I got this new dress in from Bittersweet Boutique and tried to wear it in London unfortunately it was never warm enough! Thankfully I came home to sunny and 70’s and was able to wear it running errands today. It’s a flowwy tie back dress that you can tighten or loosen however you want. I paired it with some thick black platforms, a fuzzy black crossbody & one of my favorite new chains.
Check out the links below to shop each piece.
So excited to finally be home from Europe and start getting back into a regular routine. I have two usual morning routines; one for mornings where I work that day, and one if I don’t. The days I don’t work are rare so I love taking advantage of these mornings. They always include three things; breakfast, CycleBar and coffee.
As far as breakfast, both need to be quick since I usually only leave 30-60 minutes to get ready, and if I’m going to CycleBar I like to leave time for the food to digest before working out. I switch between Kodiak Cakes pancake mix and eggs. The Kodiak Cakes I usually meal prep the night before in a big batches and just heat up the next morning. Then I put Earth Fare plain roasted hand ground peanut butter and whatever berries are in my fridge on top after heating a pancake up. Otherwise I’ll similarly meal prep whole grain brown rice the night before, then make two eggs in the morning. I add avocado, plain greek yogurt, Siracha & pepper to make a sort of Healthy Mexican breakfast bowl.
Of course to get through the morning I’ll always have a cup of coffee is I’m going to have a long day which most days end up being. I’ve been using my Mr. Coffee® Easy Measure 12-Cup Programmable Coffeemaker instead of the Keurig like I used just to reduce the use of waste the cups use and I find I don’t really use any of the flavor options that make the Keurig special. I always end up drinking regular coffee and mixing in my milks or sweetners. I love using this coffeemaker because it always gives me the same consistent, great cup and it’s literally so easy to use with color-coded measuring system and controls. I also love how I can choose the beans I want to use. I’ve really been into trying out all the different hand ground beans at Whole Foods as well as getting beans from the farmers market. And I can make 12-cups at once so I save the other 11 cups and make iced coffee the rest of my week which saves a ton of time when I’m in a rush.
Lately I’ve been loving iced coffee with oat milk so I make my coffee in the Mr.Coffee machine, pour over ice, then pour in my Oatly milk. Just because I’ve been trying to eliminate dairy from the daily routine and this has really helped. Sometimes I’ll mix in the Meijer Sweet Cream Cold Brew into my black coffee. 1/4 sweet cream 3/4 black coffee. I’m obsessed with cold brew but like mixing it with black coffee for more of a kick and less sugar, fats and no dairy.
Iced Oat Milk Made Easy:
Get your Own Mr.Coffee Easy Measure Coffeemaker at Target linked here.
How do you handle your morning routines? Let me know in the comments.
Sponsored by Mr. Coffee; all thoughts are my own.
I recently discovered my new favorite place to online shop. If you’re a Virginia resident you’re in luck because Bittersweet Boutique has three in store location options there. Otherwise if you’re like the rest of us you’re going to have to tough out waiting for shipping. Although I will say I ordered this top on a Friday and received it on Wednesday so I’m pretty happy with the shipping speed. As well as carrying boutique items, they also carry Free People, Amuse Society, One Teaspoon and many other high end name brand items.
Away For the Week Wrap Top – $48
Leopard Belt – $16.99
Mom Jeans – On Sale $37
LV Lockit Pendant Necklace
Taupe Mules – On Sale $29.99 | Available in Pink, Black & Taupe
Here are some of my favorite jewelry pieces of this season. They range in style and price from many different brands most of which I find and keep up with through Instagram. I’ve been super into layering necklaces and unique earpieces like huggies, hoops and especially safety pins. I tend to keep my jewelry either all metal or metal with simple crystal, and always yellow gold.
@frasiersterlingjewelry
One of my all-time favorite little jewelry shops. Frasier opened in 2011 by a twenty-year-old. All the pieces are handmade in L.A.
@vibeszn started in 2017 by a St. Louis native. It’s a USA based custom jewelry company with a mission to inspire individuals to express their personal style with trendy, affordable, and quality jewelry while promoting a movement that sets trends without boundaries. Use code GOLD45 for 45% off your purchase.
@gemandcompany was started by brand owner & COO, girlboss Paige Sandher in her home in Vancouver, Canada. Their focus is to keep up and create current jewelry trends. I wore the Roma set on the second day of Lollapalooza- see how I styled it by clicking here.
Use Code: EMMADAUN20 for 20% off!
@strungbysoph started as just a hobby making jewelry for friends and has since taken off. Soph isn’t exactly sure what’s in store for SBS but were excited to find out. is Use Code: EMMADAUN15 for 15% off your order.
@adinasjewels was started by a woman in New York City. The company was named after her late grandmother and is now a family business still in NYC.
@thelastlinela is a jewelry company based in Los Angeles. Founded by Jewlery vet Shelley Sanders and Teddy Sanders. The Last Line LA is rewriting the rules of the jewelry world one finely priced diamond at a time.
Sequin is a unique, handmade jewelry brand out of NYC. Their jewelry is made with 22K gold-dipped brass with a signature antique finish, Swarovski® crystals and semi-precious stones. My current favorite piece I own from them is the Virgo Stellina Cuff Bracelet. It’s the perfect simple band to pair with any outfit.
Xo Emma
With Spring Break only a short bit away, I’ve been scrambling to find the perfect suits to pack in my already way too overpacked suitcase. It’s hard shopping online for swimwear especially when each brand’s sizing and each person’s body shape is so different. A medium here might fit someone who normally wears a small or vice versa. Even if you’re dead set on what size you think you are I always recommend reading the actual sizing measurements as well as any reviews and customer photos to see the swimwear on actual girls and not models.
I’ve found and put together a little listing of my favorite beachwear for sb19 for all body sizes and all levels of exposure ordered by swim style type.
Some of these pieces I already have so if you see a set of parenthesis with a size, that’s the size I wear in it for reference!
ONE-PIECE SUITS
CLASSIC BIKINIS
HIGH-WAISTED SWIM SETS
WHEN YOU NEED SOMETHING MORE THAN JUST A BIKINI
Xo Emma
You’ve probably seen most of these products on my Instagram story sometime or another because they really are my everyday go to’s. I’m very particular with the kinds of products I put on my skin especially my face. I don’t have very problematic skin, just slightly sensitive. I usually buy products based on personal recommendations from friends or other beauty gurus who I trust are talking about their face routine and products authentically. I also tend to stray away from strong artificially scented or colored products. About half of the items I talk about below are natural as well as naturally sourced.
Once I find products that I know mesh well with my skin type I usually tend to stick with them. I’ve been starting every morning with the same seven products for the past few weeks now.
CLEANSER
The first thing I’ll do to my face each morning during my shower is use some type of cleanser. I’ll sometimes use the Neutrogena Ultra Gentle Hydrating Daily Facial Cleanser but have since switched to one of my new favorites: C’nu Skincare; a monthly subscription box filled with just skincare products. I use the Diana Rayls x C’nu Charcoal Cleanser. The activated charcoal helps detoxify your skin while keeping it clear from imperfections.
FACIAL TONER
I started using a facial toning astringent about a year and a half ago after I noticed an unevenness to my skin. It wasn’t as smooth as I’d wanted it to be. I took to the Internet to find out what I could do to fix this and they recommended a facial acid. My favorite is the Clean & Clear Facial Astringent. This is a Salicylic Acid. If you’re looking for a more natural route to using an acid you can also try Witch Hazel which can be found at most grocery stores in the beauty isles. Within a few weeks, gradually increasing the number of times I applied it a week getting up to once a day (in sparing amounts) I could visibly see a difference as well as obviously feel a difference. It’s like when you see those people who have naturally dewy, shiny, but not oily skin. This product helps that. It tightens your skin while decreasing inflammation.
FACIAL SPRAY
I LOVE facial sprays. I honestly don’t think they serve that big of a purpose in my facial routine but they help wake me up. After using facial cleansers and the astringent, I find my skin is usually dry. Between that dryness as well as just waking up, your skin hasn’t been stretched like it has during the middle of the day. I like using a facial spray to quickly hydrate my skin after a cleanser, and get it loosened up before I apply any other products. I use Mario Badescu facial spray in the scent aloe, cucumber, and green tea. This one’s the most refreshing and natural smelling to me.
FACIAL GEL
This is the biggest difference in my morning and night routine. I add in a lightweight, refreshing gel to again add moisture into my skin. Instead of just hitting the surface level like the facial spray does, where it’s almost all dead skin, the aloe reaches to the 7th layer of skin. I use the Diana Ryles x C’Nu Hyrda Nourishing Gel. I apply 3 pumps to my hands and then massage into all areas of my face and neck. It’s made of aloe, tomato seed oil, grapefruit extract, and a few other natural ingredients. This whole line is in the scent of Eucalyptus and Rosemary and handmade in small batches (one of the reasons I love this brand).
OIL
I used to stray away from facial oils just because oils get a bad rep and at first thought who wants an oily face? Most people don’t understand the importance and hydration oils offer. My favorite oil I use each day as well as whenever my skin is feeling especially dry during winter seasons is Teddie Organics Rosehip Seed Oil. As well as moisturizing, it also helps get rid of the appearance of fine lines and the big thing for me was helping to get rid of redness. Overall it gave me a more healthy, even colored skin look.
FACIAL ROLLER
If you know me you know this is my all time favorite step of my routine. I use my jade facial roller religiously. Jade rollers help boost blood circulation, reduce under-eye swelling, and calm inflammation. If you suffer from tension headaches, I love to use my roller along my temples and forehead to relieve pressure. I got my first roller from a small health and wellness shop in Lake Geneva, WI called Balance, Bath & Body. If you’re ever in Geneva definitely visit their shop. You can even create your own oil blends there. You can also find rollers on Amazon, T.J Maxx, Ulta, Sephora, etc.
LIP CARE
If you follow Maggie MacDonald, which you totally should, you know she raves about the Laniege Lip Sleeping Mask. I use this morning and night to hydrate my lips. I find my lips get much less dry and chapped when using this. Enriched with vitamin C and antioxidants it helps lock in moisture and reduces fine lines on your lips.
Share some of your favorite facial products with me below.
C’Nu partners with differ skincare lines each box to ensure great new facial discoveries. They offer four to six full-size luxury skincare products every month in their subscription. All products are cruelty-free, chemical free, and sustainably sourced. For every subscription purchased, we donate a subscription in your name to Dress for Success! Every box holds an average value of $180. All this can be purchased for $52 a box. If you’re looking for more information on C’nu’s subscription box click here.
I don’t think I’ve been more confused in my life than trying to navigate myself through the Changi Airport train to the city for the first time. It was honestly really much easier to understand than we were making it out to be. One of the employees was trying to explain which route to take and where to transfers trains but her heavy accent just caused us to politely nod our heads, knowing no more than we did 5 minutes earlier. Thankfully once we got on the train there were simpler directions and very friendly people willing to help us. We made it to the city after about 40 minutes successfully maneuvering the Singapore train system. Go us! We started our day with a walk through Gardens by the Bay. This was recommended to us by some of the people we had met in the Philippines which was awesome because I don’t think we would have known where to go without their direction. The gardens are basically just a large park, with different art structures, 2 giant conservatories filled with flowers, waterfalls, foliage, etc, and a walkway a few stories above-ground separated and held up by steel trees covered in greenery.
The walk from the train to the gardens has to have been my favorite picture I took this day, though. The view is unreal. You see everything.
UNREAL am I right?!? From the gardens, we didn’t really know where To go after so we just wandered and followed the path along the bay. We ended up stumbling upon a mall where we got breakfast… Starbucks… are you surprised?? You shouldn’t be.
I think that was the nicest mall I’ve ever been to. I’m not kidding you it was filled with the type of stores where one item costs the same as my entire trip ended up costing. I’ve never seen more couture brands in one place. Gucci on Versace on Prada. A huge Louis Vuitton ON the water. There was literally walkway from land to the store. What?!? Did I mention this mall had an indoor iceless ice skating rink? Yes, you read that right. Klaud and I found ourselves deep into the realm of a place we both knew we couldn’t fall into. Shopping. We were ballin’ on a budget. Traveling as you know is expensive. Surprise surprise right. Not only would our wallets struggle to handle it, even more so our luggage couldn’t. We were already pushing our suitcase’s zipper limits and then to pack even more in. All I could ask was for some really good luck. As you make it into Zara, a store neither of us had been to, we look at each other and give that look. You know, the “omg this is so cute and we won’t be broke if we buy this stuff kind of stuff.” So of course, we both walked out with bags…. one might say we have no self-control. I just see it as… well…I really tried hard to come up with an excuse or reason to justify our shopping addiction but I seem to be drawing a blank. Hmm. Oh well. After the mall and multiple trips to the Zara dressing room, we finally finished and walked around the rest of the bay. We stopped at another Starbucks. Oops! I bought a really cute Singapore cup. We found a great souvenir shop where I picked out a thing or two for myself and friends. We eventually made it to a large fountain of a seahorse looking thing maybe?? I really couldn’t tell you what it was except everyone was taking a picture with it so we decided we should too. End result:
I didn’t think this picture was as cool as the view next to it though.
we decided the best way to describe Singapore is it’s like New York, the buildings and all that, but it’s nowhere near as crowded, everything is clean, I’m not kidding you no litter, no gum on the ground or under tables, nothing! Everyone was either dressed super nice for work or working out. LITERALLY EVERYONE. There were also a lot of white people. Sorry if that’s the incorrect way to say it but coming from Bali and the Philippines to here we were kind of shocked with the amount of diversity. It was incredible. I could honestly live in this city. I love it.
We finished the day with some amazing lychee mango popsicles from a little stand and headed back to the train to catch our flight.
xo
Emma
Klaud & I are waiting in the airport to leave Iloilo and head to Singapore. Our flight is delayed so we’ve just been hanging around. This is honestly the most laid back airport ever, though. I was asking a question about our flight being delayed and they said I needed to go ask the front desk where you get boarding passes. They were going to let me walk past security, to the boarding desk, back up to our terminal without going through security again. Slightly concerning…. but everyone here seems pretty nice and not dangerous so…
I got a chocolate fudge muffin from the bakery. I’d give it a 3/10… wasn’t great, wasn’t good, but it did the job. Oh, btw, If you ever see a stand advertising cylindrical waffles filled with a variety of assorted insides… DO NOT SAY NO. I don’t know what makes these waffles so good, or why in the world some capitalist mega mind from the United States hasn’t taken a small loan of one million dollars to start up a few of these beautiful, magical waffle producing shacks, but someone needs to and they need to do it now!!! It was literally 20 Pesos for a Belgium chocolate filled waffle. Do you know how many U.S Dollars, 20 Philippine Pesos is? Probably not. But not even $1….
Sorry, no more food talk for now.
I’m totally fine with having a delayed flight because it’ll make our layover in Cebu shorter. The Cebu airport has got to be my least favorite airport so far. It’s so loud. I tried watching a movie during our layover on the way to Ilo Ilo and I couldn’t hear it. It also has those annoying yellow-tinted lights that hurt your eyes and make you feel like you’re in an old hospital. Hopefully, since we’re in the international terminals, and not the domestic side of the airport this time, it’ll be nicer. There are always birds flying around in it too. I don’t like birds, at least not ones who think it’s acceptable to interrupt my viewing of Passengers so they can have a quick fly by through my aisle.
There isn’t much to do while we wait. Besides watching my movie, I’ve been trying to download The Devil Wears Prada LITERALLY since our stop in Singapore on the way here. I keep accidentally closing my computer which cancels the download. It had like 75 MB left… in non-computer terms, that’s like 4 minutes. And I closed it. *Cancelled* #pissed
I’m actually so sad we’re leaving the Philippines. It’s been so amazing. I can honestly say it’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever visited. Maybe we just went to all the right places here and all the wrong places in Bali, but here definitely wins. Bali is beautiful, and it will always have my heart… but I’m in love with the Philippines. I definitely want to come back. Hopefully, my family can tag along next time!
Our flights to Singapore were nothing. Especially compared to what it took to get to Bali. We landed in Malaysia really late. Like I’m talkin’ 2 am. Since we wanted to explore right away today… or well 9 am today, we decided we needed some rest. We planned on just finding a comfy chair and hoping to get some sleep but after walking around the airport a bit we decided to check out the airports in-house hotel. There was one room left. It was fate. The weird thing about getting a hotel in the airport is that you can only check it out for 6 hours. Every additional hour, you have to pay. That worked perfectly for us considering we really only needed 6 hours until it was 9AM anyways. The room was actually really. Especially the lovely view of runway C.
We slept as much as we could, and are now about to leave the airport. I can’t wait to explore Singapore!!
xo
Emma
I’m so sad but excited to close this chapter of my adventure and open a new one.
You have no idea how many people and connections you’ll meet while traveling. Just on the floor of my house, I was introduced to two girls from Portugal, two Canadiens, 1 woman from Mexico, a girl born in Mauritius who spends half her time in Cape Town Africa and the other in Germany, and so many others.
Klaudia & I leave for the Philippines today (February 27th) at 9PM so we’re just chilling at the house until 5PM. I’m super sad to say bye to Jess & Sophie & Shyan though. Hopefully, I’ll see them again in July & September 😉 I’ll fill you all in later about all that…
There’s a new girl Laura at our house we met last night who’s really cool. She’s the girl born in Mauritius but lives in Cape Town/Germany. Btw she’s also a model… at least she brings up the average! She got bit in the monkey forest today so we’re currently contemplating whether or not she should get the Rabies shot. She should.
I finished packing my suitcase and it’s only 10 pounds over!! great. I honestly don’t know how I’m going to make this work and be able to bring everything home. I also donated like 7+ items of clothing to the house and it still is too heavy. I bought a lot of gifts but I didn’t think I bought THAT much.
We fly from Denpasar to Singapore then Cebu then Iloilo. It’ll be a long day of traveling but we know we can handle more. Plus, this compared to the flight home is nothing. We’re staying with my Uncle’s Wife’s family who owns resorts on the coast. I’m so lucky and thankful for the Abanilla family for making this possible!
As much as I’m excited to adventure and explore the Philippines and Singapore, I’m really excited to see my family and sleep in my room. I don’t think I’ll want to stay home for long, but it will be nice to slip into my old life for a few months. I have a few full-time job interviews lined up too because, after this trip, my bank account is getting a little too slim for my wandering tendencies.
xo
Emma
Emma Christine Daun 