I splurged in Boots!

I wanted to put myself on a little spending ban until the summer as I'm the type of person to spend, spend and spend! So instead of popping into Superdrug or Boots on my lunch break at work I'd bring some food and a book and sit in the staff room. So this was going well..until today. I crumbled a little when I was out in a bigger town with my mum and sister. I saw a Boots and went inside, picked up a basket and broke my ban.

In my defence there was a 3 for 2 and I got a lot of things that were double points or triple points. Woohoo!

These were on offer and are great if I don't have the time to use a lot of different products to remove make up. I always like to have some of these available even if I do tend to use a liquid make up remover followed by a cleanser.

My hair is looking and feeling a bit lacklustre recently and I'd quite like to have it cut soon. So I picked up this one to try as I usually really like Sanctuary Spa stuff and this was about £2 or so.

I also picked this hair mask too as I've used it before and really liked it as it left my hair feeling silky smooth and with a lovely shine. 

Another one of my favourite hair masks. 

Montagne Jeunesse are one of my favourite brands of face packs/skin care. I got this black seaweed peel off mask which I haven't tried before.

I also picked this one up too! At the moment I'm really loving the smell of  coconut, even if I'm not so keen on the taste! 

My favourite foundation..ever? I got this in the shade 100 ivory. I'm not so sure if it's anti-fatigue effects work but i think this is fab all the same! 

Another one of my favourites, the Herbal Essences Bee Strong shampoo and conditioner. It leaves your hair feeling soft and smelling amazing too! I'd definitely recommend this!

I have heard a lot of good reviews about this powder and I hit pan with my last one so I thought I'd give this one a try. 

The powder I got was in the shade 005 silky beige. 

I started using this deodorant about a year ago as I have quite sensitive skin. It's also aluminium and paraben free.

My hands are feeling quite dry at the moment so I picked this hand cream up.

I've been looking for this mascara everywhere and it's my absolute favourite! I would definitely recommend this mascara to anyone.

I had this gel liner before and really liked how easy it was to use and how bold the colour was too. 

I got this Barry M pencil eye liner in a dark purple metallic colour. I thought it would look different and cool for a night out. 

I'm looking forward to using this Seventeen clear mascara in the summer or even just for a more natural look. 

I picked up quite a few new nail varnishes too which I used a lot of my boots points to pay for. I wanted to try the new Revlon Parfumerie nail varnishes as they looked so interesting and vintage. I got the shade Moonlit Woods and even though they are supposed to have a smell I couldn't really smell anything different to another nail varnish. 

Two more polishes were from the Rita Ora collection from Rimmel London. I got a very light pink shade called Lose Your Lingerie and a pastel blue shade called Pillow Talk. 

I also got a Maybelline colour show polish in the shade love lillac. And another Rimmel London colour in the shade Cute as a Kitten Heel. 

Phew! It's safe to say I bought a little too much more than I should have! But it's all stuff I really like and will use so it's not exactly a waste.. Hehe right?!? Anyway, thank you so much reading I hope you liked this post. Love, A x. 

St. George's Day.

St. George is the patron saint of England and today is St. George's Day! As I'm from England I thought I'd write a little post on how patriotic I am and what St. George's day is all about..I gather this is a slightly different post to usual but it'll have a splash of my usual beauty touch to it too haha!

So, like I mentioned above St. George is the patron saint of England. His emblem was a red cross on a white background (hence the look of the English flag).  It is believed that he was actually a Roman soldier and became well known for his bravery as he protested to the Roman Emperor about the torturing of Christians and in the end died for these beliefs. So it seems the story of him slaying a dragon in order to save the princess wasn't strictly true..

In England we don't treat today like a holiday or anything just merely a normal working day.

I realise this post may seem a bit odd compared to the usual things I blog about but at work today the delivery driver came in dressed up as St. George in a wonderful little knight's costume and we all sipped our teas and chatted about the dreary, wet weather when it made me think this is probably what being English is all about, wearing funny clothes, obsessed with tea and moaning about the rubbish weather we seem to have a lot of the time. I had a little think, and there are so many little quirks and things, us English folk like to say or do that I forget to appreciate sometimes, or perhaps things only other English people would understand!

Not my image.

For example, Marmite. I for one am a lover!

An age old argument heard up and down the country and will probably remain this way forever. Do you pronounce it Scone like cone or Scone like gone? 

Not my image.

Fish and chips and mushy peas will always remind me of holidays or trips to the beach in England.

Not my image. 

Whether you are a dunker or not, it's hard to turn down a biscuit or five. God bless the Queen and the humble digestive biscuit. 

Not my image. 

Ahh that typical smell of a greasy spoon cafe and the scent of a full english breakfast being cooked. They aren't the most healthiest of options but they taste pretty darn special. 

Not my image. 

The cornish pasty. Crammed full with beef, potatoes and other vegetables with a shortcrust pastry. I think its hard not to say Cornish Paaaaaaasty without developing a full on cornish accent! 

not my image. 

Pubs. Every village, or town up and down the country has at least one. With their homely atmospheres, funny names and dart boards, pool tables and the occasional jukebox, what's not to love! 

not my picture. 

A cup of tea with milk (and mine with two sugars thanks) Tea is not only a drink to me, it is a problem solver once you've had a cuppa to help think things through and left your head feeling a little clearer too. Also some claim it cools you down? I'm not 100% sure on that one..

It's true. How else would you spark up conversation with the shop assistant or at the hairdressers?

Not my image. 

Brown sauce. Can be splattered over anything. 

One of the quirky phrases we use.. Basically means it's raining really heavily! 

Not my image. 

And the lady herself, The Queen. Here we see Her Maj having a little giggle as she leaves Buckingham Palace one day to see her husband Prince Philip dressed as a guard. 

I tried to emulate a union jack nail design as well as the St. George's Cross nail design too. 

Thanks for reading, I hope you liked this post! Love, A x

Please comment below your favourite things too! 

The Golden Egg.

Just holding the Golden Egg in the Lush store I could tell that a) it is so nice, glittery and smells absolutely amazing, and b) I will be scrubbing the bath clean for days after using this!

The golden egg is kind of classed as a bath bomb even though it has a luxurious bath melt outside making you feel silky, soft afterwards. 

 As this was a part of Lush's Easter collection I'm not too sure how much longer they will be in stores/online for. It cost £3.50 too! 

So I popped it into the bath and at first it didn't really do much other than sit at the bottom of my bath fizzing away gently. Which is probably partly down to the fact it's half bath bomb and half bath melt! 

Getting busy with the fizzy. 

Putting it in the bath I must have held it for about 5 seconds or so and it left this behind on my hand. 

You can see all the glittery bits sitting at the bottom of the bath. 

The golden egg is nearly almost dissolved and as you can see it's left the bath water looking frothy and golden.  

This bath bomb has a lovely sweet toffee scent to it which I really like. I have to admit it wasn't as much of a bath bomb as I would have hoped and feel it was a lot more aesthetically pleasing than anything else. However it left my skin feeling lovely and soft and smelled so nice too! Out of all Lush's bath ballistics/bath melts I think Dragon's Egg will always be my favourite although I did really like using this one too.  

Thanks for reading, I hope you liked this post!  And I hope you all have a lovely Easter, love A, x

Mint fresh

Pastel shades are everywhere at the moment and as you may have seen in Springtime nail polishes post last Sunday, I have a few favorite pastel shades!

This week I've decided to colour my nails with the Barry M shade in 304 Mint Green. 

I painted my nails with two coats of polish. 

The rings I'm wearing here are primarily from River Island for about £2-3. The ring on my index finger I got from a stall at Spitalfields Market in London a few years ago. 

I also matched my nails to the earrings I was wearing.

I think these look so lovely and they were £6 from River Island. 

Thanks for reading, I hope you liked this post! Love, A x

BaByliss Elegance Pro 235 straighteners review!

For years I have religiously used my Mum's Ghd's and for Christmas I wanted to get a good pair of straighteners of my own. After searching high and low and checking out blog reviews on the best pair to get the BaByliss Elegance Pro 235 came out on top. I must apologise for the lateness of this post as it was a Christmas present and I should have done it earlier!

Anyway, on to the review!

I got the straighteners in a glittery, dark red colour but I think they are also available in a blue colour too. 

What I like about these straighteners:

• They have three different heat settings 180°c, 200°c and 235°c.
• They heat up really quickly and can be used 15 seconds after starting heating up. 
• They are made with an ionic technology so they should give you a frizz free finish! 
• Can be used for both straightening and curling.
• I love the deep red, glittery colour! 
  
• Hair stays quite straight for a long time. 
• Very good price. At the time I think they were about £40 when they should have been around £90. 
• Leaves my hair feeling soft.
• The lead for the plug is quite long, which I really like!

What I don't particularly like about these straighteners:

• Because they go so up to a high heat it can be quite easy to burn your hair even if you use heat defence spray. 
• As i'm not used to straighteners heating up so fast, and considering they only take about 15 seconds to heat up, they can give off this strong burning smell which isn't pleasant. 
• The heat switch is a bit wobbly. 

I started this with damp hair then dried it with my Glamoriser by Richard Ward professional digital ultralight power dryer (which I also got for Christmas btw!) and I used some heat defence spray before drying it too.

                               'Scuse the fresh, no make up face. But this is my hair dried.

I spritzed my head all over with a lot of heat defence spray then brushed my hair through. I sectioned my hair into two parts pulling the majority onto the top of my head into a high bun leaving the section underneath. I lightly sprayed it this part with the heat defence spray and then brushing through, followed by pulling my straighteners through my hair. I repeated this on the same bit of hair twice. When this section was complete I pulled my bun out and let down some of the middle section of hair and tied the front up again. I spritzed it and followed the same steps as last time.

When the middle section was done I then did the front. Once all my hair was straightened I brushed it out, flipped my hair upside down and straightened from that angle. Once that was done I flipped my hair the right way round, brushed my hair out again and checked to see if there were any areas that needed another straighten. Then I was finished!

And the finished 'do! 

If I have some straggly little hairs I spray a hairbrush with a little bit of hairspray and brush over the straggly bits.

I have to say I am very, very impressed with these hair straighteners and would definitely recommend them over GHDs!

Thanks for reading, I hope you liked this post! Love, A x

Monochrome nails

I realised I haven't done a nailsy type of post in a little while especially a nail art one. So aside from spring pastels I have really liked monochrome recently and thought I'd try and do some black and white nail art ideas. 

I started off with a nail art wheel which I bought several clear ones off of Amazon for about £1-2 or so. I painted them black and white as you can see. I think I did two coats and let them dry completely.

Et voila! Some of them aren't as good as I would have hoped but I'll have plenty more practice. 

And these are all the things I used. From the top:

BarryM black crackle effect paint.

Seventeen polish in Matte White (it's not a matte colour) 

Seventeen graffiti effect polish

Collection polish in Ebony

A Model's Own white nail art pen 

And a black nail art pen which I got as part of a set.

If you particularly liked one of these nails and would like me to do a tutorial post, please let me know! Thanks for reading I hope you liked this post. Love, A x