Wednesday 31 October 2012

Update/ramble

I'm so sorry guys, I know it's been a whole month since I last posted which is awful of me but as I explained in my last post everything has been pretty manic lately!!

Since I last posted things have changed a hell of a lot. It's now obviously autumn but feels more like winter - I'm currently hidden away in Costa to avoid the dreadful rain. I have my driving test in exactly a week, how scary!! I've spent a lot more time with friends lately which was much needed as I feel as though I have lost contact with people who were so important to me in the past, but I'm working on fixing that. Also, many of my friends are turning eighteen and leaving me behind in 'childhood', bring on Easter when I turn eighteen too and can go out with them!

I don't know about you but I'm definitely feeling Christmas! Perhaps it's because the weather is feeling as though it's the middle of December or the fact that work has gone Christmas crazy (seriously, someone bought advent calendars a couple of weeks ago!). Winter is definitely my favourite time of the year, I love being able to wrap up warm and spend cosy nights in! Autumn/winter fashion is the best too, I love raspberry coloured things and winter is the perfect time to be wearing it, in fact I've practically lived in my Barry M nail paint in Raspberry!

I promise that I will try my best to blog more often, obviously I can't say that I'll be updating all the time because that's unrealistic but I will do as much as possible.

Sunday 30 September 2012

Update..

Where have you been I hear you ask? I know, I've been quite absent these past few weeks but life has been pretty stressful as of late. This will be a super quick post just to let you know that I'm not dead and will be continuing with my blog (hopefully that's good news?)

I've been back at school for about a month now and blimey has the work piled on. All three subjects that I take involve essays and a hell of a lot of learning so obviously that's been taking up an awful lot of my time. I'm starting to get back into the swing of things with balancing school and everything else in my life and I just need to work out how to combine my blog into that. I've also had extra hours added onto my contract at work which means that Thursday evenings are now taken up by that leaving me with less time to do everything else.

Anyway, enough with the excuses and onto just general life stuff.. Last week I got an upgrade of phone and have converted to the iPhone cult. I always said I'd never like an iPhone but when the chance to upgrade came around I was like what the heck, might as well. I went for the 4S in black and I absolutely love it!

Today was mine and my boyfriends 9 month anniversary which is crazy, it feels like just the other day that we started going out! We didn't really do anything much, just chilled at his but still, we got to spend time together so that's all that matters.

I don't really know what else there is for me to chatter on about as my life is pretty boring if I'm honest so I think I'll round it up now. I promise I will be writing a lot more when I've settled into my new routine and if I don't then feel free to leave me comments or tweet me telling me to get my arse in gear! Also, any requests for posts would be greatly appreciated. Please leave them either in the comments or @ reply me on twitter.

Friday 21 September 2012

Glossy Box | September 2012

The other day I got home from sixth form and was just sat in my room when there was a knock at the door. Oh, hello Mr Deliveryman here to give me my latest Glossy Box!

This month marks my year of being a Glossy Box subscriber and I have to say that I've had mixed feelings about them. Over the summer I found that there were a couple of boxes that really didn't live up to my expectations. As a result of that and a lack of money I unsubscribed for the month of August meaning that I missed out on the around the world box which really wasn't upsetting for me at all! I subscribed again and I'm quite happy that I did, this month's box was much more interesting and something to get a little bit more excited about than previous boxes - although I must say that it isn't my favourite box that I've received.


One major plus about this box is the actual box itself. The picture isn't very clear but it's mint green with pink and white doodles all over. It's so cute that I'm using it for storage in my room.



Lady Gaga Fame Fragrance: This is probably the most exciting product for me in the box. I've heard people say that they aren't too impressed by the scent of this but I'm quite a fan. I haven't actually tried it out properly so I don't know how it will smell on me but hopefully it'll be nice & I may have to splash on the full size!


Balance Me Wonder Eye Cream: I've tried the Balance Me moisturiser and lip balm before and have quite liked both and this seems good too. My only issue with it is the fact that it has a scent, I'm not too keen on smelly products going on my face.


Maghrabian Hair Oil: I've never actually used a hair oil before so I'm quite interested to trying this out. The smell is lovely which is always a plus!


Vichy Idealia Day Care Cream: I'm always on the look out for new moisturisers and this one looks promising. It's a pink cream and smells lovely and well, moisturisery..


Rodial Glamoxy Snake Serum & 5 Minute Facial: Not the most generous samples ever as they are just two sachets of each but hey, still two uses I suppose. The serum is pretty self explanatory whilst the 5 minute facial is a clay mask. I'd never heard of Rodial before but may have to look into them more if they work well.

Do you subscribe to any beauty boxes? I'd love to know which ones and what you received!

Sunday 16 September 2012

New and improved you

Firstly a quick apology for being away for a while, I've just started back at sixth form & it's been quite full on. That & other things in my life have just taken priority as of late but have no fear, I'm not planning on going anywhere in the long term, posts may just be a little less freque
nt than they were over the summer.

I've been doing a lot of thinking over the past few weeks about my life and I've realised that I'm not overly happy with the way that it has been. I've been stressed, paranoid, upset and just not my usual, happy self. Obviously I don't want to be feeling this way so I've come up with some 'rules' for myself to try and get back on track. I thought I'd share them with you as I know that a lot of people my age (and others, but exams & hormones etc can really take their toll) feel similarly at some point or another.

1) Have some 'me time'. Every day I aim to spend some time for just me. No homework, no chores, no anything. Simply sit for a while and do something that I enjoy, be it reading a magazine article, listening to some music, painting my nails, anything will do, just so long as it gives me a little time out from life.

2) Find a way to vent my feelings. I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to do this but normally if something is bothering me I'll just cry but that's not how I want to deal with things any more. Perhaps write it down either in a notebook or in an unpublished blog post, I don't know. If you have any ideas let me know in the comments.

3) Deal with issues head on. If someone is annoying or upsetting me I am going to try confront them about it. This is a big step for me as I tend to keep all of my emotions bottled up but I've realised that is contributing to my stress so it needs to stop.

4) Talk to those close to me. I'm not overly close with my family but I'd like to think that I can go to them with things. Even if I just talk to them about how our days were, that's a start right?

5) Be more social. Honestly, I'm not that much of a social person, I'm quite boring really. All I really do is school through the week, go to work some evenings and on Saturdays and stay at my boyfriend's at the weekend. I've found myself saying 'no' to many things lately for absolutely no reason but I'm going to try to make the effort to see friends much more.

Hopefully these few things will help me to become happier and just enjoy life a bit more. If anyone decides to do these things (or a variation of) I'd love to hear about how you get on. If you'd like me to give you an update in a few weeks on whether I think it's working let me know.

How do you keep yourself happy and get rid of stress?

Friday 7 September 2012

Hair A-Z

I love reading other people's posts about their 'hair history' and have been wanting to do mine for a while now. Unfortunately mine isn't the most interesting in the world but I figured some of you may like to read it. So here goes, the story of how I've had my hair for the past 17 (and a half) years...

**WARNING** Severe overload of photos of me in this post, I got a little overenthusiastic with picking them out, I even had a nice little trip over to ye olde bebo!


As a baby I had very, very dark hair. The style was baby style, you know, just kinda there. Then as I became a toddler it turned a lot lighter, almost blonde even. My mum kept it cut into a bob until I was about four maybe? Then it started to get darker again and went to a dark brown and I grew it to just below my shoulders. It stayed like this until I was about eleven. There was one slight incident at the age of about eight where I got hold of a pair of scissors and gave a chunk along my hair line a lovely chop (think stupid looking tufty fringe!)



When I was leaving primary school I got a long side fringe cut in, just basically a few layers/feathering to make it a bit more interesting as I was getting a bit older. The length was still just below my shoulders and I had it parted at the side.


Then when I was about 12/13 I took a bit of a risk. I got my hair cut into a Posh Spice-esque style (unfortunately I can't find the picture). Think super short bob with it shorter at the back. I loved it like this, I had a nice side fringe, layers and the cut quite suited me (I think anyway..) but it was just so much to maintain! I'd have to straighten it every day and put loads of serums on it to keep it smooth and it couldn't be tied up, basically I just got a bit stressed out with having to put so much effort into it! I decided to grow it out into a longer bob, just below my chin, still with the layers and fringe. I kept it like this for perhaps a year and a half.



I then grew it to about shoulder length and still had the fringe and everything. It stayed like this for quite a while and I just kept getting it cut into the same style over and over. Now is when I got lazy... I didn't bother getting my hair cut for quite a while and it started to get long. I decided that I liked the length and, after a trim to get rid of the graveyard that was forming on my head, I kept it long, with a longish side fringe and long layers. I really loved it like this as I could do literally anything with it!








I got slightly addicted to the length and just kept growing it and growing it and then in spring/summer 2011 I changed my parting to a near-middle one. Since then my parting has gone even more centered and the length is now to about my waist. I tend to just leave it blow dried which gives a natural, slightly wavy look, or chuck it up in a bun. I'm not really very into hair if I'm honest, as long as it looks slightly decent then I'm happy!





Just to add, as for the colour I have never dyed my hair. It's naturally a medium brown colour & in the summer it sometimes to develop some subtle blonde/ginger highlights. For the natural look of my hair see the final image.

Monday 3 September 2012

Giveaway goodies | All Of Her Yesterdays

As you may have read in this post, I received a very exciting tweet last Saturday during my break at work - I had won a blog giveaway! Now, to most, this won't seem very exciting. For me, however, it really is. Let me explain, I'm quite honestly the most unlucky person ever when it comes to winning things. Remember when you were at primary (elementary) school and there were those end of term christmas parties with games like musical chairs, I never won. Playing things such as board games never turns out successfully for me either, I always lose! A few weeks ago my boyfriend and I were at his uncle's house and we were playing the card game Sh*thead (google it if you've never heard of it, otherwise known as Palace for those readers who are more well-spoken than me!) and I lost. I didn't just lose, it was as if I had been flying a plane, lost all engine power, tried to parachute out but the ropes had been cut & so I fell to a painful death in a volcano (seriously, how does my mind think of such strange similes?) So yeah, you get the point, I never win things.

The host of said giveaway was Lydia at All Of Her Yesterdays. I love her blog and recommend that you all go and check it out, her posts are wonderful! If I'm honest, I'd forgotten that I had entered her giveaway which then heightened my excitement when she contacted me! The 'prize' for the giveaway was a palette, two nail polishes and a lipstick. I was given the choice of colours for the polishes and lipstick but as I was at work I couldn't really access swatches or anything so I said that any colour would be fine for the nails and for the lipstick any shade that was either pink or nude as they are the colours that I tend to wear.

The package arrived Thursday morning (unfortunately I didn't get it until the evening as Mr. Postie was late & I had work & I've been so busy so couldn't get this post up sooner, boooo!) and was so cute. All wrapped up in pink polka dot paper with my name and everything, seriously, I'm a sucker for anything cute! Anyways, on with the pictures...











Thank you so much to Lydia for hosting the giveaway, it was so generous and the products are amazing!

If you'd like a more in-depth review of any of the products she sent me then let me know in the comments below & I'll add it to my posts list :)

P.S. sorry for the lack of photos of the lipstick, I've been so busy lately and just haven't been home in daylight to photograph it!!

Wednesday 29 August 2012

Haul | Boots, Topshop, Superdrug


Leigh Ankle Grazer jeans | Topshop | £38
Set of 4 rings | Topshop | £4 (I think) in the sale
Herbal Essences Beautiful Ends shampoo | Superdrug | £1.69
Barry M Nail Paint in Coral | Boots | £2.99
Nivea Oil Free Moisturiser | Boots | £3.99
Maybelline Superstay 24hour foundation (Nude) | Boots | £9.19
Maybelline the Falsies Black Drama mascara | Boots | £7.99
Maybelline Colour Sensational lipstick (Sweet Pink) | Boots | £7.19
Natural Collection Bronze Powder (Sun Shine) | Boots | £1.99
Natural Collection Blush (Pink Cloud) | Boots | £1.99
Natural Collection Eyeshadow Duo (Mocha/Latte) | Boots | £1.99
Collection 2000 Colour Pout Lasting Lip Stain (Flirt) | Boots | £4.99
L'Oréal Paris Super Liner (Black) | Boots | £6.49
Models Own Nail Polish (Utopia) | Boots | £5
Models Own Beetlejuice Nail Polish (Copper Pot) | Boots | £5

This was originally going to be two hauls - hence the different backgrounds - but I figured it was easier just to pop them both together! I received quite a few offers on the makeup products but can't quite remember them all, I do remember that the Models Own nail polishes were buy one get one half price though which is a fab deal! Boots also have an offer where you receive 10 points for every pound if you spend over £15, meaning that on a shop that cost £22something I got 220 points, how great is that?!