Weekend sun and a few little purchases...

I'll start with something typically British by saying 'HOW GLORIOUS IS THE WEATHER AT THE MOMENT?!' Ok, I didn't need to use shouty caps, but it's just so lovely.

Taking advantage of this weathery turn, the bf and I went on one of our weekend walks yesterday, and so here are a few more photos of London (as if there weren't enough already!) and some outfittery snaps.

In front of some Jubilee bunting at the tip of Regent's Street. And a bin, just to add a bit of glamour.

I wore my beloved Anne Greenable floral dress from Topshop. I got this one in the sale, but I loved it so much that I purchased it in blue too, but with a crossover strap instead of strapless, for the full price, which I think was £48. Expensive, I know, but I'll wear it a lot. In fact, I am wearing it as I type, with a blue matching cardi, because I am the queen of cardigans (read: I hate my arms!)

Some more flags and an old police telephone (you open and dial to call the police) which I thought was pretty cool. I opened it and there wasn't a phone, sadly, just an McDonald's packet. Nice.

 Of course the hot day led to getting a frappuccino fix. I got my usual coffee frappuccino light, which was yumalicious, even more yum because it was half price (3-5pm, half price frapps at Starbucks..at least in the uk, and at least for a few more days!)

I also popped into Debenhams and Selfridges and purchased a few goodies.

Firstly, I bought a little wash bag, which I am going to use as a travel make up bag when I go to Naples in the summer (squeee!)  This was around £5 from Debenhams, cheaper than their usual price because of the 25% off sale.

Secondly, I went to Selfridges and headed straight to the Bobbi Brown counter. I was intending to buy the corrector and potentially concealor. I told this to the MUA who hastily swooped on me as soon as I approached the counter (I HATE that. I'd rather look around, thanks). Anyway, she led me off and proceeded to try the whole shebang on me, eye cream, eye makeup remover, correcter, concealor, some other stuff I don't remember. The finished result I was quite please with, but when she told me the combined price of the corrector and concealor, I winced. £40.50. Er, no thanks. I was considering just buying the corrector, but maybe I will do that another time, without an angry MUA telling me what to buy. Sorry about that rant, I just find the process a bit stressful!

Anyway, the point is that in the end I headed over to Mac and purchased this (comparatively) cheap and cheerful concealor (£13.50) in NC15. So far I am happy with it too! Joy :)

I'm off to a First Holy Communion now (family stuff) but will comment when I get back. Hope you're all enjoying ze sun xxx

Candles- Wax Lyrical 'Bath Time'

I do love a good candle. They create a nice, calming atmosphere, giving what I have come to call 'instagram light' (ruined the romance there, eh?!) 'Instagram light' makes everyone's (my) pale body look that bit better, which can be good for, you know, a few things.

Also, think how much more romantic and less clinical they are than modern lighting. Snuggling on the settee, watching a movie, having a bubble bath, pampering yourself. All are better by candlelight. 

Candles, in my opinion, are EVEN better when they are scented.

Last weekend, I spent a fair few hours (well, 20 minutes) sniffing candles and getting a bit high in John Lewis. I finally settled on this one called 'Bath Time' by Wax Lyrical. Quite a cute little name if you ask me. I think it cost around the £7 mark, which isn't too bad.

It smells of cotton/general freshness, but the scent isn't as overpowering as I'd like it to be when you light it. Pleasant enough though. It also burns reallllllly quickly. I don't know what the average burning time for candles is, but I've only had this for a few weeks, and left it burning for a total of apx. 6 hours and I've pretty much used half of it already!

Next I would like to try a Yankee candle. I've been wanting to try one of these for a while now, but I don't have a Clintons near me. Where else can you buy them people? Which scents would you recommend?

Face Mask Time

Yesterday, 3 annoying pimples nastily announced themselves on my chin. Not good. So with this in mind, and feeling like a bit of pampering after a long day, I decided to use my apparently purpose built face mask Anatomicals Farewell the Scarlet Pimpernell, which was a measly £1 from Topshop for a sachet.

I love masks that come in single sachets. They remind me of the girly sleepovers of my teenage years, where we would pamper ourselves with face masks, cucumber for the eyes and lots of gossip. I still have 'sleepovers' with my girl friends now and again, even though I left my teenage years behind a fair while ago. You can't beat them if you ask me.

Anyway, back to the mask:

 

You wanted to see a photo of the scummy packaging didn't you?

Without the scum, it's pretty simple packaging appeals to me. Clear, to the point and pink to boot.

As I'm fond of oversharing, here is a smexy photo of me in modelling the face mask look:

 The mask is a 'deep cleansing mud mask' that is supposed to help absorb excess oil and help 'control spots and blackheads as it tightens the skin'. Ooh, so probably not best for dry skin like mine in theory, but y'know. I thought I'd give it a try. The result, I have to say, isn't too bad either.

I love the thick, creamy texture of the mask, which you get plenty of in the sachet, which allowed me to slather it on luxuriously (£1 luxury, even better). I left it to dry for 15 minutes and voila! My skin was softer, and not even TOO dry. As I suffer from dry skin, I always end up with dry patches no matter what I use anyway, and my skin was fine after using moisturiser, and as I said, softer.

As I only tried it tonight, the spots are still there, but they are less 'angry' than they were before, thank goodness.

For £1, I'm pretty happy with my little muddy package.

Whilst I'm here, I thought I'd show you my cool art tee. I wear this to relax in/for bed by the way. It shows faces in the style of different artists. My fave is the happy, floaty Dali head!

Hope you're all enjoying the sunshine :)

Rimmel Moisture Renew Lipstick-Vintage Pink

A few weeks ago I went crazy in Superdrug. They had a 3 for 2 offer on all products, and I, er, took advantage of it (no mention of being sucked in to spending more money...no. It's all good).

That's how I ended up with this rather pretty lipstick:

 Rimmel moisture renew lipstick in 108 Vintage Pink

 Shade
In the bullet, this looks like the most gorgeous, dusty pink.mauve shade. I love the way it looks on my hand too. Just noooot entirely sure that it suits me.

What do you (honestly) think?

Maybe I'm a tad too pale for this shade? I always get attracted to shades that I find pretty, certain they'll suit me...and then they don't. Duh.

Texture/Finish
As the name suggests, this is a very moisturising lipstick. Perfect for me-me and my dry lips just do not really get on with matte finishes. I have to prep and scrub and moisturise my lips beforehand which, honestly, is a bit of an annoyance when you can simply just whip on a moisturising lippie and let that do the job. I would describe the finish as being similar to the Topshop lipsticks- moisturising, but not shiny or glossy.

I have to say I'm quite a fan of Rimmel lipsticks. They have a huge variety of colours, have a good texture and finish and aren't too expensive either.

I believe that Superdrug are doing another 3 for 2 offer...I'm not going to finish that sentence!

Lovely London

Oh London, you are lovely sometimes, especially when the sun decides to make an appearance.

Now that the rain has stopped (hopefully for a while!) and the bf has finished his PhD, we went on another of our weekend walks. You may be fed up of seeing pictures of London, and if you are, sorry. But if you share the love for my home town then enjoy! Here are a few sneaky peaks of my walk to Regent's Park today.

Sadly, I didn't dress up for the occasion, so no interesting OOTD. In fact, I was ready to go straight to my pilates class, so that's my excuse for looking a tad scruffy.

1. Pretty gates

2. Willow trees! and a few ducks. As you can probably see.

3. People doing a Chinese fan class. At first I thought that this was some sort of yoga class (in the park, very romantic) until they pulled out their fans, peacock like. Looked very cool! 

4. A lovely little deck chair area. Facing a car park, haha. Note the juxtaposition- deck chairs and hooded winter coats; it can work! 

 

5 &6 Pretty gardens and nut eating squirrel! 

We finished off the walk in typical Georgia style...

 

with a trip to Starbucks. I got my usual Coffee Frappuccino light (though I usually feel so cold after that I need a hot coffee. Duh) but my bf purchased the new delicious sounding Mocha Cookie Crumble Frappuccino. So indulgent, so good (I had a few sneaky sips). Try it, but it is probably the equivalent of a fat wedge of cake calorie wise. He never gains weight though, lucky thing. 

I'm going to spend the rest of the weekend reading, swimming, going to pilates class and drinking a glass of wine or two in front of trashy tv. Yumzers. 

How's your weekend faring? Do tell me, I like to know...I'm nosy like that! 

OOTD-Cats

So I had a not very nice experience with a cat the other day. Granted, it was enjoying a peaceful slumber in the sun. Granted, I woke it from this slumber. But I only wanted to stroke it and show it some love. And when I went to stroke it, it hissed at me and scratched me. Twice.

After this, my love for catkind diminished just a bit. But on the way home I saw a quite nice cat (there aren't any REALLY friendly cats on my street, sadly) and my faith was restored a bit.

Anyway, the point to that preamble was that my love for cats still extends enough to me wearing my little cat print dress that I purchased from Camden a while back.

 I wore it with yellow tights, my trusty mustard primark cardigan (I have these in about 4 different colours) and my new Topshop brogues. A colourful outfit for me!

Hope you are enjoying the weekend xx

My 'miracle' moisturiser

In case you don't know, I suffer from dry skin. It gets flaky and when I get out of the bath/swimming pool, it feels like I am wearing a tight mask (nice).

I've tried a fair few moisturisers to combat this, and Liz Earle's moisturising cream for dry skin does a pretty good job. But it is also expensive. I have found an alternative, that is as cheaps as chips and as moisturising as a...er, good moisturiser.

Aqueous cream!

This is like applying water in a cream form. It's mostly made of purified water with a bit of emulsifying wax and white soft paraffin (ew, I hate reading ingredient names, it always puts me off, even if it's not bad). However, this is counteracted by the description of it as an 'emollient moisturiser'. The word emollient is underused in my opinion, which is such a shame. It means soothing and softening, and who doesn't want their skin to feel smooth and soft, eh?

I use it before I go to bed and when I wake up in the morning. The only thing I don't like about this is that when you happen to, say, go for an impromptu run, it appears to make your face sweat more. It's like the seeped in cream creeps out to say hello again. Weird.

Apart from it's moisturising effects, the best thing about this tub is how cheap it is. £2.40 for 500ml. It does the job and it does it well. Think I'm going to be sticking with this forever! It's available in your local pharmacy.

Sleek Pout Paint

So, I've recently invested in a fair few Sleek products. I've heard a lot of good things about this brand, and all of the products are reasonably priced, so when I felt low and needed cheering up the other week, it was the perfect excuse to stock up and try a few things (I know shopping merely serves to masks moods, but what the hey, it helped. And I have some pretty Sleek make up too).

The first things that I am going to review, as the title suggests, are the Pout Paints.

Texture/Finish
These are a weird consistency, a bit like paint one might say. Oh, surprising that. In the shop I did try this on my hand using my finger and it stained like crazy. It's rather difficult to use with your fingers, like I would do with a typical lip balm, so I suggest using a lip brush and painting it on your lips, in very much the same way as you would paint a picture.

Once you do that, it gives a lovely, glossy and very pigmented finish. It does have an ever so slightly sticky finish though, which I'm not a massive fan of.

Colour

They had quite an array of colours at my local (mini) superdrug. I went for a bold and a neutral, 159 Port and 161 Minx respectively.

 

Minx is a really easy shade to wear, being a light pink with a hint of peach. I can tell I'm going to get a lot of wear out of this, especially over the summer. I have lots of little floral dresses that this shade would complete nicely. 

 And now in the context of ma face. Nice. 

Port is a dark red colour with a hint of purple, though in the tube it looks a lot more purple than it actually is. 

Annnnnnd another unflattering picture of me looking like I've seen a ghost in my red lippie. 

Have you tried the pout paints? What do you think of them?

A bit of a waffly one...

So, it's a sunny sunday for once :)  This post is just going to be a stream of consciousness-what-I've-been-up-to type of post. Sorry if you don't like that!

On Friday evening I went to Oxford to meet one of my friends. We went to a formal at her college (I miss uni!)
It was 5 courses! 5 courses people! The food was pretty good, but I focused mainly on the wine as usual. Oops.

On the train, primarily checking that I applied my lipstick correctly (w/o a mirror!) but turning into a bit of a pose with my book. Yup. The lipstick is Nars 'Shanghai Express'- a colour I love, but don't feel that I have occasion enough to wear it- and the book is Marya Hornbacher's 'Madness'. I am a massive fan of marya, and have the same curious fascination with the (mal)functioning of the brain as she does. Plus, she writes beautifully.

Did I mention that Oxford is beautiful? Especially when the sky is blue. Looks great against the perfectly manicured lawns.

Not a particularly flattering picture of me, but oh well, it's one of the only ones of me by myself!

So yah, that was my weekend. I went swimming today (60 lengths, my number) and am going to go to pilates at 3pm- one of the only classes that was available. I do like a bit of pilates, but every single other class I tried to book at my gym was full! Every one of them! And there are lots going on people. I wish people would fall off the post christmas/pre summer dieting bandwagon already, cos I certainly need to get on it!

Books wise, I am about to start reading 'Fifty Shades of Grey' and will be continuing with 'The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest'. (It's too easy to buy books on the kindle!)

So...sorry for this waffly post. It echoes the mish mash state of my mind at the moment, and I wanted to post if just to say hi, y'know. Hope you are all having good weekends, I'm off to catch up on some bloggies now xx

Colourful Eyeliners

I've been moving a teensy bit towards vibrant colours as we approach summer (my mind tells me that the wearing of colourful attire/makeup with aid in this process ;)


I've always loved bright eye makeup when I see it on other people or in fashion magazines, but sadly I am not bold enough to wear teal on fuschia on my eyelids yet. Instead, I have opted for bright eyeliners. In bright blue and forest green to be precise (ok, so the latter isn't so bright, but it's a move away from browns and blacks so still counts).

As this is an experiment, I decided to make my purchased from MUA, which I am becoming more fond of as time goes on. I can't get over the £1 price tag still!

I like the fact that they come with their own little sharpener- handy when you're on the go (or when you can't find one at home). I think I prefer the blue, but which one did I try? The forest green.

When I tried the forest green on my waterline, I had to use it a few times to get the 'darker' effect that I like. It was visible after about 2 layers, but I used about 4 to get the effect that I liked. Don't know if you can really see it in this photo! I'm hoping the brighter blue won't require so many layers!

Have you tried these before? If so, what do you think of them?

In other news, life is busssssy, but when is it not? I am heading off to Oxford this Friday, to visit a friend a go to a formal. I miss my uni days...so carefree...

Beautiful Blue Bag

I was lucky enough to win a giveaway that the lovely saritschka held on her website (thankyouthankyouthankyou).  I was thrilled, especially as she is one of my favourite bloggers. Check out her beautiful photos and pretty OOTDs, you won't regret it!

I received a lovely little parcel, complete with wrapping paper and a cute little card. It felt like my birthday had come early!

 I really appreciate little cards like this, especially as this one really resonates with me. I love reading, alone in peaceful places, like by the sea. It's just perfect! I'll pin this up above my desk. She also wrote a sweet message on the back, lovely girl :)

Are you ready to see the bag? Ok...

I love it! It's a sky blue (well, let's face it, not the colour of the sky in England, but you know...) colour with a snakeskin effect. It also has a pretty gold clasp, and an inner pocket. The perfect summer bag really, expect to see this in a few OOTDS, I have some ideas of what to wear it with already :)

It even fits my favourite company magazine! Definite bag win. Thank yooooooooou saritschka :)

Topshop Lipsticks

It seems like my last few posts have all been about Topshop! For that I truly apologise, but, you know, they do have a few good lipsticks.

The other day I purchased a few more, namely Brighton Rock and Popsicle. 

Popsicle

 The first is a lip marker. Now, I am a fan of lip stains/markers. I prefer them to lipsticks in general, as they tend to last longer and don't come off when you drink/eat. I put them on before work, and voila, I'm pretty much sorted for the day.

So this already had the plus point of being a lip marker. I was umming and ahhing between this and a bright pink called Tease which I'd describe as a barbie pink with a hint of mauve. Initially I thought it was difficult to wear, but I grew to like it. I don't know, maybe I will get it one day, but this, which I see as a toned down pinker version of Tease won this time.

Take a look!

Colour 
This is a gorgeous summery light pink, but is nowhere near as vibrant as it appears in the stick (which is probably a good thing!) I can imagine wearing it with my white lace dress for summer weddings, or with my floral numbers during the summer. I love it when I can visualise what I'd wear my lipstick with, or rather which outfits it would 'complete'.

Formula
This is a typical lip stain formula, well pigmented and glides on really nicely. It takes a little longer to sink into the lips than my other lip stains, which just makes it feel more moisturising.  It lasts for a good 3/4 hours on me, longer than a lipstick but slightly shorter than my Rimmel/other lip stains.

And here's a silly photo to top off the mini-review!

Brighton Rock 

 Colour
Now this lipstick I'm not so sure about. It's mainly the colour than I have an issue with. It's a pinky orangey colour, and actually looks a lot more orange than this on my lips. Even though I love bright colours, I'm just not sure how much they suit my pale skin. Maybe they'd look a bit better with a tan...I'm just not sure. What do you think? 

 

Formula

The formula is the same as the others in the Topshop lipstick range- really moisturising and easy to apply. I am a big fan of Topshop lipstick formulas, which are well suited to my dry lips (can't take mattes!) 

I would say that Topshop lipsticks are comparable to Mac, and cost £8, a fair few pounds cheaper than Mac.