Fresh Skin for a Fresh Year!

I'm not going to do one of those cheesy New Year posts, because I am a firm believer that cringe like that should be kept internal or extremely filtered to the public to reduce any chance of vomiting. However I do like the idea of a fresh start, not because it's a New Year, but because any time is a good time for a fresh start if you feel like you need one! And at the minute I really, really do. So I'm putting it down to a happy coincidence, but will continue to stress that I am not in any way shape or form conforming to the "New Year new me" thing, I just fancy a bit of a freshen up on the existing me, thank you very much. SO with that in mind, I figured the best place to start would be skin! I've been testing quite a few products recently in an attempt to liven up my skin for the New Year, and after the harshness of this winter it's definitely called for, so here's a selection that I've been enjoying!

• NIP + FAB DEEP CLEANSING FIX

Might as well start with my absolute favourite. I'm going to be completely honest, I bought this because I liked the packaging, but I was on the hunt for an affordable and non time consuming skin treatment, which it fits the bill for perfectly. It's quite a thick cream, which you either apply to your face liberally for ten minutes then wash off, or you can leave a thin layer on overnight for a quick cleansing treatment with zero hassle. I found at first it had the same effect as many blurring primers and other products do, where your pores seem to disappear and your skin looks delightfully airbrushed. But later I appreciated the benefit of the product, as in how clean it felt the next day, and smooth, not dry at all. It's basically just an all in one product which is extremely versatile and perfect and easy to use. The only downside was the smell which reminded me very much of creams that doctors give you, it smelt very medicinal, but that's easy to overlook. I got this huge pot from Boots but the brand is also in Superdrug too, and it's not on the pricy side at all. Yay!

• SUPERDRUG FACE MASKS

I have a friend that works in Superdrug, so I feel inclined to try out their own brand products. They're pretty good though, they are against animal testing and are mostly all suitable for vegans, so I have a Lush-like faith in them. I got these two tubes of face masks, the Refreshing Cucumber Peel-Off Mask and the Purifying Witch Hazel Mud Mask, they were both on offer for 2 for £3 something.

As of yet I've only tried the Cucumber one, as I'm drawn to Peel-Off's for the ease of not having to scrub my face with a flannel for half an hour after having a face mask. My first impression was that it smelt like someone had been drinking vodka in a dentists office and had bottled the scent - not pleasant. When I applied it I found it very difficult, it was extremely fluid-y and difficult to place on exact areas of your face, causing a lot of hairline issues, and it didn't set in the ten minutes it advised, or peel off very easily at all. However that all being said, I was able to wash it off with just my hands in the shower, no flannel scrubbing needed, and it left my skin feeling really soft and fresh and lively, and cool as a cucumber. So overall the product was just okay, maybe I'll learn to love it a bit more, but for now it'll be a once-in-a-while occurrence. I'm excited to try out the mud mask, as they have a lot less potential to be wrong so I'm almost guaranteed to like it.

• THE BODY SHOP TEA TREE SKIN CLEARING TONER

I've never been a massive fan of toners, but my skin had a very unruly December with breakouts all over the place, so I had to take some drastic action. The lady assured me it would remove my blemishes after a week or so of incorporating it into my daily skin routine, and she was right! So I'm now a religious cleanse-tone-moisturise person. The toner is lovely, very light, easy to apply. The only thing is that you can REALLY feel it working, as in you get that slight stinging sensation, the one that makes you think "hmm not sure about this feeling but it must be doing me good". It's nothing too difficult to put up with though, and it does indeed smell brilliantly of tea tree goodness, and considerably removes blemishes like black heads and under the skin spots, yay for Body Shop!

 So with all of those combined I'm hoping to look healthy and glowing in the New Year, despite the lack of sleep and prolonged hangovers that December brought. Any other tips for lovely looking skin?

Bloglovin'

ALSO, just a quick note, I signed up to Bloglovin' just now. FOLLOW. If you want, like you don't have to. Also I'll leave a few links to songs I like with the word Follow included in the title. Enjoy!

<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/11405171/?claim=ktykw9f3pvn">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

I DIVIDE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObVAzxNMIZE

I was there, in that crowd, it was amazing.

WE ARE THE OCEAN: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-hN5sBtKYI

Also seen this live, again, amazing.

Winter Blues Favourites

So it's that time of year, where it's cold and damp and rainy, there's very few hours of daylight, and it's very easy to feel a bit down and blue. I've been feeling a bit sad recently for various different reasons but I've had small little seasonal things to cheer myself up, and thought I'd make a favourites list to share! These are things that made me a little jollier (if that's a word) or that I just really like at the minute - enjoy!

• NOVELTY MUGS

Hot chocolates, coffees and Lemsips are basically the only way I can survive the winter, and they're made so much more fun if you drink them out of a silly mug! They're great to give as presents too, I have one that says "Grumpy Old Woman" for a Secret Santa, but my favourite is this cute Santa with a cosy hat to keep your beverage warm!

• SCENTED CANDLES

They just plain make life better. I've become a bit obsessed actually, and have quite the collection building up. Lighting them just makes the room look cosy and smell good and it's nice to just make it look posh even if you're the only one seeing them, which I always am, people don't visit my room often. Things that smell nice are always a sure fire way to make me feel better, and ones that look pretty too are just a bonus. On the go at the minute I have Raspberry and Papaya from Urban Outfitters, which is a really strong smell but has such a pretty tin and is so fruity and lovely. A Cinnamon Apple massive one from Aromatic Home, which is lovely and Christmassy and lasts forever. An Orange Skittles scented one, which is just so cute and tangy. And a plain Vanilla scented one, which I've forgotten where I got it because it's been around for so long!

• HAIR CARE

It's a known fact that if your hair feels good, you feel good. So I've been taking a lot of care of mine recently, using Argan oils, deep conditioning treatments and lots of heat defines spray. My favourite product to use at the minute is the VO5 Hot Oil Nourish My Shine Natural Oil Treatments. Basically you heat the tube under your bath or shower for a minute, massage into the lengths of your hair, leave for a minute, then rinse and shampoo as normal once a week. They leave my hair feeling so soft and strong and healthy, and they're really affordable too!

• COSY ROOMS

It's Christmas, the only time when it's acceptable or normal to always have your rooms looking like the inside of a gingerbread house. So whack out the fairy lights and light the fire, because being all cosy inside on a cold night is just such a good feeling, especially in pyjamas with a good film on (Ahem ELF). It just looks so cute and cosy!

• WINTER WALKS

Even though it's freezing, the best kind of day in winter is when it's clear and crisp and sunny, and on these rare occasions it would be a waste of daylight not to go outside. So I like to wrap up warm and go for a walk by the river, just to get out of the house and have some fresh air, and to remember that the sky is, sometimes, a colour other than grey.

Sorry for the ramble, but it's a good idea to list things that make you a teensie bit happy even when you're feeling sad on a cold horrible day.

Doing nothing

It was rainy and miserable today so I decided not to leave the house. Not even to go outside for a walk to Tesco for more chocolate cereals or anything, literally I stayed in the house all day. All. Day. So obviously I didn't do much at all. But sometimes days inside where you have time to yourself and have no responsibilities or reasons to get out of pyjamas are necessary and very enjoyable. Yeah sometimes it's boring, but not today!

So I woke up at like 10, had a phone call from Katie ranting about phone companies, then stayed in bed until half 12 playing with my new MacBook Pro yaaaaaaay. It took literally 2 hours to tag all the faces on iPhoto, which was boring but actually the suggestions were freaking hilarious. Then I got up and showered, and put on a fresh pair of pyjamas, because y'know I'm not that trampy (joking I am), and watched Buffy The Vampire Slayer 1992 movie which is my fave. Then I watched crappy ITV2 daytime tv like Real Housewives of Orange County and Big Rich Texas, they're not even my guilty pleasure because I am in no way guilty about loving them. Then I baked some lush chocolate chip cookies before my friends came over for Made In Chelsea Mondays!!

Yummmmm cookies. They were squishy in the middle and extra melty because I used broken bits of Cadburys instead of chocolate chips.

So I had a very nice hermit day.

BIG LOVING

I haven't posted in a few weeks because I've been busy busy. That's a lie, I've only been a bit busy, mostly lazy, and forgetful. But also busy. So I thought I'd just do a quick recap and list of things I've greatly enjoyed recently so that I don't forget!

• MANCHSTER

I went up north to visit my boyfriend who lives up there now, and hadn't actually been to Manchester before so it was quite an adventure, and it was fantastic. I'm not wholly a fan of the music student life; messy houses and very late nights and lots of loud noises, but I love love loved the city. It was pretty excellent for shopping, both high street and vintage, but my absolute favourite place was Afflecks Palace. It's basically like a marvel shopping mall, with tattooists and piercings and lots of quirky stalls selling hats and vintage games, and loadssss of great knitwear so I purchased a black batman cardigan which I'll never take off. There was also a really cool café, which I can't remember the name of, that did coke floats and had Marvel comics plastered all over the table, which was the absolute coolest place.



• HALLOWEEN

It's my favourite time of the year. I love all things spooky, like scary films and Tim Burton and wearing all black without people asking you who died, so it's great. It's also a birthday in our family so we always have a nice time eating pizza and watching films and drinking out of whatever novelty mugs were bought (it was Pacman and The Joker this year). Halloween parties are always fun too, and I didn't really make the effort to dress up much this year but I like to experiment with make up so I got some black lipstick which I really enjoyed and did some serious cat eyes to make myself a bit spooky. Excuse the pout (I was drunk)

 

 

• NEW PRODUCTS

I've been a bit naughty and bought a lot of new makeup and skin care products lately. My favourites include the Simple Cleanser which I feel like it does my skin the world of good and is so easy to use, once you're in a routine its just a habit and no hassle at all. I also love my new Real Techniques Expert Face Brush, as I haven't got on with a lot of other foundation brushes because I find them very streaky and not that easy to clean, but the dense bristles mean it's so easy to apply foundation evenly and the website shows tutorials of how to clean them properly, so it's just my new favourite. And finally Benefit's High Beam Illuminator, which was quite a pricey treat for myself at just under £20, but after a few days I decided it was totally worth it. It's easy to blend with your foundation when applying but also great to dab on after all the make up is done to add an extra shine around the cheekbones and any other places you want to highlight. The texture is a bit odd, like a light pink nail varnish almost, and it's a little sticky, but it does wonders for my usually dull face, especially now in winter.

 

• BOOHOO

I just shouldn't be allowed to go anywhere near Boohoo after payday. They have a really great selection of dresses and woolly jumpers that I just NEED for Christmas. I don't actually need them, but they have this way of making me want them so much that I convince myself I do. So I've put in yet another order and I'm so excited for that.

 

And that's all I can remember right about now. Hopefully more inspiration will spring to mind so I can spend more time on here!

A very nice day out

I had the bestest cutest day out yesterday, which was so so lovely I wanted to write about it so I don't forget. My bestie Booth likes to go on various day trips so I thought I'd join her on my day off for a change, rather than just sitting on my laptop.

The day started with a trip to Topshop to buy some socks, 3 for £8 so there was no excuse not to really. They're all so cute and frilly and floral at the minute, and you can never have too many socks. We then went to Bideford, which I never really spend that much time in, but it was such a lovely sunny day and the river looked so pretty. We had a wander round all the little individual cute shops that sold trinkets and bikes and blankets and all sorts of unique goodies, and there was an independent music shop which was pretty cool. We then went into all the bargain shops, like Original Factory Company and Poundstretcher, to see if we could find anything cheap and random and great. I got a Vanilla scented candle for £1, some Simple cleanser for £2, and the best purchase of the day; some kids size 2 fluffy thick soled winter boots. The reason behind buying kids size is that my feet are a tiny size 3 anyway, and they were charging a whole £4 more for one size up, and the adults ones didn't have pompoms on. Outrageous. So I tried on the kids ones and they fit, which is both impressive and a little embarrassing. But they're the fluffiest comfiest boots ever so no shame here.

As it was such a lovely sunny day we decided to go to see the sea at Westward Ho! All the tourists have gone now so there was next to no one there, which is a lovely change from trying to get near the sea in the summer (not a pleasant experience). So, as you do at the seaside, we got some fish and chips and sat on the seafront.

 

 

 



As is unavoidable at the seaside, we went into an arcade and spent all out 2ps on the machines that you never ever win anything on, and I FOUND enough tickets to get myself a Vimto lollipop. Winner. Then it was just a bus ride home, tea and Great British Bake Off.

A few favourites

I've had a very very very good week this week, just a few down moments, but mostly very happy and that's good and yay! There's been quite a lot of small random items and products and events that have made it so good so I thought I'd just list them whilst I still remember them.

• Lip crayons

I purchased 3 different crayons last week from 3 different brands to try out and experiment with, because normal lipstick is just getting quite boring and I wanted something low maintenance. So I got Bourjois Color Boost in 03 Orange Punch, which I'd read reviews of on a few beauty blogs and thought I'd try it out. It's a really easy colour to wear in the day time, very pretty, and stays put for absolutely ages so I don't have to keep topping it up, and it's so easy to apply, and doesn't dry out my lips. So an overall winner. I also bought Barry M Lip Lacquer Crayon in No.5, and I can't remember what the colour was actually called, but it's a very light pink/purple shimmery colour. I have very dark lips so I had to lighten them with a tint or lipstick first before applying, but again it is so easy to apply. I found this wore off much easier though, and the colour isn't as solid as Bourjois, but it does look very very pretty for about 2 hours. The last one I was trying was from Max Factor and was my favourite, but I wore and took it out in town with my on Saturday night so it is now sadly lost. So I have no idea what shade I got or what it was called, but it was a very dark red that lasted so well, didn't smudge, didn't dry out my lips, and was such a nice shade. It was so perfect for going out and way easier to apply than a lipstick, so I may have to go and repurchase it, but it was pretty pricey, around £9 I think. Definitely worth it though.

• Sudocrem

I know this might sound weird but I love Sudocrem. I'm fully aware it's meant for baby's and rashes and things, but I read somewhere ages ago that it's good for the skin. I have a £1.99 tube from Superdrug and use a pea sized amount on my face every night and it just acts as a super intensive skin clearing moisturiser miracle worker. I don't really get on with many moisturisers, they all tend to be too greasy for my skin or to heavy, but Sudocrem works so so well for me, you wake up in the morning and your skin is literally as soft as a baby's.

• Blistex MedPlus for Lips

Possibly the best lip balm ever, it leaves my lips tingly and plump and so very soft and lasts all day, it's good to put on at night too. I get really dry lips so it's nice to have something that feels nice and works really well.

• Cereal

I'm sure I'm not the only one that does this, but I go through stages of never eating cereal and then eating it for every meal and as a midnight snack, and right now I'm in that stage. At the minute I'm literally obsessed with Honey Nut Shreddies, they're the best thing since Golden Nuggets. And that's quite a big statement.

• Friends

A couple of my friends from college dropped out of uni recently, which I know isn't really a good thing, but I guess it is if they weren't happy there and felt it wasn't for them. So they're back home now, and I'm very very happy because we can do fun things like watch Made In Chelsea and go out on Saturday and get shamelessly drunk and stop at kebab shops on the way home and cruise to Tesco listening to Fall Out Boy and buy all the chocolate. Yay.

Sorry this was long and random and rambly, but I had a very good week.

Bargains and happiness

Yesterday I purchased Look magazine, like I have every week for at least 3 years, and it came with a 25% off voucher code for the website shoeaholics.com. Normally if I haven't visited a shop or site before I don't use these vouchers, but the mood struck for new shoes so I had a cheeky look. And it's heaven. If like me you hadn't heard of it before, it's run by Kurt Geiger, and has CRAZY discounts on shoes that I could never in a million years afford to buy full price. It really does have something for everyone; flats, sandals, wedges, mega platforms, all from great brands and all at ridiculously good prices. So I went and purchased these bad boys. http://www.shoeaholics.com/link-black-leather-36-carvela-kurt-geiger-ladies-shoe.html

Now I know I haven't uploaded any photos or written about my preferred style very much yet, but these are SO me, like perfect. They just look so comfy and cool, and would go with literally anything in my wardrobe. The only downside I could find with the website is that there were only 2 delivery options; £5 standard delivery or £9 for 3 day delivery, a bit pricy and limited for my liking. But even with this I saved a huge £99, yes that is correct, from the original price as they were already discounted on top of the code I got with Look. So if you haven't checked it out yet I highly recommend you do. Also Look is great this week, some riveting stuff on boots.

Also just a quick note on happiness. Whilst buying things and the prospect of a delivery of shoes makes me happy, it's the little things every day that can make a big difference. At the minute music has a massive impact on my mood, and today I've had Tiptoe by Imagine Dragons stuck in my head which has made me ever so jolly and bouncy, and brought back some sweet memories from Reading festival 2013, so have a listen for a pick me up. It's just a little thing but it's made my day 10 times better.

Hair and Boohoo

Late Saturday night I ordered disco pants and an orange bag from Boohoo.com, with an expected delivery within 4-5 working days, so about Thursday. But I was extremely impressed when I got home from work today (Monday) to find a nice parcel, so thanks Boohoo! Also I'm so in love with my bag I may never stop using it.

I also ombre'd my hair today, which I know is about a million years after the trend kicked in, but decision making takes a long time for me. And I love it! Ideally it would be a bit lighter, but as my hair was really dark to start with I'm amazed at how blonde it went! The 4 long hours in the hairdressers, in disco pants (ouch), were definitely worth it! Really need to look up some proper care for my ends though, all I have at the minute is go blonder shampoo.

Just an observation about hairdressers; the mirrors. I swear it's one of the most brutal experiences having to sit and look at your face close up for an extended period of time, and the mirrors are designed to make your skin look its very worst, I'm 100% certain. But if you look around the room at all the other hairdressers and staff, their skin is literally flawless, and no one can be that good at maintaining their foundation all day. How do they do it?! Wearing makeup to make your skin look a little better at the hairdressers doesn't help either, because they wash literally all of it off in the shampooing process. I suppose it's just something in life that's unavoidable, but it does make me sad.

Handbags

In a Sarah Millican DVD I got for my birthday a few years ago she discusses the hilarious and embarrassing experiences to be had during shopping, such as asking the assistant for the next size up and getting stuck in clothes too small. Something that almost everyone goes through and dreads. But at the end she says how much she enjoys buying bags because "you're never too fat for a handbag", which has brightened my life so much today. Clothes shopping can be an extremely degrading experience, well I think so anyway, because almost everything I think will look bad on me or I'm too fat for. Especially online shopping, where you can't try it on and have a begrudging friend tell you "you look fabulous" or "it's quite flattering in the right light"

So whilst online shopping today I took a risk and bought some disco pants. For anyone that doesn't know what these are, they are skin tight high waisted shiny trouser legging type things, quite terrifying. And it took a lot of deliberation and negative thought bypassing to click add to basket. Therefore to make myself feel better about the purchase I also purchased a handbag, both from Boohoo.com. The bag was called Lara, and I got it in orange, bliss. Hopefully the bright orange will distract the eye from how bad the pants look. But the quote from Sarah Millican definitely made me 1000 times happier about the experience.

I have no idea how to even attempt to pull off disco pants, in both the literal and stylistic sense, or an orange bag, but they were both in the sale, and who could resist that. Someone take my bank card away from me. Please.

Buying presents

I don't know why, and I'm sure I'm not the only person in the world that thinks this, but I really really REALLY like buying things for other people. For myself too of course, but I get so excited to buy birthday presents and Christmas presents and any other occasion presents. It's just the process of thinking about your relationship with the person, picking out their favourite things, shopping and looking for inspiration, finding something you know is right up their street and thinking about the happy feeling you'll get when they open it and love it. And it shows how well you know them and value their friendship and listen to them to get an idea of what they'd like. I always think giving presents is so much more rewarding than getting them.

So I've had a very nice day today buying my best friend Katie's birthday present, because she's back from uni next week for the big day and I'm so so so excited to see her! She's such a good person to buy for too, one of those who you can see something and think "that's so Katie", which is great. So I got a dress from River Island which about a month ago she said she really liked, and it's a combination of our two styles; girly and a bit gothic. The floral version isn't available online, only the plain navy, so I really hope she still loves it. I'm so looking forward to her opening it and spending time with her on her birthday and it just being a cute time!

Another brilliant thing about presents is the wrapping. Like you can go all out and turn it into a genuine piece of art, or make it cutely haphazard with a homemade jumbled touch and make it really personal, which is always so so fun. I handmade the tag for her present, which looks awful, but cute, and massively oversized, but I think it just makes the whole experience a lot more fun and shows that you want to put a lot of effort into the gift, even if it looks a bit shit.

Yeah I don't know why, but present giving is up there with my favourite experiences.

Ways in which cookies can go wrong

This evening has resulted in an odd combination of being disgruntled and happy. And also very very full.

The main thing I learnt today is that I am by no stretch of the imagination a half decent baker, and it's safe to say neither were Beth and Felix my baking buddies. Sorry. But we did manage a fairly scrummy end result so it's not all bad. Putting Rocky Road Chok-a-Blok as well as a variety of other chocolate items in to the cookie mix spontaneously was an excellent idea, however upon reflection the mix could have been vastly improved by some giant dairy milk buttons, so must remember that for next time. After a pizza roll, McDonalds and several of said cookies I feel very full and fat, with a shameful amount of muffin (or cookie) top spilling over the top of my poorly chosen leather leggings. Sorry for that image but it's horribly true. So now I feel very bleurgh and a little sad about it.

The disgruntled part comes from the company, or rather the thoughts that went with it. It's true I had a very fun evening and greatly enjoyed hanging out with my remaining friends, but do you ever get that feeling like you know they'd rather be somewhere else with someone else 1000% more than they would like to be where they are? It's just quite obvious, understandable, but obvious. Which then triggers other thoughts, like how I'm in the same situation; missing someone so much, wanting to be with them more than be with you're friends, feeling horrible for thinking that, which kind of all puts a downer on the evening. Especially feeling second best, when the person I was first to isn't around any more, and the people that were first to your friends have gone. But that's all a bit sad and not worth thinking about. I should be focusing on happy things, like cookies. And being grateful for the friends I have here and elsewhere. So yay. COOKIES.

First Post

I don't really know how to start off one of these post things. I guess by saying hi? Hi.

So I just made a blog. It's not a very big deal, I know a lot of people do it for a lot of different reasons, and they are probably all a lot better than this, but I thought I'd give it a go anyway!

My name is Lara and I am 18 years old. I started this blog for a few reasons, the main one being that an awful lot of my friends have just gone to university and it's just a way that I can retain sanity. In the least gay way possible, I miss having daily conversations with my friends, both silly and serious, and just being able to ramble on about the thoughts that pop into my head. So instead of sharing my thoughts with them, I'm sharing them with the internet. Who probably cares more and will get significantly less bored with me. I hope. It's basically just me trying to avoid becoming a crazy lady who talks to herself and owns 34 cats.

I'm not really sure what kind of blog this will be. I'm hoping just to share snippets of my life, opinions about things, and thoughts and feelings and all that mushy stuff. None of which is relevant to anything or anyone particularly, but it may help my mental stability to have it all written down rather than in my head. I also think it'll be quite a nice way to remember the little things, like nice days with friends or something happy that happened, so if I'm having a bad day I can scroll through and feel a little less sad.

Not sure how long posts are supposed to be, but as a first one I feel this is sufficient. So if you're reading; sorry, and thanks, and I hope you enjoy my following posts!