Sunday 30 April 2017

10 Reasons Why Shaving Your Head is Amazing

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1. The first and most obvious reason, to raise money for a great cause. I raised nearly $1,000 for the Leukemia Foundation and that's a pretty damn good feeling!

2. You save so much time getting ready.

3.  You save a tonne of money on shampoo, conditioner and hair styling products.

4. Bad hair days are a thing of the past! No hair = no bad hair days.

5. You get to start over with a clean slate. My poor hair had definitely seen better days. Years of colouring and heat styling had left it in pretty bad shape but now, I get to start fresh with completely natural, untreated hair.

6. Your style changes. I've found that things I used to wear no longer seem to suit my new look. I've definitely noticed some changes to the way I pick out my wardrobe these days.

7. Your makeup game changes. I feel like having a shaved head has brought out my eyes and my cheekbones a lot. It really changes what I choose to focus on when I do my makeup.

8. You don't have to worry about how many days you've gone without washing or how your gym/hair washing schedule is going to play out for the week. My hair is so short that I can wash it whenever and it takes literally 5 seconds to towel dry.

9. The future is an open book! Will I keep it short? Grow it out? What style will I go for? The opportunities are endless.

10. A whole new world of accessories has opened up for me. Hats, beanies, bandanas, scarves, so many accessories, so little time!

Dani XO 
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Sunday 23 April 2017

Travel Capsue Wardrobe - Japan

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In the past, I have been a notoriously bad over-packer. I would tend to pack a lot of "just in case" items. Things that I would never wear at home but somehow thought I'd love on holiday. Then I would end up wearing the same three outfits on repeat anyway. For my recent trip to Japan with Kate from The Minted Blog, I decided to give the capsule wardrobe a go. This was mainly inspired by the fact that we were only taking carry-on bags, so they had to be as light as possible.

The idea behind a capsule wardrobe is that you pack a minimal number of items that you can mix and match to create a much larger number of outfits.

A little disclaimer; I used Polyvore to create this layout and they didn't have the exact items I have in my wardrobe BUT you get the general idea. I also haven't included the (hopefully) obvious things like undies and socks because who wants to see those? I also threw in a few singlets for warmth and layering.

My Travel Capsule Wardrobe

1 pair of khaki jeggings

1 pair of denim chambray joggers

2 long sleeve, turtle neck shirts (1 black, 1 striped)

1 long sleeve grey shirt

1 black knitted jumper

1 3/4 sleeve striped dress

1 navy blue duffel coat

1 pair of black trainers

1 pair of flat, brown ankle boots

1 striped cotton scarf

With this teeny tiny wardrobe, I had a pretty decent number of outfits I could pull together. I did end up picking up a few items of clothing over there to supplement my capsule wardrobe but I could have easily managed without them.

My top tips for packing a capsule wardrobe are:

1. Stick with a basic colour palette.

You're going to be mixing and matching everything so while your red jeans might be an absolute favourite and your green jumper a staple, you don't want to end up looking like a Christmas tree when you put the two together.

2. Pick durable items.

By this I mean that if you aren't able to get to a washing machine, is your wardrobe still going to work? You don't want to lose a huge chunk of wardrobe options because the jumper you picked needs to be dried on a medium heat for 45 minutes every second day. Pick things that are stain-resistant and easy to wash and dry.

3.Limit your number of shoes

This has been the downfall of so many travellers! I packed 2 pairs of shoes, and honestly, I could have gotten away with one. You free up so much space and realistically, one or two pairs of shoes is more than enough for pretty much any destination.

Here are a couple of shots of my travel capsule wardrobe in action:
Dani XO


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Sunday 16 April 2017

Blog Update - Where the Hell Have I Been?

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Remember that girl who used to have that blog? Whatever happened to her? Here's an update on where I've been and what you can expect for this blog for the future. 

Last year was a scary, crazy, hot mess for me. Blogging just ended up taking a back seat. And then I kind of fell out of love with blogging. I always said that if I stopped enjoying blogging and it stopped being fun, I wouldn't push it so I didn't. Blogging, for me, was originally a way to connect when I was in a job that made me feel very isolated. It really helped me in a huge way and I will always be grateful that I found the friends and amazing community out there. 

After about a year or so of blogging, I started trying too hard. I noticed people were doing better than I was. They had more followers, their pictures were better, they posted more often than I did. I started losing some of my originality and my blogging voice became, let's face it, pretty boring. I'm not saying I went out and copied people, but I did let what I thought was more popular or what was going to get me more likes drive my content. Instagram became a chore and I freaked out if I missed a post because my whole theme fell apart. I decided that blogging was going to have to take a break. 

I took some time out for myself. I went to Japan with my bestie, Kate, from The Minted Blog. I moved house, I went back to uni, I did Shave for a Cure and I forgot to post on Instagram for weeks. And I felt a whole lot better about life. I love writing and I love having an online voice and presence but I don't want to go back to a place where being on social media constantly and the need for popularity drives me. So what am I planning for the future?

A few of you may remember that I originally started out as a 100% beauty focused blog called KaBOOM! Cosmetics. I then decided that I wanted to talk about more than just beauty and changed my blog name to Dani the Girl XO but I never seemed to quite find my groove and ended up focusing back on beauty again. From here on out, I'm planning on turning my blog into something else entirely. There are aspects of beauty that I enjoy and will still write about but you can expect everything from food to travel to random ramblings on life to my favourite to shows and everything in between. I want to write more about the things that make me happy and less about what I think people want to read

You might see less frequent posts, you might see more frequent posts, I'm just going to take things as they come and try to focus less on churning out content. Thanks to everyone who has stuck around through this roller-coaster ride, especially those who have been around since the beginning. 

Big love and talk to you all very soon. 

Dani XO
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