My dressing table beauty essentials

My dream is to have a white, princess like dressing table where I can display lots of beautiful perfume bottles and other of my pretty makeup collections.

For the time being, with the limited living space available at home, I'm already grateful for what I have - functional and I try to improve the layout of it regularly.

On my dressing table, there are '3 sections' that it seems to have divided up into.

1) My sunglasses collection

2) My daily essentials

3) My watches crystal bowl

There are the items I reach for almost on a daily basis, they are the things I need everyday, now and quickly.

1) My sunglasses collection:  Inside the green/ pale blue paper box (my Kate Spade box which previously contained a pair of earrings that came with it) it houses my 4 pairs of sunglasses.  I wear sunglasses on most days in the Summer, if the sun shines, I still reach for them in Winter months; or.... just wear them on my head rather than on my face where it should be.....  This purple pair is my favourite of all.  I got them from a little boutique in Notting Hill Gate a few years back.  I love everything about it: light, purple, big frame, and most important of all which attracted me to buy this was the two white roses at the two outer side of the frame.  They only cost me 10 and it's lasted for quite a while and are still going strong!

Next up in the middle part of the line is 2) My daily essentials.  I placed a Muji tray to hold all these varied sizes bottles and to keep them tidy and in place.  I have my Savlon antiseptic cream as my skin often plays up and have some kind of allergic reactions to various materials so I need to keep one of these bottles easy to reach.  A tube of hand cream is a must for me on a dressing table as my hands get so dry.  My sister (@forksandbrushes) got me Hand Food by Soap & Glory to save my hands and my homesick for London.  It's easily one of the best hand creams on the market - not only does it smell gloriously (marshmallow! so it's quite sweet) it hydrates well but it's not greasy either.  It's a complete joy to wear this on my hands.  

These days as I have shorter hair so I tend to need to blow dry them to style, it gets quite dry at the ends so I definitely need to take care of them better than before.  Every time before I inject heat to them, I spray some of these Straightener spray with Argan oil by Tresemme to my ends.  I found that it helps to keep my hair straighter and more moisturised, definitely a star hair product!  Of course I wouldn't not have a bottle of Caudalie Beauty Elixir somewhere on my dressing table, I'm simply obsessed with this stuff!

On a more random note, I would keep a random bottle of nail polish on my dressing table for no reasons really.  On the day I took this picture, I had my Deborah Lipman nail polish from the Mermaid range.

I also have some spot treatments essentials, I found that since I moved to Hong Kong, I have more breakouts than before, especially in the forehead area.  My La Roche Posay Effclar A.I. Targeted Breakout Corrector and Simple Spotless Skin Rapid Action Spot Zapper.  I have done a more detailed review of these products, which you can refer to here.

Recently I've completely transformed my perfume collection and have gone all adventurous.  I have been wearing the same 3 perfumes in the past 10 years or so and I thought I would never live without them - Stella McCartney, Sarah Jessica Parker's Lovely and Marc Jacob's Daisy, of these 3 perfumes I think Stella's perfume will always have a special place in my heart and is definitely a perfume that I would re-purchase again and again.

Ever since I finished the last spray of Stella McCartney's perfume, I went perfume-less for a few months.  Until my sister bought me three new ones to replace the gap!

Escentric Molecule,  'Molecule 01 consists of one single ingredient, which is known as Iso E Super in the fragrance industry. On its own it is less of an aroma than an effect. This perfume lends an indefinable radiance to the water – its effect is almost pheromonic.' I'm yet to explore how the scent develops on my body as I have worn this for a few times only, the scent is very soft and it tends to disappear quite quickly, or actually it might be that I can't smell it myself but others can?  I'll report on this as I wear it more. 

I also have two miniature bottles of Jo Malone Cologne in the scent of Blueberry & Bay, Peony & Blush Suede.  Both of them are quite different scents to what I would normally wear which I actually rather like.  I can't describe scents well but they are a bit of a combo of citrusy, woody and a bit florally.   All in all, I just enjoy wearing these scents interchangeably.

In my crystal bowl I place my watches.  Watches are very important to me as I do like to keep to a schedule and be punctual on things.  I love my pink roses strap watch the most, I used to only wear it on special occasions but now I wear it more on a regularly basis.  It's also a great piece of accessory to make my plain outfit pop! 

What's on your dressing table?  What can't you not use on a daily basis?