So I mentioned in my good times/bad times post that I was going to be dog-sitting for some friends, Steve and Lorraine whilst they go to London. This is Des, he is 4 months old, he is a cross between a Lhasa Apso and a Bijon Frise. He is a lovely little bundle of fluff and so cute. He is very well behaved for a puppy and didn't make any noise last night when we put him to bed. The little guy had a field day when I took him for a walk in the park...he met two Labradoodles, a Jack Russell and a Lhasa Apso. The Lhasa Apso took a shine to him but Dessy just wasn't interested in her, he had better things to do with his time...like chasing Blackbirds! He follows me everywhere just in case he misses out on something!
It has been so nice to have a dog around the place and it has made me and Chris want dogs even more now! Unfortunately we will just have to wait until we move out of the apartment into a house. We want to get a Golden Retriever (or maybe a Bermese Mountain dog) and a German Shepherd. It would just be impossible to keep two big dogs in an apartment.
Dessy is being picked up tomorrow but I think he has enjoyed his holiday with Uncle Chris and Auntie Laura!
I realised that I have been using combinations of products lately that have really been working well together so I thought I would share them with you...
The first combo is Estee Lauder Pure Colour Lipstick in Vanilla Truffle with Jemma Kidd Hi Shine Silk Touch Lipgloss in Petal. For starters, this EL lipstick is the ULTIMATE nude lipstick for me and if you love the nude lip look, then you have to have this in your collection. You will definitely repurchase it again and again. The formula is amazing, it's long lasting and the colour is perfection. These two lip products together create the ideal nude lip and it's what I have been wearing every day for the past week. The Jemma Kidd lipgloss is the most beautiful milky peach shade...it's so pretty! The formula also beats the likes of MAC because it's not sticky and it glides on really smoothly with no 'gloopy' bit in the corners or your mouth.
I have been trying these brand new Liz Earle hair products for the past few days and I love what they are doing to my hair. As with all Liz Earle products, the Botanical Shine Shampoo contains lots of lovely natural ingredients including West African Shea Butter, Vitamin E and apple and orange extracts. It smells delicious...really fresh and revitalising. I am very fussy about haircare products but this shampoo created a really nice lather, it left my hair feeling light, manageable, smooth and really shiny. It's safe for coloured hair and won't strip your hair so it definitely gets the thumbs up from me. The Botanical Shine Conditioner for Dry & Damaged hair contains African Shea Butter, Yangu Oil, Blue Seakale and the same apple and orange extracts. When you squeeze it from the tube, it resembles a thick moisturiser. It feels very creamy and rich when you work it through your hair. This conditioner also smells great but more importantly it left my hair feeling really soft and nourished but without that 'weighed down' feeling. I have fine hair so I have to stick to products that won't leave a heavy residue or make my roots greasy. My hair looks alot healthier now and I love the fact that I get a lovely waft of the fruity scent throughout the day. Let's face it, everyone wants hair that smells nice!
I often get a shiny T-Zone during the day so it always helps to apply a mattifying moisturiser in the morning. I am currently using Good Things Miracle Mattifier Moisturiser with superfruit extracts (Blackcurrant & Goji Berry). The great thing about the Good Things range is that all the products are free from parabens, mineral oils, sodium laureth sulphate and animal ingredients. It's nice to apply something to your face knowing that it's made from natural ingredients. This moisturiser smells gorgeous, like blackcurrants! Yummy! It's light, fast absorbing and keeps my t-zone from getting oily which means no more powder touch ups during the day. Although it's a light formulation, it still keeps my skin hydrated and balanced. It's supposed to make the skin less prone to breakouts as well so that's a big bonus! The moisturiser I have been using for night time is the good old favourite Nivea Soft. I love the way it injects my skin with moisture and makes it feel super soft and smooth by the morning. It's great for the body too and the tub is so big that it takes a while to work your way through it. It's an oldie but a goodie!
I have been trying to boost my hair a bit after subjecting it to all that sun exposure on honeymoon. It has been feeling a little dry since I got back and since I'm getting my hair coloured on Friday, I wanted to make sure it was in good condition to receive the highlights. I have been mixing one pump of my Macadamia Healing Oil Treatment with my Aveda Damage Remedy Intensive Restructuring Treatment. These are both amazing products in their own right but when you mix them together to create a 30 min treatment for your hair, you will be amazed at how lovely your hair feels afterwards! Love them both!
I have been using Loreal's Renewal Lash Serum for months now and I love the way it has made my eyelashes fuller and more glossy. Even though I apply this everyt night before bed, I am still on my first tube, this stuff seems to last for ages! I have been boosting the results I have had with the Loreal serum by using the Estee Lauder Lash Primer which conditions your lashes whilst boosting the performance of your mascara. This stuff really works to bulk up your lashes and it ensures my lashes are being conditioned 24/7.
Continuing on from the last combo, the Estee Lauder Lash Primer works incredibly well with my favourite mascara Rouge Bunny Rouge Big Lash Amplitude mascara. I can say without doubt that this is the best mascara I own for volume. It blows YSL Faux Cils, YSL Singulier, Lancome Hypnose Drama and Loreal Voluminous out of the water. It's the only mascara I own that creates really full, defined, luscious lashes. It's one of those mascaras that gets better the longer you have it because once it has become less liquid and dried slightly, it adheres to the lashes even more and allows you to build really thick lashes. People always seem to moan about the price of this Rouge Bunny Rouge mascara because it's £24.00 BUT people buy the YSL mascaras all the time for around £20 and they only last about 3 months before they dry out. I've had my RBR mascara for about 9 months now and it still works perfectly. So what's an extra £4 when you get results like that?
Dog Sitting - Our friends, Steve and Lorraine, have asked us to look after their 4 month old puppy, Des, for 3 days when they go to London this week. I jumped at the chance to have a dog around the flat! I really miss having a dog around and I have to go to my mum and dad's place every weekend to get my dog fix with Hamish and Findlay. Me and Chris really want to get a Golden Retriever and an Alsatian but we the flat is just too small for dogs that size. So we will just have to wait until we move into a house. In the meantime, I'm so excited to look after Des this week - he's like a big baby and loves to get cuddles! awww!
Baking - We got fancy kitchen scales for a wedding present so I really want to get back into baking again. First on the bake list is this Chocolate Meringue Truffle Cake...num, num! I'm not entirely sure why I love baking/cooking so much. I think I just love to make things that people enjoy eating, it's really satisfying. I really want to try making shortbread too since that's a very Scottish biscuit. Although I love to bake, I have to make sure I don't end up eating too much of it so I often give it all to Chris to take to work with him and share with his work buddies. Have you guys got any amazing recipes you would like to share?
H & M and Zara online - I'm a big fan of both of these shops so I was delighted to hear that they are both opening online stores so we can all have more access to their great clothes! Plus if the stores near me are out of stock of anything I want, I can always check online which is handy. The Zara site is now open and the H&M one will go live in about a week and a half...woo hoo! H & M is always great for affordable fashion and I love the shoes in Zara.
Group Holiday - Myself and Chris had a great idea to go on a group holiday next year with around 15 friends. We just wanted somewhere where we could go to the beach, do some sightseeing and go to some bars/clubs at night. We have been looking at Kassiopi in Corfu, Greece...there's some amazing private villas there that you can rent out for a week and it works out at around £175 per person. The fact that we would get our own pool, amazing views of the sea and a games room with a pool table makes it worth the while! I've never been on a big group holiday before so I can't wait!
The Inbetweeners - I only just got into this show a couple of weeks ago but I've already watched the first two series. It's like a mixture between American Pie and Peep Show but more than anything, it just reminds you of the awkwardness of being a teenager, trying to become more popular at school and generally embarassing yourself in front of the opposite sex. Hilarious! If you haven't heard of/seen it yet, look it up on Youtube...it's definitely worth a watch!
Coffee Table - I was sitting in the livingroom last week, minding my own business just surfing on the laptop when our glass livingroom table collapsed in front of me. It made the loudest noise and I actually screamed like a big girl - it gave me such a fright and I swear it's taken 5 years off my life! I couldn't believe that a glass table could just implode like that fr no apparent reason. There wasn't anything heavy on it and we've had it for about 3 years...very strange, very strange indeed! Chris ran through from the other room when he heard the noise and me screaming and he said "If that hadn't of happened when I was in the flat, I never would have believed that you didn't touch it!". I'm glad he was here or I would have got the blame!
Weightloss - My weightloss went really well on the run up to the wedding but I must admit that I have taken a break from it over the course of the honeymoon. I have only just got back into going to the gym regularly in the past week. I stepped on the scales, covered my face, then peeked from my fingers to see how much weight I had put on over the course of 4 weeks. I have put on 5lbs but I'm thinking that it could have been alot worse given that I was eating/drinking whatever I wanted on honeymoon! So as much as I have loved having a break from a weightloss routine, I need to get back on the wagon, get back to the gym training plan 5 times a week and start getting back into shape. I'm so much happier when I feel fit and I know I can achieve what I want if I put my mind to it.
Since Pixi launched in Boots stores in May 2010, it has become alot more accessible to us all. Buying cosmetics online is always a tricky business because you're never quite sure how the colours will look in real life. The creator of Pixi is Petra Strand, a Swedish makeup artist, who is also a mum. The whole premise of the brand is to offer a simplified beauty routine with multi-purpose products containing skin loving ingredients. The packaging is unique but being a lover of the YSL luxe look, it's not something that immediately grabs my attention. The packaging is lightweight plastic and although it doesn't look amazing, it does make the products really easy to pop into your handbag for touch-ups without feeling like you're weighed down.
The Eye Beauty Kit in No.5 Miracle is probably one of the prettiest, most girly eye shadow palettes I have seen in a long time. It contains Soft Peach, Soft Bronze, Soft Gold, Soft Baby Pink, Antique Gold, Yellow Gold, Raspberry & Rusty Brick. This palette is perfect for anyone who prefers more natural shades for their eyes. The golds and bronzes are beautiful and have a pretty sheen to them. Some of the shadows do contain a small amount of glitter so obviously they would be more suited to night time. I am not a fan of wearing glittery products during the day, it's just too obvious. All the colours in the palette are so flattering and they would suit most skin tones. The shadows themselves are buttery and have good staying power when you apply them over a eye primer. All the eye shadows contain Aloe Vera, Vitamin E & Natural SPF. As usual, the applicator isn't great so I stick to my trusty MAC brushes. The palette is really compact and super thin so it would be perfect for taking on holiday or popping in a small handbag.
I also have the Energy Blush in No.3 Naturally Sunny which is a creamy peach blush with a nude bronzer. On first impressions, the creamy peach side looks more like a pale gold/beige than a peach. This blush would be perfect for enhancing your tan when you blend them together. The blush does have a sheen to it due to the 'peach' shade so steer clear of this if you prefer matte or satin blush. The Energy Blush contains Aloe Vera and Carnauba Wax to stop it looking cakey on the skin. I like to wear it over my matte bronzer to slightly intensify it on my cheeks and to add a bit of radiance. I think this is definitely a product that is more suited to the summer months or for when you pop off on holiday to somewhere sunny. It catches the light beautifully on your cheekbones and I would say that I wear it in the same way I would wear a MAC MSF. The brush you get with this blush is actually very soft and I would be happy to use it for touching up my makeup later in the day.
The Lip & Shine in No.1 Pale Petal which is a soft baby pink shade is a handy way to carry a lip liner AND a lipstick with you. I hate spending ages searching for a suitable liner for whatever lipstick I'm wearing that day. The lip liner is a great match for my lips and enhances them without looking too 'done'. The lipstick was actually alot creamier than I initially thought it would be. It contains Vitamin E and C and didn't dry out my lips or highlight any dry patches. The shade is really pretty and is very easy to wear on an everyday basis. It's the kind of shade you can just apply and go, without having to fuss over it too much. The lipstick didn't have amazing staying power but it lasted a good 3 hours without fading too much. That's ok in my book as I don't own many lipsticks that last all day.
The Voluptuous Mascara claims to nourish your lashes whilst creating thick, elongated, healthy lashes. It has a long rubber wand which I never associate with creating volume. These types of wands tend to be great at lengthening but not so great at creating voluminous lashes. The best volumising mascara I have ever tried is the Rouge Bunny Rouge Amplitude Mascara and that one has a big chunky natural bristle wand which is perfect for grabbing every lash and making the most of what you have. The Pixi Voluptuous Mascara goes on without clumping, it gives a strong colour to the lashes and defines them, whilst lengthening them. BUT I didn't find that my lashes look any thicker which was a bit of a disappointment really. I like the sleek silver packaging but as an everyday mascara that I can rely on to add some va-va-voom to my blonde lashes? It just didn't cut the mustard for me.
Have you guys tried any of the Pixi cosmetics? What did you think?
I just finished putting together all the individual video clips from my honeymoon and I thought it would be fun to share them with you guys on here. Some of it isn't very glamourous but that's all part of the fun isn't it! If you're thinking of going to Malaysia, don't expect to be all preened and groomed because 99% of the time you will be trekking through the jungle, sweaty in the cities or finding new ingenius ways to hide all your mosquito and sand fly bites. Saying that, we did have an amazing time and we will definitely be going back someday to explore more places. Some of the camera work is a bit shaky so apologies for that!
I just want to make a brief statement before you guys read this post about my oh-so-controversial dislikes. I say controversial because whenever I have expressed my opinion on them before, people have looked generally shocked and exclaimed "I can't believe you don't like it!". I'm always going on about what I love on my blog so I thought it might be interesting to look at the thing's I DON'T like. The intention of this post is not to offend anyone or to belittle something that you personally like. It's just my opinion. Feel free to comment if you disagree with anything I have said in the post because it's all about free speech baby!
1) Matte Nail Polish - I just can't get into this recent nail trend. I love having glossy, shiny nails and the matte look just seems dull, boring and lacklustre to me. It's almost like it just drains all the dimension out of the colour you have applied on your nails. I also hate the feeling of matte nails...I get goosebumps when I run the pads of my fingers over my nails...yuck! Gross out. Not for me!
2) Lilac/Lavender Lipsticks - I love Lilac, it's a beautiful colour...just not on my lips. Lady Gaga rocks this look alot and she looks fab because she has the style to carry it off. I'm not sure if it works better on darker skintones but personally, it just makes me look like I am suffering from Hyperthermia! The only time I have worn it out was at haloween when I dressed up as The Corpse Bride. I think it's one of those things where it sounds really innovative and interesting when you hear about it, you enthusiastically apply it to your lips, you look in the mirror and then you think...WTF?
3) Harem Pants - I know these are really popular with alot of people and the trend has lasted a few seasons but I just can't stand them. I just feel like they are so unflattering on women because the crotch area is all saggy and they make your butt look weird. They just remind me of a nappy with trouser legs attached. Heck even Will.I.Am couldn't get away with them in the Usher - OMG video and he is one cool guy!
4) Glee - I know there are probably alot of 'Gleeks' in the blogging community but I have to say that I just can't get into the programme. I know the whole show is supposed to be tongue-in-cheek but it's all too sickly sweet for me. The X-Factor style auto-tuning on most of the cast's voices annoys me and more often than not, their re-worked versions of popular songs just puts me off the original song. 9 times out of 10 the original version is always the best so why mess with it? I'm just not a fan of musicals in general if I'm being completely honest and I think I may be the only one out of all my friends who feels that way. They just bore me to tears and make me cringe...sorry!
5) Cheryl Cole - Now don't get me wrong, I can see why people love Cheryl...she has style, she is beautiful, she was heavily invlved with Comic Relief, etc, etc. But I'm just sick to the back teeth of hearing about how she is the 'Nation's Sweetheart'. I don't understand why certain celebs get tagged with that title when there are so many worthwhile candidates in the country who do amazing work for charity or even just their own families. They just don't happen to appear on tv every week with glossy hair and designer outfits. I think what first annoyed me is that she didn't sing live on X Factor despite judging contestants week after week on their singing skills. Then I started to notice that the show became all about her and what she was wearing every week. Pretty much every weekly magazine has a picture of her on the cover. This may not be her fault, it could be her management pushing her image down our throats and since I don't know her personally, I can't comment on whether this is what she wants. Cheryl has a very carefully manufactured image and maybe this is to protect her privacy but it has undoubtedly put her on a pedastal, where she is untouchable and it becomes harder and harder to see her as a real person. People want to see the real human person inside, someone who doesn't take themselves so seriously. Cheryl's image is so highly maintained that she has become all about her image and clothes that she wears rather than who she is as a person. All I know is that Katy Perry has been a breath of fresh air on the show because I can identify with her personality alot more and I love the way she takes the p*ss out of herself. She is beautiful and always looks great but she's also fun, witty and seems very down to earth.
6) Panto - Every year Christmas rolls around and every year there's a panto on at the theatre with a team of soap stars from 10 years ago acting out various children's stories. I'm not sure if my non-UK readers will know what panto is but if you are unsure, here's an example:
I went to a couple of pantos when I was a kid and I thought they were ok, but I never loved them. It didn't take me long to get bored of the "He's behind you"..."Oh, no he isn't"...blah, blah, blah. As I've grown up, I have never felt the need to buy tickets to go and re-live the experience. But loads of people I know, who are the same age as me, go every year without fail. It would be like watching the Teletubbies and expecting to be riveted by it at the age of 27...not gonna happen! Maybe when I have kids I will have to revisit the genre for the sake of the wee ones, but otherwise I will continue to avoid it like the plague!
Is there anything you don't like that everyone else seems to love?
After watching a vid by nurberxo on YouTube, it left me questioning how much time everyone actually puts into their eyebrows. Do you tweeze them? Wax them? Trim them?
Apart from being beautiful, Nur undoubtedly has enviable eyebrows, I mean they're perfect! You all know I have a problem with my brows in that they are very faint at the outer corners and taper off to nothingness. This can be a problem as I have to use an eyebrow pencil to go over them, which on some days can be quite a challenge when I'm doing it at 7am and my hands aren't as steady as they should be! Because my eyebrows are so fair, they don't really need alot of trimming, waxing or tweezing but I do think I could benefit from possibly using the eyebrow stencils that were mentioned in the vid. I especially like the fact that there's so much variety on the website (Eyebrowz.com) and you can choose from a huge list of celebrity eyebrow shapes to get something that's suitable for you. There's pretty much everything you need to know about eyebrow grooming on this site.
I will be honest, eyebrow stencils do KINDA scare me because I'm worried they will look false but now that I've seen a few girls who use them and how great their eyebrows look, I want to look into it more!
Have any of you guys used eyebrow stencils before? If so, which ones did you use?
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