Hey guys! I've got something a little bit different for you guys here on the blog today, but I'm actually really excited about it. You probably don't know this about me - because how would you? - but I love socks with cute patterns on them. I don't know what it is, but most of my wardrobe is really simple and I'm not really a print kind of a person anywhere other than my socks. Recently, I was given a chance to try out a brand called Dead Soxy and I was super excited about it because when I checked out their website I found that the patterns were fun but really wearable. 

For more about my experience with Dead Soxy socks, keep reading!

I spend a LOT of time talking about my favorite beauty products on this blog, but I spend significantly less time talking about my favorite things in other categories. When I sat down and started thing about what to list in my favorite non-beauty related stuff of the year, I ultimately decided to keep it light with mostly easy going favorite things. That said, the last thing in this list is probably my favorite thing about 2017 and I hope you'll bear with me as I go into a little bit of detail on how I feel about it, as it's something I've been wanting to write for a while. Or, if you're interested in keeping it light, you can just stop at the fun pop culture and snacks stuff!

If you're a longtime reader of the blog, you may recall several months ago I did a review of the RawSpiceBar subscription service and I was really impressed with it. The basic premise of RawSpiceBar is that each month the curate a selection of 3 unique spice blends in a specific theme and includes recipes for each spice blend so that you can try out new recipes each month. Pretty cool, right? I got the chance to try another RawSpiceBar box and I was really excited to give it a go. To check out the RawSpiceBar Beunos Aires Spice Box*, keep reading!

Recently I started thinking about just how much I'm on my phone and how much I rely on certain apps, and I decided that I wanted to share them with you guys. I don't know how exciting these will be, but I figured I'd share them because I'm personally always looking for really good apps and it can be hard to weed through all the available apps to find the good ones. These ones are all approved by me! I'm an iPhone girl for my last 3 phones and I'm pretty sure that I'll be staying with them in the future, because I tend to prefer the iOS to AndroidOS, but I did find links for most of these apps on the Google Play store as well! I don't really have any beauty apps on this list, because I just really don't use those types of apps and I wanted this to be honest.

If you wanna see what apps I'm addicted to, keep reading!

Admittedly, it has been a LONG time since I've done a Music Monday post here on the blog, but it's been a long time since I've been as obsessed with a song as much as I am with this one. A couple of times a week, I end up over at Indie Shuffle checking out what's new in independent music, and as soon as I heard this song when it was released last week - I was OBSESSED. Admittedly, I was unfamiliar with Flume and my experience with Tove Lo was limited to what I'd heard on the radio and the fact that I was obsessed with her makeup for the Grammy's this year. However, this song got me instantly. It's that hard to find combination of catchy and interesting that I always seem to be listening to. The subject matter is sexy in a way that's a little left of center, which is how I prefer the sexy to be presented in music. 

Not even playing, I listened to this SEVEN TIMES IN A ROW while I tidied up the kitchen on Saturday afternoon. It's an addiction and I'm pretty much dying for the album that this will be included on to be released. 

Check it out here: 

Even though this is a beauty blog and I am a complete and total beauty junkie, even I know that I can't just get everyone on my list beauty gifts, so I decided to go ahead and put together a list of some of my favorite non-beauty gifts - including a few things that I've gifted to people before and ones that I'll be gifting this year. I tried to split this into different categories for different types of people you might have in your life, but I think there's a lot of gifts here that could be great for a lot of different people. If anything, I hope that this might inspire you or give you some ideas for those people on your list that might be a little bit difficult to shop for.

Keep reading to take a look!

Hey folks! Thanks for tuning in. My name is Niki and I am a proud member of the CBB! You can find my blog on my website www.nicoleertl.com. Today, I am here to share with you my infinite wisdom in the realm of lighting for beauty pics. I'm just kidding... yes, I have improved my picture taking game over the years but I am still on my journey to taking the best photo ever! I will share with you some tips and tricks on how to optimize your lighting scenario/set-up for getting the best photos for your blog. This can also be translated into lighting for filming beauty-related videos.

The idea for this guest post came to me after reading a post on the CBB facebook page, something I tune into daily - I mean it is the most active page on my fbook feed, after all. PS Did I ever tell you ladies how awesome you are?! Let's get on with it!

Once upon a time I used to take photos like this...

While it is apparent the quality of the camera phone is sub-par- at best but this  is a discussion on lighting. I was confident that when I took this photo, the photograph would translate into this vivid mosaic of vibrant colours - instead I got this!

Let's talk about LIGHT and the kinds of light most readily available. We'll start with the most abundant and free source of light, NATURAL light. It's everywhere, it's outside of my window, enticing me and I am not out there enjoying it! Then we have TUNGSTEN, tungsten is the kind of household lighting that came before FLUORESCENT, you'll instantly be able identify tungsten lighting because it casts a yellow colour and is translated as yellow in film/digital photography (see below).

There is no doubt about it, NATURAL lighting is our best-friend. It's pro, it casts the right shadows and highlights in all the appropriate places. Unfortunately, when you live in a country where it's winter two-thirds of the year, we don't always have access to the stuff. Your second option is FLUORESCENT lighting but FLUORESCENT lighting can also come with it's own set of challenges. FLUORESCENT lighting can over-expose your image or can cast really harsh shadows. That's when TUNGSTEN comes and saves the day! TUNGSTEN lighting can bring life back into your photos by adding the right bit of 'warmth'. That's why smartphones make great blogging tools, they've taken the guess-work out of photo taking by building in both flashes (see below).

I put the floor lamp on my desk and fold the shade up, exposing the bulb, it sits just above my head and the shade let's my control the amount of light. I have also adjusted the white balance on my camera, '-1' to compensate for the overexposure.

If you would like to check out the other guest posts, head over here:

 

As the summer is coming to a close, I realize that I haven't put much of a spotlight on my non-beauty favorites for the past few months. There's definitely a lot of things I've been loving this summer! I just picked a random selection of TV shows and entertainment in general, some snacks and beverages, and a couple of accessories that really jumped out at me while I was thinking about what I've been loving this summer. I'm not sure that this type of post will be a regular occurrence, but I liked the idea of it so I figured I'd put it out there.

If you're interested in seeing what I've been loving - and I think you should be, because I feel like I have some really good recommendations - keep reading!

First off, I've gotta admit that I've been planning on doing this favorites post all week, since I always prefer to do it as early as possible, but life has been a little bit crazy and I just hadn't gotten around to doing photos for the post. Also, I am planning on doing full reviews on a lot of these products in the near future, since so many of them are new to me things that I've been trying out, so keep a look out for those if any of these pique your interest! January feels like one of those months when the makeup world goes a little mad with power and new collections seem to be launching every week, so there are so many things that I need to get around to trying and reviewing right now.

That said, this is about my favorites this month, so keep reading for a closer look....

So... This has been a good month. Not gonna lie, it's kinda weird to say that when my feet are still frozen from being out in the -40º weather this morning, but here I am saying it. It's been a bit of a low key kind of a month, staying home and cooking cold weather comfort food and curling up on the couch to binge-watch TV shows. My little introverted heart loves this time of year for that very reason, nature gives you a built in excuse to hide in your house and not bother with real pants other than when it's time to go to work. It's also been a good month for beauty products, I found. It wasn't until I started compiling my list of favorite things this month that I realized what a good month it was.

So without further adieu, keep reading for my monthly favorites...