Triple Pineapple

Shirt is thrifted | earrings c/o I Love Crafty | pinafore c/o Sheinside (old) | shoes from Naot | brooch is handmade I have named this post triple pineapple because I am wearing: Pineapples on my ears Pineapples all over my shirt Pineapple-printed underwear. Okay, so you can't see these (I didn't feel comfortable flashing the entire internet), but they totally make a difference & contribute to the pineapple-y-ness of the outfit! Does anyone else ever go out wearing cute undies, knowing that no one is going to see them but feeling like they've helped contribute to your outfit regardless, just because you know they are there? I wanted to give off some tropical, summery vibes with this outfit, so I added an ice-cream brooch, pastel lipstick and this pinafore. The pinafore has for some reason always reminded me of the uniform of somebody who sells ice cream. Is anyone else getting that vibe, or is it just me? I also need to give a shout out to I Love Crafty, who is the creator of these incredible pineapple earrings! I've been waiting literally all winter for the weather to warm up so that I could wear them. They're got the perfect amount of cute & novelty in my opinion - and I'm pretty sure they're going to be on high rotation on my earlobes this summer. That's all from me today, I hope you're having a good one, Bloglovin' | Youtube | Facebook | Twitter |  Instagram | Chictopia | Lookbook | Tumblr

Donut we all?

Necklace is c/o I Love Crafty | blouse, pinafore and cardigan are thrifted | tights are DIY | shoes are old I felt that I needed some absurd way to express my love of I Love Crafty's new Donut Shop range of jewellery, so I decided to make it look like it was raining donuts in my backyard! Image via Rebloggy I've been a fan of I Love Crafty for years now, and this donut shop range is one of my favourite collections of theirs, featuring donut-themed collar tips, necklaces and rings in all the different flavours! They will go perfectly with any pastelly outfit, but will probably make you want to eat some real-life donuts (like I had to the next time I went out shopping, hahaha). Not only is the jewellery just wonderful, but Laura is also the queen of cute packaging! Donut science! (TW: diets and food) Have any of you watched the documentary Sugar v Fat that aired a couple of months ago? If you can find it, I highly recommend watching it!  Basically, two identical twins who also both happen to be doctors wanted to see what was healthier for you when "dieting" - a high-fat or a high-sugar diet? For one month, one twin went on a high-fat diet, while the other went on a high sugar diet with little to no fat.  The demonisation of either fat or sugar in fad diets has been a point of debate in pop-nutrition - one moment, you're told to avoid all fats and the next, it's sugars that seem to be evil - with high-fat diets like Atkins, and low-fat diets all claiming to be the healthiest for you. Well these twins wanted to cut through the bullshit, and study the physiological changes that occur when going on either of these diets. What they find out is interesting - neither fat or sugar seem to be the real problem (and cutting out either one or the other is pretty unhealthy). Rather, it's a highly addictive combination of the two, usually when they occur in a 1:1 ratio - such as found in Krispy Kreme's original glazed donuts.  As neuropsychologist Paul Kenny demonstrates, when lab rats are given free access to a food that is only fat (like cream) or only sugar, they will not overeat. However, when rats are given free access to food that is a combination of fat and sugar, they will absolutely gorge themselves, and the ratio of fat to sugar is very important. To prove their point, the twins offer people a choice between three donuts - original glazed, sugar-coated or creme-filled donuts. What would you choose, given a choice (and you aren't allowed to say no?) Most people, it turns out, would choose the original glazed donut. This 1:1 combination of fat and sugar is apparently not found anywhere in nature, rather it's only found in human-made, processed foods, and apparently it's super addictive to us mammals - so no wonder donuts are so appealing! * Note that this wasn't a proper scientific study, but it does aid what most nutritional scientists (with actual science degrees) have been saying for years - eat a balanced diet and don't eat too many processed foods if you want to eat healthily! NB you should always aim to eat to be healthy, not to change your body to look like some "ideal" shape because all body shapes are beautiful :) So enjoy the occasional donut now and again! I hope that you are all having a great day! Bloglovin' | Youtube | Facebook | Twitter |  Instagram | Chictopia | Lookbook | Tumblr

Red Hair & Two Dimensions

Shirt is from Sportsgirl, jeans are from Dotti, shoes are from Dotti, socks are c/o Romwe, necklace is c/o I Love Crafty, bag is c/o Jump from Paper This post is an unusual one because a) I am wearing pants and b) I have coloured hair - but it's not a wig! When I was 17, I had very bright red hair for about a whole year. I really liked it, so because I had been feeling quite ambivalent about my hair I decided to dye it today. And I think that it turned out wonderfully. Not much lightener was needed (and a pre-bleach was also definitely not required) because my hair was already a really light brown - I didn't want a repeat of destroying my hair after bleaching it too much last year to go pink and purple. I just dug up an old photo of how bright-red my hair used to be - not sure if I'll move more in this direction, or to a more "natural" orange now (like this). Or maybe next time I will just dye it black. What do you all think? Now, I need to talk about this amazing bag. You may have noticed that my bag kind of looks like someone photoshopped it into my photo? I have been a huge fan of Jump from Paper's tricky three-dimensional-bag-pretending-to-be-two-dimensional-bags for such a long time now, and so I was very very excited when I got an email from them asking if I wanted to try one out! This bag is from their new 50s-inspired collection (I totally want to plan a 1950s shoot around this when I get the time). I have so much nerdy fun with it, pretending that I live in flatland (Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions is a satirical book about maths from 1884, and I highly recommend it. It's pure nerd joy. And it also messes with your brain - it gives you a good analogy for humans trying to perceive 4 dimensions, using beings called "flatlanders" who can only perceive 2 dimensions. If you either like classics, or you like science, READ IT). I hope that you're all super, super well! Bloglovin' | Facebook | Twitter |  Instagram | Chictopia | Lookbook | Tumblr

Cherry Bomb & Chemistry

I adore this cherry-coloured dress sent to me by Koogal. After Kailey from Mermaiden's post in a similar dress, I couldn't imagine dressing up as anything other than a mermaid, especially with the fish-scale fabric and sneaky cutouts featured in this dress! I went for mermaid hair and, completing the mermaid ensemble, this "I'm Really A Mermaid" necklace. This new Milanoo wig is awesome. I think it is definitely going to become my new favourite. A sign of a good wig is when people you haven't seen in years come up to you and say "Wow. I love your hair - it's so different now!" I had a few warnings about Milanoo's lolita dresses after posting about a bag from the site, so I chose to review a wig instead (can't say no to free stuff, right?). Anyway, from what I can tell from this admittedly small sample size, their wigs are great - they remind me of Japan's "Bodyline" wigs because the quality is just as good. I also got this lolita-style headband to go with the wig, and I think it was a really good choice - it's not over-the-top but it gives the outfit hints of lolita elements (I wish I were brave/dedicated enough to dress in a full lolita get-up. One day!) dress - c/o Koogal wig - c/o Milanoo headband - c/o Milanoo tights - Claire's (Japan) necklace - c/o I Love Crafty Something reaaaaally exciting happened in science the other day! You know how chemists draw images like this: Which are meant to represent the chemical bonds between carbon and other atoms? (If you didn't know that, well, now you do.) Well, those structures were only ever conceptual representations of the chemical bonding  occurring in a reaction - up until now, scientists could only infer the structure of these molecules through spectroscopic analysis, which looks like this: But the other day, scientists at the University of California, using an "atomic force microscope", have managed to take pictures like this: What was so exciting about this? The images taken actually look like those stick-structures! Basically, what you would have learnt in highschool science - that atoms and small molecules are too small to ever see - is now wrong. And I love that the stick-structures actually look like that, even though the stick-structure drawings were, at first, just a theoretical representations of molecules. Yay science! Read more here. p.s. if you are looking for lolita dresses, I suggest trying Bodyline :) Bloglovin' | Facebook | Twitter |  Instagram | Chictopia | Lookbook | Tumblr

Pale Polka Dots & Pastels / How Are Seashells Made?

Since I moved out of home I have not been able to buy myself any new clothes - otherwise I wouldn't be able to afford to eat - however this vintage dress is fairly new. I got it from my (now) local markets about a month ago, from a girl who was basically my exact age, body size and style and getting rid of all her old clothes. I could have easily made her a very rich lady that day, but I had enough self control to only buy one of her amazing dresses. I chose this one for the amazing collar detail, and the interesting separation of the top and bottom halves of the dress (the top bit is all lace underneath). I decided to make the collar detail even more interesting today by adding these supppper cute kitty collar clips sent to me by the incredible Ladybird Likes. Ladybird Likes makes the coolest brooches out of old sewing patterns and wooden cut-out animals... you definitely should go and check the shop out! dress - Thrifted clips - c/o Ladybird Likes tights - Ebay shoes - c/o Sammydress hat - c/o Wholesale When I visited the beach last week, I went on a little bit of a sea shell-collecting rampage. They were so pretty, I couldn't just leave them lying around on the beach! #hoarder4lyf After checking nothing was living inside them, I cleaned all the junk out of them and let them dry. I had planned to do something crafty with them, or something... (if you don't already have the mind of a hoarder, you wouldn't understand the strange urge that makes us collect everything which might be even slightly useful some far-off day in the future)... but then I accidentally left them sitting on this table and went home without them. Still, I realised that I didn't have a clue how sea shells are created. Are they created by living creatures? Are they made out of living tissue like cells, or are they more similar to rocks? How on earth do they form the shapes that they make? So I did a little bit of researching. Sea shells are made by sea creatures from the mollusca phylum, including snails, clams and oysters. The shells are not made of cells though - rather, they are made of calcium carbonate, which is excreted by the sea creature in a bottom-up fashion. The shell is actually what is called their "exo-skeleton", which basically means a skeleton which exists outside the body. The shells must be able to grow larger as the sea creature grows, so this bottom-up way of growing works well to accommodate that. The newest part of a sea snail's shell, for example, is the opening of the shell where the animal's head peeks out (the largest part of the shell). The Scientific American has written a really good answer to this question, which I reckon you should read if you are interested in shells (it's also got stuff about turtle shells, which are very different to sea shells). Hermit crabs, on the other hand, whom I also saw plenty of on the beach that day, don't make their own shells like these other sea creatures do - they borrow the shells that the molluscs make. That's like wearing another animal's skeleton. Crazy hermit crabs. When I'm older I'm totally going to be that nerd-parent who enthusiastically tries to teach their kids science things when they're on school holidays and just want to build sand castles. Ah well ;) I hope you're all super well! Bloglovin' | Facebook | Twitter |  Instagram | Chictopia | Lookbook | Tumblr

A Colourful Mermaid

This is a very colourful outfit that I have been planning in my mind for quite a long time - I just had to wait for all of the pieces to come to me in the mail (all the way to Australia, so it's been a while!) I'm very happy because it turned out exactly as I imagined. I'm going to save this outfit for an overcast, rainy day. blouse - c/o Oasap tights - c/o Oasap shoes - c/o YesWalker skirt - c/o Faith & Lola necklace - c/o I Love Crafty Some days, I just want to post pretty outfits on my blog. The science I'm really focusing on at the moment at uni is all about eukaryotic transcriptional and translational regulation and how cells regulate their mRNAs, eIFs and other proteins to control gene expression. While I am finding it very fascinating, it's not the easiest thing for communicating here (in fact I showed it to Luci, who just said "yeah... that was all gobbledegook. Like, I got some words were in English, but that was all I understood.") So I hope you all don't get mad at me for missing out on a science fact today. Alright... a little science fact then. Many of you were interested by my Synaesthesia post the other day, and said that you also strongly associate colours with numbers or letters, but don't actually see them. Have a look at Ideasthesia. Probably, the majority of people have some form of this (just look at the "Kiki and Bouba" effect, for instance. Why would most people associate a spiky shape with the word "kiki" and a rounded shape with "bouba"? Do we all have a predisposition to synaesthetic-like-qualities?). Bloglovin' | Facebook | Twitter |  Instagram | Chictopia | Lookbook | Tumblr

I Really Am A Mermaid!

My mermaid membership arrived in the mail this morning, officially certified from the magical kingdom of the Merpeople. So it's indusputable now - I am a mermaid. See? My official-membership-necklace even says so. Are you guys totally jealous? Yeah, I thought so. I've heard that this shop called "I Love Crafty" is selling mermaid-membership necklaces too, although you won't have official certification from the magical Merpeople Kingdom (because obviously you guys aren't real mermaids like me). But I guess you could pretend you were a mermaid, if you had one of those necklaces, and were so inclined... necklace - c/o I Love Crafty skirt - c/o Faith & Lola tights - Yoshida (Japan) shoes - Japan t-shirt - Thank You Mart (Japan) bag - DIY (instructions here) Now this definitely falls into the realm of science fiction, but speculative biology is always a fun topic. This page features several awesome images that speculate on what the anatomy of a mermaid would look like. Below is the skeletal anatomy of a mermaid: Also, I found this pretty funny: did you guys know that last year, the US government had to make an official statement saying that "Mermaid's do not exist"? Come on guys, obviously they do exist... otherwise who would have sent me my official mermaid necklace...?