Tuesday 29 July 2014

The Summer Tag



1. What's your favourite thing about Summer?
Longer days, warm evenings and a summer wardrobe! Being able to get up throw on a quick dress or shorts and teeshirt combo and leave the house is so easy!

2.  Do you have a favourite Summer drink?
Pimms! What goes better with fruit!?
Also Costa have started doing an amazing Green Tea, Lime and Mint iced drink, I'm loving those at the moment!

3.  Is there a location you like to go to each Summer?
Always try new places- you don't get a lot of holiday time in your working year so go out and see the world! The down side of moving is that you end up with no money, so we won't be going anywhere exotic for a while! I think few days in Dorset at my grans is all we can stretch to this year!

4.  Favourite makeup look for Summer?
I don't like to wear a lot of makeup in summer- I just end up sweating it off...cos I'm sexy like that! Just a tiny bit of waterproof pencil eyeliner on the outer corners of my eyes, a good helping of mascara and some complimentary lip colour. 



5.  Dresses or skirts?
Dresses. So easy to just choose one and throw it on.

6.  Sandals or ballet pumps?
Sandals. I like my toes to be free!

7.  Hair up or down for Summer?
In general, for weekends or evenings out I try and wear my hair down as it's up all week for work, but sometimes you just get too damn hot! Use some hair accessories to keep you hair cute and summery, I'm quite partial to a big bun with my daisy bun wrap like this one

8.  Deep smokey eyes or bold lips?
For summer, a bold lip. I just think it looks so much brighter and fresher for sunny days!

9.  Favourite perfume for Summer?
I like a nice sweet, floral scent. I'm loving Prada Candy at the minute, or Princess Flower by Vera Wang is good too.

10.  Last but not least, favourite music for Summer?
Nothing is better for summer than classic, cheesey, laid back pop! Will Smith Summertime- as soon as you hear that you know it's officially summer! Last year's summer song was definitely Best Song Ever by 1D, it was everywhere! 

Friday 25 July 2014

Lush Cosmetic Warrior Face Mask

No one can resist Lush Cosmetics right? Just walking past the smell lures you in, making you want to sniff bathbombs until you feel quite sick in the head.
I thought I would share with you my favourite Lush product in this post. Cosmetic Warrior facemask. Now this, unfortunately, doesn't have the amazing Lush smell I was talking about- in fact if I'm honest it smells like wet dog. But its great! A few years ago when my skin had terrible acne I would use it regularly, but now I use it every so often if I feel like I'm having a bad skin day.





It instantly reduces redness and makes your skin look less angry, and the natural ingredients mean there (shouldn't be!) anything to irritate your skin further.
You keep it in the fridge so as you apply it, it quickly cools and soothes. The instructions recommend leaving it on for 5-10 minutes, but I normally leave it on as long as I can, then gently soak it off with warm water.
Other great things about Lush... 
They don't test products on animals
You can see who made your product and when
They have a great recycling scheme-trade in 5 empty pots for a free one!


Wednesday 23 July 2014

Woman Crush Wednesday - Lucy Watson

I LOVE Lucy Watson from Made In Chelsea. I think she is absolutely fabulous and here is why...
She is just beautiful 

Her eyeliner is always just perfect 

She adores her super fluffy dog!

That time she casually strolled around in her underwear 

Her face does this when people are idiots...and they deserve it!!

She created Creature Jewellery 

She has many, beautiful, embellished shirts 

She's not afraid to speak her mind. Like that time she told Phoebe her nose ring looked really weird, which it did.
She got naked for PETA. 

These legs. This dress.

Agreed FHM!









Tuesday 22 July 2014

Wish List #1

1. Abercrombie and Fitch Jeggings in Dark Wash £78 available here. They're quite pricey but I have them in black and the have lasted about 5 years. I struggle with jeans as I have horse rider legs and these fit so well I want all the colours!


2. Topshop White Midi Skirt in White £55 available here. This skirt looks really full and would look great with a crop top or fitted vest and heels.

3. Topshop Pleated Midi Skirt in White £38 available here. This skirt is available in a wide range of colours, and also as a shorter version. My cousin recently wore this to a wedding and it looked great so I might try and steal her look....even though she is much smaller than me!


4. H&M Tan Hat £14.99 available here. I have seen Lydia Bright and Hillary Duff both wearing tan hats recently and I have fallen in love with how they look, this one from H&M is the closest I can find.


5. Love Sacha Pink Floral Co-ordinates Set £29.99 available here. Loving Co-ordinates at the minute and this one looks pr
pretty versatile. I like the look of the boxy top and high waisted shorts- together they should cover all the right places!


6. Mango V Pendant Necklace £6.99 available here. Love this simple design.

7. Binky London Nail Polish in Mint Green £4.95 available here. This colour seems so fresh and summery to me.


8. Beige Satchel Handbag from eBay £17.49. I love a big bag and this would go well with my hat, don't you think?!

Now, just to find the money for all this....










Monday 21 July 2014

Lauren Conrad Loose Waves

Lauren Conrad has great hair. Fact.
So when she uploaded a video of how she gets her loose waves, I thought I would give it a try. 

I washed my hair and let it dry naturally through the day as I didn't fancy blasting myself with a hair dryer when it was so hot outside!


This is the curling wand I used, it's a 1 1/2 inch tong and I bought it from Salons Direct for £7.50


Half done!

All done!

Once I had taken out my clips and given it a brush through it looked great! However it took me about 45 minutes to do the whole lot and it only stayed bouncy for about half an hour, buy the time I had done my make up and walked out the door it was pretty straight again! There's many reasons this could be...my hair spray wasn't strong enough, I had used no other product in my hair, I didn't have the same clips shown in the video, my curler wasnt hot enough (it was a cheapy one!) or simply that my hair is straight and likes to be that way!

Anyone have any tips on how I can my this work in naturally straight hair?! Or anyone else tried this tutorial and found better ways of creating the look?

Friday 18 July 2014

Maybeline Dream Fresh BB Cream

I am yet to be sold on BB Creams. Personally I find them to feel thick and heavy on my skin and look obvious. It also seems weird to me to rub it in- it looks like foundation and it's just not the done thing!
So when I got this little sample I was dubious, but gave it a go...








I put it straight on to my washed face, without moisturising as it claims to do that for you. In fact it claims to do 8-things-in-1 and I must admit it did. The colour matched my skin tone really well and made it look a lot smoother, evening out any redness and the dark circles round my eyes. You can see the coverage on my forehead before and after pictures, as I had a few lumpy bumpy bits today! It felt much lighter than other BB Creams I have tried and I'm glad I gave it a chance. I don't think I could be converted to wear it every day but may invest in this to wear under my regular powder foundation for special occasions as I found the coverage really good, and it has more benefits than a normal liquid foundation.
The price for 30ml is £7.99. This sample contained 1ml and was ample to cover my whole face. So I imagine you get approx a months use from a tube which makes it really good value.

Anyone else out there love a BB Cream, or got a better one?

Thursday 17 July 2014

The Sanctuary - Mande Lular

I love Sanctuary products and am always inundated with bits and pieces for Christmas. I thought I had worked my way through them all, but during my house move lurking at the back of the cupboard was this...




The Mande Lular is not a product I have used before, generally sticking to the silky body butter which is lovely. This is described as a Sensuous Body Soufflé and is a bit thicker. It's a white cream in keeping with the other products in the line, bit doesn't seem to have that fresh Sanctuary smell the others do. It takes a bit longer to rub in and feels thicker and heavier on your skin as it absorbs, which takes a while so don't use it of your in a rush to leave the house; more as an after bath pre-bed time Sunday lounging about type indulgence. Once it had sunk it it made my skin look fresh and glowey, and left more of the familiar smell.
Has anyone else tried this? How do you think it matches up to other Sanctuary products?

Wednesday 16 July 2014

New Hair Day!

Today is the day, I have been counting down the days since I last left- its New Hair Day!!
I went through a phase, a long phase, of hating going to the hairdressers, the awkward conversation, staring at yourself in the mirror for ages, the cost... Anyway for about 6 years I'd been going to a home hair dresser, bit a hair disaster caused an emergency trip to the salon and now I love it!
Anyway, before we see 'new' hair, I thought I'd treat you to a bit of my Hair History...

Let's start here in 2006 when I had natural coloured hair cut just past my shoulders, layered with a sidey fringe...and me and
and Nicola wore sunglasses inside.

Sticking with natural colour, slightly longer hair and a chunky fringe.

I clearly got bored with having so much hair, so chopped half of it off, grew out the fringe and pulled dodgy faces at the beach.

I dyed it brown, but clearly wasn't sure about it at this festival!

I then went a step further and dyed it black! Sticking with the same long length and side fringe. It stayed this way for quite a few years, dying it at home and getting a trim when it needed it.


By 2011 me and the bathroom towels had had enough of the black dye and I decided to go back to blonde. I actually really like this colour; kind on a blonde-ginger ombre. The bottom colour is where my hair was dark, but where a light colour went on my natural hair it was much lighter.

It eventually turned this very light barbie blonde and saw me through many a festival, Christmas party, Halloween and wedding.

This is when the hair disaster happened- I fancied a bit of a change and wanted to try balayage style to give some extra tones to my hair, what I ended up with was orange roots and green tips! Needless to say it called for the experts and off to the salon I went.
Ending up like this! I like it and it's quite close to my natural colour... Christopher doesn't look so sure!

This was my hair this morning, as you can see it's pretty long and I love the colour but think for summer I may try to go a shade blonder....

 A few hours later...ta da! A shiny brighter, lighter blonde with no more roots! Lovely!

Anyone else had any hair disasters recently?! Or past hair horrors?! Share below!