29/11/2015

The Fragrance to melt hearts.




When it comes to fragrances I'm definitely one to switch them up season by season. This usually leads me into loving the lighter florals such as Marc Jacobs Daisy in the summer time whilst focusing more on the deeper, muskier ones for winter. However for some reason, recently I've been very drawn to the delectable Daisy Dream even though it goes against my perfume rulebook. 

As it's currently 20% off at Boots I thought I'd share with you lovely people why I think it's such a delight. 

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Quick Picks

The Product: Marc Jacobs Daisy Dream EDT
The Price: £41.60 was £52

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First of all we have to talk about the bottle! I mean, come on! It's seriously stunning and doesn't look out of place on my dresser next to the likes of Chanel and Vera Wang. Marc Jacobs perfume is always so beautifully packaged and designed that I believe many people buy it mainly for decorative purposes! 

However whilst I am obsessed with the bottle, I do adore the scent. With top notes such as grapefruit, blackberry and pear mixed with the musks and woods in the base notes it's no wonder this fragrance is the perfect mix of fresh and gentle. 

Let me know what fragrances you guys have been loving because I'm a total addict and always looking to expand my collection! 


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28/11/2015

25 Blog Ideas for December.



So with Christmas right around the corner and many of you guys doing Blogmas, I thought I'd compile a list of posts for everyday up until the big day! Personally I love winter, I adore being snuggled up in a blanket, fire roaring, listening to the same christmas tunes. But I know that blogging everyday until christmas will be a challenge not just time-wise, but for the imagination. So, hopefully this post will help somewhat with the inevitable bloggers block.

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1 - Christmas gift guide for her
2 - Christmas gift guide for him
3 - Christmas wish list
4 - Follow me around post
5 - Winter OOTD
6 - Winter fashion / beauty haul
7 - Christmassy recipe eg Christmas puddings
8 - How you celebrate Christmas / if you don't what will you be doing instead?
9 - Share a Christmas memory
10 - Favourite candle for winter
11 - Top three winter coats
12 - An everyday makeup look
13 - How to help your skin survive the winter frost
14 - Top three berry toned lipsticks
15 - What to wear on Christmas day
16 - Instagram roundup
17 - Favourite christmas songs
18 - A wintery blog makeover
19 - How to budget for the big day
20 - What's in my bag? Winter edition
21 - Winter room tour - have you switched things up a bit?
22 - Top three pairs of winter boots
23 - Goals for 2016
24 - Follow me around on Christmas Eve / Christmas Day
25 - What I got for Christmas 2015

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Okay guys, so that's it! I hope you've found some inspiration there, I for one will certainly be trying to do some of these posts! Do let me know in the comments if you intend to do any of these as I will certainly be checking them out! 

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26/11/2015

All About My New Blog theme.


First things first please excuse the terrible lighting of this photo. Seriously, I almost didn't post it but I wanted to write this so badly! Please blame the lack of natural lighting for the unnatural reddish tinge. 

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Today I wanted to talk with you guys about my blog theme switchover. For me, aesthetic and design are probably the most important thing about a blog. Initially if I click onto a new blog and hate the design then the chances of me actually reading the posts are very, very slim. What can I say? I'm swayed by pretty things! 

For a long while I've been trying to make my blog beautiful by using CSS and HTML. But I'm going to be honest with you guys: I'm a complete technophobe and frankly I sucked at it. Whilst I did create an entire menu from HTML scratch (with the help of some internet tutorials naturally) it took me weeks and weeks of valiant effort. The same went for my social media icons in the sidebar - it took an age. 

And even with my best efforts my blog still looked very... blogger. So naturally as my love of blogging grew, I outdated the ugly sidebar and boring fonts... Enter Etsy. I'd been ogling at beautiful designs on Etsy for months before I decided to take the plunge. I saw this theme and fell in love. It screamed professional, sleek, minimalist, everything I wanted my blog to be. After carefully thinking it through I decided today was the day for change.

So the new theme was born. Isn't it beautiful? 

The main thing I was worried about was the actual installation. I didn't want to spend £10 on something that was far too technical for me to actually use, but you know? I didn't even have to click the 'edit HTML' button once! All you serial theme buyers are probably rolling your eyes right now, but honestly I was shocked. Everything was so, so simple even my little computer-hating mind could work it out! 

And now, I've got the most beautiful blog, with a sliding menu I think I'm actually in heaven!

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Please do let me know what you guys think of the new theme!


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22/11/2015

The Charlotte Tilbury Dark Lip.






Now, if you've been around these parts for a while, you may know that back in October I did a full review of this lipstick. Unfortunately at that time the formula wasn't working for me and my lack of matching lipliner was causing all sorts of problems. 

But I'm back, lipliner in hand, to tell you guys how I've managed to make this gorgeous OTT plum shade work for me. 

When I was last in Selfridges, the lovely lady on the Charlotte Tilbury counter helped me pick out a lip liner to match 'Glastonberry'. After what seemed like infinity I managed to decide on the shade 'Berry Naughty'. It's a delectable deep maroon colour, one shade darker than the Glastonberry lipstick. This is perfect for creating a little definition. The buttery texture also works well to blend in with the lipstick - not causing an unnatural line like some other lipliners. 

Personally, the key to working with matte lipsticks is to not make them matte anymore. I think I've realised that matte just isn't made for me, but this colour definitely is. To combat this look, I first apply a clear lip balm underneath before letting it soak in for a little while. Next, using a lip brush, I gently apply this colour all over my lips. Finally, I'll add definition by drawing around the edge of my lips with the liner. A little blending and you're good to go! 

Do let me know what dark lip combos you guys are loving, and I'll see you next time! 


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20/11/2015

Huge November Haul: Fashion + Beauty.


Hello everyone! So here I am with another haul. Honestly it's so bad, I think I have a shopping addiction! Last Sunday my sister and I hit the mall and did a fair bit of damage. In fact, I've banned myself from spending until payday. Literally help me. But, obviously I wanted to share with you guys what I got (because they're pretty cute!) so it's haul time! 

On a side note, after payday I'm planning to invest in a blogger theme from Etsy. I want something minimalistic yet girly and most importantly I really want to avoid the stereotypical 'blogger' blog look! I've found a couple that I like and I'll link the demo sites here and here. If you've got a moment please take a look and let me know your favourite because I can't decide! 

And on with the haul! 

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Primark



The first place we went was Primark and here I picked up some amazing bargains the first of which being these fairy lights. With Christmas right around the corner, I wanted to make my room super cosy and cute and what's better than winding a string of lights around your bed post? These were an incredible bargain at 100 lights for £5! Now this does bring in to question the quality but ya know... I'll just not leave them on for too long! 



Next up I got these amazing knit leggings. They have them in loads of christmas patterns but this was my favourite. I think these were like £10 or so, but they're so soft and warm - how could you say no?!


I always head to the fuzzy sock section at Primark. They have 2 pair multipacks for £2 which is just incredible. Fuzzy socks are ideal for winter and I own far too many. Enough said. 


I also picked up this pyjama tee. It was £1.80 (literally what?!) and is a perfect faded mauve colour. Tee shirts are my favourite style of top to wear in bed as they're more comfortable than strappy tops and not as hot as long sleeved shirts. I just couldn't let this one go! 

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New Look




Next up, I got one thing from New Look. I think these are my absolute favourite thing from the haul. I picked these up because I own a serious lack of 'sensible shoes' and as winter is coming I needed something comfortable for walking in. These are just the ticket! At £29.99 they're reasonably priced and really wearable. I'm actually going to do a proper styling post with these as I can think of so many cute looks! The actual material is sturdy, almost suede like which a soft wool top. No blisters in sight with these I'm telling you!

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Topshop



So my Topshop purchases are actually from two separate trips and for some absurd reason I forgot to blog about the first lot! The first thing I got was this amazing sweater which says 'Take Me To The Hamptons'. Basically I agree. This is seriously so soft - like, Brandy Melville soft! I ended up getting it in a medium so it's really oversized on me. Love, love love! This little gem is £30. 


Ahh this jumper. It's my go to cosy night in top and I'm obsessed. When I saw it I knew I just had to have it - It's a perfect winter staple! I got this a couple of weeks back and I think it was £36 but I'm not 100% sure! 


Next up, the fur gillet of my dreams. I've wanted one of these for an absolute age so when I saw this at Topshop in Selfridges I knew it was meant to be. It's faux fur (of course) but it feels almost like super soft sheep wool! The shaggy look is perfect for jazzing up a day look or worn over a dress in the evening. Yes, it wasn't cheap (£64) BUT it's beautiful and I needed it okay?


Lastly from Topshop, I got this pompom. It was only £7 and I've been after a cute one of these to dress my car keys up in for ever. Whilst I'm a big Fendi fan, homegirl ain't going to be spending that much on a pompom! Especially when ones like this exist! 

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Boots


Pretty boring but I needed shampoo and conditioner. These are my faves and are currently on offer at 2 for £9. You're Welcome.

Liz Earle Cleanse and Polish - £14
 I had to make an emergency Boots trip for this as I hadn't realised how low I was on my last one until it ran out on me. I won't talk too much about this one as I always ramble on about it... If you've never heard my gushings about how amazing this face wash is then you must be new here. Welcome. Hi. Just know, that I'm obsessed! 

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The Body Shop


Ahhh, lastly we have The Body Shop. Most of the things I got from here were christmas gifts which I'm going to do a separate post about! That probably won't be up until the start of December as I know not everyone wants super early Christmas related posts! But I did pick up one of my holy grail All in One Face Bases. I'm in the shade 04 and this is £14.50. Again, if you've never heard me talk about this you must be new! 

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And that's it! I realise I bought a lot, but I do earn my own money so deal with it. ;) I'm just joking, love you guys to the moon and back and do let me know which was your favourite piece from the haul! 



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16/11/2015

Lifestyle Favourites: Books and TV shows!


Hello everyone, hope you're all having a lovely Sunday! Today;s post is going to be all the things I'm obsessed with right now in the world of TV, books and food - so basically lifestyle. Might just be me, but I swear there's so much amazing TV on at the moment?! Before I get into my favourites I did just want to warn you guys... This post will be super gushy because I can barely control some of my fangirling right now!

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Okay let's start with TV... I think I have the most favourites for this because I spend a lot of my evenings, cuddled up with a blanket watching TV. One of the best things about being on a gap year and working in a shop is that when I get home I have no work to do so as my mother puts it: I can literally please myself.

1 - Cuffs

https://thekillingtimestv.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/9075783-low_res-cuffs.jpg
 Holy guacamole I can't believe how obsessed I am with this show. I kid you not it's got to the stage where I've watched each episode multiple times, stalked the actors twitters' and googled their names (a lot). I started watching this because me and Sophie (my sister) were too lazy to get up and get the remote to change the channel. Thank God. Because did I mention it's amazing?! It's so funny and perfect and the love story aspects make me feel all giddy inside.

If you've stumbled upon my post and have no idea what this show is about (shame on you) it's a BBC cop drama, set in Brighton that circles around the main character Jake, a gay, rookie police officer. He's the beautiful one on the right. A lot of the plot is him and his partner in crime (haha ironic much) (pictured left) fighting crime in a really amusing yet totally serious at the same time kind of way. There's also a few romance stories, my favourite of which being Jake and the duty solicitor. I love how the show is exploring gay storylines especially before the 9 o'clock watershed as let's be real, they're no difference between two guys getting off and a man and a woman. I also love how it's not cliche. Gosh I'm so in love with Jake it's unreal.

All of the supporting actors really hold their own and are so funny and original. Gah, I need more episodes right now! Highly, highly recommend, 5 stars, it's on at 8 o'clock on a Wednesday evening before The Apprentice. All the previous episodes are on iPlayer so get yo ass down there now. You won't regret it. You may also develop a serious crush on Jake as I myself have done.

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2 - Scream Queens


This is my second post discussing the American drama Scream Queens. I'll link my first post here. This show is ridiculous to the point that it's funny, a little bit gory and a lot bit fabulous! It's about a sorority house who begin to get plagued by murders from an unknown character who dresses in a red devils costume. It's a bit like Pretty Little Liars but instead of being super creepy it's horror mixed with comedy.

I would say that maybe it's not for everyone but personally I really enjoy it. The acting is really good and I genuinely have no idea who the red devil is, though part of me thinks it might be the girl with the neck brace!! All we know is that the red devil is in cohorts with Boone... Ooh exciting stuff!

Scream Queens airs at 10pm on E4 in the UK.

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3 - London Spy


Ahhhh how do I even begin to describe this show..?! There has only been one episode so far but frankly it was so good I've gone as far as to include it in this! The best way to sum it up in my opinion is James Bond meets slightly Fifty Shades of Grey (please don't judge!!) meets cute gay romance story. It centres around two men: one, a charming if slightly dysfunctional warehouse worker and the other: a mysterious 'bank worker' who ends up being a MI5 spy.

I would definitely give this a shot, please don't be put off by the Fifty Shades aspect, so far that hasn't really made up a lot of the storyline, it's mostly just about the mysterious Alex and where he disappears to.

London Spy is on tonight (Monday) at 9pm on BBC2.

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4 - I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here! 


Need I say any more?! Whilst this years batch of campmates are definitely cutting the 'celebrity' aspect thin, I'm sure it's going to be a great series. So far I really like George *swoon* and Tony Hadley (I think that was his name?!) seems a great laugh. 

If you don't know I'm a Celeb, you can't be from the UK. essentially it's a reality series where a bunch of 'celebrities' are thrown into a jungle to live off of beans and rice whilst the public votes for them to compete it absolutely awful challenges to win food. You can expect lots of cockroaches, spiders, snakes and the infamous Ant and Dec. Quality TV. Similar to Big Brother it's on every night on ITV1 at around 9pm. 

I'll probably do a post next week talking about my predictions for the final and some of the drama thats been going on in camp! 

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Next up I'm going to talk about a couple of books, the first of which being Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe. Holy crap guys, this book.


I've already spoken about this book in my Top 5 Contemporary / Romance books post, so I'll try not to gush too much. If you want to know the plot line you can read a bit about that by clicking the link above as well. I would recommend this book for anyone who likes romance but doesn't want the (sometimes) annoying, overly cutesy, boy-meets-girl kind of story. I mean this is more boy-meets-boy but that's beyond the point. Their friendship is so perfect (though let's be real Ari can be an absolute arse sometimes) but (spoiler alert) when he finally realised that he's in love with Dante I cried. Like literally cried. It may have been more to do with the fact that he'd been hiding it from himself because he was ashamed, so the revelation was a pretty big deal. Also the line 'Who could ever be ashamed of loving Dante Quintana?' just threw me over the emotional edge.

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Now this is another fabulous read I would recommend for anyone. I recently read this again for the second time and fell back in love with so many characters I'd forgotten about. I think a lot have people have seen the movie (for some reason I haven't?! Don't know what I'm playing at tbh.) so you probably know the basic storyline. If you don't I'll sum it up for you: Charlie is a freshman starting high school, on his first day he meets this senior, Patrick, who's in his freshman shop class. They end up bumping into one another at the football game and Patrick introduces Charlie into his friendship group and the world of drama, alcohol and drugs that come along with it. It's set in the early 1990s which mostly doesn't affect the story too much but sometimes you really feel like you're in a different era. It's great - a really fast paced, diary style read that I think anyone would love.  

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Okay guys, thanks for reading! I'll be back soon with a big fashion and beauty haul! Because guess who went shopping...?!



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13/11/2015

The Best Charlotte Tilbury Eyeliner.



Please ignore my disgusting nails - I'm so embarrassed right now...
Hey guys so today's post is another beauty review and this time I'm going to be talking about the Charlotte Tilbury liquid eyeliner. For a long time I've had a fairly rocky relationship with liquid eyeliner. It's the one beauty thing I really struggle with. Getting the cat eye flick is fine, it's attempting to draw a straight line over my lid that I find really difficult. My eyelashes get in the way and it just goes wrong. So very wrong. But I love the look of liquid eyeliner and really want to do it more often, so I invested in this beauty. 

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The Product: Charlotte Tilbury Feline Flick liquid eyeliner 

The Price: £22


Quick Picks:


The packaging: 4.5 stars
The product: 4 stars
Value for money: 3.5 stars


So I tested this out at the Charlotte Tilbury counter and fell in love with the super accurate, precision liner. It's in pen form which a lot of people seem to find easier than a brush (I don't however) which makes getting an even flick fairly easy.

Now on the back of my hand this product was a dream to apply. I hoped and prayed it would be the same for my eyelids. Unfortunately it wasn't to be however as I found I had the press the pen quite hard into my eyelid to get an even line as otherwise it ended up jagged. After going over the lines a few times it looked acceptable and I was ready for the wings. This part was a lot easier and I was pleased at least with how fabulous my cat eyes looked. 

In terms of staying power: a bug thumbs up. I wore it all day (and have done a few times since) and it stuck in place. This made me super happy as there's nothing worse than having only half an eyelid still left in eyeliner. And when it came to removing it, it came off nicely with my La Roche-Posay micellar water. 

The reason I only gave this product 3.5 stars for value for money is that I believe for £22 I should have a near enough perfect eyeliner. Unfortunately this wasn't but I would still recommend it as a good quality, high end, liquid eyeliner. For a drugstore dupe, L'Oreal make a liquid eyeliner called the Super Liner which in all honesty is very similar to this and a lot cheaper!



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10/11/2015

My Bonfire Night Party!











Hey guys, so today I wanted to share with you some photos from my Saturday celebrating Bonfire Night. If you're not from the UK Bonfire Night is kinda our equivalent of 4th July as it's where we celebrate the fact that a plot to blow up parliament a couple hundred years ago didn't actually work. Yay England. But more importantly it's a great excuse to throw a party, get some fireworks and have a good time.

I was actually really happy that our party managed to go ahead as in the morning it had been absolutely tipping it down with rain and there were pretty much gale force winds! However as evening drew closer the weather calmed down and we were able to light some fireworks. In all honestly I spent most of my time running around like an idiot yelling 'I need cute Instagrams!' and snapping my camera at any given opportunity. 

We started the evening around six or so, all gathered outside with bowls of homemade potato wedges, courtesy of my lovely mother. My dad was banned from the mulled wine as he was in charge of fireworks. Which ran pretty much smoothly until one firework fell over and proceeded to shoot large amounts of sparks at my house - cue lots of screaming and running around. (Fireworks are seriously so dangerous guys!) But nonetheless we had a fabulous time. 

After this we all had a go with some sparklers - I love the way these photograph and also how beautiful they look - I think this part was my favourite! 

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All in all I had such a lovely evening - now I can't wait for more fireworks at New Years! Do let me know in the comments how you guys celebrated Bonfire Night - I'd love to know!



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