folates and riboflavin.

Packaging:

Standard plastic tub, with a silver, screw on top. The label lists all the ingredients, and procedure to use. The package also came with a wooden spoon which is very helpful to scoop out the required product.

 

Product:

The mask is of dry and thick consistency and smells of essential oils. You can see tiny pomegranate seeds on up-close inspection.

Ingredients:

Cost:

INR 590 ($8) for 150 g

Application

1. Take one or two scoop of the required product
2. Add 2 tbs water to make it into a slightly wet consistency. 
3. Apply evenly on face and let it dry.
4. Wash after 30 minutes by slightly massaging in the product.
5. Pat dry with a dry towel.

I have only used water with the product, but you can use milk or honey.


Performance:


The pack does not dry out on your face, but it can crumble. Post wash, it leaves my skin supple and soft with a slight oily cast. If you have oily skin, this product may not be your best bud.
It does not brighten up my face like most masks, but I can feel an improvement in my skin texture.

Overall:

Empties

I am back with an epic empties post! The reason why I have a ton of junk, and mini reviews to share is that I have been collecting these over the course of three months. So, this is not technically, empties for this month, but rather one for the quarter.
I have a lot of bath and body products to share and also my first ever lipstick empties! whoop whoop!

1. Dove Go Fresh Deo-Cucumber and Green Tea: A staple in my shower as this deo is very effective for sensitive underarms. The only negative, this thing stains, like literally, leaves white crumbly powder on your clothes. Inspite of this major drawback, I keep going back to Dove for, I like me some non-sting deo.
Repurchase: Yes, it my go-to after shower deo.

2. The Body Shop Shower Gel in Vanilla Brulee : I love warm, cozy scents and vanilla brulee shower gel is my thing during the colder months. I love this so much, as the smell is warm and cuddly, if that makes sense. Slightly pricey, but lil goes a long way if you use a loofah.
 Repurchase: I did hit the local Body Shop store to buy a backup, only to be told that it is a seasonal scent. Hopefully, I can snatch it up during winter sales :)

3. Palmolive Thermal Spa- Crushed Coconut and Jojoba Butter Extracts: Another warm and cozy scent. Worth every penny and nickel. It is by far, my most re-purchased body wash. I have countless empty bottles of this. Also, my mom is a huge fan of this scent.
Repurchase: Yes, but currently I am running few BBW shower gels, and post finishing that I would purchase this.

 4. Marks & Spencers Blissful Strawberry Hand Cream: Smells very plasticky, and I had to re-use this hand cream every other hour to keep my hands soft. Very inexpensive, but not a class A performer.
Repurchase: No, wouldn't be re-purchasing this scent.

 5. Neutrogena Oil Free Moisturiser SPF15 : This one smells weird, and I haven’t gotten much use out of it, except for removing my eye makeup. It crossed the expiry date, and I decided to chuck it out for good.
Repurchase: Wouldn't be re-purchasing.

6. Fabindia Orange and Cinnamon Face and Body Scrub: I love cinnamon scented anything, and that's the reason why I bought this, inspite of having serious apprehension about the ingredient list loaded with parabens. Didn't like it much, went through it in a month as the granules were extremely small, and I had to use more product than desired.
Repurchase: No, wouldn't be re-purchasing.

7. Maybelline Colossal Kajal: A staple in my bag, I go through this like water.
Repurchase: YES. YES. YAAASSSSS

8. Maybelline Hyper Sharp Liner: Well, this promising looking, eye pencil dried out on me. Yes!!! within a month, no amount of jiggling and wiggling could revive it. It's much sophisticated younger sibling, Colossal liner, performs a much better job than this.
Repurchase: I bought the Maybelline Colossal liner, and hence would not be re-purchasing.

9. Chambor Teal Dazzle Eyeliner Pencil: Teal is such a strikingly beautiful color. The only downside is the one-side twist up, ie. if you twist 1/2 an inch more, it’s never going inside, ever :( they should have made this a retractable pencil.
Repurchase: I have already re-purchased this and also own all the colors under the rainbow from this range :)

10. Maybelline Falsies Mascara: By far, one of the best drugstore-priced mascara out there. Gives insane lift and volume to my lashes and stays put for a long time. It's a dry formula, and hence easy to go in for a second coat.
Repurchase: Yes, have re-purchased this.

11. NYX Soft Matte Lip Cream Buenos Aires : Had made it to the last year’s hall of shame, I did try to let my pale skinned friends adopt this one, but it didn't fit. Even made my ghostly-looking friend scary as hell.
This formula, or one that I received, applies patchy and weird. The saving grace, this one smells like butterscotch cupcake :)

12. Vega Smudger Brush: I love Vega brushes, I think they are bang for the bucks. This smudger brush is useless, and was just taking up additional space in my vanity, so I thought why not just dispose it.
Repurchase: No

13. Maybelline BB Cream in N*de: I have grown out of the BB cream phase, I am more of a light coverage foundation kinda girl. This one was a staple in my handbag for almost 4 years. Currently, I have Colorbar BB cream in my bag that matches better to my skin tone than this.
Repurchase: No, I wouldn't be repurchasing.

14. Johnsons Baby Wipes: I use wipes to cleanse off my makeup as stage 1 of my night time routine. I always have a wet tissue pack in my bag as well at home as a backup.
Repurchase: It’s an essential, and hence re-purchased.

Finally, my lipstick empty, never ever in my life have I thought of a scenario where I would finish up a lipstick, but that day did arrive and the one to each the finish line first was a staple in my handbag.
15. Revlon Colorburst Lip Butter Sugar Plum: It looks so natural on my lips, and so subtle. The staying power is not the best (glossy finish), but it is flattering on my tan skin.
Repurchase: I did end up searching high and low for this shade, but seems Revlon has pulled lip butters out of the market. The closest dupe for this shade wold be the MAC Plumful lipstick.