girls day

Sweet, sweet summer days. Is there really anything better? There are a lot of things I love about summer, but the social acceptability of topping basically everything with ice cream might be my ultimate favourite. I made these coconut creamsicle margaritas a couple summers ago and they were amazing, my favourite summer drink I've come across thus far, so I knew I had to make them again with Sunny and Navneet! Our day was blissfully lazy and cuddly and perfect.

coconut creamsicle margaritas, slightly modified from howsweeteats

ingredients for 2 small servings:

• 2 ounces of coconut rum
• 2 ounces of orange juice
• 1 1/2 ounces of tequila
• 1 ounce of lime juice
• 1 ounce coconut water
• 1 ounce canned light coconut milk
• 1 ounce simple syrup (equal parts sugar and water, boiled then cooled)
• vanilla ice cream
• honey and toasted coconut for glass rims

directions:

to rim glasses, fill a plate with coconut. rub honey over the rims of the glasses then place on the plate with coconut. set aside.

combine coconut rum, orange juice, tequila, lime juice, coconut water, coconut milk and simple syrup in a shaker and shake well for 30 seconds. pour into glass rimmed with coconut and scoop as much ice cream as you want on top. drink!

end of semester celebration!!!

It's that time of the year when your actual lectures are over and you find yourself doing anything and everything rather than studying for your finals. One more semester down and two more to go for me, but Navneet is ALL DONE - like pack bags and go home done. Like never come back apart from graduation ALL DONE. Oh dang. This is obviously very awesome and I'm so #proudofher .... but it meant that yesterday was the last after-class-on-Friday hangout we'll ever have. I'll be feeling nostalgic about it this Friday probably. So you know we had to go all out and eat fried chicken and waffles!!!!!! But first, our kick-butt outfits.

slightly wrinkled and rained on dress from h&m, jacket from zara, shoes from target

jacket from buffalo exchange, dress and tights from urban outfitters, long-sleeved shirt from hollister, boots from spring

We did our research and according to the Internet, Portland Craft has one of the best fried chicken and waffle creations in Vancouver. Although we had never eaten fried chicken and waffles together, we pride ourselves on having pretty distinguished palettes (ok maybe that's just me, but I could be wrong) and man, were we in for a culinary experience!

I honestly do not know how to describe to you just how freakin delicious fried chicken, waffles, gravy, and maple syrup taste together. Separately they are great, but together the effect is synergistic. That's a new word I learned this semester in my public health class!!! It means that the effect of the combination of the two things is multiplicative instead of additive. If you've never tried all 4 together, you gotta do it. I woke up today #flawless thinking of fried chicken and waffles. That's when you know it's good, man.

And then!!! Rose cream filled donut bites!!!! How cute are these little guys! The combination of the rose cream with the flaky pastry inside and the just-right crispy outside - also a synergistic effect. The rose cream reminded me of the perfume that sweet, huggable Grandmas always seem to wear. You think that that would be a bad thing but it was similar to an edible version of a Grandma hug, which is obviously a very good thing. Trust us.

I almost forgot about the beer! The beer!!! We really don't know anything about beer so we asked our server for a recommendation for something light and slightly sweet. We decided on Pyramid Breweries apricot ale and, oh dang, was it good. It was definitely sweet but not too sweet, light but not too light. And it was so complex! I've never tasted a more non-boring beer in my life. Granted, I haven't taste a lot of beer in my life but this one was definitely up there. It was the perfect pairing with our fried chicken and waffles and donut bites. All in all, a truly beautiful day and I currently want nothing more than to eat all of this again. Look at that fried chicken. Oh my gosh.

The Manifestation of Our Inner Mind on Our Eyelids

Hey-o!! We're back! With an experiment!! Our research question: what would happen if we did each other's makeup? Here are the results. 

This is a slightly more dramatic version of a makeup look I've been super into lately. I like to call it Sunset On Your Eyes, for obvious reasons. I'm so sad that I forgot to take a picture of Navneet's eyeball closeup (she had to book it to Zumba so we were rushing). But lemme just say that these pictures DO NOT do this look justice AT ALL. These eyeshadows are at least 10 times more glittery in person. We recently ordered some stuff from ColourPop and wanted to try out some crazy looks on each other, so that's mostly what we used. 

If I were doing this same look again, first I would blend a peachy colour (I used Urban Decay's freelove) into her upper lash line. I tried to do this after I applied the base colour, but it didn't show up as well as I wanted. In terms of creating a base, I used bandit on her lids and her lower lash line and mittens in her crease. Then I blended sequin into her crease for some sparkle, especially focusing on the outer corner. I patted a bright copper shade onto the middle of her eyelids (baked by Urban Decay) and used a golden bronze in the corner of her eyes (half baked by Urban Decay). To highlight her brow bone I used girly, which is one of the coolest eyeshadows I've ever seen. We both used I heart this as a cheekbone highlighter - greatest decision ever!!! It looks SO sick in real life! We finished it off with some mascara and cin cin by Bite Beauty on the lips, with a little bit of jet set by NYX in the middle. Gold lipstick is the absolute best for adding a little bit of extra oomph to pretty much any look.

Despite being significantly more dramatic, I'd say this look I (Navneet) did on Gabby was a lot easier and less complicated to achieve than the one she did on me! Again, these Colourpop shadows are AMAZING--so so so easy to blend and layer. I've never considered myself very talented when it came to doing anything involving eyeshadow, and either a miracle happened overnight or Colourpop is itself the miracle. I'm betting on the latter. Also, random side note, I am truly baffled and amazed at how very DIFFERENT the same makeup can look on the two of us! I did a brighter version of this looks on myself a few weeks back and it looked very different (not bad, just different). That, my friends, is why swatches are important. And we may just be doing those in the future!

I used a total of 3 shadows to get this look. Yep, you read that right: three. For the base I used shameless, which is a stunning black that sparkles with blue and gold glitter--I put on a thinner layer at first and increased its intensity until it became as dark as I wanted to be. As you can see, I took it a little bit above her crease, because I love the look of the shadow being very visible even when the eyes are open (which can be a problem for girls like me, with heavier brows). Next, I used bae on most of the lid, except for the outer corner, where I blended it out into shameless. 

Finally, I used the magical and extremely versatile I heart this to highlight the inner corner of her eye, as well as the inner third of her eyelid. All 3 colours were used in the same sequence on her lower lash line. 

WHAT A LOOK. I can practically hear angels singing when I look at it. I LOVE IT SO MUCH.

PS: the title is supposed to be reminiscent of a journal article cause we did an experiment, c'mon navneet

beaches and books on the best coast

Today we decided to go to the beach. It was like, 4 or 5 degrees Celsius, but as far as we know, it's probably warmer than the rest of Canada right now haha. We're damn lucky to be on the West Coast, and days as beautiful as today really serve to emphasize that!

The world always manages to seems a bit brighter at the beach. Plus, today there were lots of beautiful doggies to wave hello to!! Nothing warms my heart quite like seeing doggies having fun and living their little doggie lives, other than living my life with Navneet, of course.

coat from h&m, top from h&m, jeans from american eagle, belt from my mom's closet, v necklace from h&m, sun necklace from charming charlie, 3.1 phillip lim x target bag, gloves from h&m, shoes from spring

tank top from h&m, jacket from zara, gloves from h&m, tights from costco, shoes from target

vintage leather bag from italy 

v necklace from h&m

hattie stewart gold lomin watch by triwa

We also had our first official book club meeting today, featuring Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami and The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House by Audre Lorde. Basically, they rock and you should read them and think about them, preferably with someone who likes talking about this stuff. It is 100 times better that way, we promise you.

the a to z on gabby and me (#slightlyawkwardfirstpost)

From Livejournal in the mid-2000s to Tumblr in the early 2010s, it's been one blogging journey after another for me. I've created personal blogs, a travel blog, a writing blog, an art inspiration blog, a resource blog, a music blog...you name it, haha. But I am especially excited to start this particular blog because I hope that it can be a little bit of a mix of all of those. What makes me extra excited about it, though, is the fact that 1. I'm doing this with one of my closest friends and 2. I hope to make this a place all about self-love and appreciation. Friendship and self-love, yo. The best things in life!

So, without further ado, meet the creators:

Navneet is twenty twoooo ooo ooooo (I hope you sang along) and she's currently studying English and the Humanities. Actually, she's almost done university! #proudofher After this momentous occasion, she hopes to be a teacher. The thing is, Navneet is going to be the greatest teacher because she loves kids so much and they love her right back. Her love of food is almost as massive as mine, which is probably one of the reasons we get along so well. Navneet introduced me to Korean food and for that I am forever grateful. She also loves cute Korean dramas and foreign-language shows/movies in general. The most accurate word to describe Navneet would be resilient. She's also daringly honest and super knowledgeable about cool stuff that matters in real life (read: FEMINISM!). If I had to describe us in one emoji it would obviously be the 2 girls linking arms dressed in black because we're always on the same page. Honestly, the times where she's said something I was just thinking is slightly insane. She is a total book nerd, like it's unreal how avid she can be sometimes. She also wants to do more creative things since she hasn't been reading or writing or drawing nearly enough these days (thanks school). Navneet is passionate about knowledge and education and people, among other things. She also LOVES telling anecdotes about her little brothers.

Gabby is 20 years old (ALMOST 21!) and she's studying Health Sciences and Human Development & Counselling. She hopes to do something involving helping kids, potentially counselling (and she's going to be excellent at it because she's a great listener and extremely open-minded and big-hearted). Her phone case has cartoon pictures of pizza with the words "you are all beautiful and I love you equally"... that should tell you a lot. Gabby loves One Direction and would like you to know that she is not ashamed in the least. She thinks teenage girls are amazing. She loves breakfast food in particular and also making music mixes (and driving to really amazing music mixes made by her amazing friends, of course). She is extremely into shiny fashion trends at the moment. She keeps things real but also manages to keep the "glass half full" which can be baffling but also wonderful. We go on food dates together... what does that say about us? (It says, "we love other enough to eat good food together often and make an actual hobby out of it" obviously.) Finally, Gabby loves the Office almost as much as she loves food. And she loves Nico Mirallegro's beautiful brown eyes almost as she loves the Office. And don't even mention Liam Payne around her (this really means, mention Liam Payne and enter into a 10 minute conversation about his puppy dog eyes).

Whew, long post. We leave you with this:

Except we both get to be Beyoncé in this relationship. Always.