My Passport Stamp: Perth, Australia

So I’ve just been in Perth recently. Vacationing and all, you know the drill. Actually I didn’t just stay cooped up in Perth but definitely got around Western Australia— it was kind of a blast. The farm areas were the highlight for me, as a self-professed #organichoe.

Anyway, nobody wants to hear about me faffing about on the beach. Obviously I did a little bit of beauty shopping– beauty items are my souvenir. I try to buy as many beauty products exclusive to a certain country as possible when I’m visiting. But, you know, my main aim in Perth was kind of to soak up the scenery and be organic and chase kangaroos– not really shopping– so I didn’t exactly visit the Australian beauty hotspots. I passed by Mecca everyday (the store Mecca, not the actual Mecca) but never went in… and obviously there was a Jurlique store in like every corner, but obviously I knew that these stores carried only pricey stuff and I hadn’t done enough research to justify spending a lot on anything.

Actually, beauty products in Australia can be ridiculously expensive! The prices for stuff like Maybelline and Revlon are just… unacceptable. But there’s some stuff which is priced reasonably and Uniquely Australian enough for me to get as a memento.

Now I know we’ve trashed Lush before and I know Lush isn’t remotely Uniquely Australian but I’ve never tried anything from them, okay? And when you’ve got a blonde girl enthusiastically giving you powerpoint presentations about every single product in the store, you kind of just have to get something just to reward her for going through all that trouble. So blonde girl, I didn’t know your name but I hope you got that commission! Anyway, I knew that their skincare stuff isn’t actually anything special and they’re not as organic and chemical free as they try to pass off as, but I’ve heard some good things about their hair stuff so I picked up their H’Suan Wen Hua hair treatment. I have no idea what that name is supposed to mean– is it Chinese? Chinese friends, fill me in here– but basically it’s a hair treatment which you’re supposed to use on dry hair before shampooing and conditioning… as opposed to after.

I’ve tried it both with dry hair as they instruct you to do on the packaging as well as with dampened hair and honestly I prefer the later. There probably isn’t any science behind what I’m saying but I just feel like when you put stuff on dry hair nothing’s going to happen. Like it’s just going to sit there. When I use this conditioner on lightly dampened hair, I feel like my hair feels softer after washing off. Alas, the effect isn’t longlasting… the last time I used this stuff was yesterday and now my hair already feels like crap again. My hair is unsalvageable.

Next is the Sukin Hydrating Mist Toner which is basically a rosewater spritz. I’ve always had my eye on the Mario Badescu Rosewater Face Mist but for some reason you can’t buy them in store at Sephora… just online which means you have to spend extra to get that RM80 free shipping (since the face mist is only like RM30+). But this was only like AUD 7 so I got it since I’ve always been curious about rosewater. Suffice to say, it is… okay. It has glycerin which makes it moisturising. Btw, I know that we get Sukin here in Malaysia as well but I don’t know if this product is available or not. It’s not really a brand I pay attention to!

Which brings me to yet another brand I don’t pay attention to– the Nivea Cleansing Mousse is a product which was brought to my attention by Labmuffin who is Australian! and whose opinions I totally trust and respect. If she hadn’t recommended this I’d probably be like “ugh Nivea I bet the pH is like 5000 and it’s made of diesel”. There’s another one which is for combination skin, which I think is the one she actually posted on her blog. This one’s for dry skin. I don’t know the actual pH of this cleanser since I don’t own pH test strips (the people who do that and post it on Reddit are the backbone of our society, tbh) but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s at a healthy 5.5 because it leaves my skin feeling nice and un-squeaky and clean yet not dehydrated, just like the other low pH level cleansers I’ve tried. This was about AUD 10, which makes it cheap even by Malaysian standards. And oh, unlike the Sukin, this is a product which I know 100% for sure isn’t available in Malaysia because I looked for it in stores so no I did not play myself.