Ah, the shortest month of the year. Made even shorter by taking a little mid-February trip to Italy for the Olympics. Did I mention we went to the Olympics?! I probably haven’t mentioned that minor event, y’know, the Olympics… One day soon I’ll shut up about it, but that day is not today.
Anyway, other than the Olympics, I made a few little purchases this month…
Camera lens
This month I was thinking ahead to our Japan trip in November and which camera I want to take with me. I have a variety of options.
At the moment I mostly shoot with two cameras. I have a Canon R with a variety of lenses but to be honest, it’s big, it’s bulky and always weighs a lot unless I just have a small pancake lens on. I also have the Fujifilm X100VI which is great for most day to day stuff, but I do find the fixed lens limiting, both in terms of needing wider shots inside buildings and closer shots when out and about.
I need the best of both for Japan. So, my current thinking is that I am going to take the camera I was mostly using before I bought the Fujifilm X100VI – the Panasonic Lumix GX8. I actually love that camera. It’s old now, I bought it in 2015, but it’s still great. I only really ever use it with a 20mm f1.7 pancake lens for day to day use, but started looking into zoom lenses for travel, so I could use just one lens as a walkaround lens and not need to switch lenses.
It came down to two main focal length options, either a 14-140mm lens or a 12-60mm lens (of which there were then two options – the Lumix 12-60mm G Vario f/3.5-5.6 and the Leica DG Vario-Elmarit 12-60mm f/2.8-4). Both options would give me slightly more width than I currently have and more reach. Ultimately I thought about the circumstances when I felt like I was being limited by my lens and realised that I didn’t need the reach of 140mm and that 60mm max would probably be enough for me. Then the question was, which lens. Again, thinking about what I mostly shoot and therefore need, I realised that the Leica lens was the better option.
To give it a real test though before Japan, I decided to take it to Italy (to the Olympics!) and I think I made the right decision. I didn’t find myself needing to get closer and I liked the ability to shoot at f2.8, rather than being more limited by the cheaper 12-60mm lens.
External hard drive and a new SD card
Boring, but necessary.
Every now and again I do a full back-up of my laptop. I learnt from having ruined a phone without backing up the photos that it sucks to lose stuff. Plus, backing up gives me the chance to delete files from my laptop knowing that they are stored somewhere else. My old external harddrive was full, so I needed a new one.
At the same time, I decided to buy a new SD card so I didn’t have to wipe my nearly full old one.
I always feel better taking my stuff on holiday knowing that I wouldn’t lose too much in the event that something happened to my bag with laptop and camera in.
Tortellino keyring and Bologna print
As I mentioned in my post on our short trip to Bologna, we picked up a few souvenirs of our trip – a tortellino keyring and an art print.
Team Korea/Korea house bag
Another souvenir, but this time from Milan, the Olympics and specifically, Korea House.
Like just about every four year old in the world, we watched K-pop Demon Hunters and loved the Derpy Tiger. Who knew that the tiger and magpie isn’t a made-up combination for the film, but the the white tiger and magpie often appear together in a style of Korean folk art called Jakhodo.
Drawing on both folk art and also, let’s face it, the popularity of K-pop Demon Hunters, this bag that was on sale at Korea House featured the tiger and magpie combination. I couldn’t resist. Bonus points for it being the perfect size for a weekend stroll to our nearby bakery to pick up sourdough loaf and maybe a pastry or two.
Medik8 stock up
Medik8 ran an offer this month – 20% off on all products and a free full-size bottle of C-Tetra with purchases over £150. I saw this as a chance to stock up on products in my daily routine – C-Tetra Advanced and Liquid Peptides Advanced MP. I had also had my eye on the Sleep Glycolic so threw that in as well. All of those products qualified me for a free C-Tetra product.
Medik8 is not cheap, but so far I am loving it for my skin. So I take advantage of offers like this to stock up. That way I have a bottle/tube of everything I use in my cupboard for when I run out, and it saves me money. Each month I put away money into a separate ‘pot’ for skincare so that when offers like this come round, I can do a big order.
For anyone who wants to try Medik8 and who might have missed this offer, I have an affiliate link that gets you 20% off your first purchase at Medik8.com and gives me points.
Make-up
A couple of make-up purchases this month.
I’m really trying to find and build routines with products that I love and that work for me. So, rather than buying palettes and not using half of the shades, I’ve started to try and pull together my own Mac custom palette that work for me and my pale skin. These shades (clockwise from top left) are Brule, Shroom, Wedge and Espresso.
I also bought the Bobbi Brown colour corrector in shade Porcelain Bisque.
While I was browsing in Boots one day, I passed an end display of Laka Fruity Glam Tints and after swatching the various colours, picked up shade 111 Mellow. Unlike other lip tints that I’ve tried that go on very matte, this goes on as a tinted gloss and leaves behind the tint.
Starbucks stainless steel bottle – Sakura glitter night
I technically paid for this purchase in January but as it was being shipped from Japan, it only arrived in February. I’ve written before about buying Starbucks’ stainless steel bottles and how much I love their Asian sakura collections.
Something I’d missed was that in 2025 they did a second collection in Japan of blue evening-themed sakura items. One of which was this blue glitter stainless steel bottle. At just 355ml in capacity (just over the size of a can of coke), this filled a gap in my bottle collection. It’s just enough to take out for the day.
It is insanely glittery. It’s not a sheen in the coating, it is full on glitter and I am obsessed with it.
