April Favourites

Time for my second 'favourites' blog post... with a collection of some of my favourite things from throughout April :) I've put in mostly beauty products so that I can make a few recommendations and a few other random things too! :) I might have to keep this post a little shorter than usual as I'm a little snowed under with uni work, nevertheless I really enjoy creating these posts so I hope you enjoy reading :D

First of all, I've got to mention that I've used my new Zoeva make up brushes! In my post yesterday, I included some first impressions on the products and ensured that I'd update you on how I got on using them... well... I used them this morning, and just WOW! I'm so so soooo impressed with these brushes to the point where I actually feel they have changed the way my make up looks when applied to my face! I used only these brushes in the photo above (haven't gotten around to using the petit crease brush, or the wing liner one yet... but I've used all the others) and they were all so perfect for the jobs they were supposed to do! I'm actually quite shocked at just how much of a difference the right brushes can make!! So, 11/10 (yup!) for Zoeva Rose Gold brush set... I don't think I'll ever be buying brushes from any other brand again :) 

NOT EVEN AIRBRUSHED ^^ JUST DOWN TO THE ZOEVA SILK FINISH BRUSH! :D

 This is a photo of my make up this morning after using Zoeva brushes to apply :) I just went for a natural kind of make up, but I'm still so impressed... particularly with the concealer buffer brush!

 Anyway, on with the favourites for this month! This is called Shimmer Shades from Collection (used to be collection 2000)  and it's a blush... a really good one at that! However, I'm not sure why it's called shimmer shades... as it's not shimmery at all! I just swirl my brush around and apply it more towards the outer bit of my cheeckbone... nearer to the outer-eye area so that I avoid looking like a rosy-rag-doll haha! I really love how fresh, pink and girly the colour is and it's only around £4!

 Next up, are two of my favouite bronzers! Mac's Matte Bronze and Estee Lauder Bronzer in the shade Medium... both of which are just beautiful matte bronzers and I've loved using them to contour my cheekbones and jaw-line.

Mac's soft& gentle highlighter has been my next favourite beauty product of the month :) It's really subtle and just looks so pretty when seen in a candle-lit place :)

 This lipstick is a new find from 17 cosmetics and it's in the shade Shouty, I also picked up the shade Beehive which is lovely too! They go on so creamy so this really helps if you have dry lips as it doesn't highlight the dry bits. The colour is a little bit sheer but still pigmented and I'm really pleased with these finds as they're around the £4-£5 mark which I think is great for the quality of the product!

I've heard a lot about the Elizabeth Arden's 8 hour cream in the tube formula recently, so I decided to try out the 8 hour cream for lips that I bought at the airport last year... as you can tell from it's feature in this post, I've really enjoyed using it! It's actually been the only lip balm that I've ever tried, that actually heels dry lips rather than just glossing over them until it eventually rubs off leaving them still dry! 

Last up for beauty products, is this lip liner from Rimmel which was only about £2.99! Such a bargain as it's really soft which makes the application much easier which makes the line look much neater... and it lasts long too! I've found this product to actually make my lips look a lot fuller as well, but that could be just lip liner in general!

These are something that I never ever thought would feature in my wardrobe let alone my favourites blog post! It's topshop jeans! I picked up some patterned Leigh jeans and some Jamie jeans with rips at the knees... both of which I am really loving! For those who know me or read my posts regularly, you'll know that leggings are much more my kind of thing, or dresses... just anything that's not jeans/trousers! So, buying, and actually enjoying wearing these has been a pretty big surprise haha... I guess I just used to find jeans pretty difficult to wear as I've never had particularly slim legs which made the concept of wearing jeans a pretty daunting thing!

I haven't got a photo to insert of the patterned ones unfortunately, but I will insert a photo of the ripped jeans below :) 

I realise ripped jeans aren't to everyone's taste but I actually really like them! Looking very s-club7-esque I might say haha :D

For my final favourite of the month, I haven't actually got a photograph as it didn't look particularly appetizing! I've been absolutely loving eating Weetabix all month (with a little bit of naughty sugar on the top haha :D) and it reminds me of when I was a little girl! 

So that's it for my April Favourites! I hope you've enjoyed reading and have maybe found a few new things you might like to try :D 

Zoeva Rose Gold Brushes: First Impressions

During my morning filled with essay-writing, the doorbell rang and I can't say I've been much more excited for a parcel than I was this morning (saddo haha)!! Better still, he came with a little story... that my parcel was lucky to have gotten here today, as the plane it had arrived on earlier this morning had a little crash-landing at East Midlands airport! I checked on BBC News online and it wasn't bad, but still... little bit of exciting background there!
Anyway...I'd been checking online since the beginning of March to see when these Zoeva Rose Gold Luxury Set of make up brushes would be back in stock, and on Friday (the 25th) they were finally back! I must say I was so impressed that they arrived today (Tuesday) and they were shipped on the same day that I ordered them :) I thought I'd create this little post with a few photos and my first impressions!

They arrived all boxed up with protective bubble-wrap and everything (including each individual brush) was wrapped up in protective plastic, so nothing was damaged!

So... first impressions? 

I have to say, these are probably the most beautiful make up/make up accessories I have ever bought! I've always been a big fan of a pretty rose-gold colour, and these look perfect! 

Here is the full set of 8 brushes! For me, these are right up there at the high-end price range when I look at the price alone, but... when compared with what you would pay for the same brushes, each from Mac, it's a slightly better picture. For just one 217 blending brush in Mac, it costs around £17 so to get all these for just less than £50 (58 euros) it actually works out at a pretty good deal! As far as first impressions go, I think they've been well worth the money... but time will tell and I shall keep you updated! 

Included in this set are: (left to right)

317 Wing Liner brush

231 Petit Crease brush

227 Luxe Soft Definer brush (almost identical to Mac's 217 blending brush)

142 Concealer Buffer brush (probably the one I'm most looking forward to using!)

110 Face Shape brush

127 Luxe Sheer Cheek brush

102 Silk Finish brush

106 Powder brush

I realise this post might have been better as a review as I haven't had time to try these out yet so I can't really say whether they're good at the job(s) or not... but you know how you can just kind of 'tell' they're going to be good!? They feel super super SUPER soft and the buffer brushes feel really dense which I find is always a good sign as it means you can get a really nice finish from them! 

These are the little accessories that came with the brushes- a make up pouch and a little draw-string bag. Both of these (especially the zip up bag) look really cute and I definitely think they're going to come in handy as currently I just shove my brushes in with all my make up so everything gets a bit dirty- definitely looking forward to keeping them seperately in one of these! 

I was expecting them to be black, but they're more of a very dark brown :)

So, I hope my photographs did some justice as these are really beautiful products! I'll be sure to create an updated post on how these brushes go when I use them! For now, that's it for my first impressions... if any readers have used them I'd love to know what you think too :)

Hair Heros!

With a huge history of hair colours, some might wonder how on earth my hair has survived! Through out secondary school I went blonde to brown to black to blonde... and so on... as I guess I was just in that teenage stage of not quite knowing what's "me" yet. My hair is naturally light blonde, but I've had the same hair colour now for about 4 or 5 years :) Probably one of the most frequent questions I've ever been asked, is "what hair dye do you use!?"
So... for anyone wondering, I use the permanent XXL live in the colour Ultra Violet every 8 weeks or so as it does tend to fade quite a lot on my hair. 

Anyway, I decided to write a quick blog post about my FAVOURITE hair products, seeing as my hair has finally gotten to a healthy stage, and it has grown quite a lot! 

(I'll insert a photo from a few years ago at the end of the post just as comparison... and to show that my hair is still alive and growing haha)

I don't actually use many products on my hair at all, as to be totally honest I am a little bit naughty and don't pay enough attention to the condition of my hair. However, recently I've noticed just how fast it's been growing, so I've just been keeping an eye on which products I seem to be using over and over again. 

SILVERKRIN CLASSIS HAIRSPRAY : First up, is my all time favouite hair spray! I get this one in the strongest form (I think it's number 5? it's the pink one anyway) as I like a good strong hold from a hair spray that will last all day. 

ORIBE DRY TEXTURIZING SPRAY: This one is a fairly new edition, but it's absolutely fantastic. For those of you who like BIG hair (like me!) it will work wonders. I use it like a dry shampoo, and it just gives it enough texture to work with. It's like second-day-hair, in a bottle!

KERASTASE NECTAR THERMIQUE: Now for my favourite of the bunch, is something that I've been using for years and years! After towel drying my hair, I just put a little 20p-coin-size amount in my hands, rub them together and smooth it through the lengths and ends of my hair, rubbing the excess over the fringe area. Then, I blow dry my hair and it feels super soft while protecting the ends with little-fuss...perfect!

As far as shampoos/conditioners go, I didn't really feel it would be worth adding them to this post as I tend to just go with whatever... some of my favourites are any from the herbal essences brand, or dove's new hair therapy range :)

So... this is how long my hair is now :) The photo above was taken this morning just after drying my hair (no straightening) so it looks a little untidy but I'm really happy with the length at the moment!  My absolute top tip to grow hair... is the age old saying (that I never used to believe) ... HAVE IT CUT REGULARLY! I've been having mine cut every 6 weeks or so and it has seriously been working wonders :D

July 2011

It wasn't until I looked at this comparison that I actually realised just how much longer my hair is now! Yipee... no hair hair extensions!

Anyway, I hope this blog post was useful for anyone looking to grow their hair a little longer or just to find some new hair products! I must say it has encouraged me to give my hair a little more TLC haha :)

Easter Treats

Went on a quick trip to Lush yesterday to pick up a few little things for my mum's birthday presents... and this happened! I should really have left this post until I'd actually used each of the products and took photos of what they look like, but they're all bubble bars... so it'd all just be lots of bubbles!

Lush have their Easter range in store at the minute so there were so many new things! However, I only picked up the little bunny and the super-cute bunch of carrots from the Easter section as I haven't tried either of these before! I also picked up my old favourite, Pop in the Bath (x2!)

I'd seen these little carrot bubble bars before but, carrots (the vegetable) are really not my thing - don't like the taste, don't like the smell... so I didn't even think to have a look at them as I assumed they'd smell like vegetables! However, thankfully I was wrong as these just smell really fresh (similar to Pop in the Bath) and I'm so excited to use them! I also think it's pretty good value as they were around the £5 or £6 mark, and you get 3 of them which I'll probably cut in half to get around 6 baths from them :) The lady at the till said to either crumble them under the tap as the water runs (as you would with any other bubble bars) or swirl them around in the bath to create loads of soft, pretty bubbles!

I also picked up a couple of duplicates of these things as presents for my mum - lucky her birthday is so close to Easter! :D

Autism Awareness Day

April is Autism awareness month, but for my family (and others) it's all year round. I started my personal statement for Uni with that very sentence!

 I seem to be able to find so much to say about a new lipstick or a nice moisturiser... but when it comes to an issue like this that is so close to my heart, I'm actually finding it pretty difficult to put together some words in this post. I guess I should start by explaining (if you didn't know already) my little brother Andrew, was born with Autism. Now of course, there is a pretty huge spectrum for Autism, from forms of Aspergers right through to severe forms of Autism. I'd say Andrew is towards the severe end, so it definitely affects both him and our family massively. Without turning this post into his life story, it's difficult to sum up just how much of an impact Autism has on both sufferers and the people who love them. 

So by making this post, what do I want to achieve? I guess I think a vital part of raising awareness is making it a talked-about subject. Mental health issues aren't quite as obvious as a broken leg or any physical injuries, which makes it even more important to raise awareness about them, as they're much less widely recognised. If Autism is talked about more, maybe people might understand the condition better, which will in turn benefit those suffering with the condition as there's a much better comprehension of what they're dealing with. 

Now, my mum would be a much better person to write this post because she has acquired an extensive knowledge about the condition over the years, both through lived experience with her son and by attending a vast amount of conferences, workshops, training sessions and all things 'Autism' that you could imagine. But, I guess aside from all the science-y bits, this post is coming from a sister. A sister who has watched her brother grow up with Autism and all the things that come with it. So, I thought instead of sharing stories about Andrew's life, I'd just highlight that there's so much more to a person's life that what can be seen on the surface. That might seem obvious, but sometimes when I've seen people staring at him I often wonder if they could ever understand what his life is like.

After going through a really tough time at both a mainstream school, and a special needs one, Andrew found a new place... somewhere happy. Through the hard work of my parents, he was given a place at a residential school specifically for people with Autism. I can honestly say that I've never seen him doing so well. It's changed his life. He now has one-to-one support, a busier social life than his 18 year old sister (haha) and most importantly, happiness. Aside from the challenges he will face everyday through living with Autism, he laughs, he smiles and is just generally enjoying a quality of life. As a family, we can now go out for dinner, go to the cinema and do things that were never really possible before. Andrew now has his own opinions over what foods he likes/dislikes, he now drinks tea and uses the iPad to find Thomas the Tank on YouTube haha... all the little things that have changed for him just make me so very proud of be his sister :) 

So I guess through that little brief summary, I hope to bring comfort for anyone who can relate to this, that things really can go well! I also hope to have made the most of today, Autism awareness day, by giving anyone who has read this post a little more understanding of the condition. 

And for Andrew, if you could read this... I hope you'd know there's nothing in this world I wouldn't do, for you.

From a very proud sister :) 

: ) xxxx